Cleopatra Pendant

Cleopatra came to the throne at eighteen, ruling jointly with her brother. By twenty one she had been exiled and returned at the head of an army. She allied with Julius Caesar, bore his son Caesarion, married Mark Antony, and ruled an empire that reached from Egypt to Cyprus to parts of modern Turkey, Lebanon, and Israel. After Antony's defeat at Actium in 31 BCE and his subsequent suicide, she took her own life rather than be paraded through Rome. Traditionally by an asp, more probably by poison.

Her death marked the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty and of the three thousand year tradition of Egyptian pharaonic rule. Egypt became a Roman province the following year. Plutarch, writing a century later, recorded her famous capacity in language. "Her tongue was like a many stringed instrument, which she could turn to whichever language she pleased".

Cleopatra VII. The last pharaoh. Ptolemaic Egypt. The polyglot queen. Personal power.

Cleopatra VII Philopator (69 to 30 BCE) was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, the Hellenistic dynasty that had governed since the death of Alexander the Great.

She is read variously as a master strategist, a polyglot scholar, a brilliant tactician, and, in Roman propaganda, as a seductress. The pendant honours the historical figure rather than the Roman caricature.

For the polyglots. Cleopatra spoke at least nine languages. Egyptian, Greek, Aramaic, Ethiopian, Trogodyte, Hebrew, Arabic, Median, and Parthian. The first Ptolemaic ruler to speak Egyptian. The pendant is for those who do their work in more than one tongue.

For the diplomatic. Cleopatra ruled Egypt at the moment Rome was absorbing the eastern Mediterranean. Her tools were intelligence, alliance, and personal presence. She is the wearer's patron when the work in front of you is to be heard correctly by people who do not yet take you seriously.