Cleopatra VII was born into the Ptolemaic dynasty, a royal family of Macedonian Greek origin that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great. The Ptolemies were notorious for their practice of sibling marriage, a tradition they adopted from Egyptian pharaonic customs to preserve dynastic purity and consolidate power. Cleopatra’s parents were likely full siblings, and she herself co-ruled and possibly married her younger brothers, Ptolemy XIII and XIV. This pattern of incestuous unions had persisted f