Episode 45 Cleopatra’s Family

The History of Ancient Egypt

Professor Robert Brier

Film Review

Because Ptolemy XI left no legitimate heirs, Ptolemy XII (88-58 BC and 55-51 BC) assumed the throne after the former was driven out of the country. His subjects called him the bastard and the flute player (because he played the fute rather than governing the country.

At a time when Romans were still living in mud huts, Rome had supplanted Greece as the major military power in the Mediterranean. The Ptolemies now paid Rome (mainly in grain) to provide military protection to keep their family on the Egyptian throne.

Alexandria was now about 1/3 Jews (mainly merchants), 1/3 Egyptians and 1/3 Greeks (who despised the Ptolemies but no longer had a standing army).

Rome was ruled by a triumvirate consisting of Crassus, Pompei and Ceasar. After Ptolemy XII raised taxes to pay the Roman army, the Greeks of Alexandria rebelled and forced him to flee to Rome. In his absence, his oldest sister Berenice took the throne, married her brother Buria and strangled him a week later. Meanwhile her younger sister Cleopatra VII was interacting with scholars at the Alexandrian library and was the first Ptolemy to learn Egyptian (and other languages).

Rome sent troops, led by Mark Anthony, to restore Ptolemy XII to the throne. Berenice’s second husband husband led the Egyptian forces against Anthony and was killed. With Alexandria under continuing Roman occupation, Ptolemy XII resumed the throne.

He built a new temple in the temple complex on Philae Island (near Aswan) begun by prior Ptolemies. It’s a temple to Isis, the wife of the manufactured Greek god Serapis (blend of Osiris and Apis bull).

UNESCO moved the temple to higher ground when the Aswan dam was built in the 1960s. In his will, Ptolemy designate 17 year old Cleopatra VII and her 13-year-old brother Ptollemy XIII (who she was expected to married) as his successors.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/1492791/1492892