Cleopatra's Family Tree
Updated: Jun 10
Is it better than you expected ... or much, much worse?
More Ptolemies than you can shake a stick at (a little too many) ... and these are only the ones directly related to Cleopatra VII. Go back in time, shoot any one of them, and Cleopatra would never be born (look for the single exception).
Many, many Ptolemaic children are left out ... it would be like trying to read a jigsaw puzzle with a different name on each piece.
... and what about that pesky "legitimacy" thing? Her mother? Her grandmother?
This has been reworked to show the very brief injection of new genetic material for the kingdoms of Lysimachus and Seleucus. The percentages of non-Greek DNA are listed. You know how you get 1/2 of your genes from each parent? See how the Ptolemies defeated this.
Also notice how Cleopatra's descendants span at least as far as four Severan Roman emperors. 367 BCE to 235 ACE: that's a pretty good stretch for a family line. It continues, but I ran out of time.