The argument seems to be that maybe Cleopatra wasn’t white on her mother’s side. But the ptolemies were infamous practitioners of inbreeding
The Ptolemies were doing sibling-/cousin-fucking since the Selucids, so it seems weird they would break it just this once for the king to have a child with the daughter of a priest of Ptah for unclear reasons. Ptolemaic kings didn't learn Egyptian and strongly retained a Hellenic identity - hell, intermarriage was illegal between Egyptians and Greeks in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Cleopatra's professed ability to speak Aramaic, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Latin, Parthian, Syriac and other regional languages and her closeness to Rome are seen as standouts as examples of her ambition to break the patterns of the moribund Ptolemaic kingdom.
(Closing hot take: Tomyris, who lead the Scythians to defeat one of the great ancient empire-builders, or Amage, literally a slay kween girlboss, would be a lot cooler story and those haven't really been done before.)
The Ptolemies were doing sibling-/cousin-fucking since the Selucids, so it seems weird they would break it just this once for the king to have a child with the daughter of a priest of Ptah for unclear reasons. Ptolemaic kings didn't learn Egyptian and strongly retained a Hellenic identity - hell, intermarriage was illegal between Egyptians and Greeks in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Cleopatra's professed ability to speak Aramaic, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Latin, Parthian, Syriac and other regional languages and her closeness to Rome are seen as standouts as examples of her ambition to break the patterns of the moribund Ptolemaic kingdom.
(Closing hot take: Tomyris, who lead the Scythians to defeat one of the great ancient empire-builders, or Amage, literally a slay kween girlboss, would be a lot cooler story and those haven't really been done before.)