The CleopatrasMiniseries
The lives of a series of queens belonging to the Ptolemaic Dynasty of ancient Egypt, culminating in its final active ruler Cleopatra VII.
Where to Watch The Cleopatras • Miniseries
8 Episodes
- 128 BCE2
128 BC128 BC. Pot Belly and the younger Cleopatra re-invade Egypt, banishing Cleopatra the mother to Syria, where her daughter Cleopatra Thea is maintaining the best family traditions of remorseless feuding. Meanwhile, Pot Belly announces a sudden change of character - henceforth he is to be known as "Pot Belly the Benign." The results are startling. - 115 BC
E3115 BCOn his deathbed, Pot Belly stages his greatest practical joke -leaving a will gleefully designed to cause mayhem. It works. Chickpea becomes king against Cleopatra's wishes. However, Cleopatra turns the mob against him, leaving her free to invite her favourite son, Alexander, to share the throne with her. She gets more than she bargained for. - 80 BCE5
80 BCFor all his eccentricity, Fluter sees clearly that Rome is the true source of all power, and he sets off on an extended royal visit, dispensing large sums of money to bribe both Caesar and the Senate to back him. The Egyptians, furious at this subservience, depose him in his absence and make his wife, Cleopatra Tryphaena, and his daughter, Berenike, joint monarchs. But the illegitimate Fluter has enough Ptolemy blood not to let go easily. - 51 BCE6
51 BCThe youngest and most notorious of the Cleopatras, now 18, becomes joint ruler with her brother Ptolemy. Civil war breaks out. It is only the arrival of Julius Caesar that makes a solution possible. Cleopatra and Caesar become lovers. She believes she has found the man to help her realise her ambition to rule the world. - 46 BCE7
46 BC46 BC. Cleopatra gives birth to Caesar's son and takes him to republican Rome to persuade Caesar to declare himself King - with her son as his heir. She is only defeated by Caesar's assassination on the Ides of March. She returns swiftly to Egypt, ruthlessly securing her position there. When casting around for the next man most likely to make her queen of the world her eye settles on a very successful general named Mark Antony.
