Smuggled into the palace to meet Caesar

In 48 BC, Cleopatra was at war with her younger brother and co-ruler, Ptolemy XIII. His advisers had driven her out of Alexandria. Then Julius Caesar arrived in the city, chasing his rival Pompey, and moved into the royal palace.

Caesar ordered both siblings to disband their armies and come before him to settle the dispute. But Ptolemy’s forces controlled the city. If Cleopatra arrived openly, she might never reach the palace alive.

According to Plutarch, she sailed into the harbour at dusk in a small boat with one companion, Apollodorus the Sicilian. She lay down inside a bedding sack; he tied it with a strap and carried it on his shoulder through the palace gates and straight to Caesar. Later retellings turned the sack into a rolled-up carpet.

Plutarch says Caesar was captivated by her boldness. Within months he had restored her to the throne. Cleopatra would rule Egypt for another eighteen years. She reportedly spoke nine languages and was the first ruler of her Greek dynasty to learn Egyptian.