P1 Cleopatra 1 the VII was born more than 2000 years ago in Alexandria, Egypt, in 70 to 69 BC. She 2 was skilled in many languages and fluent in Egyptian but had little Egyptian blood, if any at all. She 3 was a direct descendent of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which originated in ancient Macedonia, an essentially Greek society in northern Greece. The 4 ethnocentric Ptolemies, who insisted on preserving their Macedonian-Greek culture, ruled for over two-hundred years in Egypt without ever learning the Egyptian language or embracing the customs. Only 5 Cleopatra ever bothered to learn Egyptian and was the last monarch of the Ptolemaic dynasty to rule Egpyt.
P2 Cleopatra's mother was Cleopatra V Tryphaena, and her father was Ptolemy XII, the pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, an Ancient Greek state lasting until Cleopatra VII died in 30 BC. When her father died in 51 BC, 18-year-old Cleopatra and her 10-year-old brother, Ptolemy the XIII, assumed the throne. Since Egyptian tradition required that a woman have a male consort to reign, the siblings most likely married. It wasn't long, though, until Cleopatra took advantage of the age difference and arrogated to herself the right to rule independently of her brother. Concerns over Cleopatra's dominance led her brother's advisers to exile her, forcing her out of Alexandria and into Thebes in northern Egypt.
P3 Not to be defeated, Cleopatra orchestrated a plan to take back the throne and traveled to Syria with her younger half-sister Arsinoe IV. There, the two sisters gathered an invasion force and amassed troops along Egypt's border in preparation to overthrow their brother. During such time, the Roman dictator Caesar arrived at the palace in Alexandria to collect debts owed to him and to reconcile the civil dispute between the two siblings. Cleopatra, realizing the opportunity to ally herself with Caesar, snuck inside the palace and seduced him. The alliance thus forced Arsinoe to join forces with her brother and attempt to remove Caesar and her sister. However, the combined military might of Caesar and Cleopatra proved far too strong, defeating the rival siblings in The Battle of The Nile. The victorious Cleopatra thus became queen of Egypt once again.