Cleopatra: Evil Temptress of the Nile

By James Creamwood

Cleopatra is considered one of the most beautiful women in the history of the world. This is probably true because no other woman down through time has left us with such convincing proofs of her beauty and charms. The young Queen’s father Pharaoh Ptolemy Auletes took her innocence in an incestuous marriage and then passed her into another incestuous relationship with her younger brother when he died.
The vivacious young lady used her lovely body to turn aside the tide of Rome's destiny, and, therefore, that of the world. Julius Caesar led his famous legions as they trampled and conquered the known world from Canopus to the Thames, before finally succumbing to her feminine charms.
Then Mark Antony threw a fleet, an empire, and his own honor to the winds to follow her to his destruction. The Egyptian temptress was disarmed at last and made to stand before Octavius. There she found her nearly-naked body measured by the cold eye of her captor, not for its abilities to bring sensual pleasure, but only as a captive for his triumphal procession through the streets of Rome.
After testing various poisons on dozens of poor souls, she selects the nearly painless death from an asp bite to spare her the humiliation and indignity of being paraded as a captive through the streets of Rome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Creamwood
• Release date: Feb 2, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310704499

James Creamwood

The author wishes to keep his private life confidential and does not desire to reveal any information about himself at this time.

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Cleopatra: Evil Temptress of the Nile

By

James Creamwood

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Published by

James Creamwood at Smashwords

Cleopatra VII: Evil Temptress of the Nile

Copyright © 2014 James Creamwood

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This new work is based on an original work titled Cleopatra, by Jacob Abbott.

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PREFACE

Cleopatra is considered one of the most beautiful women in the history of the world. This is probably true because no other woman down through time has left us with such convincing proofs of her beauty and charms. The young Queen’s father Pharaoh Ptolemy Auletes took her innocence in an incestuous marriage and then passed her into another incestuous relationship with her younger brother.

The vivacious young lady used her lovely body to turn aside the tide of Rome's destiny, and, therefore, that of the world. Julius Caesar led his famous legions as they trampled and conquered the known world from Canopus to the Thames, before finally succumbing to her feminine charms.

Then Marc Antony threw a fleet, an empire, and his own honor to the winds to follow her to his destruction. The Egyptian temptress was disarmed at last and made to stand before Octavius. There she found her nearly-naked body measured by the cold eye of her captor, not for its abilities to bring sensual pleasure, but only as a captive for his triumphal procession through the streets of Rome.

After testing various poisons on dozens of poor souls, she selects the nearly painless death from an asp bite to spare her the humiliation and indignity of being paraded as a captive through the streets of Rome.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTERS

1. THE CONQUEST OF THE VALLEY OF THE NILE

2. A SHORT HISTORY OF THE INCEST & OTHER INDISCRETIONS OF THE PTOLEMIES.

3. THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA

4. THE IMMORAL FATHER OF CLEOPATRA

5. CLEOPATRA’S INCESTUOUS ACCESSION TO THE THRONE

6. CLEOPATRA MEETS CAESAR

7. THE ALEXANDRINE WAR

8. CLEOPATRA BECOMES QUEEN AGAIN

9. THE BATTLE OF PHILIPPI

10. CLEOPATRA MEETS ANTONY AGAIN

11. THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM

12. THE DEATH OF CLEOPATRA

CHAPTER 1

THE CONQUEST OF THE VALLEY OF THE NILE.

Cleopatra is a story about incest, murder, adultery, and a variety of other assorted crimes. This is a real story about the consequences of passionate and adulterous loves that ends in tragedy. In this strange and romantic history, we see this passion portrayed with all its influences and effects; its uncontrollable impulses, its intoxicating joys, its reckless and mad choices, and the dreadful remorse and ultimate despair and ruin in which it always and inevitably ends.

Since the earliest periods of human history, Egypt has always been considered one of the most remarkable countries in the world. It’s a long and narrow valley of green and fruitfulness, completely insulated from the rest of the habitable world. In fact, it is more completely insulated, than any island could be, inasmuch as deserts are generally more impassable than seas.

The very existence of Egypt is a most extraordinary phenomenon. It has been occupied by man from the most remote times of antiquity. The oldest records of the human race which were made over three thousand years ago, tell of Egypt as being ancient even when those writing were first made.

These ancient records and even fables don’t attempt to tell the story of the origin of her population. In this amazing land stand the oldest, highest, proudest, as well as the most permanent, and stable of all the works which mankind has ever built.

The most important area of the Nile is the northern portion of the country, where the valley widens and opens toward the sea, forming a triangular plain of about one hundred miles in length on each of the sides. Over this area, the waters of the river flow in a great number of separate creeks and channels. The whole area forms a vast meadow, intersected everywhere with slow-flowing streams of water, and showing on its surface the most enchanting pictures of fertility, abundance, and beauty. This lush region is called the Nile Delta.

This delta is so level, and rises so little above the level of the Mediterranean, that the land seems almost a continuation of the same surface as the sea. Only, instead of blue waters topped with white-crested waves, we have broad tracts of waving grain, and gentle swells of land crowned with hamlets and villages.

The nautical visitor has no distant view of all this luscious beauty. The land lies so low that it continues beneath the horizon until the ship is close up to the shore. The first landmarks, in fact, which the seaman sees, are the tops of trees growing apparently out of the water, or the summit of an obelisk, or the capital of a pillar, marking the site of some ancient and dilapidated city.

The most easterly of the channels by which the waters of the river find their way through the Delta to the sea, is called the Pelusiac branch. It almost forms the boundary of the fertile region of the Delta on the eastern side. There was an ancient city named Pelusium located near the mouth of the waterway.

This was, of course, the first Egyptian city reached by those who arrived by land from the eastward side, traveling along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Because of its placement along the eastern frontier of the country, it became a point of great importance, and is often mentioned in the historic records of ancient times.

The westernmost mouth of the Nile, on the other hand, was called the Canopic mouth. The distance along the coast from the Canopic mouth to Pelusium was about a hundred miles. The outline of the coast was formerly, as it still continues to be, very irregular with shallow waters.

The Mediterranean kept up an eternal war along this irregular and uncertain boundary. The waters of the Nile and the surges of the sea are so nearly equal, that even now, after a lapse of over two thousand years, neither side has been able to have gained any perceptible advantage over the other.

The river brings the sands down, and the sea drives them incessantly back, keeping the whole line of the shore in such an unstable condition as to make it extremely dangerous and difficult for man to access.

It will be obvious, from this description of the valley of the Nile, that it formed a country which in ancient times was isolated and secluded from all the rest of the world. It was totally surrounded by deserts, on most sides, and on the coast by shoals, sand-bars, and other dangers of navigation which seemed to forbid approach by sea.

Thus, it remained for many eons, under the rule of its own native ancient Pharaohs. Its population was peaceful and hard working. Its scholars were famed throughout the world for their learning, science, and philosophy.

It was during these ages, before other nations intruded upon their peaceful seclusion, that the Pyramids were built, and those vast temples built whose ruined columns are now the wonder of mankind. During these remote ages, too, Egypt was, as now, the land of perpetual fertility and abundance.

There would always be grain growing in Egypt, despite the fact that other areas might be suffering with famine. The neighboring nations and tribes in Arabia, Palestine, and Syria, finally found their way to this abundant land. They crossed the deserts on the eastern side, driven there by their need, and thereby opened a trade route.

After extending their empire westward to the Mediterranean, the Persian monarchs used this same route to Pelusium, and thus overran and conquered the country. The conquest lasted for about two hundred and fifty years before the time of Cleopatra until a Greek by the name of Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great arrived there. He drove out the Persian’s and took possession of Egypt in 322 B.C. The Greek then annexed this great prize, along with other Persian provinces, to the other vast areas he held domination over.

After Alexander’s death, his empire was divided up among his generals with Egypt being claimed by his good friend Auletes Ptolemy (367 BC – 283 BC.)

Auletes then made it his kingdom, and left it, at his death, to his heirs. A long line of sovereigns succeeded him, known in history as the dynasty of the Ptolemies--Greek princes, reigning over an Egyptian realm. Cleopatra VII (69 BC – 30 BC) was the daughter of the eleventh ruler in this line.

The Ptolemies selected Alexandria as their capital. It wasn’t until Alexander's conquest that Egypt finally gained a sea-port. There were several landing-places along the coastline, but no proper harbor. In fact, Egypt had so little commercial contacts with the rest of the world, that she scarcely needed a port.

Alexander's ambitions for the area included greater trade with the rest of the world, and he sent his engineers out to survey the shoreline. They found a point not far from the Canopic mouth of the Nile, where the water was deep and where there was an anchorage area protected by an island. Alexander liked the spot so much that he founded a city there, which he named after himself. He had the harbor greatly improved by the addition of artificial excavations and embankments.

A towering light-house was raised, which formed a landmark by day, and shined a blazing light by night to guide the galleys of the Mediterranean into shore. A canal was dug to connect the seaport with the Nile, and warehouses were built to hold the stores of trade goods.

These improvements quickly turned Alexandria into a great commercial capital. The city served as the center of government for the Ptolemies for several centuries. It was so well situated for its purposes that it still continues, after the lapse of twenty-one centuries of change to be one of the principal points of the commerce in the East.

CHAPTER 2

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE INCEST & OTHER INDISCRETIONS OF THE PTOLEMIES.

The founder of the Ptolemies dynasty, General Auletes Ptolemy was a Macedonian officer in Alexander the Great’s army. The circumstances of his birth, and the events which led to his entering into the service of Alexander, were somewhat strange. His mother, Arsinoë (323 BC – 283 BC), was a favorite concubine of Philip (382–336 BC), the King of Macedon, and the father of Alexander.

After a period of time, Philip gave Arsinoë in marriage to a man in his court named Lagus. It wasn’t long after the marriage that Ptolemy was born. The king treated the child with the same consideration and favor that he had shown towards the child’s mother.

Although, the boy was known as the son of Lagus, his position at the royal court of Macedon was more than this. He received the same attention, as if he were the officially recognized son of the king. As he grew older, he was promoted to increasingly more powerful positions that required greater responsibility.

Over a period of time, Ptolemy and Alexander became very close friends. There was a province of the Persian Empire called Caria, situated in the southwestern part of Asia Minor. The governor of this province had offered to give his daughter to Philip as the wife for one of his sons, a man named Aridaeus, the half-brother of Alexander.

Alexander's mother, who was not the mother of Aridaeus, was jealous of this proposed marriage. She thought that it was part of a plot to give Aridaeus greater public recognition, and eventually make him the heir to Philip's throne. She wanted to insure that this great inheritance would go to her own son.

Accordingly, she proposed to Alexander that they send a secret messenger to the Persian governor. They wanted to persuade him, that it would be much better, both for him and for his daughter, that she chose Alexander instead of Aridaeus for her husband. If the messenger was successful, he was then to induce the Persian to ask Philip to make the suggested change.

Alexander happily embraced the plan, and various people agreed to help him carry it through including Ptolemy. A messenger was selected and sent on the mission. The Governor of Caria was very pleased with the suggested change and readily approved of it.

In fact, the whole plan seemed to be going along very well, when, by some means or another, King Philip found out about it. He then went immediately to find Alexander while in a highly excited and agitated state of mind. When he found him, he made it clear that he had never intended to make Aridaeus the heir to his throne because the the woman’s mother wasn’t from noble stock.

Philip reproached Alexander in the harshest terms for being of so stupid as to want to marry the daughter of a Persian governor; who he said was just the mere slave of a barbarian king.

Alexander's plan was thus doomed to failure, and it so angered his father that the officers who had helped him with it, were banished from the kingdom. Therefore, Ptolemy was forced to leave his country and wander around in exile for several years, until King Philip died enabling Alexander to recall him.

Alexander succeeded his father as King of Macedon, and immediately made Ptolemy one of his principal generals. Ptolemy distinguished himself in subsequent campaigns for the celebrated conqueror, and thereby rose to a very high position in the Macedonian army.

In the Persian campaign, Ptolemy commanded one of the three major divisions of the army, and he repeatedly demonstrated his loyalty, and competent in the service of his king. He was often entrusted with the management of very importance affairs requiring him to travel to distant locations on highly dangerous missions.

Ptolemy was very successful in all his undertakings for Alexander. He conquered armies, reduced fortresses, negotiated treaties, and displayed the highest degree of military competence and skill. He once saved Alexander's life by discovering a dangerous conspiracy against him.

It is said that Alexander had the opportunity to repay this favor, through a divine vision given him for the express purpose of enabling him to express his gratitude. Ptolemy had been wounded by a poisonous arrow and was in terrible condition.

When all the remedies and antidotes tried by the physicians failed, and it appeared that the patient was going to die. It is said that an effective cure was revealed to Alexander in one of his dreams, and Ptolemy was saved.

When Alexander's conquests were completed, there was great rejoicings in Susa, the capital of ancient Elan, located in what is now Western Iran. Ptolemy was honored with a golden crown, and married with great pomp and ceremony, to Artacama, the daughter of one of the most distinguished Persian generals.

One night Alexander died suddenly, after a night of heavy drinking and whoring in Babylon. The king had no heir old enough to succeed him, and his immense empire was divided among his generals.

General Ptolemy obtained Egypt as his rightful share of these spoils. He then immediately returned to Alexandria, taking with him a great army, and a large number of Greek attendants and followers. He commenced a reign there which resulted in great prosperity and splendor, for the next forty years.

After Ptolemy’s return, the native Egyptians were quickly subdued and placed into bondage. All the higher ranks in the army and all top political positions were taken over by Greeks loyal to him. Alexandria, the Greek dominated city that he choose as his capitol quickly became one of the most important commercial centers in that a part of the world.

Greek and Roman travelers found that there was a language now spoken in Egypt which they could finally understand. Philosophers and scholars could satisfy the great curiosity they had so long felt, in respect to the institutions, monuments, and wonderful physical characteristics of the country.

The organization of a Greek government and the establishment of the great commercial relations of the city of Alexandria with other areas of the world helped to bring Egypt out from its isolation. This opened it up to study and closer observation by the rest of mankind.

If fact, it was a primary goal of Ptolemy’s to accomplish these very ends. He invited Greek scholars, philosophers, poets, and artists, in great numbers, to come to Alexandria, and to make his capital their home. He collected an immense library, which subsequently, was called the Alexandrian Library, and became one of the most celebrated collections of books and manuscripts that was ever put together.

Pharaoh Ptolemy was engaged in waging almost constant wars with the surrounding countries during almost the total period of his