It’s 30 B.C. and Cleopatra is dead. Egypt is a Roman colony, but Rome (being Rome) wasn’t satisfied. And why would they be when the wealth of Nubia—with its gold mines and elaborate temples—lay just to the south? But Nubia’s queen and sole ruler, Amanirenas, wasn’t going to sit idly by. In a preemptive attack, Amanirenas and her forces bested the Romans at Philae and Syene (Aswan, Egypt, today). She toppled statues of Roman Emperor Augustus and even buried one statue’s decapitated head under the grand entrance of her palace—an…
