And the I wanted to include this intro story in the last episode I published as from a

narrative standpoint it seemed to fit a little better but that episode was already running long so I cut it.

Promising I would use it as the intro story for this episode because it was... I don't know if funny is the right word or interesting or what and it certainly has elements of all that

But more than anything it's a little crude

But I thought when I read it that something about its crudeness brought the individuals in the story to life and it made

them in a sense more real.

Regardless, I'm going to relay the story here and you be the judge of how to characterize it.

Now I should say that this story was primarily mentioned

in Dr. Joanne Fletcher's 2008 biography on Cleopatra

titled Cleopatra The Great

and she pulled the story from Michael Grant's biography on

Cleopatra as well as Plutarch's work which is ubiquitous in any study of Cleopatra.

But moving on. As we mentioned last episode, for three years, from the

ages of 11 to 14, Cleopatra most likely traveled with her father,

Ptolemy the 12th, as he made his way around the Mediterranean

looking for support and sponsorship

in his efforts to reclaim the throne of Egypt

which he had lost to his eldest daughter,

Berenique the fourth.

Now, as we said, Ptolemy the 12th eventually found that support in Rome

after he met and stayed with Pompe the Great in his personal villa.

And it would be Pompe the Great who helped restore him to the throne of Egypt in 55 b.C.E. but Rome was Ptolemy the 12th's last stop on this tour of the

...