Cleopatra was part of a Greek Macedonian dynasty that ruled Egypt for a few hundred years starting around the time of Alexander the Great’s death. She could speak Egyptian when she had to but most of the people around her spoke Greek. One of the ways she stayed in power is to create a mystic aura around her as she and her entourage convinced Egyptians that she was the reincarnation of the goddess Isis.
Official court documents at that time were written in Greek then translated into Egyptian on what was called the Rosetta Stone; if this sounds familiar to you it's the name of the famous language software program.
Unusual for those times and a great indication as to her abilities, Cleopatra’s father allowed her to help him rule when she was just 14. Historians don’t provide good insight into what happened to her mother.
When her father died, Cleopatra married her brother because of her father’s wishes. She was 18 and her brother was 10. They co-ruled the kingdom although he mostly stayed out of her way for the first few years.
They never had children and by all accounts it was just a marriage to protect their power. If one died, the other would naturally stay in charge. They had one other brother, but he must have been a black sheep because their father had pretty much written him off and Cleopatra made sure to take his name off all official documents. They also had a sister who was a non-factor in running the country.
Egypt suffered in many ways during her reign due to economic problems, famine, floods, etc., which caused a lot of political strife as the citizens weren’t real happy with her. It would’ve been an easy time for an empire like Rome to take over Egypt, but Cleopatra used her beauty to entice Julius Caesar to help her maintain her power through using Roman soldiers to provide security for her. Egypt had a great relationship with Greece at this time.
She had a son with Caesar who she named Caesarion (the translation of the name is little Caesar). Cleopatra was 21 years old at the time while Caesar was 52 and married. This was quite a scandal for Romans not that he was cheating on his wife, but that it was with a Greek who ruled Egypt.
When Caesar was brutally murdered one of his generals, Mark Antony, worked to keep the empire stable. Having lost Caesar’s protection, Cleopatra made her move on Mark Antony (she was 28 at the time), and he was completely smitten with her, but he already had a wife.
Cleopatra became pregnant by Antony and had twins. He mostly stayed away but then made his way back to her four years later and they got married in Egypt (even though he still had a wife in Rome). They ended up having one more child together.
General Antony and a powerful politician and military leader by the name of Octavianus, were keeping things going after Caesar’s death but they began having a lot of arguments about how things should be run, and a civil war ensued.
The biggest problem is that Caesar had amassed so much power and pretty much everyone wanted to restructure the government. The senate wanted all their powers back that Caesar had stripped from them. The bottom line is that it wasn’t a matter of just replacing Caesar it was a complete change in government.
By this point, Cleopatra named she and Julius’ son Caesarian as co-ruler. There were many people in Rome who thought Cleopatra might try to avenge Caesar’s death and become Queen of Egypt and the Roman Empire. Some of these rumors were just meant to get support to go after Mark Antony kept as the two were connected.
Antony had a lot of followers from Rome and Cleopatra used her resources to help him including money to fund the army and her naval fleet, but they kept losing key battles. After the war appeared to be over because his army was taking a beating, Mark Antony committed suicide.
There’s a lot of confusion over what happened to Cleopatra after she found out Antony was dead. Most historians believe she committed suicide through taking poison (possibly snake venom).
Her son Caesarion became the ruler of Egypt but Octavianus had him killed not long after Cleopatra’s death and Egypt became part of the Roman Empire. This was the end of Pharaohs. Some of Cleopatra’s children survived and ended up living under Roman rule.
In almost everything I’ve read about Cleopatra it said she was strikingly beautiful but that she also had charm and wit (sex appeal), and could bend men to her will. She wasn’t a brilliant ruler but she was an incredible politician.