Ptolemaic pharaohs were crowned by Egyptian priests of Ptah at Memphis but resided in the multicultural and largely-Greek city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great of Macedon.[28][29][30][note 6] They spoke Greek and governed Egypt as Hellenistic Greek monarchs, refusing to learn the native Egyptian language.[31][32][33][note 7] Cleopatra could understand and speak many languages by adulthood, including Egyptian, Ethiopian, Trogodyte, Hebrew (or Aramaic), Arabic, Syrian (perhaps Syriac), Median, Parthian, and Latin, although her Roman colleagues would have preferred to speak with her in her native Koine Greek.[34][33][35][note 8] Aside from Greek, Egyptian, and Latin, the three languages she had a known ability to read and write in,[36] these languages reflected Cleopatra's expansionist territorial ambitions and her desire to regain African and Asian territories which had belonged to the Ptolemaic Empire.[37]