Cleopatra

Cleopatra was the last and final pharaoh of Egypt and she is your ancestor!  Her reign of Egypt ended about 30 B.C ending nearly 3000 years of reigning pharaohs from different dynasties.  Cleopatra's family was of the Ptolemy (toll_ la_may) dynasty.  The Ptolemy dynasty held power in Egypt for about 300 years starting after the death of Alexander the Great.  Ptolemy was one of three generals to whom the empire of Alexander the Great's was divided.

Cleopatra and her family were not Egyptians.  Rather, they were Greeks.  Most of her family never learned the Egyptian language so all official documents had to be written in both Greek and Egyptian.  One of these official documents, inscribed about 200 BC, was found.  It is called the Rosetta Stone.  This stone bears the same message in three languages Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek.  Because the stone included the message in Egyptian hieroglyphic and Greek, it has been the key that has enable our century to decode and read Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Because Egyptian hieroglyphics were not readable until the last century, the story of Cleopatra through the last two millenniums has been the story of her victors, the Romans.  Now that the Egyptian hieroglyphics can be read,  a lot more has become known about her.  First, Cleopatra was more successful in winning the hearts of the Egyptians than any of her preceding ancestors because she learned the Egyptian language, dressed like them, worshiped their Gods, and even made herself one of their Gods.  Amongst her people, she was know as an intelligent leader and philosopher.  She is reported to have spoken 9 languages.  Second, Cleopatra's initial ambitions were to keep Egypt free of Roman rule and restore her kingdom to the grandeur of it's beginning. She did this through relations and marriage to the most powerful men of her time.  At first it was Julius Cesar and after his death, Marc Anthony.

Cleopatra had a child with Julius Cesar named Cesarian who she claimed had the right to rule both Rome and Egypt. Cesar, however, did not name Cesarian as his heir.  Instead, he named Gaius Octavius, his sister's son.  After Cesar was murdered on the Ides of March (March 15...today!), there was a lot of twisting of allegiances.  Finally, Cleopatra aligned herself with Marc Antony with whom married and had three children.  Together, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra fought Octavius but were defeated.  They both ended up killing themselves to avoid being paraded in Rome as traitors.  Octavius, their victor, later changed his name to Augustus when he proclaimed himself the first emperor of Rome.  He was ruler of the world at the time of the birth of Christ.