Notes

Cleopatra then arranges for a poisonous snake, an asp, to be smuggled to her in a basket of figs. She then commits suicide by allowing the asp to bite her on her chest. She arranged for her and Mark Antony to be buried together. Octavian sent agents to hunt down Caesarion and kill him.

During these years, Antony’s relationship with Octavian would steadily disintegrate to the point where civil war broke out. Cleopatra’s and Antony’s forces were defeated by Octavian’s at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE and, a year later, they both committed suicide. Antony, upon hearing the false report of Cleopatra’s death, stabbed himself. He learned, too late, that she still lived and Octavian allowed him to be brought to the queen where he died in her arms. Octavian then demanded audience with the queen where the conditions of her defeat were made plain to her. The terms were hardly favorable and Cleopatra understood she would be brought to Rome a captive to adorn Octavian’s triumph. Recognizing that she would not be able to manipulate Octavian as she had Caesar and Antony, Cleopatra asked for, and was granted, time to prepare herself. She then had herself poisoned through the bite of a snake (traditionally an asp, though most scholars today believe it was an Egyptian cobra). Octavian had her son Caesarion murdered and her children by Antony brought to Rome where they were raised by Octavia; thus ended the Ptolemaic line of Egyptian rulers.