58 B.C., Alexandria, Egypt
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Furious with the king's extortionate attempts to repay his debts to Rome, the irate citizens have chased king Ptolemy from Alexandria and crowned his eldest daughter Berenice and wife Cleopatra Tryphaena as queens of Egypt.
Now, the king, with his young daughter Cleopatra, is in Rome, where he plots to return to Egypt and regain his throne. While he maneuvers the muddy waters of Roman politics, his young daughter struggles with life in the smelly city, nothing like Alexandria with its grand palaces. When a nasty Roman man named Marcus Crassus asks her whether her sister Berenice would abdicate in favor of her father if he returns, Cleopatra answers him like a twelve-year-old diplomat.
But Berenice has other plans, and when the prize is the throne of Egypt, blood relations that mattered less now matter nothing at all.