title: Argonautica

text: Passing through the Clashing Rocks (thanks to the advice of Phineus, the pilot skills of Tiphys, and the aid of Athena), they enter the Black Sea and arrive at a deserted island, Thynias, where they observe Apollo flying overhead on his way north to visit the Hyperboreans. The island shakes with his passing. There they build an altar and a shrine (lasting memorials of their voyage). Next stop is an outlet of the river Acheron, one of the entries to Hades, where they meet Lycus, king of the Mariandynians and an enemy to the now defunct king of the Bebrycians. He receives them very hospitably. Their departure is delayed when the prophet Idmon is killed by a wild boar and Tiphys dies of illness. Two tombs are built (some more lasting memorials of their voyage) and the Argonauts set off again.


title: Argonautica

text: Their next two landfalls bring them into contact with some old comrades of Heracles, left behind after his campaign against the Amazons. One is Sthenelus, whose ghost beckons to them from his tomb by the sea, and the others are three men stranded at Sinope. The Argonauts pour libations to the ghost of Sthenelus and the three survivors gain places aboard the Argo. They arrive next at the river Thermodon, where the Amazons have their harbour, and they leave the next day before the women can assemble for battle. The Amazon influence however reaches even to the deserted Island of Ares, where they have built a temple to the god of war. When the Argonauts arrive, it is only defended by birds. They fight off the birds and then chance upon four survivors of a shipwreck. These are the four sons of the exiled Greek hero, Phrixus, and they are also grandsons of Aeëtes, king of Colchis. Jason welcomes them as god-sent allies in his quest for the Golden Fleece.


title: Argonautica

text: Approaching Colchis, the Argonauts see the eagle of Zeus flying to and from the Caucasus mountains, where it feeds on the liver of Prometheus. It glides through the air as large as another ship, disturbing the Argo's sails as it passes overhead. (There is a bit of a discrepancy in timing between myths. Heracles joined the Argonauts after completing his labors, but the eagle was killed and Prometheus was freed by Heracles during one of his labors.) Soon after, the heroes enter the Phasis, the main river of Colchis, and furtively anchor in a backwater.


title: Argonautica

text: The third book begins by invoking Erato, the Muse of love poetry. The Argo is still hidden in a Colchis backwater when the goddesses Hera and Athena retire to a private room on Olympus to consider in secret how best to help Jason. Hera thinks the daughter of the Colchian king might prove useful if she could be made to fall in love with him. She then suggests enlisting the help of Aphrodite. Athena likes the plan but, being a virgin conscious of appearances, asks Hera to do all the talking. They find the goddess of love indolently combing her hair in her apartment. She has been bickering with her young son Eros and doubts if the unruly child will fire any arrows at Medea just to please her. Hera, an experienced mother, advises her to avoid quarrels with the boy and Aphrodite subsequently buys his support with the gift of a fabulous ball, composed of gold and intricately fashioned so as to leave a trail like a falling star when thrown at the sky.


title: Argonautica

text: Jason advises his comrades that they should try persuasion before attempting to take the Golden Fleece by force and then he leads Phrixus' sons home to the palace of Aeëtes. Their unexpected arrival is greeted by Medea with a cry that brings everyone running, including her sister Chalciope (mother of the four castaways) and Aeëtes, the king. Meanwhile, Eros invisibly joins the throng, squats at Jason's feet and fires off the fateful arrow, departing then with a laugh. Medea's heart floods with the sweet pain of love. Aeëtes however is filled with rage when his grandsons ask him to hand the Golden Fleece to Jason for return to Iolcus. He accuses them of conspiring with foreigners to steal away his kingdom. Jason delivers a soothing speech and Aeëtes responds with a mock compromise – he can have what he came for if he first ploughs the Plain of Ares with fire-breathing oxen, next sows four acres with dragon's teeth and finally cuts down the crop of armed men before they can cut him down. It's a task that Aeëtes, son of the Sun (Helios), has often performed. Jason accepts the challenge reluctantly. He sets off for the ship to inform his crew and Medea's thoughts flutter at his departing heels (), torn between love and anguish.


title: Argonautica

text: That night, in a dream, she envisions herself performing Jason's task for him. She wakes fearing the wrath of Aeëtes and the danger to her reputation if she helps Jason without good cause. The safety of her sister's four sons depends on his success. She wonders if Chalciope can be enticed into asking her to help Jason for their sake. Even this seems too bold for a young virgin and finally she surrenders to sobs of dismay. Her sister comes in response to the noise. Medea tells her that she is worried about her nephews, since they are doomed if the stranger fails. Chalciope then asks her to help Jason and Medea gladly agrees. Alone in her room again, she continues to be torn between hope and fear. She contemplates suicide, opens her chest of drugs looking for poison but instead selects a drug that will help Jason in his trial of strength.


title: Argonautica

text: Arrangements for a secret meeting are made. The tryst is outside a temple of Hecate, where Medea is the priestess. At first they are as speechless as lofty pines rooted together on a mountainside, until the force of love comes like a sudden gust of wind. He reminds her that he is utterly at her mercy and he promises to make her famous throughout Greece if she assists him. She draws the drug out from between her breasts and hands it to him. If he ever forgets her kindness, she warns him, she will fly to Greece on the wind and there rebuke him to his face. He urges her to forget the wind and sail back with him instead, as his future wife. She doesn't commit herself to anything and returns home as if in a dream. He returns to the crew, welcomed by all but Idas, who considers his reliance on a woman's help to be unheroic.


title: Argonautica

text: The day of trial arrives and so do the people of Colchis, gathering on the hillsides as spectators. Aeëtes rides about in his chariot, glorying in his own magnificence. The Argo comes upstream and moors by the river's edge. Jason steps forward. Secretly fortified by Medea's spells, he manhandles the monstrous oxen and sows the deadly field with teeth. He pauses briefly for a drink then, cheered on by his comrades, returns to the scene of action, where an army of men is springing from the broken soil, ready to attack him. These he routs single-handedly, relying on a trick taught him by Medea. Dumbfounded, Aeëtes returns to the palace, all the while wondering how best to cheat Jason of his promised reward.


title: Argonautica

text: The poet calls upon the Muse to describe Medea's state of mind: is it shame, alarm or love that leads her to flee Colchis? Her treason is already known to her father and self-poisoning seems like an option again. She decides instead to flee Colchis with her nephews, the sons of Phrixus, camped with the Argonauts by the river. Doors open for her by magic as she hurries barefoot though the palace, and the moon laughs at her outdoors, recalling the many times that she was captured and brought to earth by Medea's cruel love spells (a reference to the moon's passion for Endymion). Arriving at the camp, Medea warns the others about her father's treachery and offers to help steal the Golden Fleece from its guardian serpent. Jason solemnly pledges to marry her, she puts the snake to sleep with a spell and then the hero takes the Fleece back to the Argo, exulting in its sheen like a young girl who has caught moonbeams in the folds of her gown.


title: Argonautica

text: The fugitive Argo is pursued by two Colchian fleets, ships numerous as flocking birds. One of the fleets sails into the Propontis through the now-motionless Clashing Rocks. The second is led by Medea's half-brother, Apsyrtus, and it takes the same route as the Argo, up the river Ister (Danube). A distant branch of the river eventually leads the Argonauts into the Sea of Cronus (Adriatic), where Apsyrtus finally corners them on the Brygean Islands. Peace talks result in a dealJason can keep the fleece, since he won it after all, but Medea's fate must be decided by a mediator chosen from the neighbouring kings. Fearing the worst, Medea comes up with an alternative plan. She lures Apsyrtus into a trap with promises of rewards. Jason murders him and the body is dismembered to avoid retribution from the Erinyes. The leaderless Colchians are easily outwitted and, rather than return home empty-handed to a wrathful Aeëtes, they disperse and settle around the nearby coast.


title: Argonautica

text: Indignant at the brutal murder, Zeus condemns the Argonauts to wander homeless for a longer term. A gale blows them back north and they enter the river Eridanus (Po), whose different branches eventually bring them into The Sardinian Sea (Gulf of Lyons), on the western side of Ausonia (Italy). Here the enchantress Circe absolves the lovers of blood-guilt. Meanwhile, Hera has a friendly chat with the sea nymph Thetis. The goddess advises the nymph that her infant son Achilles is destined to marry Medea in the Elysian fields and then she sends her on an errand to secure the Argo's passage south. The Argonauts safely pass the Sirens, whose song though not more melodious than Orpheus's music causes Butes to fall overboard; they get past the Wandering Rocks, from which Argo is saved by the Nereids, like girls on the beach passing a ball to and fro. Thus the Argonauts arrive at Drepane (Corfu) off the western coast of Greece. It is here they encounter the other Colchian fleet. Alcinous, the virtuous king of Drepane, offers to mediate between the two sides, later confiding in his virtuous wife, Arete, that he means to surrender Medea to the Colchians, unless she happens to be married. The queen reveals this to the lovers and they are duly married in a sacred cave on the island, where the bridal bed is draped with the Golden Fleece. Disappointed, the Colchians follow the example of the first fleet and settle nearby rather than return home.


title: Argonautica

text: The Argonauts can't return home either: another gale drives them off course, this time south towards the Syrtes, an interminable sandbank off Libya. Here they can see no means of escape and they resign themselves to an inglorious end, parting from each other to die in private, while Medea and her maids lament their fate in a forlorn group. Jason's isolation soon ends with a visit by three nymphs, the guardians of Libya, with mysterious instructions about how to survive. Peleus interprets the instructions on his behalf: they must carry the Argo across the desert. Twelve days later, their ship on their shoulders, they arrive at Lake Triton and the garden of the Hesperides. They receive some astonishing news from the Hesperides: Heracles raided the garden just the day before. He has already vanished into the distance and so they must depart without him yet again. Meanwhile, they lose another two comrades, Mopsus and Canthus, one dying from snake bite, the other from a wound inflicted by a local shepherd belonging to the ancestral family of the native Garamantes and Nasamones. Shortly afterwards, Triton reveals a route from the lake to the open sea and entrusts Euphemus with a magical clod of earth that is destined to become the island of Thera, from which Libya would later be settled by Greek colonists. Triton carries off a tripod, as an offering of thanks. The story ends with a visit to the island of Anaphe, where the Argonauts institute rites in honour of Apollo, and Aegina (not far from Jason's home), where they establish a festival competition, fetching water and racing one another with full amphorae on their shoulders.


title: Argonautica

text: The "Argonautica" is modelled on Homer's poetry to a considerable extent. There are of course similarities in plots. The return journey in Book 4, for example, has many parallels in the Odyssey – Scylla, Charybdis, the Sirens and Circe are hazards that Odysseus also negotiates. The "Argonautica" is notable too for the high number of verses and phrases imitating Homer, and for the way it reproduces linguistic peculiarities of old epic, in syntax, metre, vocabulary and grammar. Apollonius in fact is the most Homeric of all the poets whose work has come down to us from the Hellenistic age, when Homeric scholarship flourished and almost all poets responded to Homer's influence, including Callimachus. Homeric echoes in "Argonautica" are quite deliberate and are not slavish imitation. When Jason first meets Hypsipyle in Book 1, he wears a cloak made for him by Athena, embroidered with various scenes alluding to tragic women that Homer's Odysseus met in Hades ("Odyssey" 11.225–380). This Homeric echo has ominous connotations, prefiguring Jason's betrayal of Hypsipyle and Medea.


title: Argonautica

text: Apollonius often implies that he is updating and therefore improving on Homer. Symbolically this is represented by the abandonment of Heracles and the fixing of the Clashing Rocks –it is as if Jason and his crew are leaving behind the heroic world of traditional myth. "Argonautica" includes numerous "aitia" or mythological accounts of the origins of things (see Argonautica#Itinerary below) and these ensure that the narrative points forward to the world of the third century audience rather than back to Homer. Cultured Alexandrians considered themselves heirs of a long literary tradition and this is evoked when Apollonius crowds his poem with as much research material as he could borrow from mythical, historiographical and ethnographic sources.


title: Argonautica

text: "Argonautica" was just one of many narrative epics written in the Hellenistic period – and the only one to survive. Apollonius is too much of an individual for us to deduce from his work the nature of the other epics. It is known that Callimachus was an influential critic of contemporary epics but that need not have included "Argonautica," which seems to have been responsive to his views. Thus even though modelled on the Homeric epic, it is much shorter, with four books totaling fewer than 6,000 lines (Homer's "Iliad" for example runs to more than 15,000). Apollonius may have been influenced here by Callimachus' advocacy of brevity. Possibly he was responding too to Aristotle’s demand for "poems on a smaller scale than the old epics, and answering in length to the group of tragedies presented at a single sitting", since theatre audiences at the Dionysia typically sat through four plays per day and "Argonautica"'s four books are about the same total length.


title: Argonautica

text: The influence of Callimachus is seen in the widespread use of aitia since these were a notable feature of his work too. More particularly, there are some pointed allusions to his work. For example, one line (1.1309) is a verbatim quotation of Callimachus ("Aitia" I fr. 12.6 Pf): "And thus were those things to be accomplished in the course of time". The epiphany of Apollo in book 2, over the island of Thynia, is followed by an account of the god's deeds and worship (2.686–719) that recalls an account in Callimachus's "Hymn to Apollo" (97–104), and book 4 ends in a cluster of aitia, including the origins of the island Thera, the naming of Anaphe, and the water-carrying festival on Aegina, that are reminiscent of "Aitia" I and "Iamb." 8. This final cluster of aitia can seem like an arbitrary addition to the narrative, as if Apollonius prolonged the story just to add mere curiosities, but they may have been included as a final "programmatic statement" of support for Callimachean Aitia-style aesthetics, expressing Apollonius's debt to Callimachus as mentor:


title: Argonautica

text: The poem's anti-heroic qualities are generally regarded as further evidence of its 'Callimacheanism'. Jason is not like a traditional epic hero, and the contrast between him and Heracles can be interpreted as a distinction between Homeric and Callimachean poetics. In summary, recent scholarship leads to the conclusion that "Argonautica" was a successful and fundamental renewal of the Homeric epic, expressed in terms of Callimachean aesthetics: the label "Callimachean epic" is not misplaced.


title: Argonautica

text: Jason's character traits are more characteristic of the genre of realism than epic, in that he was, in the words of J. F. Carspecken:


title: Argonautica

text: chosen leader because his superior declines the honour, subordinate to his comrades, except once, in every trial of strength, skill or courage, a great warrior only with the help of magical charms, jealous of honour but incapable of asserting it, passive in the face of crisis, timid and confused before trouble, tearful at insult, easily despondent, gracefully treacherous in his dealings with the love-sick Medea...


title: Argonautica

text: This hostile view can be extended to the whole crew: the Bebrycian episode, where Polydeuces beats the native king to death, and where the Argonauts turn piratical, may be understood as the start of their moral decline, which intensifies and culminates in the murder of Medea's brother. Medea too may forfeit our sympathy, appearing to change from a likeable heroine in Book 3 to a frightful witch engaged in evil in Book 4.


title: Argonautica

text: Interpretations of Jason's character however differ from one critic to another. According to a less hostile view, he resembles the ordinary man and his brand of heroism is relevant to the real world, whereas Heracles stands for a primitive and anachronistic kind of heroism, which is why he is abandoned early in the story. On the other hand, epic poets are not supposed to arbitrate moral values, Jason and Heracles each have good and bad qualities and we shouldn't overplay the differences between them. Jason is a democratic-minded hero with a weakness for women, or he is just the chance result of the poet's literary experiments. His lack of heroic stature seems quite appropriate to the melancholy world Apollonius depicts. In this world, people are alienated from each other and from their environment, as symbolized by the Libyan desert, where the Argonauts scatter so as to die privately: "effort no longer has the power to transform, and weakness is as influential as strength."


title: Argonautica

text: For many readers, the strangely unheroic quality of the poem is only redeemed by the romance between Jason and Medea in Book 3, and even the history of scholarship on Apollonius has had its focus there. Sensitive descriptions of heterosexual love first emerge in Western literature during the Hellenistic period and "Argonautica" was innovative in making it an epic topic.


title: Argonautica

text: Medea is generally agreed to be the most interesting and lifelike character in the poem yet even she may be considered unconvincing in some respects. Her role as a romantic heroine seems at odds with her role as a sorceress. These contradictory roles were embedded in the traditional accounts that Apollonius inherited. On the other hand, Apollonius emphasizes the technical aspect of her magical powers, such as her mastery of drugs, a touch of realism that may seem to downplay her role as a sorceress.


title: Argonautica

text: Unconvincing characterization may also be explained as a comic effect. Heracles can be seen as something of a buffoon. His homosexual or pederastic relationship with Hylas is covered only obliquely and even then in a humorous way, as if to set the stage for the more serious relationship between the hero and heroine. The entire crew of the Argo acquires comic significance whenever fantastic or 'fairy-tale' elements are incorporated into the epic plot, such as the encounters with the Clashing Rocks, The Wandering Rocks, the Argo's voyage overland etc. They appear comic precisely because these fairy-tale elements are in contrast to the Argonauts' unheroic stature, as "people like you and me". The gods in particular are characterized by Alexandrian realism. Homer's gods also are more like people than divinities but Apollonius provides them with a liveliness, an orderliness and a degree of banality that evoke domesticity in Alexandrian high society. Much of the poem's irony and charm in fact lies in the conflation of these different worlds.


title: Argonautica

text: Characters have symbolic roles to fulfill. Though Heracles is abandoned at the end of Book 1, he continues to haunt the narrative as a background figure, glimpsed in the distance and reported as an active presence, thus symbolizing the way traditional epic offers the poem a literary background. As one scholar recently observed: "This is just the way in which old epic with its generic conventions and its ideology is present in the "Argonautica": dimly visible... but still present." Characters also function as the poet's alter ego. Homer in the "Odyssey" also uses the device, through the singers Demodocus and Phemius. In "Argonautica", the role is performed by the doomed seers Mopsus and Idmon, and especially the singer Orpheus. Whereas the companions of Homer's Odysseus pass the Sirens in safety by stuffing their ears with wax, the Argonauts are saved from the Sirens by the music that Orpheus plays to drown them out. Two types of song are represented here, one from the Homeric world, voiced through the Sirens, and the other from the world of Ptolemaic Alexandria, through the identification Orpheus=Apollonius. The contest symbolizes the updating of epic. Apollonius takes the symbolic role of characters further than Homer. The seers Idmon and Mopsus, able to interpret signs, might also be understood to represent the ideal audience, able to interpret symbols. Other characters however can also fulfill this role, such as Peleus, who successfully interprets Jason's encounter with the Libyan nymphs, thus leading to the Argo being carried across the desert. By this means the audience is encouraged to interpret the poet's own complex meanings'heroes' like Peleus are "people just like us" and their powers of insight are ours too.


title: Argonautica

text: Some of the episodic quality of "Argonautica" can be put down to its genre, as a voyage narrative. Homer's "Odyssey" also features some disunity, as a set of adventures, with surprising discoveries waiting around every headland. Thus Longinus contrasted the "Odyssey" unfavourably with the "Iliad": in the former, he thought the mythical element predominates over the action, whereas he thought the "Iliad" gains dramatic tension through the development of a single, great contest. Voyage narratives don't fit in well with Aristotelian notions of dramatic unity, or, as one modern scholar recently put it: "It is precisely this inherent inconsequentiality, the episodic partition imposed by the very nature of travel, which can be seen at the heart of the Western tradition of "romance", as opposed to the harsh teleologies of "epic"."


title: Argonautica

text: "Argonautica" however goes beyond Homer's "Odyssey" in its fragmentation of the action. Apollonius seems to have rejected the Aristotelian concept of unity, since numerous aitia interrupt the story with 'flashbacks' to myths predating the Argonaut story, and with 'fast-forwards' to customs in the poet's own time. The narrator's choice of material is thus of immediate interest to the reader, since it interrupts the action, unlike the traditional method of Homer, where the poet keeps a low profile. One of Homer's virtues as a narrator, from Aristotle's point of view, was in letting characters do much of the talking. The dominant presence in "Argonautica" is the poet himself71% of the verses are spoken by him, rather than by his characters, whereas only 55% of the "Iliad" and 33% of the "Odyssey" are in Homer's own voice.


title: Argonautica

text: Some of the episodic quality comes also from the poet's literary eclecticism. For instance, the role of the Argo in the Greek settlement of northern Africa was a common topic of Greek literature. Pindar, a poetic model for Apollonius and Callimachus, composed three odes for the ruling elite of Cyrene, including "Pythian 4", where he mentions the clod of earth that Euphemus received from Triton and which became the island Thera, the mother city of Cyrene. The historian Herodotus mentioned the tripod that Triton received, a pledge of Libya's future colonization by descendants of the Argonauts ("Herodotus" 4.179). Both these accounts found their way into "Argonautica".


title: Argonautica

text: Paradoxically, this highly episodic poem, fragmented in time and with events unfolding in a changing landscape, can yet be thought to have more unity than any other epic. Its unity comes from its location within the milieu of Ptolemaic Alexandria. Occupying the eastern corner of Libya, Alexandria was founded only about sixty years before Apollonius wrote his epic and it comprised, in addition to native Egyptians, a large share of the Greek diaspora, about half of whom came via the Greek colony of Cyrene.


title: Argonautica

text: The Ptolemaic setting makes sense of many of the poet's enigmatic choices. Thus for example the final cluster of aitia is not an arbitrary addition but neatly associates the story's end with the beginning of Greek settlement in Egypt.


title: Argonautica

text: The island of Thera was the mother city of Cyrene and symbolized Greek settlement of Libya. Aegina was once home to the Argonauts Peleus and Telamon, exiled thence for murdering their brother, thus symbolizing the Greek diaspora. The island of Anaphe is where the "Aitia" of Callimachus begins with a tale of the Argonauts, and his final aition is in Alexandria, so that "Argonautica"'s progression from Iolcus to Anaphe becomes part of a cycle: "Taken together these two poems de facto complete the prophecy that begins in a mythic past."


title: Argonautica

text: Any apparent weaknesses in characterization can also be explained in the Ptolemaic settingthe story isn't really about Jason or about any of the Argonauts, as individuals, but about their historic role in establishing a Greek destiny in Libya.


title: Argonautica

text: "Argonautica"'s original audience of ethnic Greeks would have glimpsed their own migrant history in the motley Greek crew of the Argo, and similarly Hellenized Egyptians would have glimpsed themselves in the Colchian diaspora depicted in Book 4. According to Herodotus, Colchis was colonized by Egyptians (see details in Itinerary). In that case, the Colchian fleets that settle in and around Greece may be thought to prefigure the Greek colonization of Egypt.


title: Argonautica

text: Apollonius conflates Greek and Egyptian mythology. Islands symbolized creation in the Egyptian scheme of things, being associated with the ground emerging from the Nile floods. Thera and Anaphe, as emergent islands, are recreations of the myth.


title: Argonautica

text: Egyptians considered Libya's western desert to be the land of the dead. The Sun, who traversed the sky in a boat during the day, returned at night in the same boat via the underworld, a cycle associated with cosmic life and death.


title: Argonautica

text: The stranding of the Argonauts on the Libyan coast, their carrying of Argo across the desert and the deaths there of Mopsus and Canthus give a Greek perspective to this Egyptian symbolism, with the Golden Fleece figuring as a solar emblem. Thus the action of the "Argonautica" can seem highly organized, as an attempt to soften the boundaries between Alexandria's indigenous ethnic population and its immigrant Greeks, by means of a shared mythology and worldview.


title: Argonautica

text: Though critics have concentrated on Homeric echoes in "Argonautica", direct borrowings from tragedy, such as Euripides' "Medea", can be found. "Argonautica" is often placed in a literary tradition that leads to the Ancient Greek novel. Apollonius chooses the less shocking versions of some myths, having Medea, for example, merely watch the murder of Absyrtus instead of murdering him herself. The gods are relatively distant and inactive throughout much of the epic, following the Hellenistic trend to allegorize and rationalize religion.


title: Argonautica

text: For a discussion of poetic style and technique in "Argonautica" see Apollonius of Rhodes#Poetic style


title: Argonautica

text: Here follows a list of places where the narrative states or implies that "Argo" came to shore. Time is here seen from the perspective of the poetthe time at which Apollonius wrote is governed by the present tense and by qualifiers like "now" and "to this day", the mythical action of the poem is governed by the past tense, whereas our own time is denoted 'modern'.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: The Japan Railways Group, more commonly known as the or simply JR, consists of seven for-profit stock companies that took over most of the assets and operations of the government-owned Japanese National Railways (JNR) on April 1, 1987. Most of the liability of the JNR was assumed by the JNR Settlement Corporation.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: The JR Group lies at the heart of Japan's railway network, operating a large proportion of intercity rail service (including the Shinkansen high-speed rail lines) and commuter rail service.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku, and JR Freight (JRF) are governed by the , also known as the "JR Companies Act", and are under the control of the public Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency (JRTT), while JR East, JR Central, JR West, and JR Kyushu have full private ownership. Because the railways used to be owned by the government, Japanese people generally make a distinction between JR railways (including former JR lines that are now third sector) and other private railways, and JR railways are almost always denoted differently from other private railways when shown on maps.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: The Japan Railways Group consists of seven operating companies and two other companies that do not provide rail service. The operating companies are organized into six passenger operators and a nationwide freight operator. Unlike some other groups of companies, the JR Group is made up of independent companies, and it does not have group headquarters or a holding company to set the overall business policy.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: The six passenger railways of the JR Group are separated by region. Nearly all their services are within the prescribed geographic area. However, some long-distance operations extend beyond the boundaries. The "Shirasagi" train service between and , for instance, uses JR West rolling stock but the segment of track between Nagoya and is owned by JR Central, whose crew manage the train on that section.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: In addition, the group includes two non-operating companies. These are the Railway Technical Research Institute and Railway Information Systems Co., Ltd.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: To cover various non-railway business areas, each regional operator in the JR Group has its own group of subsidiary companies with names like "JR East Group" and "JR Shikoku Group."


title: Japan Railways Group

text: JR maintains a nationwide railway network as well as common ticketing rules that it inherited from JNR. Passengers may travel across several JR companies without changing trains and without purchasing separate tickets. However, trains running across the boundaries of JR companies have been reduced.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: JR maintains the same ticketing rules based on the JNR rules and has an integrated reservation system known as MARS (jointly developed with Hitachi). Some types of tickets (passes), such as Japan Rail Pass and Seishun 18 Ticket, are issued as "valid for all JR lines" and accepted by all passenger JR companies.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: In 1987, the government of Japan took steps to divide and privatize JNR. While division of operations began in April of that year, privatization was not immediate: initially, the government retained ownership of the companies. Privatization of some of the companies began in the early 1990s. By October 2016, all of the shares of JR East, JR Central, JR West and JR Kyushu had been offered to the market and they are now publicly traded. On the other hand, all of the shares of JR Hokkaido, JR Shikoku and JR Freight are still owned by Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency, an independent administrative institution of the state.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: All the JR Group companies operating in the Honshū region are constituents of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 indexes.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: The demise of the government-owned system came after charges of serious management inefficiencies, profit losses, and fraud. By the early 1980s, passenger and freight business had declined, and fare increases had failed to keep up with higher labor costs.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: What remained of the debt-ridden Japanese National Railways after its 1987 breakup was named the Japanese National Railways Settlement Corporation. Its purpose was to dispose of assets and debts not absorbed by the successor companies and to execute other activities relating to the breakup, such as outplacement of former personnel.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: The new companies introduced competition, cut their staffing, and made reform efforts. Initial public reaction to these moves was good: the combined passenger travel on the Japan Railways Group passenger companies in 1987 was 204.7 billion passenger-kilometers, up 3.2% from 1986, while the passenger sector previously had been stagnant since 1975. The growth in passenger transport of private railways in 1987 was 2.6%, which meant that the Japan Railways Group's rate of increase was above that of the private-sector railways for the first time since 1974. Demand for rail transport improved, although it still accounted for only 28% of passenger transportation and only 5% of cargo transportation in 1990. Rail passenger transportation was superior to automobiles in terms of energy efficiency and of speed in long distance transportation.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: The six companies had of routes (mostly gauge) in use in the late 1980s. About 25% of the routes were in double-track and multitrack sections, and the rest were single-track. In 1988 about 51% of the six companies' 1,000 locomotives were diesel, and the rest were electric.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: Japan Freight Railway Company owns its locomotives (295 diesel and 569 electric locomotives in 1988), rolling stock, stations and Intermodal container, but hires track from the six passenger companies. It runs fewer trains on less track than Japanese National Railways freight service did before its demise, but at increased revenues and higher productivity.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: The leased Shinkansen railway facilities, including of gauge high-speed track, to the passenger companies on Honshū. In 1991, the SPC was reorganized into the and the three operators bought their lines on 60-year loans. Some of the Shinkansen electric-powered trains operate at speeds up to 300 km/h.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: Another nearly of routes are operated by major private railways and by what are known in Japan as third sector railways—new companies, financed with private and local government funds—which often (not always) absorbed some of Japanese National Railways' rural lines. There were twenty-seven private and third-sector companies in 1989.


title: Japan Railways Group

text: Various unions represent workers at the different JR Group companies, such as the National Railway Workers' Union, All Japan Construction, Transport and General Workers' Union, Doro-Chiba, and the Japan Confederation of Railway Workers' Unions.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: Alexander "Sandro" Mamukelashvili (; born May 23, 1999) is a Georgian-American professional basketball player for the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) on a two-way contract with the Wisconsin Herd of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the Seton Hall Pirates. He attended basketball powerhouse Montverde Academy after a stint on youth teams in Italy. As a junior at Seton Hall, Mamukelashvili missed several weeks with a wrist injury but averaged 11.9 points per game. He was named Big East Co-Player of the Year as a senior.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: Mamukelashvili was born in New York City and grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia after moving to the country when he was a baby. He is fluent in English, Georgian, Russian, and Italian. His grandmother, Ira Gabashvili, was a member of the Soviet Women's National Basketball team. Mamukelashvili's older brother David introduced him to basketball at a young age, and Sandro grew up idolizing the Georgian player Zaza Pachulia. He was in Chicago visiting his aunt, noted pianist Eteri Andjaparidze, when the Russo-Georgian War broke out in August 2008. David currently teaches English at Newark Academy in Livingston, New Jersey.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: When he was 14 years old, Mamukelashvili moved to Biella, Italy to attend high school. He competed on the U17, U18, and U19 teams, and he helped the teams to finish third place in the national finals. Mamukelashvili said that moving to Italy was difficult but his club and head coach Federico Danna made everything possible for him. In 2016, he moved to the United States to attend basketball powerhouse Montverde Academy, where he played alongside New York Knicks player RJ Barrett. While at Montverde, Pachulia became a mentor to Mamukelashvili and introduced him to several players such as Stephen Curry. Mamukelashvili scored 11 points in a 72–45 win over Greensboro Day School to help Montverde reach the finals of the "DICK’S Sporting Goods High School Nationals".


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: On April 20, 2017, Mamukelashvili committed to playing college basketball for Seton Hall over offers from USC, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt. He chose the Pirates because his high school coach Kevin Boyle had a good relationship with Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard and his brother David lived nearby.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: As a freshman, Mamukelashvili averaged 2.6 points, 1.9 rebounds and 0.5 blocks per game and helped the Pirates reach the second round of the NCAA Tournament. His best game as a freshman came against Xavier on February 14, 2018, when he scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds. As a sophomore, he averaged 8.9 points and 7.8 rebounds per game. On December 19, Mamukelashvili scored a season-high 23 points on 8-of-11 shooting and had eight rebounds in a 90–76 win over Sacred Heart. Following his sophomore season, Mamukelashvili worked with Pachulia at his Academy in Tbilisi to expand his game, adding a jump stop and improving his three-point shooting.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: On November 29, 2019, Mamukelashvili scored 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting and had six rebounds in an 84–76 win over Iowa State in the Bahamas. During the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament, Mamukelashvili averaged 14 points, 5.7 rebounds and 2 assists per game while making 61 percent of his shots from the field and 60 percent from behind the arc. He fractured his right wrist in a game against Iowa State on December 8 and missed several weeks. On January 29, 2020, he returned to the court, playing five minutes in a 64–57 win over DePaul. On February 19, with his father Zurab in attendance for the first time in two years, Mamukelashvili scored 15 points and had six rebounds, hitting the game-winning shot on an inbounds pass with 0.6 seconds remaining in a 74–72 win over Butler. He had a season-high 26 points on February 29, in an 88–79 win over Marquette. Mamukelashvili averaged 11.9 points and 6 rebounds per game as a junior. After the season, he declared for the 2020 NBA draft but did not hire an agent, signaling high potential to return to Seton Hall for his senior campaign. After receiving second round interest, Mamukelashvili announced on August 1 that he was withdrawing from the draft and returning for his senior season.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: Coming into his senior season, Mamukelashvili was named to the Preseason First Team All-Big East, and he was expected to help replace the graduated Myles Powell. On December 11, 2020, he scored a career-high 32 points and had nine rebounds and three assists in a 77–68 victory against St. John's. On February 16, 2021, Mamukelashvili scored his 1,000th career point in a 60–52 win against DePaul and finished with 25 points, 11 rebounds and four assists. He averaged 17.5 points, 7.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game. At the close of the season, he was named the Big East co-Player of the Year and won the Haggerty Award as the best player in the New York metropolitan area. Mamukelashvili was also named Associated Press All-America honorable mention and was a finalist for the Karl Malone Award.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: Mamukelashvili was selected in the second round of the 2021 NBA draft with the 54th pick by the Indiana Pacers. He was then traded to the Milwaukee Bucks along with the draft rights of Georgios Kalaitzakis, the 60th pick, and two future second round picks in exchange for the draft rights of the 31st pick, Isaiah Todd. On August 4, 2021, the Bucks signed him to a two-way contract. Under the terms of the deal he would split time between the Bucks and their NBA G League affiliate, the Wisconsin Herd. On October 19, 2021, Mamukelashvili had his debut in the NBA, coming off from bench with an assist and a rebound in a 127–104 win over the Brooklyn Nets. On October 26, he was assigned to the Wisconsin Herd. On November 29, while playing with the Herd, Mamukelashvili posted 28 points, six rebounds, three assists, three blocks, and one steal in a win against the Windy City Bulls. He missed two games with an illness in December 2021.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: Mamukelashvili joined the Bucks' 2022 NBA Summer League roster. On July 18, 2022, Mamukelashvili was named to the All-NBA Summer League First Team.


title: Sandro Mamukelashvili

text: In July 2018, Mamukelashvili represented the Georgia national basketball team at the 2019 FIBA World Cup Qualifications and the Georgia U20 team at the FIBA U20 European Championship. During the European Championship, he averaged 8.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: The reign of Cleopatra VII of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt began with the death of her father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, by March 51 BC. It ended with her suicide in August 30 BC, which also marked the conclusion of the Hellenistic period and the annexation of Egypt into a Roman province. In the style of her Greek predecessors, Cleopatra reigned over Egypt and other territories as an absolute monarch, although the Roman Republic frequently interfered in its internal affairs. Her personal rule of Egypt was characterized by a continued reliance on agriculture, extensive trade and conflict with other states, the tackling of corruption, strategic management of the bureaucracy, and ambitious building projects.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra initially acceded to the throne alongside her younger brother Ptolemy XIII, but a fallout between them led to open civil war. Further chaos ensued when the Roman consul Julius Caesar pursued his rival Pompey into Ptolemaic Egypt, a Roman client state. Upon arrival, Caesar discovered that Pompey had been assassinated on the orders of Ptolemy XIII. Caesar attempted to reconcile the siblings, but a discontent Ptolemy XIII and his adviser Potheinos raised forces against Caesar and Cleopatra. Reinforcements lifted the siege in early 47 BC, and Ptolemy XIII died shortly afterwards in the Battle of the Nile. Arsinoe IV (Cleopatra's younger sister and a rival claimant to the throne) was exiled, and Caesar, now dictator, declared Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy XIV co-rulers of Egypt. However, Caesar maintained a private affair with Cleopatra that produced a son, Caesarion, before he departed Alexandria for Rome.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra visited Rome as a client queen in 46 and 44 BC; following Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Cleopatra attempted to have Caesarion named as his heir, which was thwarted by Caesar's grandnephew Octavian. Cleopatra then had Ptolemy XIV killed and elevated Caesarion as her co-monarch. In the Liberators' civil war of 43–42 BC, Cleopatra sided with the Second Triumvirate and developed a personal relationship with Mark Antony, one of its members, that would produce three children. Antony continually used his triumviral authority to the benefit of Cleopatra and became increasingly reliant on her for funding and military aid during his invasions of various eastern domains. The 34 BC Donations of Alexandria, in which Cleopatra and her children received various titles and territories under Antony's triumviral authority, along with Antony's divorce of Octavian's sister Octavia, marked a turning point that led to Octavian declaring war on Cleopatra. In 31 BC, Antony and Cleopatra led a joint naval force at Actium against Octavian's general Agrippa, who won after they fled the battle. Octavian's forces invaded Egypt the following year. Although the couple offered military resistance, Octavian defeated their forces, driving Antony to suicide. When Cleopatra learned that Octavian intended to transport her to Rome as a prisoner in his triumphal procession, she likewise committed suicide, reportedly through poisoning.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Ptolemy XII Auletes, ruling pharaoh of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, designated in his will that his daughter Cleopatra VII should reign alongside her brother Ptolemy XIII as co-rulers in the event of his death. On 31 May 52 BC, Cleopatra was made a regent of Ptolemy XII as indicated by an inscription in the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. Duane W. Roller asserts that Ptolemy XII perhaps died sometime before 22 March 51 BC, while Joann Fletcher offers the date 7 March 51 BC. Michael Grant states it could have occurred as late as May of that year. Cleopatra's first known act as queen occurred on 22 March 51 BC. She traveled to Hermonthis, near Thebes, to install a new sacred Buchis bull, worshiped as an intermediary for the god Montu in the Ancient Egyptian religion. The Roman Senate, which viewed Ptolemaic Egypt as a client state, was not informed of the death of Ptolemy XII until 30 June or 1 August 51 BC. This was most likely an attempt by Cleopatra to suppress this information and consolidate power.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra perhaps wedded her brother Ptolemy XIII, but it is unknown if their marriage ever took place. By 29 August 51 BC, official documents began listing Cleopatra as the sole ruler, evidence that she had rejected her brother as a co-ruler by this point. Cleopatra faced several pressing issues and emergencies shortly after taking the throne. These included food shortages and famine caused by drought and low-level flooding of the Nile and assaults by gangs of armed brigands. Another problem was the lawless behavior instigated by the Gabiniani, the now unemployed, assimilated, and largely Germanic and Gallic Roman soldiers left by Aulus Gabinius to garrison Egypt after restoring Ptolemy XII and removing his daughter Berenice IV from power. As an astute financial administrator of her kingdom, Cleopatra eventually brought the combined wealth of tax revenues and foreign trade up to 12,000 talents a year, surpassing the wealth creation of some of her Ptolemaic predecessors. In the meantime, however, she inherited her father's debts and owed the Roman Republic 17.5 million drachmas by the time Julius Caesar arrived at Alexandria in 48 BC.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In 50 BC, Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, proconsul of Syria, sent his two eldest sons to Egypt, most likely to negotiate with the Gabiniani and recruit them as soldiers in the desperate defense of Syria against the Parthians. However, the Gabiniani tortured and murdered them, perhaps with secret encouragement by rogue senior administrators in Cleopatra's court such as the eunuch-regent Potheinos. This led her to send the Gabiniani culprits to Bibulus as prisoners awaiting his judgment. Although a seemingly shrewd act by the young queen, Bibulus sent the prisoners back to her and chastised her for interfering in Roman affairs that should have been handled directly by the Roman Senate. Bibulus, siding with Pompey the Great in Caesar's Civil War, was then charged with preventing Caesar from landing a naval fleet in Greece. He failed at the task, which ultimately allowed Julius Caesar to reach Egypt in pursuit of Pompey.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Although Cleopatra had rejected her 11-year-old brother as a joint ruler in 51 BC, Ptolemy XIII still retained strong allies, including Potheinos, his tutor and administrator of his properties. The Romans, including Caesar, initially viewed him as the power behind the throne. Others involved in the cabal against Cleopatra included Achillas, a prominent military commander, and Theodotus of Chios, another tutor of Ptolemy XIII. Cleopatra seems to have attempted a short-lived alliance with her brother Ptolemy XIV, but by October of 50 BC, Ptolemy XIII had the upper hand in their conflict and began signing documents with his name before that of his sister, followed by the establishment of his first regnal date in 49 BC.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra and her forces were still holding their ground against Ptolemy XIII within Alexandria when Gnaeus Pompeius, son of Pompey, arrived at Alexandria in the summer of 49 BC seeking military aid on behalf of his father. After returning to Italy from the wars in Gaul and crossing the Rubicon in January of 49 BC, Caesar forced Pompey and his supporters to flee to Greece in a Roman civil war. In perhaps their last joint decree, both Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII agreed to Gnaeus Pompeius' request. They sent his father 60 ships and 500 troops, including the Gabiniani, a move that helped erase some of the debt owed to Rome by the Ptolemies. The Roman writer Lucan claimed that by early 48 BC, Pompey named Ptolemy XIII as the legitimate sole ruler of Egypt; whether true or not, Cleopatra was forced to flee Alexandria and withdraw to the region of Thebes. However, by the spring of 48 BC, Cleopatra traveled to Syria with her younger sister Arsinoe IV to gather an invasion force that would head to Egypt. She returned with an army, perhaps right around the time of Caesar's arrival, but her brother's forces, including some Gabiniani, mobilized to fight against her. They blocked her advance to Alexandria, and she had to make camp outside Pelousion in the eastern Nile Delta.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In Greece, Caesar and Pompey's forces engaged each other at the decisive Battle of Pharsalus on 9 August 48 BC, leading to the destruction of most of Pompey's army and his forced flight to Tyre. Given his close relationship with the Ptolemies, he ultimately decided that Egypt would be his place of refuge, where he could replenish his forces. Ptolemy XIII's advisers, however, feared the idea of Pompey using Egypt as his base of power in a protracted Roman civil war. They also wished to ensure that none of the Gabiniani would leave their campaign against Cleopatra to join Pompey's forces instead. In a scheme devised by Theodotos, Pompey arrived by ship near Pelousion after being invited by written message, only to be ambushed and stabbed to death on 28 September 48 BC. Ptolemy XIII believed he had demonstrated his power and simultaneously defused the situation by having Pompey's severed head sent to Caesar, who arrived in Alexandria by early October and resided at the royal palace. Theodotos presented Caesar with his son-in-law Pompey's embalmed head, which Caesar retrieved and planned to bury properly along the shores of Alexandria. Caesar expressed grief and outrage over the killing of Pompey and called on both Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra to disband their forces and reconcile.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Caesar's request for partial repayment of the 17.5 million drachmas owed to Rome (to pay for immediate military expenditures) was met with a response by Potheinos, who replied that it would be made later if Caesar would leave Alexandria, but this offer was rejected. Ptolemy XIII arrived at Alexandria at the head of his army, in clear defiance of Caesar's demand that he disband and leave his army before his arrival. Cleopatra initially sent emissaries to Caesar, but upon allegedly hearing that Caesar was inclined to having affairs with royal women, she came to Alexandria to see him personally. The historian Cassius Dio records that she simply did so without informing her brother, dressing in an attractive manner and charming Caesar with her wit and linguistic skills. Plutarch provides an entirely different and perhaps mythical account that alleges she was bound inside a bed sack to be smuggled into the palace to meet Caesar.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: When Ptolemy XIII realized that his sister was in the palace consorting directly with Caesar instead of at Pelousion, he attempted to rouse the populace of Alexandria into a riot. Caesar promptly detained him and used his oratorical skills to calm the frenzied crowd gathered outside the palace. He then brought the siblings before the assembly of Alexandria and revealed the written will of Ptolemy XII—previously possessed by Pompey—naming Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIII as his joint heirs. Caesar then attempted to arrange for the other two siblings, Arsinoe IV and Ptolemy XIV, to rule together over Cyprus, thus removing potential rival claimants to the Egyptian throne. This would also appease the Ptolemaic subjects still bitter over the loss of Cyprus to the Romans in 58 BC.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Potheinos judged that this agreement actually favored Cleopatra over Ptolemy XIII and that the latter's army of 20,000, including the Gabiniani, could most likely defeat Caesar's army of 4,000 unsupported troops. He decided to have Achillas lead their forces to Alexandria to attack both Caesar and Cleopatra. The resulting siege of the palace with Caesar and Cleopatra trapped inside lasted into the following year of 47 BC. It included Caesar's burning of ships in the harbor that spread fires and potentially burned down part of the Library of Alexandria. Caesar managed to execute Potheinos after he attempted an assassination plot against him. Arsinoe IV joined forces with Achillas and was declared queen. Soon afterwards, she had her tutor Ganymedes kill Achillas and take his position as commander of her army. Ganymedes then tricked Caesar into requesting the presence of his erstwhile captive Ptolemy XIII as a negotiator, only to have him join the army of Arsinoe IV. With his detailed knowledge of the palace, Ganymedes pumped seawater into the reservoirs via water pipes, but Cleopatra and Caesar countered this by ordering the construction of fresh water wells.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Sometime between January and March 47 BC, Caesar's reinforcements arrived. These included soldiers led by Mithridates of Pergamon and Antipater the Idumaean, who would receive Roman citizenship for his timely aid (a status that would be inherited by his son Herod the Great). Ptolemy XIII and Arsinoe IV withdrew their forces to the Nile River, where Caesar attacked them and forced Ptolemy XIII to flee by boat. It capsized, and he drowned. His body was later found nearby in the mud. Ganymedes was perhaps killed in the battle, while Theodotos was found years later in Asia by Marcus Brutus and executed. Arsinoe IV was forcefully paraded in Caesar's triumph in Rome, where she was the object of public sympathy, before being exiled to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Cleopatra was conspicuously absent from these events and resided in the palace, most likely because she was pregnant with Caesar's child (perhaps since September 47 BC). She gave birth to Caesarion on 23 June 47 BC. Caesar and Cleopatra likely visited the Tomb of Alexander the Great together. Caesar also ensured the proper burial of Pompey's embalmed head in a tomb near the eastern wall of Alexandria.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Caesar's term as consul had expired at the end of 48 BC. However, his officer Mark Antony, recently returned to Rome from the battle at Pharsalus, helped to secure Caesar's election as dictator. This lasted for a year, until October 47 BC, providing Caesar with the legal authority to settle the dynastic dispute in Egypt. Wary of repeating the mistake of Berenice IV in having a sole-ruling female monarch, Caesar appointed 12-year-old Ptolemy XIV as 22-year-old Cleopatra's joint ruler in a nominal sibling marriage, but Cleopatra continued living privately with Caesar. The exact date at which Cyprus was returned to her control is not known, although she had a governor there by 42 BC.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Before returning to Rome to attend to urgent political matters, Caesar is alleged to have joined Cleopatra for a cruise of the Nile and sightseeing of monuments, although this may be a romantic tale reflecting later well-to-do Roman proclivities and not a real historic event. The historian Suetonius provided considerable details about the voyage, including use of a "Thalamegos" pleasure barge. First constructed during the reign of Ptolemy IV, it measured in length and in height and was complete with dining rooms, state rooms, holy shrines, and promenades along its two decks resembling a floating villa. Cleopatra possibly used the "Thalamegos" again years later to sail to Mark Antony's provisional headquarters at Tarsos. Its design almost certainly had an influence on the later Roman Nemi ships. Caesar could have been interested in a Nile cruise owing to his fascination with geography. He was well-read in the works of Eratosthenes and Pytheas, and perhaps wanted to discover the source of the river, but his troops reportedly demanded they turn back after nearly reaching Ethiopia.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Caesar departed from Egypt around April 47 BC. The reason for his departure was apparently that Pharnaces II of Pontus, son of Mithridates the Great, was stirring up trouble for Rome in Anatolia and needed to be confronted. It is possible, however, that Caesar, who was married to the prominent Roman woman Calpurnia, wanted to avoid being seen together with Cleopatra when she bore him their son. He left three legions in Egypt, later increased to four, under the command of the freedman Rufio, to secure Cleopatra's tenuous position, but also perhaps to keep her activities in check.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra's alleged child with Caesar was born 23 June 47 BC, as preserved on a stele at the Serapeion in Memphis. In the stele, he was named "Pharaoh Caesar", but the Alexandrians preferred the patronymic Caesarion. Perhaps owing to his still childless marriage with Calpurnia, Caesar remained silent about Caesarion. There is conflicting evidence that he publicly denied fathering him, but privately accepted him as his son. Cleopatra, on the other hand, made repeated official declarations about Caesarion's parentage, with Caesar as the father. She also built a Caesareum temple near the harbor of Alexandria dedicated to his worship.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra and her nominal joint ruler Ptolemy XIV visited Rome sometime around autumn of 46 BC, possibly with Caesarion. They were given lodging in Caesar's Villa within the Horti Caesaris. Like he did with their father Ptolemy XII, Julius Caesar awarded both Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIV with the legal status of 'friend and ally of the Roman people' (), in effect client rulers loyal to Rome. Cleopatra's distinguished visitors at Caesar's villa across the Tiber included the senator Cicero. He was not flattered by her and found her to be arrogant, especially after one of her advisers failed to provide him with requested books from the Library of Alexandria. Sosigenes of Alexandria, one of the members of Cleopatra's court, aided Caesar in the calculations for the new Julian Calendar, put into effect on 1 January 45 BC. The Temple of Venus Genetrix, established in the Forum of Caesar on 25 September 46 BC, contained a golden statue of Cleopatra (which still stood there during the 3rd century AD), associating the mother of Caesar's child directly with the goddess Venus, mother of the Romans. The statue also subtly linked the Egyptian goddess Isis with the Roman religion. Caesar may have had plans to build a temple to Isis in Rome, as was voted by the Senate a year after his death.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Fletcher asserts that it is unclear if Cleopatra consistently stayed in Rome until 44 BC or briefly returned to Egypt after Caesar traveled to Roman Spain in November 46 BC to wage war against the sons of Pompey. Since Cleopatra was also present in the city in 44 BC during Caesar's assassination, it is unclear if this represented a single, two-year-long trip to Rome or two separate visits. The latter is more likely according to Roller. Cleopatra's presence in Rome most likely had an effect on the events at the Lupercalia festival a month before Caesar's assassination. Mark Antony attempted to place a royal diadem on Caesar's head, which he refused. This was most likely a staged performance, perhaps to gauge the Roman public's mood about accepting Hellenistic-style kingship. Cicero, who was present at the festival, mockingly asked where the diadem came from, an obvious reference to the Ptolemaic queen whom he abhorred.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March (15 March 44 BC), but Cleopatra lingered in Rome until about mid-April, in the vain hope of having Caesarion recognized as Caesar's heir. However, Caesar's will named his grandnephew Octavian as the primary heir. He arrived in Italy around the same time Cleopatra decided to depart for Egypt. A few months later, Cleopatra ordered the assassination of Ptolemy XIV by means of poisoning, elevating her son Caesarion instead as her co-ruler. The murder of political opponents, even if they were family members, was alarmingly common among the Ptolemies.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate in 43 BC. They were each elected for five-year terms to restore order to the Republic and bring Caesar's assassins to justice. Cleopatra received messages from both Gaius Cassius Longinus, one of Caesar's assassins, and Publius Cornelius Dolabella, proconsul of Syria and a Caesarian loyalist, requesting military aid. She decided to write Cassius an excuse that her kingdom faced too many internal problems, while sending the four legions left by Caesar in Egypt to Dolabella. However, Cassius captured these troops in Palestine, while they traveled en route to Syria. Serapion, Cleopatra's governor of Cyprus, defected to Cassius and provided him with ships. Cleopatra took her own fleet to Greece to personally assist Octavian and Antony. Her ships were heavily damaged in a Mediterranean storm, however, and she arrived too late to aid in the fighting. By the autumn of 42 BC, Antony had defeated the forces of Caesar's assassins at the Battle of Philippi in Greece, leading to the suicides of Cassius and Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: By the end of 42 BC, Octavian gained control over much of the western half of the Roman Republic and Antony the eastern half, with Lepidus largely marginalized. Antony moved his headquarters from Athens to Tarsos in Anatolia by the summer of 41 BC. He summoned Cleopatra to Tarsos in several letters, invitations she initially rebuffed until he sent his envoy Quintus Dellius to Alexandria, convincing her to come. The meeting would allow Cleopatra to clear up the misconception that she seemed to support Cassius during the civil war, and would address pressing issues about territorial exchanges in the Levant. Mark Antony also undoubtedly desired to form a personal, romantic relationship with the queen.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra sailed up the Kydnos River to Tarsos in her "Thalamegos", inviting Antony and his officers for two nights of lavish banquets aboard her ship. Antony attempted to return the favor on the third night of dining with his own far less luxurious banquet. Cleopatra presented herself as the Egyptian goddess Isis in the appearance of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, meeting her divine husband Osiris in the form of the Greek god Dionysus, the latter whom the priests of Artemis at Ephesus had associated with Antony prior to this meeting with Cleopatra. Some surviving coins of Cleopatra also depict her as Venus–Aphrodite. Cleopatra managed to clear her name as a supposed supporter of Cassius, arguing she had really attempted to help Dolabella in Syria. At the same time, she convinced Antony to have her rival sister Arsinoe IV dragged from her place of exile at the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus and executed. Her former governor of Cyprus, Serapion, who had rebelled against her and joined Cassius, was found at Tyre and handed over to Cleopatra.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra invited Antony to visit Egypt before departing from Tarsos, which led Antony to visit Alexandria by November 41 BC. He was well received by the populace of Alexandria for his heroic actions in restoring Ptolemy XII to power and, unlike Caesar, coming to Egypt without an occupational force. In Egypt, Antony continued to enjoy the lavish royal lifestyle he had witnessed aboard Cleopatra's ship docked at Tarsos. He also had his subordinates, such as Publius Ventidius Bassus, drive the Parthians out of Anatolia and Syria.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Of all the queens of antiquity, those who ruled independently at times were married for most of their careers. Cleopatra, however, reigned for most of her 21 years as a sole monarch, with nominal joint rulers and a possible marriage to Antony very late in her life. Having Caesarion as her sole heir produced both benefits and dangers. His sudden death could extinguish the dynasty, but rivalry with other potential heirs and siblings could also spell his downfall. Cleopatra carefully chose Antony as her partner to produce further heirs, as he was deemed to be the most powerful Roman figure following Caesar's demise. With his triumviral powers, Antony also had the broad authority to restore former Ptolemaic lands to Cleopatra now in Roman hands. While it is clear that Cleopatra controlled both Cilicia and Cyprus by 19 November 38 BC with a mention of her governor Diogenes who administered both, the transfer probably occurred earlier in the winter of 41–40 BC, during her time spent with Antony. Plutarch asserted that Cleopatra played dice, drank alcohol, hunted wild game, and attended military exercises with Antony. These masculine activities did not endear her to later Roman authors, but they demonstrated the close relationship she fostered with her Roman partner.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: By the spring of 40 BC, troubles in Syria forced Mark Antony to end his vacation in Egypt with Cleopatra. His governor Lucius Decidius Saxa had been killed and his army taken by Quintus Labienus, a former officer under Cassius who now served the Parthian Empire. Cleopatra provided Antony with 200 ships for his campaign and as payment for her newly acquired territories. She would not see him again until 37 BC, but they maintained correspondence, and evidence suggests she kept a spy in his camp. By the end of 40 BC, Cleopatra gave birth to twins, a boy named Alexander Helios and a girl named Cleopatra Selene II, both of whom Antony acknowledged as his children. "Helios" (), the sun, and "Selene" (), the moon, were symbolic of a new era of societal rejuvenation, as well as sign that Cleopatra hoped Antony would repeat the exploits of Alexander the Great by conquering Persia.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Events of the Perusine War (41–40 BC) disrupted Mark Antony's focus on confronting the Parthians in the east. The war was initiated by his ambitious wife Fulvia against Octavian in the hopes of making her husband the undisputed leader of Rome. Although it has been suggested that part of her motivation was to cleave Antony from Cleopatra, this is unlikely, as the conflict emerged in Italy even before Cleopatra's meeting with Antony at Tarsos. Fulvia and Antony's brother Lucius Antonius were eventually besieged by Octavian at Perusia (modern Perugia, Italy) and exiled from Italy. Fulvia died after this at Sikyon in Greece while attempting to reach Antony. Her sudden death led to a reconciliation of Octavian and Antony at Brundisium in Italy in September 40 BC. Although the agreement struck at Brundisium solidified Antony's control of the Roman Republic's territories east of the Ionian Sea, it also stipulated that he concede Italia, Hispania, and Gaul, and marry Octavian's sister Octavia the Younger, a potential rival for Cleopatra.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In December 40 BC, Cleopatra received Herod I the Great in Alexandria as an unexpected guest and refugee who fled a turbulent situation in Judea. Mark Antony had established Herod there as a tetrarch, but he was soon at odds with Antigonus II Mattathias of the long-established Hasmonean dynasty. Antigonus had imprisoned Herod's brother and fellow tetrarch Phasael, who was executed while Herod was in mid-flight towards Cleopatra's court. Cleopatra attempted to provide him with a military assignment, but Herod declined and traveled to Rome, where the triumvirs Octavian and Mark Antony named him king of Judea. This act put Herod on a collision course with Cleopatra, who wished to reclaim former Ptolemaic territories of his new Herodian kingdom.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Relations between Mark Antony and Cleopatra perhaps soured when he not only married Octavia in 40 BC, but also moved his headquarters to Athens and sired her two children, Antonia the Elder in 39 BC and Antonia Minor in 36 BC. However, Cleopatra's position in Egypt was secure. Her rival Herod was occupied with civil war in Judea that required heavy Roman military assistance, but received none from Cleopatra. Since the triumviral authority of Mark Antony and Octavian had expired on 1 January 37 BC, Octavia arranged for a meeting at Tarentum, where the triumvirate was officially extended to 33 BC. With two legions granted by Octavian and a thousand soldiers lent by Octavia, Mark Antony traveled to Antioch, where he made preparations for war against the Parthians.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Antony summoned Cleopatra to Antioch to discuss pressing issues such as Herod's kingdom and financial support for his Parthian campaign. Cleopatra brought her three-year-old twins to Antioch, where Mark Antony saw them for the first time. They probably first received their surnames Helios and Selene here as part of Antony and Cleopatra's ambitious plans for the future. In order to stabilize the east, Antony not only enlarged Cleopatra's domain, but also established new ruling dynasties and client rulers who would be loyal to him yet would ultimately outlast him. These included Herod I of Judea, Amyntas of Galatia, Polemon I of Pontus and Archelaus of Cappadocia.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In this arrangement, Cleopatra gained significant former Ptolemaic territories in the Levant. This included nearly all of Phoenicia (centered in what is now modern Lebanon) minus Tyre and Sidon, which remained in Roman hands. She also received Ptolemais Akko (modern Acre, Israel), a city that Ptolemy II established. Given her ancestral relations with the Seleucids, Antony granted her the region of Koile-Syria along the upper Orontes River. She was even given the region surrounding Jericho in Palestine, but she leased this territory back to Herod. At the expense of the Nabataean king Malichus I (a cousin of Herod), Cleopatra was also given a portion of the Nabataean Kingdom around the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea, including Ailana (modern Aqaba, Jordan). To the west, Cleopatra was handed Cyrene along the Libyan coast, as well as Itanos and Olous in Roman Crete. This restored much of the territory lost by the Ptolemies, but did not include any territories in the Aegean Sea or southwest Asia Minor. Cleopatra's control over much of these new territories was nominal, and they were still administered by Roman officials. Nevertheless, they enriched her kingdom and led her to declare the inauguration of a new era by double-dating her coinage in 36 BC.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Antony's rival Octavian exploited the enlargement of the Ptolemaic realm by relinquishing directly controlled Roman territory. Octavian tapped into public sentiment in Rome against the empowerment of a foreign queen at the expense of their Republic. He also fostered the narrative that Antony was neglecting his virtuous Roman wife Octavia. Octavian granted her and his own wife Livia the extraordinary privileges of sacrosanctity. Cornelia Africana, daughter of Scipio Africanus, mother of the reformists Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and love interest of Cleopatra's great-grandfather Ptolemy VIII, was the first living Roman woman to have a statue dedicated in her honor. She was followed by Octavian's sister Octavia and his wife Livia, whose statues were most likely erected in the Forum of Caesar to rival that of Cleopatra's statue erected there earlier by Julius Caesar.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In 36 BC, Cleopatra accompanied Antony to the Euphrates River, perhaps as far as Seleucia at the Zeugma, on the first leg of his journey to invade the Parthian Empire. She then toured of some of her newly acquired territories. She traveled past Damascus and entered the lands of Herod, who escorted her in lavish conditions back to the Egyptian border town of Pelousion. Her main reason for returning to Egypt was her advanced state of pregnancy. By the summer of 36 BC, she gave birth to Ptolemy Philadelphus, her second son with Antony. He was also named after the second monarch of the Ptolemaic dynasty in what Cleopatra almost certainly intended as a prophetic gesture that the Ptolemaic Kingdom would be restored to its former glory.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Antony's Parthian campaign in 36 BC turned into a complete debacle, having been stymied by a number of factors such as extreme weather, the spread of disease, and the betrayal of Artavasdes II of Armenia, who defected to the Parthian side. After losing some 30,000 men, more so than Crassus at Carrhae (an indignity he had hoped to avenge), Antony finally arrived at Leukokome near Berytus (modern Beirut, Lebanon) in December. He engaged in heavy drinking before Cleopatra arrived to provide funds and clothing for his battered troops. Octavia offered to lend him more troops for another expedition. Antony wished to avoid the political pitfalls of returning to Rome, however, so traveled with Cleopatra back to Alexandria to see his newborn son.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Antony prepared for another Parthian expedition in 35 BC, this time aimed at their ally Armenia. As he did so, Octavia traveled to Athens with 2,000 troops in alleged support of Antony. This was most likely a scheme devised by Octavian to embarrass Antony for his military losses. Antony received the troops but ordered Octavia not to stray east of Athens. He and Cleopatra traveled together to Antioch, only to suddenly and inexplicably abandon the military campaign and head back to Alexandria. When Octavia returned to Rome, Octavian portrayed his sister as a victim wronged by Antony. She refused to leave Antony's household, however, and return to Octavian's in Rome. Octavian's confidence grew as he eliminated his rivals in the west, including Sextus Pompeius and even Lepidus, the third member of the triumvirate, who was placed under house arrest after revolting against Octavian in Sicily.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Antony sent Quintus Dellius as his envoy to Artavasdes II of Armenia in 34 BC to negotiate a potential marriage alliance between the Armenian king's daughter and Antony and Cleopatra's son Alexander Helios. When this was declined, Antony marched his army into Armenia, defeated its forces, and captured the king and the Armenian royal family. They were sent back to Alexandria as prisoners in golden chains befitting their royal status. Antony then held a military parade in Alexandria in the style of a Roman triumph. He dressed as Dionysos and rode into the city on a chariot presenting the royal prisoners to Queen Cleopatra, who sat on a golden throne above a silver dais. News of this event was heavily criticized in Rome as being distasteful, if not a perversion of time-honored Roman rites and rituals to be enjoyed instead by an Egyptian queen and her subjects.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In an event held at the gymnasium soon after the triumph, now known as the Donations of Alexandria, Cleopatra dressed as Isis and Antony declared that she was the Queen of Kings with her son Caesarion, King of Kings. Alexander Helios, dressed as a Median, was made king of Armenia, Medes, and Parthia, and two-year-old Ptolemy Philadelphos, dressed as a Macedonian-Greek ruler, king of Syria and Cilicia. Cleopatra Selene was also bestowed with Crete and Cyrene. Given the polemic, contradictory, and fragmentary nature of primary sources from the period, it is uncertain if Cleopatra and Antony were also formally wed at this ceremony, or if they even had any marriage at all. However, coins of Antony and Cleopatra depict them in the typical manner of a Hellenistic royal couple. Antony then sent a report to Rome requesting ratification of these territorial claims, which Octavian wanted to publicize for propaganda purposes, but the two consuls, both supporters of Antony, had it censored from public view.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In late 34 BC, following the Donations, Antony and Octavian engaged in a heated war of propaganda that would last for years. Antony argued that his rival had illegally deposed Lepidus from their triumvirate and barred him from raising troops in Italy. Octavian accused Antony of unlawfully detaining the king of Armenia, marrying Cleopatra despite still being married to his sister Octavia, and wrongfully claiming Caesarion as the heir of Caesar instead of Octavian. The litany of accusations and gossip associated with this propaganda war have shaped popular perceptions of Cleopatra from Augustan-period literature to various media in modern times.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Aside from casual criticisms of Cleopatra's extravagant lifestyle and corruption of Antony with her opulence, she was alleged by various Roman authors to have resorted to witchcraft as a lethal sorceress who not only toyed with the idea of poisoning many, Antony included, but also intended to conquer and punish Rome itself. She was a woman as dangerous as Homer's Helen of Troy in toppling the order of civilization. Antony was generally viewed as having lost his judgment, brainwashed by Cleopatra's magic spells. Antony's supporters rebutted with tales of Octavian's wild and promiscuous sex life, while graffiti now often appeared slandering either side as being sexually obscene. Cleopatra had a conveniently timed Sibylline Oracle claim that Rome would be punished, but that peace and reconciliation would follow in a golden age led by the queen. In an account of Lucius Munatius Plancus, preserved in Horace's "Satires", Cleopatra allegedly made a bet that she could spend 2.5 million drachmas in a single evening. She proved it by removing a pearl, one of the most expensive known, from one of her earrings and dissolving it in vinegar at her dinner party. The accusation that Antony had stolen the books of the Library of Pergamon to restock the Library of Alexandria, however, was an admitted fabrication by Gaius Calvisius Sabinus. He may have been the source of many other slanders of Antony in support of Octavian's side.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: A papyrus document dated to February 33 BC contains with little doubt the signature handwriting of Cleopatra. It concerns certain tax exemptions in Egypt granted to Publius Canidius Crassus (or Quintus Caecillius), former Roman consul and Antony's confidant who would command his land forces at Actium. A subscript in a different handwriting at the bottom of the papyrus reads "make it happen" (), undoubtedly the autograph of the queen, as it was Ptolemaic practice to countersign documents to avoid forgery.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: In a speech to the Roman Senate on the first day of his consulship on 1 January 33 BC, Octavian accused Antony of attempting to subvert Roman freedoms and authority as a slave to Cleopatra, who he said was given lands that rightfully belonged to the Romans. Before Antony and Octavian's joint "imperium" expired on 31 December 33 BC, Antony declared Caesarion as the true heir of Julius Caesar in an attempt to undermine Octavian. On 1 January 32 BC, the Antonian loyalists Gaius Sosius and Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus were elected as consuls. On 1 February 32 BC, Sosius gave a fiery speech condemning Octavian, now a private citizen without public office, introducing pieces of legislation against him. During the next senatorial session, Octavian entered the Senate house with armed guards and levied his own accusations against the consuls. Intimidated by this act, the consuls and over two-hundred senators still in support of Antony fled Rome the next day and joined his side. Antony established his own counter Roman Senate. Although he held military office and his reputation was still largely intact, Antony was still fundamentally reliant on Cleopatra for military support. The couple traveled together to Ephesus in 32 BC, where Cleopatra provided him with 200 of the 800 total naval ships he was able to acquire.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Domitius Ahenobarbus, wary of having Octavian's propaganda confirmed to the public, attempted to persuade Antony to have Cleopatra excluded entirely from the military efforts launched against Octavian. Publius Canidius Crassus made the counterargument that Cleopatra was funding the war effort and, as a long-reigning monarch, was by no means inferior to the male allied kings Antony had summoned for the campaign. Cleopatra refused Antony's requests that she return to Egypt, judging that by blocking Octavian in Greece, she could defend Egypt more easily from him. Cleopatra's insistence that she be involved in the battle for Greece led to defections of prominent Romans such as Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Munatius Plancus.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: During the spring of 32 BC, Antony and Cleopatra traveled to Samos and then Athens, where Cleopatra was ostensibly well received. She persuaded Antony to send Octavia an official declaration of divorce. This encouraged Munatius Plancus to advise Octavian that he should seize Antony's will, invested with the Vestal Virgins. Although a violation of sacred customs and legal rights, Octavian forcefully acquired the document from the Temple of Vesta. It was a useful tool in the propaganda war against Antony and Cleopatra. In the selective public reading of the will, Octavian highlighted the claim that Caesarion was heir to Caesar, that the Donations of Alexandria were legal, that Antony should be buried alongside Cleopatra in Egypt instead of Rome, and that Alexandria would be made the new capital of the Roman Republic. In a show of loyalty to Rome, Octavian decided to begin construction of his own mausoleum at the Campus Martius. His legal standing was also improved by being elected consul in 31 BC, reentering public office. With Antony's will made public, Octavian had his "casus belli" and Rome declared war on Cleopatra, not Antony. Scholars argue that this decision was made on the basis that the declaration of war against a fellow citizen would be associated with a civil war and thus cause Octavian to lose support. The legal argument for war was based less on Cleopatra's territorial acquisitions of former Roman territories, ruled by her children with Antony, and more on the fact that she was providing military support to a private citizen, now that Antony's triumviral authority had expired. Octavian's wish to invade Egypt also coincided with his financial concern of collecting the massive debts owed to Caesar by Cleopatra's father Ptolemy XII. These were passed on to Cleopatra and were now the prerogative of Octavian, Caesar's heir.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Antony and Cleopatra had greater numbers of troops (i.e. 100,000 men) and ships (i.e. 800 vessels) than Octavian, who had some 200 ships and 80,000 men. However, the crews of Antony and Cleopatra's navy were not all well-trained, some of them perhaps from merchant vessels, whereas Octavian had a fully professional force. Antony wanted to cross the Adriatic Sea and blockade Octavian at either Tarentum or Brundisium, but Cleopatra, concerned primarily with defending Egypt, overrode the decision to attack Italy directly. Antony and Cleopatra set up their winter headquarters at Patrai in Greece, and by the spring of 31 BC, they moved to Actium along the southern Ambracian Gulf. With this position, Cleopatra had the defense of Egypt in mind, as any southward movement by Octavian's fleet along the coast of Greece could be detected.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra and Antony had the support of various allied kings. Conflict between Cleopatra and Herod had previously erupted and an earthquake in Judea provided an excuse for him and his forces not to be present at Actium in support of the couple. They also lost the support of Malichus I of Nabataea, which would prove to have strategic consequences. Antony and Cleopatra lost several skirmishes against Octavian around Actium during the summer of 31 BC. Defections to Octavian's camp continued, including Antony's long-time companion Quintus Dellius. The allied kings also began to defect to Octavian's side, starting with Amyntas of Galatia and Deiotaros of Paphlagonia. While some in Antony's camp suggested abandoning the naval conflict to retreat inland and face Octavian in the Greek interior, Cleopatra urged for a naval confrontation to keep Octavian's fleet away from Egypt.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: On 2 September 31 BC, Octavian's naval forces, led by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, met those of Antony and Cleopatra for a decisive engagement, the Battle of Actium. On board her flagship the "Antonias", Cleopatra commanded 60 ships at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf, at the rear of the fleet. This was likely a move by Antony's officers to marginalize her during the battle. Antony had ordered that their ships have sails on board for a better chance to pursue or flee from the enemy. Cleopatra, ever-concerned about defending Egypt, took advantage of the favourable winds and used them to move swiftly through the area of major combat in a strategic withdrawal to the Peloponnese. Burstein writes that partisan Roman writers would later accuse Cleopatra of cowardly deserting Antony, but their original intention of keeping their sails on board may have been to break the blockade and salvage as much of their fleet as possible. Antony followed her and boarded her ship, identified by its distinctive purple sails, as the two escaped the battle and headed for Tainaron. Antony apparently avoided Cleopatra during this three-day voyage, until her ladies in waiting at Tainaron urged him to speak with her. The Battle of Actium raged on without Cleopatra and Antony until the morning of 3 September, when there were massive defections of both officers, troops, and even allied kings to Octavian's side.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: While Octavian occupied Athens, Antony and Cleopatra landed at Paraitonion in Egypt and parted ways. Antony went to Cyrene to raise more troops; Cleopatra sailed into the harbor at Alexandria in a misleading attempt to portray the activities in Greece as a victory. Conflicting reports make it unclear if Cleopatra had financial difficulties at this juncture or not. Some claims, such as robbing temples of their wealth to pay for her military expenditures, were likely Augustan propaganda. It is also uncertain if she actually executed Artavasdes II of Armenia and sent his head to his rival Artavasdes I of Media Atropatene, in an attempt to strike an alliance with him.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Lucius Pinarius, Mark Antony's appointed governor of Cyrene, received word that Octavian had won the Battle of Actium before Antony's messengers could arrive at his court. Pinarius had these messengers executed and defected to Octavian's side, surrendering to him the four legions under his command that Antony wanted to obtain. Antony nearly committed suicide after this news but his staff officers stopped him. In Alexandria, he built a reclusive cottage on the island of Pharos. He nicknamed it the "Timoneion", after the philosopher Timon of Athens, who was famous for his cynicism and misanthropy. Herod the Great, who had personally advised Antony after the Battle of Actium that he should betray Cleopatra, traveled to Rhodes to meet Octavian and resign his kingship out of loyalty to Antony. Impressed by his speech and sense of loyalty, Octavian allowed him to maintain his position in Judea, further isolating Antony and Cleopatra.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra perhaps started to view Antony as a liability by the late summer of 31 BC, when she prepared to leave Egypt to her son Caesarion. As an object of Roman hostility, Cleopatra would relinquish her throne and remove herself from the equation by taking her fleet from the Mediterranean into the Red Sea and then setting sail to a foreign port, perhaps in India, where she could spend time recuperating. However, these plans were ultimately abandoned when Malichus I of Nabataea, as advised by Octavian's governor of Syria Quintus Didius, managed to burn Cleopatra's fleet in revenge for his losses in a war with Herod largely initiated by Cleopatra. Cleopatra had no option but to stay in Egypt and negotiate with Octavian. Although most likely pro-Octavian propaganda, it was reported at this time that Cleopatra had begun testing the strengths of various poisons on prisoners and even her own servants.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra had Caesarion enter into the ranks of the "ephebi". This, along with reliefs on a stele from Koptos dated to 21 September 31 BC, demonstrate that she was now grooming her son to become the sole ruler of Egypt. In a show of solidarity, Antony also had Marcus Antonius Antyllus, his son with Fulvia, enter the "ephebi" at the same time. Separate messages and envoys from Antony and Cleopatra were then sent to Octavian, still stationed at Rhodes, although Octavian seems to have replied only to Cleopatra. Cleopatra requested that her children inherit Egypt and that Antony be allowed to live there in exile. She offered Octavian money in the future and immediately sent him gifts of a golden scepter, crown, and throne. Octavian sent his diplomat Thyrsos to Cleopatra after she had threatened to immolate herself and vast amounts of her treasure within a tomb already under construction. Thyrsos advised her to kill Antony so that her life would be spared. When Antony suspected foul intent, however, he had this diplomat flogged and sent back to Octavian without a deal. From Octavian's point of view, Lepidus could be trusted under house arrest. Antony, however, had to be eliminated, and Caesarion, the rival heir to Julius Caesar, could not be trusted either.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: After lengthy negotiations that ultimately produced no results, Octavian set out to invade Egypt in the spring of 30 BC. He stopped at Ptolemais in Phoenicia where his new ally Herod entertained him and provided his army with fresh supplies. Octavian moved south and swiftly took Pelousion, while Cornelius Gallus, marching eastward from Cyrene, defeated Antony's forces near Paraitonion. Octavian advanced quickly to Alexandria. Antony returned and won a small victory over Octavian's tired troops outside the city's hippodrome. However, on 1 August 30 BC, Antony's naval fleet surrendered to Octavian, followed by his cavalry. Cleopatra hid herself in her tomb with her close attendants, sending a message to Antony that she had committed suicide. In despair, Antony responded by stabbing himself in the stomach, taking his own life at age 53. According to Plutarch, however, Antony was allegedly still dying when he was brought to Cleopatra at her tomb. Plutarch told her Antony had died honorably in a contest against a fellow Roman, and that she could trust Octavian's companion Gaius Proculeius over anyone else in his entourage. It was Proculeius, however, who infiltrated her tomb using a ladder and detained the queen, denying her the ability to immolate herself with her treasures. Cleopatra was then allowed to embalm and bury Antony within her tomb before she was escorted to the palace.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Octavian entered Alexandria and gave a speech of reconciliation at the gymnasium before settling in the palace and seizing Cleopatra's three youngest children. When she met with Octavian, she looked disheveled, but still retained her poise and classic charm. She told him bluntly, "I will not be led in a triumph" (), according to Livy, a rare recording of her exact words. Octavian cryptically promised that he would keep her alive but offered no explanation about his plans for her kingdom. When a spy informed her that Octavian planned to move her and her children to Rome in three days, she prepared for suicide. She had no intention of being paraded in a Roman triumph like her sister Arsinoe IV. It is unclear if Cleopatra's suicide, in August 30 BC at age 39, took place within the palace or her tomb. Ancient authors reported that her servants Erias and Charmion also took their own lives to accompany her. Octavian was apparently angered by this outcome but had her buried in royal fashion next to Antony in her tomb. Cleopatra's physician Olympos did not give an account of the cause of her death. The popular belief is that she allowed an asp, or Egyptian cobra, to bite and poison her. Plutarch relates this tale, but then suggests an implement ("knestis") was used to introduce the toxin by scratching. Cassius Dio says that she injected the poison with a needle ("belone"), and Strabo argued for an ointment of some kind. No venomous snake was found with her body, but she did have tiny puncture wounds on her arm that could have been caused by a needle.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra, though long desiring to preserve her kingdom, decided in her last moments to send Caesarion away to Upper Egypt perhaps with plans to flee to Nubia, Ethiopia or India. The sixteen-year-old Caesarion, now Ptolemy XV, reigned for a mere eighteen days until he was executed on the orders of Octavian on 29 August 30 BC. He had been returning to Alexandria under the false pretense that Octavian would allow him to be king. Octavian hesitated to have him killed at first, but the advice of philosopher and friend Arius Didymus convinced him there was room for only one Caesar in the world. With the fall of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, Egypt was formally annexed by Rome on 31 August and made into a Roman province, marking the end of Hellenistic Egypt and the entire Hellenistic age that had begun with the reign of Alexander the Great () of Macedon. In January 27 BC, Octavian was renamed Augustus ('the revered') and amassed constitutional powers that established him as the first Roman emperor, inaugurating the Principate era of the Roman Empire. Roman emperors were thereafter considered pharaohs of Egypt, but unlike the Ptolemaic rulers, they did not reside there. Octavian, now Augustus, distanced himself from Egyptian royal rituals, such as coronation in the Egyptian style or worshiping the Apis bull. He was, however, depicted in Egyptian temples as a typical pharaoh making sacrifices to the gods. Unlike regular Roman provinces, Octavian established Egypt as territory under his personal control. He barred the Roman Senate from intervening in any of its affairs and appointed his own equestrian governors of Egypt, the first of whom was Cornelius Gallus.


title: Reign of Cleopatra

text: Cleopatra's personal rule of Egypt followed the model of virtual absolute monarchy that had existed in the Kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece, the homeland of Alexander the Great, before he and his successors, the "Diadochi", spread this style of monarchy throughout the conquered Achaemenid Persian Empire. Classical Greece (480–336 BC) had contained a variety of city-states (i.e. "poleis") possessing various forms of government, including democracy and oligarchy. These city-states continued to have these forms of government in Hellenistic Greece (336–146 BC) and even later Roman Greece. They were heavily influenced and in many cases dominated by the Hellenistic monarchies of the Antigonid, Seleucid, and Ptolemaic realms. Beginning with the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the Ptolemaic Kingdom had fought a series of conflicts against the Seleucid Empire over control of Syria. Cleopatra's kingdom was based in Egypt, but she desired to expand it and incorporate territories of North Africa, West Asia, and the eastern Mediterranean Basin that had belonged to her illustrious ancestor Ptolemy I Soter.