Cleopatra (69-30BC) was one of the pharaohs of Egypt during its last days as an important place. By the time of Cleopatra, the empire of Egypt had been taken over first by the Greeks under Alexander the Great, and then by the Romans. Egypt allowed parts of its empire to be ruled locally, and Queen Cleopatra was ruling Egypt on behalf of the Romans. She was not really like one of the ancient pharaohs at all.

Cleopatra was one of the monarchs who belonged to the line called the Ptolemys. These people were Greeks put in place by Alexander, and they were not related to the ancient pharaohs at all. They spoke Greek and could not speak Egyptian. Indeed, they refused to learn Egyptian. This was, at it happened, very useful in more recent times because everything that was written in Egyptian also had to be written in Greek. The famous Rosetta Stone is a stone tablet written in these multiple languages which was used to find out how to read the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Cleopatra had relations with Roman Emperor Julius Caesar and his General Mark Anthony. When Mark Anthony lost the battle to take control after Caesar, he committed suicide. Cleopatra, being on Mark Anthony's side, would sooner or later have been put to death, too, so she committed suicide by being bitten by a snake (asp) as was the custom.