Achillas
Achillas was one of the guardians of the Egyptian king Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator, and commander of the king's troops, when Pompey fled to Egypt in 48 BC.
He was called by Julius Caesar a man of extraordinary daring, and it was he and Lucius Septimius who killed Pompey at the suggestion of the eunuch Pothinus and Theodotus of Chios.
Achillas subsequently joined Pothinus in resisting Caesar, and having had the command of the whole army entrusted to him by Pothinus, he marched against Alexandria with 20,000 on foot and 2,000 cavalry.
Caesar, who was at Alexandria, did not have sufficient forces to oppose him, and sent ambassadors to negotiate with him.
However, Achillas murdered the ambassadors to remove all hopes of reconciliation.
He then marched into Alexandria and occupied most of the city( Siege of Alexandria( 47 BC)).
Meanwhile, Arsinoe, the younger sister of Ptolemy, escaped from Caesar and joined Achillas.
However, in 47, dissension broke out between them, so Arsinoe had Achillas put to death by Ganymedes, a eunuch to whom she then entrusted the command of the forces.
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator ("Ptolemaĩos Theós PhilopátōrPtolemy, God Beloved of his Father"; 62 BC/61 BC – prob.
January 13, 47 BC, reigned from 51 BC) was one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC) of Egypt.
He was the son of Ptolemy XII and the brother of and co-ruler with Cleopatra VII.
Cleopatra's exit from Egypt caused a civil war to break out between the pharaohs.
Ptolemy later ruled jointly with his other sister, Arsinoe IV.
Theodotus of Chios
Theodotus of Chios( died in 43 BC or 42 BC) was the rhetoric tutor of the young Egyptian king Ptolemy XIII.
Pothinus
Pothinus or Potheinos( early 1st century BC to 48 or 47 BC), a eunuch, was regent for Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
He is most remembered for turning Ptolemy against his sister and co-ruler Cleopatra, thus starting a civil war, and for having Pompey decapitated and presenting the severed head to Julius Caesar.
When Ptolemy XII died in 51 BC, his will stated that Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII were to become co-rulers of Egypt, with the Roman Republic as their guardians.
Ptolemy XIII was underage and Pothinus was appointed as his regent.
The general Achillas and the rhetorician Theodotus of Chios were also guardians of the Egyptian king.
When Ptolemy and Cleopatra were elevated to the status of senior rulers, Pothinus was maintained as the former's regent.
Most Egyptologists believed that Pothinus used his influence to turn Ptolemy against Cleopatra.
In the spring of 48 BC, Ptolemy, under Pothinus' guidance, attempted to depose Cleopatra in order to become sole ruler while Pothinus planned to act as the power behind the throne.
They gained control of Alexandria, then the capital of Egypt, and forced Cleopatra out of the city.
She soon organized her own army and a civil war began in Egypt, while Arsinoe IV also began to claim the throne for herself.
Rome was also enveloped in civil war, and after his defeat in the Battle of Pharsalus Pompey sought asylum in Egypt.
Initially, Pothinus pretended to have accepted his request, but on September 29, 48 BC, Pothinus had the general murdered, hoping to win favor with Julius Caesar, who had defeated Pompey.
When Caesar arrived, he was presented with the head of Pompey, but he responded with grief and disgust and ordered that Pompey's body be located and given a proper Roman funeral.
Pothinus had neglected to note that Caesar had been granting clemency to his enemies, including Cassius, Cicero, and Brutus.
Cleopatra used Pothinus's mistake to gain favor with Caesar and eventually became his lover.
Caesar then arranged for the execution of Pothinus and the marriage of Cleopatra to Ptolemy.
In the very last chapter of" Commentarii de Bello Civili", however, it is described that Pothinus arranged for Achillas to attack Alexandria and upon sending a message not to hesitate but to fulfill the plan, the messengers were exposed, whereupon Caesar had Pothinus imprisoned and killed, probably with a knife.
His death was shortly followed by the ten-month siege of Alexandria.
Mithridates I of the Bosporus
Mithridates I of the Bosporus sometimes known as Mithridates II of the Bosporus and Mithridates of Pergamon( flourished 1st century BC), was a nobleman from Anatolia.
Mithridates was one of the sons born to King Mithridates VI of Pontus from his mistress, the Galatian Princess Adobogiona the Elder.
He also had a full- blooded sister called Adobogiona the Younger.
The Pontic prince was of Persian, Macedonian and Galatian ancestry.
His father sent Mithridates to Pergamon to be educated, where he became a leading citizen of that city.
Mithridates was a tetrarch over the Trocmi tribe.
In the winter of 48/47 BC, Caesar was under siege in Alexandria by the armies of Achillas, guardian and general for King Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator.
Mithridates raised an army and came to Caesar ’s relief.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Zela, Caesar made him king of the Bosporan Kingdom, by commanding him to declare war on his niece Dynamis and her husband Asander( who were then the ruling monarchs) to seize the kingship for himself.
Dynamis and Asander were defeated by Mithridates and his army, and Mithridates became King of the Bosporus.
However, after Caesar ’s death in 44 BC, the Bosporan Kingdom was restored to Dynamis and Asander by Caesar ’s great nephew and heir, Octavian( future Roman Emperor Augustus).
Sometime after Mithridates abdicated, he died.
Mithridates was portrayed by Furio Meniconi in the 1963 film" Cleopatra".
Apollodorus the Sicilian
Apollodorus was a loyal follower of the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII.
In 48 BC he is supposed to have enabled Cleopatra to get in the palace of Alexandria to Julius Caesar and in this way to strengthen decisively her position in the power struggle with her brother Ptolemy XIII.
Richard T. Jones
Richard Timothy Jones( born January 16, 1972) is an American actor.
Jones is best known for his portrayals of Laveinio in the dramatic film" The Wood"( 1999) and Mike of the dramatic films" Why Did I Get Married?"( 2007) and" Why Did I Get Married Too?"( 2010).
He is also well known for his role as Bruce Van Exel, court services officer on the CBS television series" Judging Amy" that aired from 1999 to 2005.
Lamman Rucker
Lamman Rucker( born October 6, 1971) is an American actor.
Rucker began his career on the daytime soap operas" As the World Turns" and" All My Children", before roles in Tyler Perry's films
" Why Did I Get Married?
Why Did I Get Married Too?", and" Meet the Browns", and its television adaptation.
In 2016, he began starring as Jacob Greenleaf in the Oprah Winfrey Network drama series," Greenleaf".
Arsinoe IV of Egypt
Arsinoë IV( between 68 and 63 BC – 41 BC) was the fourth of six children and the youngest daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes.
Queen and co-ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt with her brother Ptolemy XIII from 48 BC – 47 BC, she was one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt.
Arsinoë IV was also the half sister of Cleopatra VII.
For her role in conducting the Siege of Alexandria( 47 BC) against her sister Cleopatra, Arsinoe was taken as a prisoner of war to Rome by the Roman triumvir Julius Caesar following the defeat of Ptolemy XIII in the Battle of the Nile.
Arsinoe was then exiled to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in Roman Anatolia, but she was executed there by orders of triumvir Mark Antony in 41 BC at the behest of his lover Cleopatra.
Cleopatra
Cleopatra VII Philopator (69 – 10 or 12 August 30 BC) was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, nominally survived as pharaoh by her son Caesarion.
As a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy
I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great.
After the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the Hellenistic period that had lasted since the reign of Alexander (336–323 BC).
Her native language was Koine Greek, and she was the first Ptolemaic ruler to learn the Egyptian language.
In 58 BC, Cleopatra presumably accompanied her father Ptolemy XII during his exile to Rome after a revolt in Egypt, a Roman client state, allowed his daughter Berenice IV to claim the throne.
Berenice was killed in 55 BC when the king returned to Egypt with Roman military assistance.
When he died in 51 BC, the joint reign of Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII began.
A falling-out between them led to open civil war.
After losing the 48 BC Battle of Pharsalus in Greece against his rival Julius Caesar (a Roman dictator and consul) in Caesar's Civil War, the Roman statesman Pompey fled to Egypt, where Ptolemy had him killed while Caesar occupied Alexandria.
Caesar had attempted to reconcile the siblings, but Ptolemy's chief adviser Potheinos viewed Caesar's terms as favoring Cleopatra, so his forces besieged her and Caesar at the palace.
Shortly after the siege was lifted by reinforcements, Ptolemy died in the 47 BC Battle of the Nile.
His sister Arsinoe IV was eventually exiled to Ephesus for her role in carrying out the siege.
Caesar declared Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIV joint rulers, but maintained a private affair with Cleopatra that produced Caesarion.
Cleopatra traveled to Rome as a client queen in 46 and 44 BC, where she stayed at Caesar's villa.
After the assassinations of Caesar and (on her orders) Ptolemy XIV in 44 BC, she named Caesarion co-ruler.
In the Liberators' civil war of 43–42 BC, Cleopatra sided with the Roman Second Triumvirate formed by Caesar's grandnephew and heir Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.
After their meeting at Tarsos in 41 BC, the queen had an affair with Antony.
He carried out the execution of Arsinoe at her request, and became increasingly reliant on Cleopatra for both funding and military aid during his invasions of the Parthian Empire and the Kingdom of Armenia.
The Donations of Alexandria declared their children Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene II, and Ptolemy Philadelphus rulers over various erstwhile territories under Antony's triumviral authority.
This event, their marriage, and Antony's divorce of Octavian's sister Octavia Minor led to the Final War of the Roman Republic.
Octavian engaged in a war of propaganda, forced Antony's allies in the Roman Senate to flee Rome in 32 BC, and declared war on Cleopatra.
After defeating Antony and Cleopatra's naval fleet at the 31 BC Battle of Actium, Octavian's forces invaded Egypt in 30 BC and defeated Antony, leading to Antony's suicide.
When Cleopatra learned that Octavian planned to bring her to his Roman triumphal procession, she committed suicide by poisoning (contrary to the popular belief that she was bitten by an asp).
Cleopatra's legacy survives in ancient and modern works of art.
Roman historiography and Latin poetry produced a generally critical view of the queen that pervaded later Medieval and Renaissance literature.
In the visual arts, her ancient depictions include Roman busts, paintings, and sculptures, cameo carvings and glass, Ptolemaic and Roman coinage, and reliefs.
In Renaissance and Baroque art
she was the subject of many works including operas, paintings, poetry, sculptures, and theatrical dramas.
She has become a pop culture icon of Egyptomania since the Victorian era, and in modern times Cleopatra has appeared in the applied and fine arts, burlesque satire, Hollywood films, and brand images for commercial products.

Question: Why did Ptolemy Xiii Theos Philopator's wife die?
Answer: poisoning