Basically, Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, put it in his will that Cleopatra would be the co-ruler of Egypt with her brother, Ptolemy XIII. But it was mostly just a symbolic marriage for the sake of upholding the Ptolemaic tradition of having both a male and female ruler on the throne at the same time.
Historical accounts state that while Cleopatra was married to her younger brother and co-regent, she also married Caesar because Egyptian laws at the time allowed for polygamy.
He and Cleopatra would continue their romance, but he was not permitted by Roman law to marry a foreigner, not to mention the fact that he already had a wife. Even so, Cleopatra would give birth to his son, Ptolemy XV Caesarion, and a year after the birth she would visit him in Rome, staying in one of his estates.
"It was by this device of Cleopatra's, it is said, that Caesar was first captivated, for she showed herself to be a bold coquette" (Life of Julius Caesar, XLIX. 3). And it was there that the young Ptolemy XIII found them early the next morning, aghast that Caesar already had been seduced by his half-sister.
Cleopatra arranges to meet Caesar under intimate terms by having herself rolled up in a carpet that is delivered to Caesar's home quarters. When the carpet was unrolled a vivacious 21 year old Egyptian queen emerges. Caesar was about 52 at the time. Cleopatra captivated him but it was probably not her youth and beauty.
Cleopatra is never loyal to Antony, even though she claims to kill herself over him. Her constant willingness throughout the play to manipulate him is an indication of the fact that she'd betray him as soon as it was convenient for her, either politically or emotionally.
Daughter of King Ptolemy XII Auletes, Cleopatra was destined to become the last queen of the Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 bce and its annexation by Rome in 30 bce. The line had been founded by Alexander's general Ptolemy, who became King Ptolemy I Soter of Egypt.
Horace, writing not long after the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, reflects the contemporary Roman horror at the behavior of Marc Antony fighting with Cleopatra against Rome, where traditional Romans demonized and stereotyped her as a fearsome and loathsome manipulator.
For his part, the ancient writer Plutarch claimed that Cleopatra's beauty was “not altogether incomparable,” and that it was instead her mellifluous speaking voice and “irresistible charm” that made her so desirable.
“The odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon.” “Eternity was in our lips and in our eyes. ” “My salad days, When I was green in judgment, cold in blood. ” “Egypt, thou knew'st too well My heart was to thy rudder tied by th'strings And thou shouldst tow me after. ”
Cleopatra became a well-known because of her love affairs with two Roman rulers, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
Cleopatra sent Caesarion to Berenice, a seaport on the Red Sea coast of Upper Egypt, but Octavian lured him to Alexandria, where the 17-year-old king was executed.
The Egyptian navy deserts, leading the defeated Antony to believe that Cleopatra has betrayed him to Octavius.
Scholars have searched for the visage behind the legend, but it's often impossible to verify a historical figure's image. Cleopatra's body has never been discovered. Most surviving paintings and sculptures of her are anachronistic inventions, more telling of their own times than of the subject herself.
It is worth mentioning that Antony and Cleopatra were finally reunited in death. Their bodies were either embalmed according to traditional Egyptian customs, inhumed, or cremated, but they were interred together. Octavian had allowed Cleopatra to care for the body of Antony and to give it a proper burial first.
Rather than fall under Octavian's domination, Cleopatra died by suicide on either August 10 or August 12, 30 B.C., possibly by means of an asp, a poisonous Egyptian serpent and symbol of divine royalty.
Now the idea of 'star crossed lovers' or doomed love is a popular tradition in European literature, but given the specificity of the question, then no, no direct link to the Cleopatra story is to be found.
After the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the last Hellenistic state in the Mediterranean and of the age that had lasted since the reign of Alexander (336–323 BC).
Mark Antony and Cleopatra were partners for 11 years and had three children together. Apart from their undoubted mutual affection, their alliance was politically useful. Cleopatra needed Antony to revive the old boundaries of her kingdom, and Antony needed Egypt as a source of supplies and funds.
Committing suicide allowed her to avoid the humiliation of being paraded as a prisoner in a Roman triumph celebrating the military victories of Octavian, who would become Rome's first emperor in 27 BC and be known as Augustus.
The two sons Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphos disappeared from the historical record without explanation early on, probably falling victim to illness during childhood. Cleopatra Selene, however, not only survived into adulthood but became an important and influential political figure in her own right.
'Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have / Immortal longings in me': so begins Cleopatra's final speech in Shakespeare's tragedy Antony and Cleopatra.
Shakespeare learns from Plutarch, for example, that Cleopatra once smuggled herself into Julius Caesar's presence rolled up in a mattress. The many parallels between Shakespeare's writing and that of his source demonstrate the closeness of his reading of North's translation.