Andrew Schulz

Alexandria didn't have to deal with this because the whole city was made out of stone.

So, well, one, it begins with Egypt losing their independence to the Roman Empire.

Yeah, well, it kind of—the later Ptolemies, like, let's say Ptolemy IV.

So you've got Ptolemy I, II, and III.

Those are the three great Ptolemies.

This is the Game of Thrones.

Yeah, yeah.

And so Game of Thrones starts to begin, and these Ptolemies do not care about learning the ways of the old gods of Egypt.

Ugh.

They only care about being rich Greek kings and princes, extrapolating the resources or extracting the resources from the local poor indigenous people.

You know, it's like the British in Africa.

It's the same sort of thing.

Exactly.

And so at the very end, Cleopatra is born.

And she's the first Ptolemy since the earliest times who is in awe of what this ancient world was that she was born into.

And how is she so aware of it?

Well, it's probably just an intrinsic curiosity.

There is a surviving record of her family going on a family vacation through Egypt when she's just a little girl.

And we know that one of the places that she would have been taken to was the Serapium, where the giant bull box sarcophagi are underground.

You may have seen them.