How did Egypt and Rome affect one another?

Question

Specifially due to Cleopatra.

Answer 1

Egypt had wealth. Rome had military power. It was only a matter of time until Egypt became another vassal state of Rome..... unless Cleopatra had managed to pull off another kind of grand East-West alliance. But she didn't, and history's written by the winners.

Egypt by the time of Cleopatra VII was still technically independent but was dependent on the good will of Roman leaders.  Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII "Auletes" actually provided in his will that Rome should look after his children.

Egypt was very rich, and could supply a lot of financing and grain, and for the moment the Romans had left it as an ally. Cleopatra's relationships with Julius Caesar and later Marcus Antonius may have enabled Egypt to remain (technically) independent a bit longer than it otherwise would have. She was much criticized by many Alexandrians for being too chummy with Rome but it was pragmatism in addition to whatever romantic feelings she had for the men. ...a lot of the Alexandrians had supported her younger brother and his backers who had booted her out of the palace at the point Caesar showed up in Egypt chasing another adversary, and Caesar ended up taking the 20-yr-old Queen's side - -( that is gross simplification of  complicated events, of course)

In Rome during this period during which the Republic would transition to the Empire, although there was a lot of corruption and the glory days of the ideals of the Republic were past and not coming back (and it's not just Caesar's fault), many Romans still thought of themselves as a more moral form of government than the autocratic "Eastern" rulers.  And in other ways besides there was a rather prejudice against the "exotic" Greek- /Persian- influenced Eastern part of the Roman territory.  

Many Romans thought Cleopatra had a bad influence on Caesar & was making him want to be a god-king or more dictatorial than he was already . When she came for a long visit in Rome, along with their baby son, Ptolemy Caesar AKA "Caesarion", and her juvenile brother/husband (the tradition in the dynasty was brother-sister marriages - i'm sure this one was NOT consumated!) and a bunch of Egyptian servants etc. , fashionable Romans flocked to Caesar's villa where the Egyptians had set up court,  but were disturbed by all this weird foreignness in their midst..... I don't think it went over very well when Caesar had a gold statue of Cleopatra put up in the Temple of Venus. (his family the Julii believed themselves to be descended from Venus) .  Basically a lot of Romans hated Cleopatra. After Caesar's death his grand-nephew, Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus), who was his Roman heir (for which you had to be a Roman citizen) did all he could to increase this hatred. Part of his motivation was to spread the view that Caesarion was not Caesar's son since he feared that eventually the boy would perhaps attract a movement and want to rule Rome.



When a bit later Antony and Cleopatra made an alliance, Romans thought here she goes again, and Octavian's propaganda portrayed her as an evil scheming, cruel, w***e whose hobby was ensaring noble Romans  Nothing was too evil for her to be accused of it. An  historian has called it. the biggest smear job in history,  (was it Michael Grant?  You should get his bio of Cleopatra if you're interested)



anyway it gets depressing to tell the end, so I'll leave it at that,