queenvictorias:
With Octavian’s forces in Alexandria, Cleopatra...
With Octavian’s forces in Alexandria, Cleopatra withdrew to her tomb with her closest attendants and had a message sent to Antony that she had committed suicide. Antony ordered his slave Eros to murder him, but instead Eros turned his sword on himself and committed suicide.In despair, Antony stabbed himself through the stomach with a sword, dying at age 53. In Plutarch’s telling, Antony was still alive as he was carried into Cleopatra’s tomb, telling her in his dying words that he would die honorably and that she could trust a certain Gaius Proculeius on Octavian’s side to treat her well.The same Proculeius used a ladder to breach a window of Cleopatra’s tomb and detain her inside before she could have a chance to commit suicide or burn herself to death along with her vast treasure. Cleopatra was allowed to embalm Antony’s body before she was forcefully escorted to the palace, where she eventually met with Octavian, who had also detained three of her children: Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene II, and Ptolemy Philadelphus.
As related by Livy, in her meeting with Octavian, Cleopatra told him candidly, “I will not be led in a triumph” (Ancient Greek: οὑ θριαμβεύσομαι, romanized: ou thriambéusomai), but Octavian only gave the cryptic answer that her life would be spared.He did not offer her any specific details about his plans for Egypt or her royal family. When a spy informed Cleopatra that Octavian intended to bring her back to Rome to be paraded as a prisoner in his Roman triumph, she decided to avoid this humiliation and took her own life at age 39, in August 30 BC. Plutarch elaborates how Cleopatra approached her suicide in an almost ritual process that involved bathing and then a fine meal including figs brought to her in a basket.
Plutarch writes that Octavian ordered his freedman Epaphroditus to guard her and prevent her from committing suicide. Nevertheless, Cleopatra was able to deceive him and kill herself. When Octavian received a note from Cleopatra requesting that she be buried next to Antony, he had his messengers rush to her. The servant broke down her door but was too late. Plutarch states that she was found with her handmaidens Iras, dying at her feet, and Charmion, adjusting Cleopatra’s diadem before she herself fell. It is unclear from primary sources if their suicides took place within the palace or inside Cleopatra’s tomb. 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. Although Octavian was outraged by these events and “was robbed of the full splendor of his victory” according to Cassius Dio, he had Cleopatra interred next to Antony in their tomb as requested, and also gave Iras and Charmion proper burials.
