In the winter after the battle of Actium, Cleopatra had condemned prisoners poisoned in front of her in the palace at Alexandria, one after another, to learn which death hurt least. By the middle of August, 30 BC, she was dead in a guarded room, and neither Plutarch nor Cassius Dio could say how she did it.
This is her last year, told from the ancient accounts that survive. Mark Antony and Cleopatra lose at Actium on 2 September 31 BC. She sails home with garlands on her prows to fake a victory, has the leading men of the city killed for their estates and sends the head of the Armenian king Artavasdes to the Medes as a present. No ally comes. The only men who try to reach the couple are a company of gladiators from Cyzicus, who fight their way to Syria and are quietly disposed of for it.
Octavian marches on Egypt. Pelusium falls. On the 1st of August Antony watches his fleet raise its oars in salute and change sides, and Cleopatra shuts herself in her unfinished tomb and sends word that she is dead. Antony drives a blade into his own belly, survives it, and is hauled up the wall on the builders' ropes by three women so he can die beside her. Proculeius climbs in by ladder through the same window and takes her alive.
Then come the days under guard. Octavian visits her, and Plutarch and Dio stage that meeting so differently that you have to choose one. Cornelius Dolabella warns her in secret that Octavian will ship her and her children off within three days. She pours a libation at Antony's tomb, bathes, eats, and a man from the country carries a basket of figs past the guards. When the doors are opened she is lying dead on a golden couch, Iras dying at her feet, Charmion straightening the diadem.
The asp in the basket is one version among several. Plutarch offers a water jar and a hollow comb as well, Dio a poisoned hairpin, and both end in the same place: nobody knows. The film follows the snake story back to Octavian's poets with the historian Duane Roller, and sets it against what the toxicologist Dietrich Mebs says cobra venom does to a body.
After her, the bill. Antyllus is dragged from a statue of Julius Caesar and killed. Caesarion is talked into turning back from the road to India. The twins are raised in Rome by Octavian's sister. The palace treasure goes to Rome, and her tomb has never been found.
📍 TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 The Queen Who Tested Poisons on Prisoners
0:54 The Poison Trials in the Palace at Alexandria
1:57 The Partners in Death
2:55 The Faked Victory After Actium
3:58 The Gladiators of Cyzicus
5:18 Secret Offers to Octavian
7:20 The Tomb, the Treasure and the Threat to Burn It
9:06 The Night Dionysus Left Alexandria
9:51 Antony's Fleet Changes Sides
10:52 The Death of Mark Antony
14:06 Octavian Takes Cleopatra Alive
17:02 The Fever and the Lost Book of Olympus
18:26 Octavian Visits Cleopatra: Plutarch vs Cassius Dio
20:26 Dolabella's Warning: Three Days
21:57 The Basket of Figs
23:07 Dead on a Golden Couch
23:38 Asp, Hairpin or Hollow Comb: How Cleopatra Died
25:26 Who Says It Was an Asp?
27:07 The Murders of Antyllus and Caesarion
28:40 The Children Who Lived and the Triumph of 29 BC
30:44 The Lost Tomb of Cleopatra
📚 SOURCES & FURTHER READING:
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Antony*.htmlhttps://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/51*.htmlhttps://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/44886/pg44886-images.htmlhttps://www.attalus.org/translate/extracts.htmlhttps://camws.org/meeting/2010/program/abstracts/07C3.Roller.pdf📋 ABOUT THIS VIDEO:
This video is about the last year of Cleopatra VII, queen of Ptolemaic Egypt, from the battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC to her death in Alexandria in August 30 BC, aged 39. It covers her poison experiments on condemned prisoners in the winter of 31 to 30 BC, the Partners in Death, the fall of Pelusium, the desertion of Mark Antony's fleet on 1 August 30 BC, the suicide of Mark Antony, her capture by Proculeius, her meeting with Octavian (later the emperor Augustus), the warning from Cornelius Dolabella, the basket of figs, the deaths of Iras and Charmion, the asp and the other methods in Plutarch and Cassius Dio, the killing of Caesarion and Antyllus, the fate of Cleopatra Selene, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus, Octavian's triumph of 29 BC, and the search for her tomb at Alexandria and Taposiris Magna. First century BC, Roman Republic, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome.
#Cleopatra #MarkAntony #Octavian #AncientEgypt #AncientRome #Actium #History