The final conflict was provoked by Antony, who is said to have been persuaded by his lover, the queen Cleopatra of Egypt, to retire to her land and give battle to mask his retreat ; but lack of provisions and the growing demoralization of his army would eventually account for this decision.

Octavian had Caesarion murdered, but he spared Antony's children by Cleopatra, who were paraded through the streets of Rome.

The younger man is Mark Antony being lured by the wiles of the reclining woman ( who is Cleopatra, with the snake being an asp ) into losing his manly romanitas and becoming decadent, with the bearded elder male figure being his mythical ancestor Anton looking on.

He was supposedly a non-royal uncle to a Queen of Egypt who herself was the great-grandmother of Cleopatra VII of Egypt.

Historian Callinicus dedicated a ten-book history of Alexandria to a " Cleopatra ", who can only be Zenobia.

The identity of Cleopatra's mother is unknown, but she is generally believed to be Cleopatra V Tryphaena of Egypt, the sister or cousin and wife of Ptolemy XII, or possibly another Ptolemaic family member who was the daughter of Ptolemy X and Cleopatra Berenice III Philopator if Cleopatra V was not the daughter of Ptolemy X and Berenice III.

In 50 BC Cleopatra came into a serious conflict with the Gabiniani, powerful Roman troops of Aulus Gabinius who had left them in Egypt to protect Ptolemy XII after his restoration to the throne in 55 BC.

During this relationship, it was also rumored that Cleopatra introduced Caesar to her astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, who first proposed the idea of leap days and leap years.

At the beginning of 43 BC, Cleopatra formed an alliance with the leader of the Caesarian party in the east, Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who also recognized Caesarion as her co-ruler.

In 41 BC, Mark Antony, one of the triumvirs who ruled Rome in the power vacuum following Caesar's death, sent his intimate friend Quintus Dellius to Egypt to summon Cleopatra to Tarsus to meet Antony and answer questions about her loyalty.

Cleopatra had also executed her strategos of Cyprus, Serapion, who had supported Cassius against her wishes.

Among the later, non-indigenous Egyptian dynasties, the most notable example of another woman who became pharaoh was Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

* Ptolemy VI Philometor, aged 6, rules as co-regent with his mother, Cleopatra I, who, although a daughter of a Seleucid king, does not take King Seleucus IV's side and remains on friendly terms with Rome.

The botanical name Euphorbia derives from Euphorbus, the Greek physician of king Juba II of Numidia ( 52 – 50 BC – 23 AD ), who married the daughter of Anthony and Cleopatra.

During the Egyptian campaign of 1798, Napoléon Bonaparte started an affair of his own with Pauline Fourès, the wife of a junior officer who became known as " Napoleon's Cleopatra.

And I don't believe for a second that the man who would be interested in Benedict and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet and all these strong lovers would have some misogynist aberration.

* Olympias is put aside by her husband Philip II, following Philip's marriage to a girl named Cleopatra ( who is renamed Eurydice ).

The fictional Aeneas dutifully resists Dido ’ s temptation and abandons her to forge on to Italy, placing political destiny before romantic love, in stark contrast to his historical counterpart Antony, who puts passionate love of his own African queen, Cleopatra, before duty to Rome.

In traditional criticism of Antony and Cleopatra, “ Rome has been characterized as a male world, presided over by the austere Caesar, and Egypt as a female domain, embodied by a Cleopatra who is seen to be as abundant, leaky, and changeable as the Nile ”.

What is said about Cleopatra is not always what one would normally say about a ruler ; the image that is created makes the audience expect “ to see on stage not a noble Sovereign, but a dark, dangerous, evil, sensual and lewd creature who has harnessed the ‘ captain ’ s heart ”.

Cleopatra's triumph over her lover is attested to by Caesar himself, who gibes that Antony “ is not more manlike / Than Cleopatra ; nor the queen of Ptolemy / More womanly than he ” ( 1. 4. 5-7 ).

It was a naval engagement fought between the forces of Octavian and the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII.

Octavian's fleet was commanded by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, while Antony's fleet was supported by the ships of Queen Cleopatra of Ptolemaic Egypt.

Octavian complained that Antony had no authority for being in Egypt ; that his execution of Sextus Pompeius was illegal ; that his treachery to the king of Armenia disgraced the Roman name ; that he had not sent half the proceeds of the spoils to Rome according to his agreement ; that his connection with Cleopatra and the acknowledgment of Caesarion as a legitimate son of Julius Caesar were a degradation of his office and a menace to himself.

Octavian was not present, but at the next meeting made a reply of such a nature that the consuls both left Rome to join Antony ; and Antony, when he heard of it, after publicly divorcing Octavia, came at once to Ephesus with Cleopatra, where a vast fleet was gathered from all parts of the East, of which Cleopatra furnished a large proportion.

But, by the publication of Antony's will, which had been put into his hands by the traitor Plancus, and by carefully letting it be known at Rome what preparations were going on at Samos, and how entirely Antony was acting as the agent of Cleopatra, Octavian produced such a violent outburst of feeling that he easily obtained Antony's deposition from the consulship of 31, for which he had been designated, and a vote for a proclamation of war against Cleopatra, well understood to mean against Antony, though he was not named.

C. Cornelius Gallus was advancing from Paraetonium ; and Octavian himself landed at Pelusium, with the connivance it was believed of Cleopatra.

Failing to escape on board a ship, he stabbed himself ; and, as he did not die at once, insisted on being taken to the mausoleum in which Cleopatra was shut up, and there died in her arms.

Among his best-known films are Cleopatra ; Samson and Delilah ; The Greatest Show on Earth, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture ; and The Ten Commandments, which was his last and most successful film.

Cleopatra VII ( 69 – 30 BC ) was the last pharaoh of Egypt, famed lover of Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.

The most well known of these relationships were in the royal family, the Ptolemies ; The famous Cleopatra VII was married to her younger brother, Ptolemy XIII.

Perhaps as a result of the pharaoh's role in Pompey's murder, Caesar sided with Cleopatra ; he is reported to have wept at the sight of Pompey's head, which was offered to him by the pharaoh as a gift.

Several times Antony was summoned to Rome, but remained in Alexandria with Cleopatra.

As for Cleopatra, she was proclaimed Queen of Kings and Queen of Egypt, to rule with Caesarion ( Ptolemy XV Caesar, son of Cleopatra by Julius Caesar ), King of Kings and King of Egypt.

When he found out that Cleopatra was still alive, his friends brought him to Cleopatra's monument in which she was hiding, and he died in her arms.

* In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, the Roman Senate voted him new titles, officially becoming Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus.

A fictionalized version of this Ahenobarbus appears in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra under the name of " Enobarbus "

That occurred when Mark Antony, the other most influential member of the Triumvirate, abandoned his wife, Octavian's sister Octavia Minor, and moved to Egypt to start a long-term romance with Cleopatra, thus becoming de facto stepfather to Caesarion.

In fact, Antony and Cleopatra formally elevated to power Caesarion, then thirteen years of age, in 34 BC, giving him the vague but alarming title of " King of the Kings " ( Donations of Alexandria ).

Antony foresaw that he would not be able to defeat Octavian's forces, so he and Cleopatra stayed in the rear of the formation.

Antony seized the opportunity and with Cleopatra on her ship and him on a different ship, sped through the gap and escaped, abandoning his entire force.

Mark Antony then tried to flee from the battle, and as a result of a communication breakdown, came to believe that Cleopatra had been captured, and hence committed suicide.

* Cleopatra Selene II ( 40 – 5 BC ), daughter of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony

He also played a role in a tour of Antony and Cleopatra, produced by the actress Katharine Cornell in 1946.

The phrase " gaudy night " is taken from Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra:

Herod originally leased Jericho from Cleopatra, after Mark Antony gave it to her as a gift.

Mark Antony supposedly gave Cleopatra over 200, 000 scrolls ( taken from the great Library of Pergamum ) for the library as a wedding gift, but this is regarded by some historians as a propagandist claim meant to show Antony's allegiance to Egypt rather than Rome.