ABSTRACT
On the death of Ptolemy in 51 BC his eldest surviving daughter, Cleopatra VI., began her reign as queen of Egypt. In Cleopatra VI. The dynasty founded by the shrewd Macedonian marshal in Egypt, nearly three hundred years before, was destined to come to its end. When she came to the throne it seemed on the point of extinction. Cleopatra found herself queen of Egypt at the age of seventeen or eighteen. By the custom of the house, and according to the will and testament of Ptolemy Auletes, the elder of her two brothers, then only nine or ten, was associated with her, as King Ptolemy XII. The eastern princes and peoples held as a whole by the great Pompey in the coming struggle, and the children of Ptolemy Auletes, restored by Pompey's man, Gabinius, were under special obligations to Pompey. From Egypt Cleopatra watched the great struggle in the Roman world which followed Cæ sar's death.
