Many sources on Cleopatra are rife with bias, even the historians that seemed sympathetic to her like Plutarch betray their own patriarchal beliefs. Romans did not like powerful women.

Marc Antony was a beloved son of Rome, even despite taking up with Cleopatra. In order to justify taking him down, Octavian needed to give Rome a boogeyman and who better than the exotic, mystical, she-devil temptress Cleopatra! Octavian went hard on a smear campaign that influential Romans were glad to carry. They had no love for a foreign queen taking good Roman men from their respectable wives, or eyeing Rome with perceived power-lust.

In order to be the boogeyman Octavian needed, and in order to not make Antony and Caesar look like fools, she had to be extravagant in every way. She used all the magic, all the spells, all the wicked feminine wiles, and she must be beautiful because how else could she be so powerful? The mythology of Cleopatra is in the context of making her a monster, albeit a sexy, clever one.

When Cleopatra was born the Ptolemaic dynasty was essentially a joke. Her father had to beg for assistance from Rome to keep his throne. She watched her own sister be executed for treason, saw the incest, saw a bunch of 'royals' who couldn't even be bothered to speak the language of the land she ruled and she took notes.

Cleopatra was given an education befitting a prince, and eventually learned from her father's side as both his presumed favorite and his choice to be future queen alongside her brother Ptolemy. She knew seven languages and was said to pick them up remarkably quickly. It pissed off the advisors later because instead of having to rely on an interpreter who got a power kick off this position, she was like, 'nah, I got this'.

She made an effort to know and respect her people. One of her first moves as queen was to take part in a major religious ceremony that hadn't been honored in ages. The Egyptian people loved it. So from this point we already know Cleopatra is highly intelligent, was raised for rule, she knows the value of good PR, and she seems to genuinely care about her people.

She is not into Ptolemy, or his advisors, and is a practical co-ruler. A certain group at court murdered someone and the advisors were ready to let them get away with it even though it would piss the victim's people off. But Cleopatra handed the murderers over to let justice be done.

She almost certainly didn't come to Caesar all half-naked and from a carpet. She'd been living as a fugitive in an uphill battle and Caesar was essentially her last chance. It's possible they had sex at their first meeting. But it's more likely she laid out all the benefits she'd bring compared to her badly advised little brother-husband, and played on the fact Ptolemy had foolishly had Pompey beheaded.

At this point, Egypt was a stone's throw away from being conquered by Rome, and Cleopatra knew that she needed Caesar's help to take her throne back and that it would be best to keep him on her side. Did she ever love him? She was fresh out of her teens and he was in his fifties, she came to him with her life on the line. He was a man who liked many women. They were both shrewd. They may have loved each other in a way, but it doesn't seem to have been 'in-love'. She knew Egypt wasn't down for pure female rule and for duty-sake married another little brother. Cleopatra definitely tends to think with head over heart. Although there was a hot minute where she followed Caesar to Rome, probably twice, and they made some mutually bad decisions. During this period she didn't rule Egypt as well as she could have.

When he died, and Antony started trying to bring her under his thumb, Cleopatra knew she needed a Roman ally and not to be bossed around by Antony. She pulls a power move on him at their first meeting, she plays to his own quirky fantasies, and it does seem like they end up being 'in-love'.

From here Cleopatra really ups the leadership she's been giving since she first took rule. The Ptolemies had lived in decadence while their people starved. Cleopatra was not about it and make changes that enriched her people and caused a surplus rather than a shortage. She boosted education, she practiced more Egyptian rites, she became a queen of the people while also deifying herself as the incarnation of Isis. She became the richest person in her era. She made allies of territories that wanted war and was able to speak to them in their own language.

She gets accused of having a bunch of lovers, but there's no evidence she slept with anyone other than Caesar and Antony. Whereas Caesar and Antony were all about the sexy times.

She seems to have genuinely loved her children, which isn't always the case for royals.

There is a point where she's accused of crying to get her way and throwing jealous tantrums over Antony being with his wife, but we have no way to say if that was true or not. It sounds out of character, but if she was a woman in love or just trying to be manipulative [or both] who knows?

Antony makes a lot of bad decisions and turns into rather a drunken lout. Cleopatra has a country to save and can't keep babying him, but she kind of doesn't have a choice. At the Battle of Actium, either she and Antony plan an escape, she mistakes the situation as she needs to leave, or she sees a chance to escape and abandons Antony. Each says something different about her character.

Back in Egypt, Antony is a mess and Cleopatra apparently sends Octavian a letter kind of testing out if he'd be cool with accepting Antony and letting her live in peace in Egypt? When that falls through, either Cleopatra deliberately sends a messenger to tell Antony she's dead, or he mistakenly is told that. One story is that she regrets it quickly and sends a messenger to stop the other messenger but it's too late.

He doesn't kill himself properly, and Cleopatra having either caused this or not, sends for him. One story is she won't open the door to the tomb so someone has to hoist him up and inside where he dies in her arms. Supposedly she becomes wildly distressed and upset.

Cleopatra agrees to leave her tomb [where she's been keeping her riches, ready to burn them to spite Octavian] so she can bury Antony properly, and Octavian agrees. Possibly they have a meeting where she either comes to him in queenly radiance, or looking like a disheveled older woman. Either trying to make an agreement or trying to seduce him.

Then comes the big historical mystery/mythology. Did she kill herself or was she murdered at Octavian's behest, and how? Rumors said Cleopatra would test poisons on slaves to see what killed them and in what way, etc...it's unlikely it was an asp snake for a variety of reasons and likelier it was some kind of poison. She kills herself to maintain her dignity rather than be paraded by Octavian. A future queen of Syria, Zenobia, when defying the emporer of Rome notes 'Remember that Cleopatra had rather died a queen than live as less'.

She also arranged for her 'traitorous' sister and her second brother-husband to be executed.

So. We have a woman raised to rule, who is noted as highly intelligent polyglot even by the people who hate her. She grows up in an unstable court surrounded by men-children, incest, ruthless wives, family murder, and people constantly ready to rebel. She's ruthless and practical, and makes decisive choices even when it makes her enemies. She decided not to be a greedy, decadent Ptolemy and instead fashioned herself in a people-loving, true Queen of Egpyt. She advanced her country and brought it from the brink of ruin to being ridiculously prosperous. Cleopatra was able to make allies of two extremely powerful Romans. She wasn't considered particularly beautiful, and it was written about her to the effect of while she wasn't physically all that desirable, she had a quality of charisma and intelligence that made her company irresistible.

If the negative stories are to be believed, she could betray her lover when it was practical. She could throw temper tantrums. She could try to move men to her cause using tears. She was prone to jealously and lavish decadence. If the really negative stories are to be believed, she was all about sexy times and seduction and even tried to seduce Octavian who 'nobly' turned her down.

Cleopatra might have faded from history if not for Octavian's smear campaign and her big ole love story. But she might have also got the credit she should have been do for being an extremely capable ruler and far exceeding the circumstances she was forced into.