Andrew Schulz

So they put him in an alabaster sarcophagus.

And then a few generations later, or a couple generations later, Ptolemy XII, who I believe is Cleopatra's father, is born.

He dies away.

Ptolemy XIII is Cleopatra's brother.

They have to get married.

He suspiciously dies by drowning in the river.

All of a sudden...

Cleopatra is alone in the palace, and she is the ruler.

And so her political move from here to allow Egypt to not become swallowed up by the Mediterranean growing in wealth and rising up around Egypt, she really only has one move, because all of her incompetent grandfathers have...

There is no Egyptian military anymore, not like a unified strong military.

There's no Ptolemaic military made out of Greeks living in Egypt.

Now they're contracting soldiers from Rome.

So they're paying soldiers from Rome.

So all of a sudden, who really runs Egypt?

So Cleopatra...

She sees that there's a civil war that's going on in Rome.

And one of the things that she can do, this is like a highly simplistic explanation.

Roman historians, don't attack me over this.

But one of the things that she can do is pull Julius Caesar into Egypt.

And so there's this fight over, you know, who is going to essentially have the most control in Egypt.