[Music] there is arguably no woman in ancient history who is as popular and well known in modern times as cleopatra known for her wits and beauty cleopatra is remembered sadly for having an unfortunate and untimely end but was she as amazing as she sounds or was there a dark side of her that many don't know could cleopatra have been one of the first master manipulators to exist welcome to nutty history and today let's find out the creepy things cleopatra did the myth of cleopatra's beauty is still as prevalent as it was when she was alive
the myth only became stronger in modern times after astonishingly beautiful and graceful elizabeth taylor played the titular role in the movie cleopatra obviously she turned strong leaders like caesar and anthony head over heels for her but contemporary historians like plutarch were not very impressed by her looks in his book life of anthony published in 75 a.d he wrote her actual beauty was not so remarkable that none could be compared with her or that no one could see her without being struck by it but the contact of her presence was irresistible the character that attended all
she said or did was something bewitching clearly the woman was more about charm than looks her charisma came more from her brain than beauty she was a student of mathematics medicine alchemy economics history geography and pretty much every general education subject you probably detested in college she could speak nine languages and knew how to control the conversations between people her wits and jess would go hand in hand with her somewhat attractive features and make her irresistible to ignore her image of an irresistible temptress was a great boon to her political career so she had to
make sure at least she lives up to the expectations of the beholders of course to keep her looks she was willing to go to any limits as her handle on power wasn't just dependent on her political suitors but also her image of being the reincarnation of the egyptian goddess he said cleopatra was also a good administrator unlike her brothers and that also helped to make her popular and establish her divinity but unfortunately in the real world pr cleopatra was very well aware of the importance of upkeeping her image as the goddess and maintaining a heavenly
appearance was a major part of it an expert in alchemy a pseudoscience that preceded chemistry cleopatra had her own perfume factory by the dead sea near ein gedi cleopatra believed her fragrances had mind controlling powers and used them actively as her tool for persuasions to get what she wanted but when it came to skin care she was taking no chances looking at her list of lovers her taste may have been older powerful men but she was quite afraid of getting old herself daddy issues much botox and plastic surgery were never an option in the first
century bc egypt but being a queen does have its privileges like most queens in the annals of history cleopatra ii had ridiculously elaborate beauty regimes which normal people couldn't even dream of in fact cleopatra's favorite spa treatment was something most modern american billionaires would have a hard time pulling off even one time never mind every morning according to a legend cleopatra's bath was filled with the milk of 700 lactating donkeys the number of donkeys may seem far-fetched but bathing in donkey milk isn't as creepy as it may sound in fact donkey milk was considered a
great de-aging agent all over the world during ancient times initially an obscure goddess he said became one of the most important deities of ancient egypt as the dynastic age progressed as the roman empire and the egyptian kingdom's aligned strengthened he sets influence spread wide from england to afghanistan so cleopatra being considered the reincarnation of eset was a very big deal to set her authority in stone even though pharaohs considered themselves divine was nothing new in the history of ancient egypt cleopatra declared herself the new eset and told her subjects to recognize her as the embodiment
of the goddess on earth she expected to be worshiped and to have the ground where she walked to be kissed by her subject and it worked which is quite ironic because not only was cleopatra not related to any of the old kingdoms of egypt she was an egyptian at all cleopatra was a member of the ptolemaic dynasty which was descended from alexander the greats general a man named ptolemy the first that means they not only had greek ancestry but they also spoke greek and followed greek customs too the ptolemies ruled egypt for 300 years after
the nation was handed over to ptolemy the first following alexander's death in 323 bc the road to power was not easy for cleopatra because she was a woman and she was perhaps the first ptolemy ruler to learn and speak the egyptian language coptic along with languages of most neighboring regions her attempt to portray herself as eset was definitely an act of hubris but it was also a stroke of genius to be accepted among her subjects until her reign the ptolemies were not interested at all in egyptian culture or religion and they kept themselves confined in
the city of alexandria now during this time of ptolemy's rule alexandria was sort of like the chinatown of ancient egypt except with more greek influence however considering oneself a goddess was quite creepy even for somebody like cleopatra [Music] it's no secret that egyptian pharaohs like to keep their genes in the family and even though the ptolemy dynasty was not fond of local religion and customs for some reason having two great-grandparents instead of 16 sounded like a grand idea to them cleopatra was only 14 when her mother passed away under mysterious circumstances with her brother is
still quite young her father told me the 12th made cleopatra the regent and deputy to his throne cleopatra ruled along with her father for four years learning the skills of the regency by experience however with ptolemy the 12's death his will put cleopatra in a pickle she was asked to marry her 10 year old brother and share the rule with him but from the very beginning of this marriage she made it very clear that she had no intentions of splitting power with her new husband this was unprecedented as female rulers were expected to submit to
their male counterparts in ancient egypt but cleopatra was having none of that she made sure to erase her brother tolami the 13's name from official documents and that only her face would appear on coins minted during their reign however when cleopatra sided with syrians in a dispute with the roman army she gained the ire of the roman empire and rome sided with the discontended teen king and helped him to dethrone his sister wife cleopatra cleopatra's attempt to defend her power was thwarted and she had to flee with her sister arsenal iv though the two sisters
had to cooperate to escape their brother the relationship between the two was far from good chilling in fact they never got past their differences and the rocky relationship got worse to the point that cleopatra was convinced that arsenal was plotting against her meanwhile ptolemy the 13th did as well as the pharaoh as one could expect from an 11 year old his advisors could not keep him in check and being as tactless as he could be he ordered the execution of pompeii and had him executed in front of his wife and children even julius caesar a
rival of pompeii took offense of that and considered it a blemish on roman pride and seized the egyptian capital ptolemy the 13th drowned in the nile trying to flee the combined forces of caesar and cleopatra again bound by tradition cleopatra was forced to marry her youngest brother tolemy the 14th but this was a marriage in name only ptolemy the 14th was too young for her and she was already having an affair with caesar later cleopatra bore caesar a son and made no delay in having ptolemy the 14th murdered so that she could have her son
be the co-regent as caesar had no intention of owning him and chose his grand-nephew octavius as his heir instead clearly cleopatra's craving for power was thicker than her blood as she took out all of her siblings one by one [Music] now earlier in this video we talked about how plutarch described her bewitching and he wasn't entirely wrong cleopatra knew how to make men dance at her fingertips and do things they would never normally participate in it was eerily similar to her having a hypnotic command over these men but it was mostly her knowing what they
wanted smart and witty cleopatra gained the support of caesar and anthony by offering herself to them not only seductively but also creatively she presented herself to caesar hidden inside a carpet while anthony saw her for the first time dressed as the goddess of love aphrodite this shrewdness helped her to gain control over these powerful men in heartbeats her web of alluring was thick enough to wrap itself like wool around her eyes caesar was so enamored that he erected a statue of her in the roman temple of venus genetrix right next to the goddess statue romans
never considered their administrators divine like egyptians and it was scandalous and envious of caesar to do so but it didn't make any difference for caesar or cleopatra on the other hand when anthony saw cleopatra dressed as aphrodite he forgot about the invasion he had planned altogether and he decided to spend winter with cleopatra in alexandria instead the two used to party together harder than any american frat house they enjoyed their own secret drinking club while rome was burning in the civil war it is believed that once cleopatra ordered her servants to bring vinegar for her
and she dumped all her jewelry in it once the jewelry dissolved in vinegar cleopatra drank it just to win a bet against anthony that jewelry would be worth over 10 million dollars today meanwhile men were killing themselves in roman alexandria for her and anthony as augustus octavius was eliminating any threat of his claim to rome's throne so what do you think is cleopatra still the most beautiful woman in history according to you despite her ugly side tell us in the comments and as always thanks for watching nutty history [Music]
