Cleopatra, whose name means "glory of her father", was born during the winter of 69-68 B.C. in the capital of Egypt, Alexandria.
Her father was Ptolemy XII and her mother was probably Cleopatra VI, although other sources claim that she was the daughter of an upper-class Egyptian. When she ascended the throne of Egypt at the age of 18, Cleopatra had already developed an irresistible attractiveness, the result of an intense education and her presumed beauty. Little else is known about Cleopatra's early life. Her figure is irretrievably linked to the last years of Egyptian history, a period that marked the decline of a long lineage: that of the Ptolemies.