Cleopatra's life, which began in 69 BCE and ended 39 years later, is well documented for her era, a fact that is due in no small measure to her importance during her lifetime to both the kingdom of Egypt and the Republic of Rome. She was throughout her life paired with powerful men - which is hardly to be found surprising and has far less to do with her reputed beauty than the fact that women had little role in public life in antiquity except through or with men.
Cleopatra's father was King Ptolemy XII, who died in 51 BCE. He had several years before lost his thrown due to internal upheavals and left Egypt, only to be restored to power through Roman intervention - a fact that would give Roman leaders (at least in their own minds) political rights over the Egyptian kingdom (Walker and Higgs 330-40).
When he died, after his return to power, he left the throne of Egypt to his son Ptolemy XIII, who ruled from 51 to 47 BCE. Cleopatra, as was the enduring custom in the Egyptian royal family, ruled with her brother as his sister-wife, although they soon had a falling out and in the civil war that ensued Julius C'sar and his armies became involved and in the end helped to reestablish joint rule by the brother and sister rather than rule by Ptolemy alone.
On the death of her first husband, she became queen with her younger brother, who ruled as Ptolemy XIV for three years. On the death of her brother, she ruled jointly with her son, Ptolemy XV C'sar from 44 to 30 BCE, the year of her death. She had also been the lover of Julius C'sar - who was most likely the father of Ptolemy XV (C'sar claimed him as his son) and the wife of Mark Antony. When the Roman armies of Octavian (who would be Roman emperor under the name of Augustus) defeated the combined armies of Cleopatra and Antony, they each committed suicide. They were buried together. Octavian would execute Ptolemy XV after his mother's death.
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