Death of Cleopatra

Committing suicide allowed her to avoid the humiliation of being paraded as a prisoner in a Roman triumph celebrating the military victories of Octavian, who would become Rome's first emperor in 27 BC and be known as Augustus.

Octavian had Cleopatra's son Caesarion (also known as Ptolemy XV), rival heir of Julius Caesar, killed in Egypt but spared her children with Antony and brought them to Rome.

Ancient Greco-Roman sculptures such as the Esquiline Venus and Sleeping Ariadne served as inspirations for later artworks portraying her death, universally involving the snakebite of an asp.

[34][35] Although Antony scored a small victory over Octavian's worn out troops as they approached Alexandria's hippodrome on 1 August, 30 BC, his naval fleet and cavalry defected soon afterward.

[31][50][51][note 5] Plutarch elaborates on how Cleopatra approached her suicide in an almost ritual process that involved bathing and then having a fine meal including figs brought to her in a basket.

[52][53][54] Plutarch writes that Octavian ordered his freedman Epaphroditus to guard her and prevent a suicide attempt, but Cleopatra and her handmaidens were able to deceive him and kill themselves nonetheless.

[50] Cassius Dio claims that Octavian called on trained snake charmers of the Psylli tribe of Ancient Libya to attempt an oral venom extraction and revival of Cleopatra, but their efforts failed.

[58][59] Although Octavian was outraged by these events and "was robbed of the full splendor of his victory" according to Cassius Dio,[59] he had Cleopatra interred next to Antony in their tomb as requested, and also gave Iras and Charmion proper burials.

[61] Theodore Cressy Skeat deduced that she died on 12 August 30 BC, on the basis of contemporary records of fixed events along with cross examination of historical sources.

[53][68][69][note 8] Plutarch mentions the tale of the asp brought to her in a basket of figs, although he offers other alternatives for her cause of death, such as use of a hollow implement (Greek: κνηστίς, romanized: knestis), perhaps a hairpin,[54] which she used to scratch open the skin and introduce the toxin.

[70][67][58] Dio mentioned the claim of the asp and even suggested use of a needle (Greek: βελόνη, romanized: belone), possibly from a hairpin, which would seem to corroborate Plutarch's account.

[74] The encyclopedic writer Thomas Browne, in his 1646 Pseudodoxia Epidemica, explained that it was uncertain how Cleopatra had died and that artistic depictions of small snakes biting her failed to accurately show the large size of the "land asp".

[76] Morgagni argued that Cleopatra was likely killed by a snakebite and contested Lancisi's suggestion that consumption of venom was more plausible, noting that no ancient Greco-Roman authors had mentioned her drinking it.

[79] Robert A. Gurval, Associate Professor of Classics at UCLA, points out that the Athenian strategos Demetrios of Phaleron (c. 350 – c. 280 BC), confined by Ptolemy II Philadelphus in Egypt, died by suicide by asp bite in a "curiously similar" manner, one that also demonstrated that it was not exclusive to Egyptian royalty.

[81] François Pieter Retief, retired lecturer and dean of medicine at the University of the Free State, and Louise Cilliers, honorary research fellow at their Department of Greek, Latin and Classical Studies, argue that a large snake would not have fit into a basket of figs and it was more likely that poisoning would have so rapidly killed the three adult women, Cleopatra and her handmaidens Charmion and Iras.

[82] Noting the example of Cleopatra's hairpin, Cilliers and Retief also highlight how other ancient figures poisoned themselves in similar ways, including Demosthenes, Hannibal, and Mithridates VI of Pontus.

[39] Grout writes that Octavian may have wanted to avoid the sort of sympathy espoused for Cleopatra's younger sister Arsinoe IV when she was paraded in chains but spared during Julius Caesar's triumph.

[58] Octavian perhaps permitted Cleopatra to die by her own hand after considering the political issues that could have risen from the murder of a queen whose statue had been erected in the Temple of Venus Genetrix by his adoptive father.

[91][92] The deaths of Cleopatra and Caesarion marked the end of both the Ptolemaic dynasty's rule of Egypt and the Hellenistic period,[93][94][95] which had lasted since the reign of Alexander the Great (r. 336–323 BC).

[104] In an early 1st century AD painting from the House of Giuseppe II in Pompeii, a rear wall depicted with a set of double doors positioned very high above the scene of a woman wearing a royal diadem and committing suicide among her attendants suggests the described layout of Cleopatra's tomb in Alexandria.

[64][65] The poet Propertius, an eyewitness of Octavian's triumph along the Via Sacra, noted that the paraded image of Cleopatra contained multiple snakes biting each of her arms.

[111][112] An early 1st century AD painting from Pompeii most likely depicts the suicide of Cleopatra, accompanied by attendants and even her son Caesarion wearing a royal diadem like his mother, although an asp is absent from the scene, perhaps reflecting the different causes of death provided in Roman historiography.

The seated woman identified as Cleopatra grasps and pulls Antony toward her while a serpent rises from between her legs and the Greek god of love Eros (Cupid) floats above them.

[122] Illustrated versions of Boccaccio's written works, including images of Cleopatra and Antony committing suicide, first appeared in France during the Quattrocento (i.e. 15th century AD), authored by Laurent de Premierfait.

[124] Woodcut illustrations of Boccaccio's De Mulieribus Claris published at Ulm in 1479 and Augsburg in 1541 depict Cleopatra's discovery of Antony's body after his suicide by stabbing.

[126] Chaucer began his hagiography on virtuous pagan women with the life of Cleopatra, depicted in a satirical fashion as a queen engaged in courtly love with her knight Mark Antony.

[132][note 14] Bartolommeo Bandinelli created a drawing of Cleopatra as a free-standing nude committing suicide that served as the basis for a similar engraving by Agostino Veneziano.

[136] The 17th-century Baroque painter Guido Reni depicted Cleopatra's death by asp bite, albeit with a snake that is tiny compared to a real Egyptian cobra.

[107] Castiglione's poem depicted Cleopatra as a tragic but honorable ruler in a doomed love affair with Antony, a queen whose death freed her from the ignominy of Roman imprisonment.

[142] During the Victorian era, plays such as Cléopâtre (1890) by Victorien Sardou became popular, although audiences were generally shocked by the emotional intensity of stage actress Sarah Bernhardt's depiction of Cleopatra reacting to Antony's suicide.