Alexandria, 41 BC. The sea shimmered gold under a bruised Mediterranean sky. From the royal harbor, ships watched the sun descend behind Rome’s silhouette in the west, a silent omen of the tide yet to come. Egypt was quieter now, the echoes of Caesar’s death still lingering like perfume in empty corridors.
But Cleopatra had not crumbled.
She was steel wrapped in silk. And she had been watching.
In Rome, power had shifted again. Octavian, Caesar’s great-nephew — now rivaled another warlord for control: Marcus Antonius, better known as Marc Antony. He was a soldier’s soldier, coarse and confident, drunk on glory and ambition. A man of appetite, not caution. Cleopatra knew such men. She knew how to draw them in… and how to use them.
A Summons from Tarsus
The year was 41 BC, and Antony summoned Cleopatra to the city of Tarsus, in what is now Turkey. The reason was simple on the surface: he wanted to know why Egypt had failed to support Rome’s recent military campaigns. But Cleopatra knew it was about more than that.
She would not come as a supplicant. She would arrive as a goddess.
Her barge sailed up the Cydnus River like a dream woven from moonlight. The sails were purple, the color of royalty. Silver oars beat rhythmically to the sounds of music. Incense curled from golden burners. Cleopatra lay beneath a canopy dressed as Aphrodite, goddess of love, as servants fanned her and scattered rose petals in her path.
Crowds lined the shores, whispering that Venus herself had returned to earth.
Antony was captivated before she even spoke.
The Dance of Power and Passion
Their meeting was not a collision of souls, it was a negotiation of empires. Cleopatra offered riches, ships, and grain. Antony offered protection, status, and Roman alliance. But there was something else between them, something not easily measured: desire.
Antony was no Caesar. He was less refined, more reckless. But Cleopatra saw something useful in him, a man who could help secure her throne, crush rivals, and perhaps, father another royal heir. He saw in her not just beauty, but an equal, witty, intelligent, impossible to outmaneuver.
Within days, politics gave way to pleasure.
Winter in Alexandria
Antony followed Cleopatra back to Alexandria, where the two lovers indulged in a season of excess. They dined together nightly, dressed as gods, playing games, drinking rare wines, and participating in Cleopatra’s intellectual salons. The court roared with life. They formed a club called “The Inimitable Livers”, dedicated to pleasure, poetry, and blasphemous grandeur.
But behind the revelry, the wheels of war were turning.
Rome watched with fury. Octavian, ever the tactician, painted Antony as a man bewitched by an Eastern witch. Propaganda flowed, they said Cleopatra had turned Antony against his homeland, that she sought to make Egypt the seat of a new empire.
Children of the Sun and Moon
Their union produced twins, Alexander Helios (the Sun) and Cleopatra Selene (the Moon), born in 40 BC. Cleopatra now had three royal children, two with Antony, one with Caesar. She was no longer just a queen. She was the matriarch of dynasties, the mother of heirs who could rule East and West alike.
Antony returned to Rome soon after the twins' birth, duty called. But Cleopatra remained in Alexandria, ever the strategist, waiting for the next move.
She knew Rome would not forget her.
Shadows on the Horizon
As Antony’s alliance with Octavian frayed, war loomed like a dark cloud over the Mediterranean. Cleopatra prepared Egypt for battle, stockpiling grain, rebuilding fleets, and training soldiers. Her time in the shadows was over. The queen who once seduced kings was now preparing to confront empires.
Next Time: Cleopatra Part Five — The War of the Worlds
As Octavian declares war, Cleopatra and Antony unite their forces for one last stand at sea. At stake: the future of Egypt, Rome, and their love itself.