After Cleopatra's death, Egypt became a province of which empire?

After Cleopatra’s death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire. Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony were defeated by Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, in the final conflict of the Roman Republic.

Cleopatra died in Alexandria in 30 BC, shortly after Antony’s suicide and Octavian’s conquest of Egypt. The Ptolemaic Kingdom, founded by the Macedonian Greek general Ptolemy I after Alexander the Great’s death, therefore came to an end. Egypt was absorbed into Rome as the province of Aegyptus.

This was not simply a change of royal family. Egypt became an unusually important Roman possession, supplying grain to Rome and other parts of the empire. Alexandria remained a major commercial and intellectual center, while Roman officials governed the province through a prefect appointed by the emperor.

A common mix-up is confusing the Ptolemaic Kingdom with the earlier Achaemenid Persian occupation of Egypt. The Achaemenids ruled Egypt before Alexander’s conquest; Rome took control much later, after the Battle of Actium and Octavian’s invasion.