Cleopatra was the last ruler of millennia-old pharaonic Egypt.

Many stories and myths entwine about her life and her love affairs with her tragic death.

She seduced Caesar the most famous and powerful ruler of Rome and began an affair with his successor Marc Antony after Caesar's assassination. It is said that she left the stage of history with a dramatic suicide by the bite of a cobra.

 

That is how she is portrayed in the Hollywood movie? And .... What more about her?

Cleopatra came from the Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies, founded in 300 BC by Alexander the Great and a dynasty that ruled Egypt from that time. Like all Egyptian pharaohs, Cleopatra was worshipped as the embodiment of a deity. She was the goddess Isis.

On the Nile in the city of Dendara stands one of the best-preserved temples of the ancient empire. Everywhere in and around this temple are images of female figures and on the outer wall you see Cleopatra in her divine form as the goddess Isis with her young son Caesarion in the role of Horus.

Isis, Horus and Osiris is the oldest and most important mythical trilogy in Egypt and goes back to the beginning of the history of Egyptian civilisation. Isis is the powerful goddess of love, she is raises her murdered husband Osiris from the dead makes love with him and gives birth to their son - Horus.

She is the protector on the path from death to rebirth.

Through magical initiation rituals, pharaohs became Horus, who rules the land from the womb and protection of his mother Isis. The mysteries of this myth have been celebrated by the people and reigning pharaoh in Abydos since the first pharaonic dynasty.


whole myth Isis and Osiris

The death of Osiris was a prominent motif in the Isis cult. The appearance of the sarcophagus here may refer to the emphasis on Osiris and the afterlife found in the mysteries dedicated to Isis.

Is was a tradition of the pharaonic empire to equate the the living king with Horus and when he died he became Osiris as the deceased king, thus the so-called cult of Isis and Osiris was an integral part of the ruling authority. In fact this identification with the gods authorised the Pharoes to rule.

In the 2nd century, Plutarch described Isis as the female principle in nature, and in Apuleius, an ecclectic Platonist, she becomes the universal all-goddess who initiates into the mystery cults.

Cleopatra arrived as the goddess Isis in Rome with an impressive fleet of ships. She lives some years in Rome to co-reign as Caesar's equal.

With her presence and the support of  the Egyptian Isis Priestesses accompanying her, the cult spreads in Rome.

For the Romans it had been unusual until then to worship rulers as gods and so the cult of Isis initially faced a number of reactions against it. However, the cult could not really be eliminated.

On the contrary, after some years of oposition the cult of Isis  became a sacrum publicum, a very popular, public, an official state cult. The cult of Isis spread throughout the entire Roman Empire.

 
For example:

London was once home to an ancient Roman temple dedicated to the goddess Isis