Original subtitles

There was a time long ago

when women ruled with unparalleled power,

as warriors, queens, mothers of nations.

They bowed to no man.

Their actions echoing unapologetically throughout history.

And there was none among them more iconic

than Cleopatra.

Vixen or strategist?

Collaborator or maverick?

Her legend has been retold for millennia.

But few know the real woman. Her truth.

I am Isis!

I am a God!

Worshipped and feared by Egypt,

courted and reviled by Rome,

a leader of undeniable power that no one could afford to ignore.

I would die for Egypt.

What would you die for?

She loved deeply,

fought courageously,

outsmarting her rivals.

Cleopatra walked through the sandstorm of history

and left footprints so deep

that no man could ever erase them.

My grandmother was the inspiration for me.

I would come home and I would tell her about what I was learning.

You know, "Oh, we're learning about the Greeks,

and we're learning about the Romans.

And today we learned about Cleopatra."

And I remember clear as day, her saying to me,

"Shelley, I don't care what they tell you in school,

Cleopatra was Black."

Since 323 BC,

a family originally from Macedonia, the Ptolemies,

have ruled Egypt,

but now, a sudden shift of power

will change the life of one teenage girl forever.

Cleopatra was first and foremost, a scholar.

She was a scientist.

She was a linguist.

Those things mattered to her

just as much, if not more, than politics.

The Library of Alexandria was important to Cleopatra

because she was very learned.

She studies the Egyptian language,

and the Ptolemies before her

did not see a value in learning the language.

When she went to the library as a kid,

she would've been reading about the female queens of Egypt.

That would've made her aspire to be a queen.

I'm not done yet.

It's time.

It's a very bittersweet moment.

As is true for any monarch.

In order for them to rule, their parents must die.

♪ The spy is never turning ♪

♪ The skies are burning ♪

♪ They can't conquer ♪

♪ As we won't be broken ♪

Enough with the sniffling.

Is everything ready?

Yes, Father.

The Ptolemies had been in power now

since roughly 323 BCE.

So we're now talking about...

a good 200 years later.

Where are you?

Cleopatra's family becomes rulers of Egypt

because the very first Ptolemy is a general of Alexander the Great,

who conquered Egypt and kicked out the ruling Persian dynasty.

The Ptolemies were ruthless.

They weren't warm and fuzzy.

I don't trust any of them.

If I may.

Go! Go away!

You keep your head on you.

These goons will wipe away everything I've done.

Cleopatra is not the eldest daughter

of Ptolemy XII.

He had, in fact, already executed her older sister...

...because she had dared usurp the throne.

It seems, however, Cleopatra was his favorite,

and in his will, he intended for Cleopatra

to rule alongside her brother, Ptolemy XIII.

Our legacy is safe with me.

When I look at you...

I see me.

Cleopatra was either 17 or 18 years old when her father died.

So upon his death,

Cleopatra now has virtually a crisis on her hands.

She has three living siblings.

Two brothers named Ptolemy

and a sister named Arsinoe.

Cleopatra had every reason to be afraid of what her siblings were capable of...

even though they were younger than her.

My father has ascended.

Obviously, I will take care of everything, Your Highness. I...

We'll be doing things differently from now on.

What did...

What does she mean?

Cleopatra's brother is very much affected

by this eunuch Pothinus,

who has raised him, really.

And Arsinoe similarly has a eunuch who has raised her,

so a lot of the decisions that are made by Cleopatra's siblings

are not necessarily their own.

You may love your sibling,

but you also understand that your sibling will stab you in the back.

And so, I think that that is kind of the relationship she had with Arsinoe.

There was a long history in the Ptolemy dynasty

of them fighting with each other,

exiling one of their siblings,

murdering one of their siblings.

Growing up a Ptolemy means that you are engaged

in constant family warfare.

You are looking to kill each other and hoping to not be killed in return.

It was a very Game of Thrones kind of environment.

The coronation in Memphis

would've attracted the highest administrators and priests.

It was a time when the Ptolemaic rulers became part

of a 3,000-year-old tradition of Egyptian kingship.

They've started gathering.

Pothinus is welcoming everyone.

I'm not surprised.

Sit.

He's just being helpful.

More like helping himself.

Uh, careful with that.

I'm not done working on it yet.

You should be a scholar.

And leave Egypt in the hands of idiots?

Mind what you say.

I could've been Pothinus.

No.

He shuffles when he walks.

It is time to present you to the people.

The people already know me. They can present the boy.

I know it's tedious.

But it is tradition.

And people find comfort in traditions.

It's time for some new traditions.

Come on.

Let's get the boring stuff over with

so you can focus on the fun stuff,

like the drought and our debt to Rome.

In addition to her male advisors,

Cleopatra also has two female advisors,

Charmion and Iras.

They were with Cleopatra since she was a child,

and often, scholars don't realize

how important these two women were to Cleopatra.

Let it begin.

Unfortunately for Cleopatra, in her father's will,

Cleopatra is supposed to rule Egypt alongside her brother, Ptolemy XIII.

You could eliminate the competition through murder

or you could marry.

That doesn't mean that they didn't murder,

but they chose to marry first.

Ready, little brother?

Children of Egypt,

we are here at this time to witness Thea Philopator Cleopatra

and Ptolemy Theos Philopator.

There has to be a male and female pharaoh

because Isis and Osiris were the major gods in Egyptian religion,

and since the male and female pharaohs are also gods,

they have to reflect Isis and Osiris.

Gods marry their brothers and their sisters.

That's what gods do.

And so, this was considered completely proper behavior.

And certainly for a Ptolemaic ruler

who wanted to support traditional religion,

that was absolutely the way.

I present to you...

Osiris and Isis reborn.

Because her brother-husband Ptolemy was only a child,

Cleopatra had a definite advantage in terms of her strategic position.

But Ptolemy has very powerful advisors at court.

His main advisor is Pothinus.

Pothinus wants to be the real power.

Cleopatra stands in the way.

Once Cleopatra succeeds to the throne,

one of her first acts is to undertake a pilgrimage

to cement her relationship with the Egyptian people.

Stinks.

Will you behave yourself, please?

These are our people. They're watching.

Sorry.

Hi.

I think that her wanting to learn more about the Egyptian people

was a way to try to integrate herself more into the country.

There were three primary populations in Egypt as a whole.

Of course, we have native Egyptians.

We have the Greek peoples, who came in with the Ptolemies,

and then we also have a very sizable Jewish population.

All three of these populations did not like each other,

but they were all unified in the fact that they didn't like Rome.

For the most part,

the Ptolemies separated themselves from the indigenous Egyptian people.

Come on, that's beautiful. Look at the colors.

We have those colors at home.

Cleopatra's affinity for the Egyptian people

was looked at askance by people like Pothinus,

who thought that this was just a silly gesture by a silly girl.

But the indigenous people saw this as a mark of leadership.

The very first recorded event of Cleopatra's reign

is her celebration of the installation of the new Buchis bull.

The earthly embodiment of the god Montu,

a very ancient god in Egypt.

And this is really remarkable,

for Cleopatra to travel deep into upper Egypt

to celebrate this ritual,

signifies that she wants to be an Egyptian queen,

not just a Ptolemaic queen.

Cleopatra feels very close to the Egyptian people.

Cleopatra learned the Egyptian language.

She practiced the Egyptian religion.

She wants to be remembered as Egyptian.

We don't know her exact racial heritage.

We don't know who Cleopatra's mother was.

There's been a lot of research to prove that her mother was Egyptian,

but we can't know for sure.

It's also uncertain who Cleopatra's grandmother was.

Cleopatra's father was given a nickname, which was illegitimate,

so people recognized that his mother

had probably been somebody who was at the royal court.

It's possible that she was an Egyptian.

Ancient Egyptians would've had a variety of different complexions,

um, as we find in other African cultures today.

Skin color ranged from black to pale brown,

much like the people of South Sudan

to modern-day Egypt.

Given that Cleopatra represents herself as an Egyptian,

it seems very strange that we insist on depicting her as a wholly European.

If you look at her depictions, she looks different

depending on who it is that's depicting her.

So her representations change,

her perceptions change.

So she's almost like this chameleon.

The appeal of Cleopatra is that we imagine her,

that everyone can imagine her in their own way.

I imagine her to have curly hair like me

and a similar skin color.

Some of the challenges that Cleopatra faces

where she's taking power

after her father's death

is that he left this huge debt.

Egypt was a client state of, of Rome at the time.

And the Ptolemies were fighting desperately to maintain independence.

Rome is the emerging power.

Rome understands

that Egypt is the breadbasket of the Mediterranean.

But Egypt is in a very precarious situation.

The Nile, which had to flood every year

in order to produce crops,

has not flooded at the same level for several years.

Now, this isn't Cleopatra's fault.

Natural occurrences never are.

But it did put Cleopatra in a little bit of a tricky situation.

I should've come sooner.

You're here now.

Open the royal grain stores.

Let's get these people fed.

And we should build a temple.

A place for hope.

They'll remember this.

So will I.

I'm glad I came.

So there's a civil war going on in Rome.

Once again, it's about power.

Um...

It's two men.

Julius Caesar, representing "the people,"

and Pompey the Great,

representing the Optimates or upper class.

Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII, had borrowed heavily,

mainly from Pompey.

Egypt's relationship to Rome is basically...

that of a poor cousin.

This is a very tricky time for Cleopatra.

She knows that her brother, Ptolemy XIII,

is being hoodwinked by Pothinus.

She's for diplomacy.

She is for working with Pompey,

to at least find out what he wants.

But Pothinus and Ptolemy XIII have other plans.

Why did you reject Pompey's request?

He's losing the war. Right?

So abandoning our allies in their time of need is a new policy?

After everything he did for Father in exile,

where is your honor?

With all due respect, we sent him soldiers when he first asked,

which clearly didn't help.

His Highness is making a prudent calculation.

It would be unwise to send good Egyptian soldiers

into a bad Roman war.

Father worked hard to ensure that Egypt became the hand that feeds Rome,

not just a mere colony.

This prudent calculation you're making...

Feeding Rome has left Egyptians with nothing to eat.

Which brings us to the matter of the storehouses left open down south.

What is there to eat in Alexandria?

It would be dangerous to get mixed up in Roman politics.

We are already mixed up in Rome's politics, Pothinus.

The people who were advising Ptolemy XIII

were really in control at this point.

And, and their main aim was to kill Cleopatra.

Pothinus is able to get...

a faction of the Alexandrians on his side.

And they stage a palace coup.

This forces Cleopatra and Arsinoe to flee.

She knows she has the support

of the people living in Memphis and Thebes.

All of these people were loyal to her father.

And she flees first to Upper Egypt.

I'm going back to fight for my throne.

With whose army?

How many soldiers can we amass from southern Egypt?

Not enough.

And ones you can trust, even less.

Achillas will be commanding your brother's army.

You'll need men who will not cower to his past glories.

I didn't think Pothinus would move that quickly.

You underestimated him.

But it's hard to see a viper in the tall grass

unless you're a bird.

I'll go east to Syria.

My father still has friends there.

Friends that know you to be his true heir.

Cleopatra is raised in Alexandria.

It's part of her.

So being exiled was probably quite a hurtful experience for her.

And she would've been looking to return as swiftly as possible.

Certainly, Cleopatra isn't the kind of person who gives up.

She's very much a fighter.

Cleopatra is in Syria for two years.

In that time, she's able to put together her own army.

As long as she's alive,

this seems the most strategic thing to do.

She has the support of the Egyptian people.

She has the support of the people in Syria.

She's probably feeling defiant.

Ever since Cleopatra is forced to flee Egypt,

we can imagine her scheming

about how to get back on the throne.

And she is given the perfect opportunity.

In the Roman civil war,

there's been a major battle at Pharsalus in Greece.

Julius Caesar has defeated Pompey,

his former son-in-law.

Pompey flees to Egypt to ask for help.

And Julius Caesar follows not long after.

So Cleopatra returns to Egypt.

If we target these northern defenses,

do we leave ourselves vulnerable at our eastern points?

Not if we station regiments here and here.

Okay.

That idiot Pompey is headed to Ptolemy's war camp.

If Caesar follows,

he'll be sure to bring Rome's civil war straight to our shores.

That would be political suicide.

Well, what if he wants to avenge our earlier support of Pompey?

So?

Then we kill Pompey.

We're not killing Pompey.

It's the easiest way to prove our allegiance to Caesar.

We're not killing Caesar's son-in-law.

Your Highness.

We need to rebuild this part.

The stakes are incredibly high.

If Cleopatra does not gain the favor of Julius Caesar,

she might be exiled from Egypt forever,

and permanently lose her throne.

Pompey lands.

And he is stabbed in the back.

Pothinus has orchestrated this...

and Pothinus also arranges to have Pompey decapitated.

Pothinus has persuaded Ptolemy XIII

that this will put them in the good graces of Julius Caesar.

But they misunderstood the Roman sense of honor.

You tell me...

who did this?

Huh?

Pothinus and Ptolemy XIII are not prepared

for Julius Caesar's reaction.

He is outraged that they would kill someone who had been a statesman,

someone who had been a co-leader of the Roman Republic,

and who was his former son-in-law.

Julius Caesar's arrival in Alexandria

provides Cleopatra with the perfect opportunity

for a new stratagem.

How do we play this?

Unless you can resuscitate the dead, I'm at a loss.

I need an audience with him.

That's a very dangerous idea.

He's a grieving general, weary from battle,

in need of an easy victory.

I'm going to give him one.

I'll figure something out.

Thank you.

Caesar isn't just anybody.

Caesar's the biggest celebrity in the world.

So when he arrives, it's big news.

He makes himself at home in the royal palace in Alexandria,

so we've immediately got all of the siblings really worried

that Caesar has arrived and made himself at home

in their palace, in their city.

It's Cleopatra who deals with it by saying,

"I'll get back into my own palace.

Maybe I can make an alliance with him."

Enter.

What is this?

I apologize for the ruse,

but it was the only way to get an audience with you.

Julius Caesar's interaction with Cleopatra

is one of the more famous historic events that's ever been recorded.

But the exciting story

of her being smuggled in a carpet, uh, is very unlikely.

Even if Cleopatra was smuggled in,

it would've been more likely perhaps in a bag.

The source for the story is a Greek historian, Plutarch,

who lived 150 years after Cleopatra died.

He doesn't know.

There was a... a propaganda attempt

to sway the Roman public away from Cleopatra.

So she now is this temptress, uh,

as opposed to being this beautiful woman that everybody was attracted to.

There has to be something mystical about her.

There has to be something seductive,

and seductive in a kind of evil way.

Leave us.

Well, you have your audience.

On behalf of my late father and I,

the great Ptolemy Auletes...

please accept my deepest, deepest sympathy

for the sad passing of the great Pompey.

He and my father were dear friends...

which made him like a father to me.

He showed us great kindness while we were in exile in Rome.

And you repaid that kindness...

with his death.

If I had been on Egypt's throne, he would still be alive today.

I risked your wrath for him.

We served Rome with our own soldiers.

It was not a move against you or ill towards Rome,

but a sign of my love and respect

for a man who was dear to me like my father.

I had planned to bring him back home to Rome.

Pardon him...

in honor of his late wife.

My daughter.

You'll remember...

we've met before.

I do not recall.

I was only a little girl then.

Not the ruler that stands before you now.

Last I heard, you'd been ousted from your throne.

Maybe.

But my father's will names me co-ruler of Egypt.

Then tell me this...

Cleopatra...

how do you hope to rule when the Alexandrians oppose you?

The Senate opposed you.

And yet, here we are.

Julius Caesar, used to running the affairs of Rome,

meets Cleopatra,

and it's... it's truly a meeting of, of two great minds.

Cleopatra is this really confident woman with great charisma.

She was obviously a diplomat,

and actually, she's not bowing down to him.

She's kind of shifting the power dynamic.

Julius Caesar is presented with this young woman, who is strong.

She was intelligent and she was an African woman

who saw herself not only as a ruler but as a goddess as well.

So she would've been very different

to any other woman that Julius Caesar would've met in Rome.

And that is my understanding of it.

No.

Yes.

If you want to understand that text,

you need to read it in the original language.

I'm afraid I don't have the gift of languages that you do.

Mm.

Mm.

Unlike Roman women,

who, traditionally, are expected to stay home

and not take part in political affairs,

Cleopatra was a world leader.

And Julius Caesar can speak to her of his military campaigns,

of literature, of philosophy on almost equal terms.

We can imagine that it was true love,

that it really was a meeting of both mind and heart.

On the other hand, much of the relationship

might've been tempered by strategy.

Julius Caesar had something to gain by assisting Cleopatra,

and Cleopatra certainly had much more to gain

by allying herself with Julius Caesar.

Cleopatra wants Ptolemy XIII gone.

She wants Pothinus gone,

and she wants Arsinoe kept under a very close watch.

But mostly, she wants to be on the throne by herself.

Pothinus fears Cleopatra.

He fears her ability to make people loyal to her.

And that includes Julius Caesar and the Romans.

Caesar seems to have wanted to come and calm the situation down

and try and, and put the appropriate rulers on the throne.

I don't really think that Julius Caesar was ready

for, for what met him when he got to Alexandria.

It's possible that the family was more dysfunctional

than he could ever have possibly imagined.

Noble citizens of Egypt...

I know I speak for all when I say it is time for peace.

I am the harbinger of that peace.

So in accordance with the last will and testament

of Ptolemy Neos Dionysus...

Rome acknowledges his daughter,

Cleopatra Thea Philopator...

and his eldest son,

Ptolemy Theos Philopator...

as co-rulers of Egypt.

Caesar is a master diplomat.

He decides that he is going to...

follow the instructions of Ptolemy XII's rule.

He restores Cleopatra

to the throne as co-pharaoh with Ptolemy XIII.

He gives some dominions to Arsinoe.

In addition to this...

and as a sign of our unending love for you,

Rome also bestows

on his youngest daughter, Arsinoe,

and youngest son, Ptolemy XIV,

the region of Cyprus.

Be grateful.

Rome loves you.

Caesar also reduces the debt

that Egypt owes Rome.

We're not quite sure how Cleopatra managed to do this,

but actually, I would suggest that she was strategically

aligning herself with men who have considerable amount of power.

He seems too familiar.

- Happy? - Very.

Are you bedding my wife?

And there I was thinking the Senate had all the theatrics.

You're laughing at me.

Disrespecting me in my own home.

Calm down.

Don't tell me to calm down!

This is my home! Mine!

And I call upon the people of Egypt to riot against you and Rome!

Well?

Caesar.

Unfortunately for Julius Caesar, his plans come to naught.

In fact, a civil war breaks out.

The so-called Alexandrian War.

On one side, you have Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.

On the other, the eunuch Pothinus,

Ptolemy XIII, and her sister, Arsinoe.

The city of Alexandria,

during this four-month period of these terrible wars,

would've been very frightening.

We have not only professional soldiers engaging,

but we also have guerrilla warfare.

We have rioting.

We have Romans burning big chunks of the city.

This would have been catastrophic and terrifying for pretty much everyone.

We've lost count of the dead on the streets of Memphis and Alexandria.

The riots have spread south to Thebes.

And the storehouses, which were left unguarded,

have been emptied.

If we do not increase taxation in Alexandria,

we'll not be able to sustain this siege and Egypt will collapse.

One of the greatest losses

is the burning of the library of Alexandria.

This library had taken 300 years to build up.

So we lost this huge resource effectively

because of sibling rivalry.

During the course of this conflict,

Cleopatra's sister Arsinoe

marshals her own forces.

Arsinoe?

She's taken control of the Egyptian army.

Well, that's impossible. Someone's lying.

She ordered the death of Achillas and declared herself ruler.

She has the support of the Alexandrians.

Come. Come.

Oh.

Could I be...

I'll bring some water.

The timing couldn't be more perfect.

Cleopatra is aware that having a child with Julius Caesar

is an ace in the game of poker that she's trying to play with Rome.

Cleopatra carries within her womb

the potential to unite Egypt and Rome.

It's an unimaginably powerful child.

These are two of the greatest civilizations,

two of the greatest cities in the world

embodied in a single human being.

And that is momentous.

Meanwhile, the Alexandrian war was a disaster

for Ptolemy XIII and Arsinoe.

When Arsinoe joins forces against Julius Caesar...

and loses,

she's captured and imprisoned in the palace.

Ptolemy was dressed in gold armor and is aboard a ship.

He either falls overboard or he's pushed,

and the weight of the armor causes him to drown.

We have searched the breadth of the Nile.

We have to accept that he's been swept out to sea.

I don't know.

Couldn't he have been rescued by a loyalist?

No.

Your Highness, you have to stop this.

He's no longer a threat.

Cleopatra has won.

And she knows that...

as long as she's alive,

she is the pharaoh.

Did you lose your way?

No.

You?

What do you want?

To understand why.

Why not?

You didn't think...

I deserved to rule, did you?

Little Arsinoe, easily dismissed by everyone.

I deserve it just as much as you, if not more.

Rome gave you Cyprus...

But I wanted Egypt!

Not some small province floating out at sea.

I want my birthright.

Your Caesar's taking me to Rome.

To put you to death.

I always thought it was better to die,

knowing you were meeting death

than to wake up in the afterlife surprised.

- You betrayed me. - You need a thicker skin!

Stop interrupting me.

I'm sorry.

I didn't realize you were the one short on time.

If I had the chance...

I'd do it again.

You won't have the chance.

As Julius Caesar departs for Rome,

Cleopatra is nearly seven months pregnant.

She is the undisputed queen of Egypt.

Unfortunately for Cleopatra,

she has another brother named Ptolemy.

And when Julius Caesar leaves for Rome,

she is indeed married to another younger brother,

with whom she is expected to share the throne of Egypt.

I've left you a big stick in case he steps out of line.

Hm.

Come back and see your son soon.

This is goodbye, sister.

Maybe.

There's a lot of distance from here to Rome.

Cleopatra has exacted a promise from Julius Caesar

that he will execute Arsinoe as a traitor to Rome.

That doesn't happen.