Cleopatra VII, the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, died over 2,000 years ago in 30 BC. Yet her dramatic life story and the circumstances of her death continue to capture the imagination of people around the world like few other historical figures. As a Ptolemaic queen of Egypt, Cleopatra wielded significant political power at a pivotal time, forming alliances and romantic relationships with two of Rome‘s most powerful men – Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
But Cleopatra‘s reign came to a tragic end after she and Antony were defeated by their Roman rival Octavian in a civil war. Facing the prospect of total conquest by Rome, Antony and Cleopatra both died by suicide in Alexandria in August 30 BC. While many details of Cleopatra‘s life are well-documented, the precise cause and manner of her death remain a source of intrigue and debate among historians. Let‘s dive deeper into the evidence and theories surrounding Cleopatra‘s death.
Cleopatra‘s Reign and Downfall
To understand the context of Cleopatra‘s death, it‘s important to examine key events in her nearly 20-year reign as Queen of Egypt. Born in 69 BC, Cleopatra was just 18 when she ascended the throne in 51 BC, ruling jointly with her younger brother Ptolemy XIII as was customary.
Egypt during this time was not a province of Rome, but an independent allied kingdom. However, Rome still wielded considerable influence, and rivalries among the Ptolemies led to Rome being invited to intervene as arbiter in Ptolemaic dynastic disputes. Julius Caesar himself traveled to Alexandria in 48 BC, where he met a young Cleopatra and took her side in a civil war against her brother.
Cleopatra later followed Caesar back to Rome and lived openly with him there until his assassination in 44 BC, although Roman historians cast suspicion on Cleopatra‘s influence over him. After returning to Egypt, Cleopatra then formed an alliance and personal relationship with Caesar‘s lieutenant Mark Antony, who used Alexandria as his base of power in the eastern Mediterranean.
However, this relationship put Antony and Cleopatra on a collision course with Octavian, Caesar‘s adopted son and heir who was consolidating power in the West. Octavian portrayed Antony as a traitor under the foreign influence of Cleopatra, launching a war against the couple that culminated in their defeat at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.
With Octavian‘s forces closing in on Alexandria, a despondent Antony stabbed himself with his sword after receiving a false report that Cleopatra had already committed suicide. In reality, Cleopatra had retreated to her mausoleum but seems to have deliberately circulated news of her death to motivate Antony to kill himself first. Antony was brought to Cleopatra in the mausoleum where he died of his wounds in her arms.
Dueling Accounts of Cleopatra‘s Death
What exactly happened next to Cleopatra inside her mausoleum has been a source of speculation for centuries. The most famous and enduring account holds that she then committed suicide by enticing an "asp" (the Egyptian cobra) to bite her on the breast.
This version was reported by Octavian‘s personal physician Olympus, who claimed that he found Cleopatra dead on her golden bed, adorned in her royal attire, with her two handmaidens Iras and Charmion also near death. He observed two small puncture wounds on Cleopatra‘s arm, which many took as evidence that she had allowed the snake to strike her.
The Roman historian Plutarch also propagated the asp story in his "Life of Antony," written about 130 years after Cleopatra‘s death:
"The truth of the matter no one knows, for it was also said that she carried poison in a hollow comb and kept the comb hidden in her hair…But the asp version is the one that has prevailed."
Another source close to Octavian, the historian Suetonius, alleged that Cleopatra experimented with various poisons before concluding that the bite of an asp was the least painful way to die.
However, other ancient writers cast doubt on the snake scenario. The Roman historian Cassius Dio, writing over two centuries later, suggested that Cleopatra actually used a poisonous ointment, "the kind she had custom-made, so that she would die without pain." He noted there was no snake found in Cleopatra‘s chamber.
The accounts of Strabo, a Greek historian and geographer, claimed that "Cleopatra died from a scratch made by her own hand." He suggested she used a poisoned hairpin or similar sharp object to introduce the toxin into a self-inflicted wound.
Analyzing the Evidence
So which version of Cleopatra‘s death is most plausible? The truth is, with limited physical evidence and conflicting accounts in historical sources, we may never know for certain. However, many modern scholars lean towards the theory that Cleopatra used poison to kill herself, casting serious doubt on the romanticized asp story.
While the tale of the hidden snake is certainly a dramatic one, it has some logical flaws. For one, the Egyptian cobra is a large and deadly snake. It would have been very difficult to smuggle one by guards into Cleopatra‘s quarters in a basket of figs, as legend holds, and there was no snake or basket found at the scene.
Poisons, on the other hand, would have been much easier to conceal and more likely to produce the swift and relatively painless death Cleopatra is thought to have experienced. She was said to have extensively studied poisons and may have concocted a potent toxin for the purpose of taking her own life if the need arose.
Moreover, the earliest Roman sources closest to the event make no mention of an asp. Cleopatra‘s personal physician Olympus apparently never saw a snake bite mark himself, only small punctures that could have come from a variety of implements.
It seems more likely that the asp legend originated as a sort of propaganda perpetuated by Octavian and his supporters to paint Cleopatra as a dangerous, wicked foreigner. Octavian is known to have paraded an image of Cleopatra with snakes at her triumphal procession in Rome, as well as reportedly staging a play entitled "Cleopatra‘s Death by Snakes" for the event.
The iconography of the snake had symbolic resonance in both Egyptian and Roman culture. The asp was considered a symbol of divine royalty in Ancient Egyptian civilization, while the imagery of a snake biting Cleopatra‘s breast had sexual overtones in Roman propaganda that aimed to smear Cleopatra as a seductress and cast Antony as corrupted by her influence.
Cleopatra‘s Suicide as a Political Act
Regardless of means, if the 39-year-old Cleopatra did willingly take her own life, her suicide can be seen as her ultimate act of defiance against Octavian and Rome. Having staked everything on her alliance with Antony, Cleopatra was now facing a world in which Octavian was the sole power, and she had little leverage left to negotiate an acceptable surrender.
Cleopatra likely feared that if captured alive, she would be taken back to Rome as a trophy of war and paraded through the streets in chains, a humiliating fate she had seen befall other foreign kings and queens. By committing suicide, she ensured Octavian could never take her alive and went to her death on her own terms, depriving her conqueror of thelast word on her legacy.
Ancient sources depict Octavian as being disappointed and angry when he learned of Cleopatra‘s death, as he had hoped to show off his captive queen to the Roman public. Yet in the end, he ensured she was buried with full honors next to Antony.
Cleopatra‘s death marked the end of the Ptolemaic Dynasty that had ruled Egypt since the time of Alexander the Great. Egypt now became a province of the rapidly expanding Roman Empire, while Octavian, assuming the title Augustus, became its first emperor.
A Legacy Larger than Life
In the centuries since her death, Cleopatra‘s mystique has only grown, as she continues to inspire art, literature, film and popular culture around the globe. Arguably the most famous woman of antiquity, she is remembered as the ultimate femme fatale, a queen who wielded sexuality and political power in equal measure.
Yet she was also an intellectual, the only member of her Greek-speaking dynasty to bother learning the Egyptian language, a prolific author, and a savvy stateswoman at the highest levels of power in the ancient world. Her dramatic life story, capped by its cryptic conclusion, has ensured her an immortality that transcends her royal titles.
The Shakespearean depiction of Cleopatra‘s final moments captures the romanticism and magnetism of her legend. "Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me," the doomed queen declares in Shakespeare‘s "Antony and Cleopatra."
Modern archaeology may yet shed more light on the real historical Cleopatra. Recent underwater excavations in Alexandria‘s harbor near the site of Cleopatra‘s mausoleum have yielded statues, coins and other artifacts. Perhaps more answers to the enigmas of Cleopatra‘s life and death still lie beneath the Mediterranean.
But whether she clutched an asp to her breast or more discreetly drank a vial of poison, Cleopatra succeeded in one respect: over 2,000 years after her death, the world remains in her thrall, utterly fascinated by the last Queen of Egypt – and perhaps always will be.
