History Series / TheCleopatras

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Older Chickpea is definitely not the same naive idiot when coming back on the throne than when [[TraumaCongaLine he was betrayed by his own mother and each of his sisters]]: The idiot part has remained but the "naive" is gone, and his demeanor is now noticeably less patient and forgiving. Both his daughter and his mistress have privately the same total lack of respect that his mother and his sister had for him. However, contrarily to the latter they do not despise him enough and to risk showing it to his face.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Older Chickpea is definitely not the same naive idiot when coming back on the throne than when Young Chickpea [[TraumaCongaLine was betrayed by his mother by his own mother and both his sisters]]. He remains an idiot but his demeanor is now noticeably... less patient and forgiving. His daughter nor his mistress have the same total lack of respect for his intelligence and his manhood that his mother and his sister had, but contrarily to them they do not despise him enough and they know better than to risk showing him to his face.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Older Chickpea coming back on the throne is definitely not the same naive idiot than when Young Chickpea is betrayed and forced to flee by Cleopatra III and her daughter. While still an idiot, his demeanor this time is noticeably... less patient and forgiving. His daughter nor his mistress have the same total lack of respect for his intelligence and his manhood that his mother and his sister had, but contrarily to them they do not risk behaving that way to his face this time.

* DarkAndTroubledPast: Older Chickpea coming back on the throne is definitely not the same naive idiot than when Young Chickpea is forced to leave it by Cleopatra III and her daughter. He's still an idiot, but his demeanor is noticeably... less patient and forgiving. Both his daughter and his mistress have any respect for him behind is back, but contrarily to his mother and his sister neither risk doing it to his face this time.

* DarkAndTroublePast: Older Chickpea coming back on the throne is definitely not the same naive idiot than when Young Chickpea is forced to leave it by Cleopatra III and her daughter. He's still an idiot, but his demeanor is noticeably... [[DarkierAndEdgier less patient and forgiving]]. Both his daughter and his mistress have any respect for him behind is back, but contrarily to his mother and his sister neither risk doing it to his face this time.

* YouLookFamiliar: Right at the beginning of the first episode, a young Cleopatra (VII) asks her tutor which of her female ancestors in the Ptolemaic line she ressembles the most, and he quips that she looks a lot like her great-grandmother. Cue the flashback to the very young version of that great-grandmother, Cleopatra (III)... [[IdenticalGrandson played by the very same actress]].

* YouLookFamiliar: Right at the beginning of the first episode, a young Cleopatra (VII) asks her tutor which of her female ancestors in the Ptolemaic line she ressembles the most, and he quips that she looks a lot like her great-grandmother. Cue the flashback to the very young version of that great-grandmother, Cleopatra (III)... [[ActingForTwo played by the very same actress]].

* YouLookFamiliar: Right at the beginning of the first episode, a young Cleopatra (VII) asks her tutor which of her female ancestors in the Ptolemaic line she ressembles the most, and he quips that she looks a lot like her great-grandmother. Cue the flashback to the very young version of that great-grandmother, Cleopatra (III)... played by the very same actress.

* YouLookFamiliar: Right at the beginning of the first episode a young Cleopatra (VII) asks her tutor Theodotus which of her recent female ancestors in the Ptolemaic line she ressembles the most. Theodotus quips that she ressembles her great-grandmother the most. Cue the flashback to a very young great-grandmother, Cleopatra (III)... played by the very same actress.

* OneSteveLimit: Averted. Several members of the family throughout several generations share the same names (which is why many family members are identified by second names or nicknames). In particular, the kings are all called Ptolemy, and the queens are almost all called Cleopatra (the series is called ''The Cleopatra'''''s''', after all).

* DysfunctionalFamily: An extreme version of this. A royal family filled with incest, political intrigues, power struggles, murder, etc.

* {{Omniglot}}: [[TruthinTelevision True to historical accounts]], the series suggests that Cleopatra VII (that is, ''the'' Cleopatra) could read hieroglyphics and was fluent in Greek (the language she spoke day-to-day), Egyptian, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Persian. This is in contrast to the fact that, as Cleopatra herself admits, her family is mostly Greek/Macedonian and without a single drop of native Egyptian blood.

* AGodAmI: The royal ideology of the Ptolemies taught that they were living gods after being crowned. How seriously the individual queens and kings took this varied.

* KingOnHisDeathbed: Pot Belly, Chickpea, and Fluter all get deathbed scenes, during which their children and prospective heirs mutter under their breaths that they wish the old man would hurry up and die.
** Indeed, Pot Belly treats dying like a performance piece and laments that he can't die more publicly.

* VestigalEmpire: In a way, the series is really the story of how the last independent Egypt until modern times went from being an empire (although itself a remnant of Alexander the Great's empire) to being a client kingdom of Rome's to losing its autonomy altogether.

* {{Omniglot}}: True to historical accounts, the series suggests that Cleopatra VII (that is, ''the'' Cleopatra) could read hieroglyphics and was fluent in Greek (the language she spoke day-to-day), Egyptian, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Persian. This is in contrast to the fact that, as Cleopatra herself admits, her family is mostly Greek/Macedonian and without a single drop of native Egyptian blood.

* [[Omniglot Omniglot]]: True to historical accounts, the series suggests that Cleopatra VII (that is, ''the'' Cleopatra) could read hieroglyphics and was fluent in Greek (the language she spoke day-to-day), Egyptian, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Persian. This is in contrast to the fact that, as Cleopatra herself admits, her family is mostly Greek/Macedonian and without a single drop of native Egyptian blood.

* [[Omniglot]]: True to historical accounts, the series suggests that Cleopatra VII (that is, ''the'' Cleopatra) could read hieroglyphics and was fluent in Greek (the language she spoke day-to-day), Egyptian, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Persian. This is in contrast to the fact that, as Cleopatra herself admits, her family is mostly Greek/Macedonian and without a single drop of native Egyptian blood.

* Omniglot: True to historical accounts, the series points out that Cleopatra VII (that is, ''the'' Cleopatra) could read hieroglyphics and was fluent in Greek (the language she spoke day-to-day), Egyptian, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Persian. This is in contrast to the fact that, as Cleopatra herself admits, her family is mostly Greek/Macedonian and without a single drop of native Egyptian blood.

''The Cleopatras'' is an eight-part historical miniseries produced by Creator/TheBBC in 1983 and written by Philip Mackie (whose previous historical mini-series writing credits included ''Series/TheCaesars'' for {{Granada}} in 1968). The series opens up with one of the Cleopatras (the one most familiar to us--the one who later fell in love with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony) being told the stories of all of the other Cleopatras in her family (her mothers, aunts, grandmothers and great-grandmothers) via a history lesson. After the histories of all of the past Cleopatras have been explored, the story continues to detail the life of the last of the Cleopatras, who committed suicide via asp bite after losing the Battle of Actium.

''The Cleopatras'' is an eight-part historical miniseries produced by TheBBC in 1983 and written by Philip Mackie (whose previous historical mini-series writing credits included ''Series/TheCaesars'' for {{Granada}} in 1968). The series opens up with one of the Cleopatras (the one most familiar to us--the one who later fell in love with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony) being told the stories of all of the other Cleopatras in her family (her mothers, aunts, grandmothers and great-grandmothers) via a history lesson. After the histories of all of the past Cleopatras have been explored, the story continues to detail the life of the last of the Cleopatras, who committed suicide via asp bite after losing the Battle of Actium.

[[quoteright:325:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thecleopatras_6740.jpg]]

* AwesomeMomentOfCrowning: Happens so often in this series, it actually starts to become mundane. Egypt goes through a lot of Ptolemys and Cleopatras in the first six episodes, and every one of them gets a coronation scene (often simply comprising a shot of them sitting on their thrones in full regalia).

* RoyallyScrewedUp: Of course!