Political Intrigue: The Fake News that Sealed the Fate of Antony and Cleopatra

Ancient Origins

Eve MacDonald / The Conversation

The papers and social media are today full of claims of fake news; back and forth the accusations fly that one side of the political divide in the US has been filling the world with lies in order to discredit the other. We used to call this propaganda; now it’s fake news.

One of the most egregious examples of this takes us back to ancient Rome and to the very end of the Republic, when almost a century of civil war, chaos and political assassinations had led the Roman government to the brink of collapse. It was the time of the so-called Second Triumvirate. The alliance between Octavian, the powerful heir of Julius Caesar, and his right-hand man, Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), was crumbling and two sides had formed – a clash was inevitable.

It is a well-known story – Mark Antony claimed the Eastern Roman Empire as his fiefdom and had moved in with the alluring Cleopatra in Egypt. Meanwhile, his main rival, Octavian (later Augustus Caesar), was in Rome, where the ability to influence the governing Senate and the people of the city still mattered.

Map of the Roman Republic in 43 BC after the establishment of the Second Triumvirate: Antony (green), Lepidus (brown), Octavian (purple), Triumvirs collectively (orange/peach), Sextus Pompey (blue), The Liberators (red), Rome’s client kingdoms (yellow), Ptolemaic Egypt (pink). (CC BY SA 3.0)

There was a ferocious propaganda war between the two sides in full play by 33BC as both vied for public support and the military authority to sway events. Just as now, there was a lot at stake –in 33BC it was the rule of an Empire that dominated the whole of the Mediterranean.

Roman aureus with the portraits of Mark Antony (left) and Octavian (right), issued to celebrate the establishment of the Second Triumvirate by Octavian, Antony, and Marcus Lepidus in 43 BC. Both sides bear the inscription "III VIR R P C", meaning "One of Three Men for the Regulation of the Republic." (Classical Numismatic Group, Inc/CC BY SA 2.5)

Master of the Dark Arts
The young Octavian would eventually prove to be the master of propaganda – and, as he was also physically in Italy, unlike Antony who was in Egypt, he was able to exercise far more influence over Rome and the senate.

Yet it would be a piece of fake news that was to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Octavian managed to get hold of a document that he claimed was Antony’s official will and testament – and what a document it turned out to be.

A colossal statue of a seated Augustus (Octavian) with a laurel crown. (Marie-Lan Nguyen/CC BY 2.5)

Whether it was real or not – and scholars debate this point still – the will contained such inflammatory claims that it set the Roman people against Antony. Octavian read this document aloud in the Senate house (according to Plutarch’s Life of Antony, 58) and he made it widely available by getting the Senate to issue a decree that was posted in the forum and sent out widely through the empire by messengers. This way, Octavian convinced the people of Rome – and Antony’s many allies in the Senate – that Antony had lost his head and given himself over to the allure and despotism of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt.

The document played on many of the anti-eastern (and anti-Cleopatra) prejudices of the ancient Romans, traditional views that were suspicious of the wealth and luxuries of the east and of powerful women. It appeared to confirm that Antony intended to leave legacies to his children with Cleopatra (they had three children: twins Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios, and a son named Ptolemy Philadelphus) that included large pieces of Roman-held territory in the eastern Mediterranean.

Intemperance' (c. 1802) by Thomas Stothard. (CC BY NC ND 3.0) this painting shows Mark Antony embracing Cleopatra as she drops a pearl into her goblet of wine.

The will also declared Caesarion, the son of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, Caesar’s legitimate successor. This was an extremely inflammatory claim since it could undermine Octavian – as Caesar’s adopted son – in the eyes of the veterans still loyal to the Julian family.

The document also claimed that Antony’s burial should be in the mausoleum of the Ptolemaic kings in Alexandria. This last wish was considered the most atrocious in the Roman eye, held up by Octavian as particular proof that Antony really just wanted to be a despotic ruler and that if he came to lead would take Rome on the road to monarchy.

A relief of Cleopatra VII and Caesarion at the temple of Dendera, Egypt. (CC BY SA 3.0)

Dodgy Dossier
What is so intriguing is that whether the document was a piece of fake news or the real thing is no longer of any importance. The will proved to be just the sort of propaganda victory that Octavian had hoped for. The senate in Rome moved to strip Mark Antony of his “imperium” (his legal right to lead the Roman armies he commanded) and without it he was not legally in command of his legions.

It made Antony a traitor and that made it much easier to turn people against him, and declare war. And war was indeed declared by the Roman Senate – interestingly on Cleopatra as queen of Egypt rather than Antony. When the two sides met in battle in 31BC at Actium, Octavian’s victory and the subsequent suicide of Antony and Cleopatra left him as the sole ruler of Rome, and he would become Rome’s first emperor, taking the name Augustus

The Battle of Actium, September 2, 31 BC. (1672) By Laureys a Castro. (Public Domain)

As history is written by the victorious, this version of Mark Antony became the accepted part of the story. The attraction of blaming an exotic woman, the eastern queen Cleopatra, for corrupting Antony was the tale that posterity has accepted. The popular depictions of Antony, from Shakespeare through to the classic 1960s film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, reinforce the narrative that Octavian had taken such pains to publicise: Antony was a man who had lost his head and all Roman sense of propriety for the love of a woman.

A late 19th century painting of Act IV, Scene 15 of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra: Cleopatra holds Antony as he dies. By Alexandre Bidas. (Folger Shakespeare Library/ CC BY SA 4.0 )

Top Image: Cleopatra's Banquet. By Gerard de Lairesse. Source: Public Domain

The article, originally titled ‘ The fake news that sealed the fate of Antony and Cleopatra’ by Eve MacDonald was originally published on The Conversation and has republished under a Creative Commons license.

History Trivia - Ptolemy XII drowns in the Nile

March 25

47 BC Ptolemy XII, King of Egypt and brother of Cleopatra, drowned in the Nile, probably with an assist by Julius Caesar, who thereby made Cleopatra queen

The face of Cleopatra: was she really so beautiful?

History Extra

The image of Cleopatra on the silver denarius dated to 32 BC being displayed at Newcastle University, 14 February 2007. (Scott Heppell/AP/Press Association Images)

Cleopatra is always newsworthy. So when in February 2007 a small coin in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle was said to have changed our understanding of her, it made headlines around the world.
Journalists reacted with shock. Cleopatra was no beauty queen, said the reports. The face on the coin was nothing like that of Elizabeth Taylor. Instead she looked “plain”, even “shrewish”, and had a “hook-like hooter”. This was announced as a revelation.
Yet for all the fanfare, there was nothing particularly unusual about the Newcastle coin. There are plenty of coins surviving with Cleopatra’s portrait on them, and they generally repeat the same features that seemed to astound reporters: a prominent nose, sloping forehead, sharply pointed chin and thin lips, and hollow-looking eye sockets.
These coin portraits, surprising though they may be to those who have grown up with a ‘Hollywood Cleopatra’, are the only certain images we have of her. That hasn’t stopped people from attempting to dismiss them as inaccurate and overly stylised – hoping against hope that there could have been another face of Cleopatra, a hidden one whose face would better match our expectations. Perhaps, they suggest, these unconvincing portraits were the work of unskilled artists.
There’s no reason to think these coin portraits are wrong, however. At the time, a warts-and-all approach to portraiture was in vogue in the Mediterranean world, and it seems that Cleopatra’s image was no exception to this trend. Features like large noses or determined chins may have been slightly exaggerated, but only because those features were the most recognisable attributes of the individual being portrayed. In this sense they were intended to be realistic.
Coin portraits of Cleopatra’s father, much rarer than those of Cleopatra herself, show him with a prominent nose and sloping forehead, so these physical characteristics may well have been family traits. Her lovers don’t match modern popular conceptions either: Caesar has a wrinkled, scrawny neck and hides his bald head with a crown, and Antony’s jutting chin and broken nose bear no resemblance to Richard Burton’s features.

_{Image of Antony, Cleopatra’s lover, on a 2,000-year-old silver coin. (Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)}
The coins were minted in a variety of places in the eastern Mediterranean, from Alexandria in Egypt to the port of Patras in Greece. Mark Antony bestowed on Cleopatra a number of eastern cities and territories, and coins were issued in those places in the name of the new ruler. Though the portraits found on the coins vary in style from artist to artist, they are generally consistent in detail, which suggests that the artists were following guidelines when they engraved the dies to strike the coins. It’s likely that they were copying an official image that the queen herself had approved – nose and chin included.

The 7 best couples in history

Despite her legendary fondness for dressing up, the portraits are rather modest. Cleopatra wears the cloth diadem of a Hellenistic ruler around her head. Her hair is drawn back in braids and coiled in a bun at the base of her skull. Over her shoulders she wears a mantle, covering her gown. A discreet earring hangs from her earlobe, and around her neck is a string of pearls – the only hint of the riches described by the Roman poet Lucan, who pictures a dissolute Cleopatra as decked out “on neck and hair with all the Red Sea spoils”. On some coins her mantle seems to be held in place by a clasp that includes more strings of pearls – a treasure that perhaps held great significance at the time (a gift from Caesar or Antony?).
Most of the coin portraits date to the mid to late 30s BC, when Cleopatra herself was in her mid to late thirties. Often she is associated with Mark Antony, whose portrait appears on the other side (and occasionally on the same side, next to hers), but she is always described as a queen in her own right, and not just Antony’s consort: “Queen Cleopatra, the New Goddess”; “For Cleopatra, Queen of Kings and of children who are kings”. On some coins depicting her by herself there is no name attached at all – those distinctive features told people who they were looking at.

_{A coin with the head of Cleopatra. (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)}
The modern negative reaction to the face of Cleopatra tells us more about our love of stories than anything about this most famous of Egyptian queens, who ruled from 51 to 30 BC. For us, the reality of her coin portraits clashes with the much greater myth of Cleopatra, a myth so grand that it has practically consumed the person behind it.
Hollywood did not invent the tradition of the beautiful seductress; that we can believe so says much about its influence in our world. Instead it simply followed a longstanding convention. Hardly had Cleopatra died (allegedly from an asp bite) than the legends began to accrue. In 31 BC she and her lover, Mark Antony, had been defeated by their rival Octavian, and in the following year they committed suicide in Egypt. Octavian had triumphed, but he was the victor in a vicious civil war that had pitted Roman against Roman.

6 things you (probably) didn’t know about Cleopatra

Cleopatra was a convenient scapegoat. Octavian claimed to have waged war against the foreign queen, not Antony. In this way Antony could be portrayed as a virtuous Roman who had betrayed his homeland through the machinations of an evil temptress. Cleopatra was cast as an irresistible and exotic femme fatale, and Roman writers picked up the theme. The poet Horace declared her a “deadly monster”, and Propertius, with even less delicacy, called the queen a “whore”. Yet she needed more exceptional qualities to have conquered both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony: according to the Roman historian Cassius Dio she was “a woman of surpassing beauty… with the power to subjugate everyone”.
But not all were taken in by this. The Greek biographer Plutarch, writing about a century after Cleopatra’s death, had his doubts about her unparalleled physical qualities. “Her beauty was in itself not altogether incomparable’”, he wrote, “nor such as to strike those who saw her”, but he nonetheless credits her with an “irresistible charm”. Intelligent and talented, Cleopatra had a gift for making people feel they were the focus of her attention – and that quality, rather than her looks, was her winning trait with Caesar and Antony. Even Cassius Dio conceded that Cleopatra “had a knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to everyone”. This is perhaps the closest we can get to the real Cleopatra and the character behind the face on the coins.

The beautiful and scheming seductress was a creation of Octavian’s propaganda, and unwittingly he created history’s greatest love story. But the coins present us with another kind of story – of two ambitious political figures weaving a future together: Antony the Roman triumvir and Cleopatra the queen of kings. Not as romantic, but possibly a face of Cleopatra that the queen herself would have recognised, and of which she would have approved.
Professor Kevin Butcher from the University of Warwick is the co-author of The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage: From the Reform of Nero to the Reform of Trajan, (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Prof Butcher’s research interests include Greek and Roman coinage, particularly the civic and provincial coinages of the Roman empire, and the Hellenistic and Roman Near East, particularly coastal Syria and Lebanon.

When did Ancient Egypt start and end?

History Extra

When did Ancient Egypt start and end?

When we think about ‘ancient Egypt’ we are usually imaginging the dynastic period; the time when Egypt was a united land ruled by a king, or pharaoh. This was the age of the pyramids, mummification and hieroglyphic writing.
The dynastic period started with the reign of Egypt’s first king, Narmer, in approximately 3100 BCE, and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE. During this long period there were times of strong centalised rule, and periods of much weaker, divided rule, but basically Egypt remained one, independent land.
However, the dynastic period should be seen as part of a much longer, continuous history. Before Narmer united his kingdom, the land that was to become Egypt consisted of a series of sophisticated Neolithic city-states, supported by agricultural communities and linked together by trade. After Cleopatra’s death, Egypt was absorbed by Rome, but many of the old traditions continued.

Dr Joyce Tyldesley is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Manchester, where she writes and teaches a number of Egyptology courses.

History Trivia - Cleopatra commits suicide

August 12

 30 BC –Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, committed suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.

1099 First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon: Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeated Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.

1332 Battle of Dupplin Moor was fought between supporters of David II, infant son of Robert the Bruce and rebels supporting the Balliol claim in 1332, and is a significant battle of the Second War of Scottish Independence.

 

Polish Archaeologists Discover Rare Gift from Father of Cleopatra

Ancient Origins

A linen cloth that was once given as a gift by the father of legendary Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII has been discovered by Polish archaeologists during excavations in Western Thebes, now the modern city of Luxor. The cloth was given to an Egyptian temple.
The archaeologists were exploring a deep shaft in a tomb belonging to a dignitary from Ancient Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (around 2000 BC). The tomb is located in the necropolis of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, later occupied by Coptic Christian monks living on the site as hermits during the 6^th century AD.
“Probably the monks living in the hermitage, who were bringing everything they could use from the surrounding area, found the canvas in the ruins of a nearby temple and took it with a practical use in mind” Deputy Head of Mission Andrzej Ćwiek told Science In Poland. “We were lucky to discover this unique object.”
Ćwiek is employed by Adam Mickiewicz University and the Archaeological Museum in Poznań. The excavations have been conducted under concessions obtained by the Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw.

• Egyptian Alexandria - Ancient underwater finds revealed the Pharaonic roots of the Ptolemaic City
• Searching for the Lost Tomb of Antony and Cleopatra
• The dramatic death of Cleopatra – was it really suicide?

The linen fragment has a hieroglyphic text painted on it in ink. Two columns of cartouches with ornamental borders surrounding the name of the Pharaoh, Ptolemy XII Auletes (80-51 BC) who was the father of Cleopatra VII. In the 3^rd century, a scribe added the name of the goddess Isis. The fragment is from a velum, a curtain that was used to cover a holy image, such as a statue of a deity, in the Temple of Hathor near Deir el-Medina. The velum was probably Ptolemy XII’s gift to the deity, given that his cartouches can be seen on the gate of the temple. According to Dr. Ćwiek, this indicates that the Pharaoh was involved in the creation of the temple. He could have funded temple equipment including the provision of the velum.

Temple of Hathor, Deir el-Medina (Wikimedia Commons)

Deir el-Medina is the site of a workman’s village, once used to accommodate workmen employed in the construction of the royal tombs in the famous Valley of the Kings, where the tomb of Tutankhamen is located. Although the temple is primarily dedicated to Hathor, the Egyptian cow goddess, it also has sanctuaries in honor of Amun-Sokar-Osiris and Amun-Re-Osiris – Osiris and Amun or Amun-Re respectively. Osiris was the Egyptian god of the dead and god of the underworld, but he was also a god of fertility and agriculture.
The identification of the item was assisted by Prof. Ewa Laskowska-Kusztal from the Institute of Mediterranean and Oriental Culture PAS.
The archaeologists also found other artifacts among the debris in the shaft, which is several meters deep. These included fragments of mud brick from the Pharaonic and Coptic period, wooden coffins, small faience beads and amulets, and ushebti clay figurines (funerary figures intended to serve the deceased in the afterlife). Large quantities of these figurines were placed in tombs in order to assist the deceased after his death, in accordance with a command by the god Osiris. The investigation is far from over and excavations of the site will continue in February 2016.

Ushebti clay figurines discovered in the shaft, Luxor, Egypt (M. Kaczanowicz)

Cleopatra was the last Ptolemaic ruler of Ancient Egypt. After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire. The Ptolemaic dynasty was of Macedonian Greek origin. It ruled the country following the death of Alexander The Great in the Hellenistic Period. Although the Ptolemies refused to speak Egyptian, preferring Greek, Cleopatra herself did learn Egyptian and presented herself during her rule as the reincarnation of the goddess Isis, the consort of Osiris. Following the assassination of Julius Caesar, Cleopatra allied herself and Egypt with Marc Antony in opposition to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, later called Augustus. After Antony committed suicide when he lost the Battle of Actium to Octavian, Cleopatra also committed suicide. She had three children: twins, a daughter, Cleopatra Selene II and son, Alexander Helios, and another son, Ptolemy Philadelphus.

Drawing of Cleopatra by Michelangelo (1534) (Wikimedia Commons)

Cleopatra has been made famous through her depiction in many works of literature and art, from the famous Shakespeare play through to the 1963 Hollywood movie of the same name, Antony and Cleopatra, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
Featured image: Cloth Gifted by Ptolemy XII Auletes to the Temple of Hathor, (A. Ćwiek)

Family Ties: 8 Truly Dysfunctional Royal Families

 

 

 

Cleopatra confronts Julius Caesar in this 1866 painting. She had been driven from the palace in Alexandria by her brother, Ptolemy XIII, whom she was also supposed to marry.Credit: Public Domain

Live Science

Grandma's stewing about something her sister said 20 years ago, Uncle Rupert's out teaching the kids about bottle rockets, and no one on dad's side of the family is currently speaking. If your family reunions look something like this, rest easy: You're still doing better than a great number of kings and queens throughout history.
With power and money comes dysfunction, as any number of royal families has proved. From palace assassinations to serial marriages, castle walls have seen it all.
1. Cleopatra, coming at you
Cleopatra is famous for her suicidal ending. What's less known is her bloody beginning — and the familial drama that brought her to power.
After her father's death, Cleopatra's younger brother Ptolemy XIII inherited the throne. She was meant to marry him, inbreeding being one way ancient royal families kept a grip on power. But her ambitions threatened him, and he had her exiled, according to Stacy Schiff's "Cleopatra" (Little, Brown and Company, 2010). So Cleopatra allied with Julius Caesar, retaking the throne with her other younger brother, Ptolemy XIV. That younger brother later died; Cleopatra may have poisoned him. She also had her younger sister Arsinoe IV, another rival, killed in 41 B.C.
Deadly sibling rivalry was common in the Ptolemy dynasty, according to Schiff. The complex family trees occasioned by inbreeding caused succession crisis after succession crisis, typically with deadly results.
"It was rare to find a member of the family who did not liquidate a relative or two," Schiff wrote.
2. Macedonian mayhem
Another surefire way to rile up a royal family is to have lots and lots of wives, all of which would like to see their own children installed on the throne. Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedon, probably had seven wives, including Alexander's mother, Olympias.
Olympias may have had something to do with Philip II's assassination by a bodyguard in 336 B.C., according to some ancient historians, but the truth is fuzzy. According to a later account by the historian Cleitarchus, the bodyguard was a former lover of Philip II, who had taunted the king's new, younger, lover into suicide. Philip II's uncle-in-law allegedly sexually assaulted the bodyguard in retaliation, leading the bodyguard to kill Philip II in his own quest for revenge.
Whatever really happened, the Macedonian family dysfunction did not end with Philip II's generation. Alexander quickly started putting rival family members to death to secure his ascension to the throne, and Olympias had Philip II's last wife and her children killed. After Alexander died in 323 B.C., leaving a pregnant wife but no sure heir, his mentally disabled half-brother Philip III Arrhidaios (also spelled Arrhidaeus) was installed on the throne. Philip III's wife Eurydice attempted to turn this figurehead king into a real ruler; this put her in competition with Olympias in the ensuing wars of succession. Ultimately, Philip III was executed on Olympias' orders, and Eurydice forced to commit suicide. Their bodies were buried and then dug up about 17 months later for a royal cremation and funeral.
Olympias would not escape the succession wars unscathed. Captured not long after she had Philip III and Eurydice killed, she was stoned to death by relatives of people she had ordered executed.
3. Murder of a pharaoh
Harems are all fun and games until somebody gets their throat slit, as Ramesses III learned the hard way. This pharaoh ruled Egypt from 1186 B.C. to about 1156 B.C. — until somebody slashed his neck so deeply that modern archaeologists say he would have died instantly.
Ancient papyrus texts reveal that one of Ramesses III's minor wives, a woman named Tiye, was behind the plot; she was trying to get her son Pentaweret installed on the throne. Dozens of co-conspirators were sentenced to death, according to contemporary records, including Pentaweret. Archaeologists reported in 2012 they may have found the prince's mummy. The corpse in question has an agonized expression and overinflated lungs, consistent with death by suffocation or strangulation. He may have been forced to commit suicide, or he may have been buried alive. [In Photos: The Mummy of Ramesses III]
4. War of brothers
A conflict called the War of the Two Brothers can signal just one thing — a serious family meltdown. In 1527, the Inca king Huayna Capac died, leaving his kingdom to two of his sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar. (The two men had different mothers, as Inca rulers took multiple wives and concubines.)
Joint rule did not work out so well for the two new kings. By 1529, war broke out. Things got personal: According to Kim MacQuarrie's book "The Last Days of the Incas" (Simon & Schuster, 2008), Atahualpa at one point made a drinking cup out of the skull of one of Huáscar's generals.
The Inca civil war would hurry along the downfall of this civilization. In 1532, Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors appeared just as Atahualpa was declaring victory over his brother. The conquistadors captured Atahualpa and held him for ransom, though Atahualpa was able to get out an important order to his people: Execute my brother. [10 Epic Battles That Changed History]
Atahualpa wouldn't outlive Huáscar by much. The Spanish executed him in 1533.
5. The passive-aggressive emperor
Ever get the sense Mom and Dad like your brother or sister more? The kids of the Wanli Emperor had no doubt. Wanli, the 13th emperor of China's Ming dynasty, had two official consorts and a great many concubines. His favorite concubine, Lady Zheng, had two sons, one of whom Wanli desperately wanted to follow him on the throne.
But the emperor's ministers wouldn't stand for this son — Wanli's third — as heir. Ultimately, they prevailed, and Wanli was forced to declare his first son by his consort Lady Wang the crown prince. [Gold Treasures Discovered in Ming Dynasty Tomb (Photos)]
And then the emperor did something very strange. He stopped working. Wanli had once been a strong ruler, handling internal rebellions and Japanese invasions with panache. The last 20 years or so of his reign, however, were like an extended lame-duck period. In a passive-aggressive protest, Wanli spent decades ignoring meetings, memorandums and all other royal duties, according to a 2011 article in the New York Times. Unsurprisingly, this undermined the country. Many historians attribute the crumbling of the Ming dynasty in 1644 largely to the self-sabotage of Wanli's rule.
6. Captive brother
William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England, had four sons. One died before him; William split his kingdom for his eldest remaining sons. Robert was given Normandy upon his father's death, and William got the throne of England.
That left the youngest son, Henry. He may not have been granted a kingdom, but Henry knew how to grab an opportunity. In 1100, William the younger died in a hunting accident while Robert was away on a crusade. Within three days, Henry had himself crowned king of England (as Henry I), beating his absent brother to the punch, according to the official histories of the British monarchy.
Robert attempted to take England for himself, but Henry I beat him back — and then, a few years later, took Normandy, too. Robert was captured, and Henry I kept him imprisoned for the rest of his life.
7. A murder mystery
Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England, was recently exhumed from underneath a parking lot in Leicester. The occasion was heralded by Richard's fans as an opportunity to better understand a king remembered mostly as a Shakespearian villain. But questions remain about Richard's rise to power.
When King Edward IV died in 1483, he left behind two young sons. The eldest, Edward V, was only 12, so Richard III was declared his protector. After a 68-day reign, Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury were sent to the Tower of London and then were never heard from again. Meanwhile, Richard III took the throne.
No one knows what happened to the boys, now known as "the Princes in the Tower." A widespread theory holds that Richard III had them murdered. But no one has ever found definitive proof of the princes' deaths (though two small skeletons were excavated from the tower in 1674), and Richard himself died in battle only two years later, taking his secrets to his hastily dug grave.
8. The many wives of Henry VIII
Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.
Those were the fates of Henry VIII's six wives. Family matters came to dominate the reign of this Tudor king, who could not seem to secure himself a male heir. Originally, Henry married Catherine of Aragon, his brother's widow. When the king's eye roved to the witty Anne Boleyn in the 1520s, his argument for divorce focused largely on whether Catherine had ever had sex with his brother.
The divorce case rocked the Catholic Church, triggering the English Reformation. Henry got his divorce, but Anne proved no more able to produce sons than Catherine (some modern physicians suspect that Henry may have had a genetic disorder that caused his wives' many miscarriages). She was executed on trumped-up charges of treason, adultery and incest, accused of sleeping with her own brother.
Henry would go on to marry four more times and would have one more of his wives, Catherine Howard, killed for adultery. Ultimately, Henry's efforts to install a son on the throne were for naught; his one male heir died as a teenager, only about six years into his reign. Henry's great-niece Lady Jane Grey then took the crown for a mere nine days before being overthrown by his daughter by Catherine of Aragon, Mary I. After Mary I died five years into her reign, Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth I ruled. Her reign was marked by tumult, but Henry's fear that a woman could not hold the throne of England turned out to be quite unfounded: According to the official history of the British Monarchy, the "Virgin Queen" was extremely popular, and the date of her accession to the throne became a national holiday.

History Trivia - Ptolemy XII, King of Egypt and brother of Cleopatra, drowns in the Nile

March 25

47 BC Ptolemy XII, King of Egypt and brother of Cleopatra, drowned in the Nile, probably with an assist by Julius Caesar, who thereby made Cleopatra queen.

421 City of Venice founded.

1199 Richard I was wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which led to his death on April 6.

History Trivia - Cleopatra restored to the throne

March 21

 47 BC, Julius Caesar defeated Ptolemy XII, Cleopatra's brother and rival, at Alexandria, Egypt, thus restoring Cleopatra to the throne.

717 Battle of Vincy between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid who returned defeated to Neustria.  Instead of following the army immediately,  Charles again used tactics he would use all his remaining life, in a career of absolute success. He took time to rally more men and prepare, before descending in full force. He chose where to provoke them to battle, and, at a place and time of his choosing, in Spring 717, Charles eventually followed them and dealt them a serious blow at Vincy on 21 March. He chased the fleeing king and mayor to Paris.

1152 Annulment of the marriage of King Louis VII of France and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor retained control of Aquitaine and shortly thereafter wed Henry Plantagenet, who would become the next king of England.

 

History Trivia - Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide

August 12

30 BC –Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty, committed suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite.

1099 First Crusade: Battle of Ascalon: Crusaders under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon defeated Fatimid forces led by Al-Afdal Shahanshah. This is considered the last engagement of the First Crusade.

1164 Battle of Harim: Nur ad-Din Zangi defeated the Crusader armies of the County of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch.

 1332 Battle of Dupplin Moor was fought between supporters of David II, infant son of Robert the Bruce and rebels supporting the Balliol claim in 1332, and is a significant battle of the Second War of Scottish Independence.

1336 England's King Edward III ended wool export to Flanders.

1480 Battle of Otranto - Ottoman troops beheaded 800 Christians for refusing to convert to Islam.

History Trivia - City of Venice founded

March 25

47 BC Ptolemy XII, King of Egypt and brother of Cleopatra, drowned in the Nile, probably with an assist by Julius Caesar, who thereby made Cleopatra queen.

421 City of Venice founded.

708 Constantine I began his reign as Catholic Pope.

1199 Richard I was wounded by a crossbow bolt while fighting France which led to his death on April 6.

1306 Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland.

History Trivia - Julius Caesar defeats Ptolemy XII, restores Cleopatra to the throne

March 21

47 BC, Julius Caesar defeated Ptolemy XII, Cleopatra's brother and rival, at Alexandria, Egypt, thus restoring Cleopatra to the throne.

630 Byzantine emperor Heraclius restored the True Cross to Jerusalem.

717 Battle of Vincy between Charles Martel and Ragenfrid who returned defeated to Neustria.  Instead of following the army immediately,  Charles again used tactics he would use all his remaining life, in a career of absolute success. He took time to rally more men and prepare, before descending in full force. He chose where to provoke them to battle, and, at a place and time of his choosing, in Spring 717, Charles eventually followed them and dealt them a serious blow at Vincy on 21 March. He chased the fleeing king and mayor to Paris..

1152 Annulment of the marriage of King Louis VII of France and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor retained control of Aquitaine and shortly thereafter wed Henry Plantagenet, who would become the next king of England.

1413 Henry V crowned King of England.

1474 Saint Angela Merici, founder of the Ursulines, was born.

1556 The first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, was burned at the stake for heresy.