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Gypsy History

Egyptian and Roman connection ?

Cleopatra and Mark Antony
(source: Encyclopedia Americana,
copyright 1992,
excerpted from:
volume 7, pgs 51-52;
volume 19, page 707)

named Cleopatra VII Philopator
last of the line of Ptolemy

ethnicity, Macedonian, Greek and Iranian

Ascended throne in 51 BC, by the will of her father, Ptolemy XII Auletes
ruled Egypt along with her brother, Ptolemy XIII

oppressive, greedy...
believed in taxing to maximum sustainable limits
without causing revolt

Cleopatra struggled with her brother for total control of the country, and raised an army to regain control while in exile, from 49 BC to 47 BC, when Julius Caesar came to, and finally conquored, Alexandria.

Cleopatra returned to Alexandria in secret and formed an alliance with Julius Caesar. Caesar defeated Alexandria in 47 BC, and, according to their arrangement, Cleopatra once again regained the throne upon her brother's death, Ptolemy XIII

Egyptian custom required that she take a husband to be Pharoh, and she married her youngest brother, Ptolemy XIV, although she remained the actual ruler.

She wined and dined Julius Caesar for several months, including a trip up the Nile, seeking to become First Lady of the Roman world. in 46 BC, she bore Caesar a son, named Ptolemy Caesar or Caesarion. travelling to Rome soon after the baby's birth, Julius Caesar offended his countryman by dedicating a gold statue of her in the temple of Venus Genetrix.

taking residency on property belonging to Caesar beyond the Tiber river, she remained there until a month after Julius Caesar's assination.

in March of 44 BC, she fled back to Alexandria. presumed to have been responsible for poisoning her brother, Ptolemy XIV, Cleopatra placed her son, Caesarion, on the throne with her after Ptolemy XIV had died. Caesarion ruled on the throne under the name of Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor.

Caesarion's legitimate succession to the throne of Egypt had been assured by Cleopatra, as she had taken him to the priests of Hermonthis and had them recognize him as being descended from the god Amon.

in 42 BC, Mark Antony, a member of the ruling triumvirate of Rome along with Octavian and Lepidus, summoned Cleopatra and several other Eastern rulers to Tarsus to render their taxes and tribute to Roman rule, after the battle of Phillippi.

Cleopatra saw this as an opportunity to once again regain power with Rome, and staged an encounter to win Mark Antony's heart. Her efforts were successful, and she was acquitted of having assisted Cassius, one of Caesar's assassins, in crimes against the triumvirate.

Mark Antony was soon granting Cleopatra's every wish, including the murder of her younger sister, Arsinoë, who was barely eligible to ascend the throne of Egypt.

in the autumn of 37 BC, Maryk Antony, after a lengthy separation, sent for her to rejoin him in Antioch, where they were married despite his still in-force marriage to Octavian's sister, Octavia.

polygamy could not be recognized under Roman law, but Mark Antony recognized Cleopatra's twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, as his, and gave Cleopatra large parts of the territories of central Syria, Cyprus, the Phoenician coast, areas in Judea and lands east of the Dead Sea in the Nabataean Kingdom (Arabic, al-Abat).

(in 105 AD, Nabataea was annexed by Trajan, and in 106 AD it became the Roman province of Arabia. the original written vernacular language of the area was written in a cursive script, derived from Aramaic characters, Aramaic being the language purportedly spoken by Jesus Christ.)

at this point, Cleopatra, pregnant with Ptolemy Philadelphus, returned to Egypt.

She prompted Mark Antony to insult Octavia, who had still been supportive of him.

in 34 BC, Cleopatra further insulted Roman sensibilities, when she pursuaded Mark Antony to celebrate a triumph in Alexandria and she participated in it.

Mark Antony's continued support of Cleopatra, her ways and the honors he had bestowed upon her and her children undermined his authority both militarily and at home in Rome, until he was eventually stripped of power.

remaining together, Mark Antony and Cleopatra even fought together, she being his most trusted advisor.

in 32 BC, Octavian declared war upon Cleopatra.

when Mark Antony and Octavian met in Actium in 31 BC, it was Cleopatra's battle plan that Mark Antony used.

most of his fleet defected and Mark Antony fled in Cleopatra's ships, but his army surrendered.

it soon became apparent to Cleopatra that Mark Antony's period of power was over and that a war against Octavian would be disasterous.

Both Antony and Cleopatra attempted to negotiate unsuccessfully with Octavian. meanwhile, Octavian defeated Pelusium, and eventually Alexandria.

in a scene that eventually inspired Shakespeare, Cleopatra is alleged to have tricked Mark Antony into taking his own life by making him believe that she had taken hers.

after Antony's death, Cleopatra was still unsuccessful in negotiating with Octavian over the rights of her children.

she attempted to immolate herself and her family's fortunes inside a mausoleum while barracaded inside. this plan was thwarted, however, and she was imprisoned by Octavian, permanently.

when she became convinced of the futility of her efforts to negotiate with Octavian for the rights of her children, she killed herself, supposedly, by having Asps smuggled into her in a basket while still imprisoned by Octavian, with his blessing, in 30 BC, and she was burried, by her last request, next to Mark Antony.

(the Gypsy Dom's notes....

a) little is known about what fate befell the children of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, however legend has it that they were spirited out of the country by Cleopatra's most trusted relatives and ethinic countrymen, heading eastward, with the EVENTUAL destination of somewhere either IN the Middle East, or BEYOND it, in the general direction from which Cleopatra's ancestors had come.

their distrust of Rome would have made such an exodus understandable.

b) given the hatred that the children of Mark Antony and Cleopatra would have had toward Rome in general, their relatives and offspring would have fostered the same hatred, passing it on to subsequent generations.

since Rome's rule and authority were present so much in the "western world" of that time, EASTWARD would have been their only original direction of flight from Roman influence.

c) the traditions of my people suggest that they were present at the crucifiction of Christ, which appears to fit into this general scenario and timetable.

this is, perhaps, what gave rise to the legend of a gypsy who stole one of the four nails the Romans were about to use to crucify Jesus of Nazareth...

d) throughout the Gypsy history, the names "Egypt" and "Roman" were always, somehow, mysteriously associated with them, as was the claim to have been of VERY royal birth.

the efforts of the Gypsy people, at least at first, to remain "genetically pure" would seem to verify this claim, and the history of the children of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony would have made ANYONE quite secretive about their true origins, in fear of Roman reprisals.

this fear of Rome, which controlled most of the "known" world at that time, would have also led descendants of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony to lead lives so segregated from society that "genetic pureness" and the desire for the preservation of geneology would result in severe in-breeding, adding "new peoples" only as often as necessary to secure blood lines.

e) given the propensity of the God of the Bible to deal with sons of rulers, and to deal in ironic methods, it is HIGHLY probable that either some of these children of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony, or their descendants, WERE present at Jesus' crucifiction.

whereby He would have offered "life" BACK to "the son of Pharoh", spiritually, as a symbolic gesture for having taken the physical life of the son of Pharoh when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, in the first place....

it is written, "God works in mysterious ways..
His wonders to perform....")