Реферат: Cleopatra Essay Research Paper CleopatraCleopatra was queen

he returned to Rome, they celebrated a four-day triumph, or a ceremonial parade

held to honor victorious generals. This quick-witted woman arrived in Rome with

Ptolemy XIII and Caesarion, and they lived in Caesar?s villa, where he visited her

constantly. Cleopatra had started calling herself the New Isis and was the subject of

much gossip. A golden statue of her had been put in the Temple of Venus Genetrix,

the anchantress of the Julian family to which Caesar belonged. On the Ides of March

in 44B.C., Caesar was assassinated outside the Senate building in Rome, ?due to the

threat that he posed to the well-being of the republic, because they believed that he

was going to declare himself king? (Foreman 83). Shortly after Caesar was stabbed,

Cleopatra left Rome, and one year later Ptolemy XIII died, just before he would have

reached the legal age at which he could be expected to participate in the government,

and some say she may have poisoned him. On Ptolemy?s death, Cleopatra had her

son, Caesarion, or ?Little Caesar,? made co-ruler at the age of four.

Caesar?s assassination caused anarchy and civil war in Rome. Eventually the

empire was divided among three men: Caesar?s great-nephew, Octavian, Marcus

Lepidus, and Marc Antony. Antony, as one of the new rulers of the Eastern empire,

summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus to answer charges that she had helped republican

forces. Antony was in need of money to launch a campaign against the Parthians,

and hoped Cleopatra would give him the funds he desperately needed. She set out

for Tarsus in Asia Minor with lots of gifts, and entered the city on a magnificently

decorated boat. She sailed with silver oars, purple sails, and dressed as Aphrodite,

the Goddess of Love. She already new enough about his ?limited strategic and

tactical abilities, his blue blood, the drinking, his womanizing, his vulgarity and his

ambition,? (MacUrdy 79) to know how to get to him. After much feasting and

entertaining for days, Egypt remained an independent country instead of becoming a

Roman province, as Antony intended. This very seductive woman agreed to provide

him with money on the condition that her sister, Arsinoe IV, be executed. Forgetting

his responsibilities and duty to the Roman empire, he accompanied this charismatic

individual to Alexandria and spent the winter with her there. In the spring of 40 BC,