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Cleopatra’s daughter Cleopatra Selene II.

Cleopatra Selene had two full brothers, her twin Alexander Helios and the younger Ptolemy Philadelphos. Her older half-brother, Caesarion, was the son of her mother and her first partner, Julius Caesar. Cleopatra most likely planned her only daughter to marry her eldest son Caesarion. Her father also had five other children with previous wives.

Her parents, Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, were defeated by Octavian (future Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus), during a naval battle at Actium, Greece in 31 BC. In 30 BC, her parents committed suicide as Octavian and his army invaded Egypt. Octavian captured Cleopatra Selene and her brothers and took them from Egypt to Rome, parading them in heavy golden chains in his triumph. The chains were so heavy that the children were unable to walk in them, eliciting unexpected sympathy from many of the Roman onlookers. Octavian gave the siblings to his elder sister (Mark Antony's former wife) Octavia Minor to be raised in her household in Rome.

Between 26 and 20 BC, Augustus arranged for Cleopatra to marry King Juba II of Numidia in Rome. The Emperor Augustus gave to Cleopatra as a wedding present a huge dowry and she became an ally to Rome. By then her brothers, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus, had disappeared from all known historical records and are presumed to have died, possibly from illness or assassination. When Cleopatra married Juba, she was the only surviving member of the Ptolemaic dynasty.