🐍Cleopatra
Latin nameCleopatra VII
Last queen of Egypt, allied in turn with Caesar and Antony
Born to the Purple · Kings & Emperors
The Ptolemaic dynastyActiumThe Egyptian queen
Who they are
Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty — the first member of the Greek family that had ruled Egypt for three hundred years willing to learn the Egyptian language, and fluent in eight or nine tongues besides. Driven from Alexandria by her brother and co-ruler, she wrapped herself in a rug (some say a bedding sack) to slip into the palace and meet Caesar, won Rome’s backing to regain her throne, and bore Caesar a son. After Caesar’s death she turned to alliance with Antony, and the two ran the East together for ten years and had three children. After the defeat at Actium, with Octavian at the gates, the terms offered for her surrender left out her kingdom and her dignity alone. She tested every poison, chose the asp (some say poison), and died in full regalia on her throne — "I will not be led in a triumph." Egypt passed into Rome, and three thousand years of the pharaohs ended with her. Her political talent was smeared by Roman propaganda into the image of a "witch," and two thousand years later she remains the most-portrayed ancient woman on screen.
Primary sourcesPlutarch, Life of AntonyCassius Dio, Roman History
Key stories
The queen in the rug
In 48 BC Caesar, pursuing Pompey to Alexandria, was drawn into Egypt’s civil strife. The exiled Cleopatra could not pass the checkpoints into the city, so she had a trusted servant hide her in a roll of bedding and carry her into the palace, and unrolled it before Caesar — the twenty-one-year-old queen introducing herself. Plutarch says Caesar was first conquered by the daring of it. The Roman fleet then helped her retake her throne. The substance of that meeting was never mere romance: a queen who badly needed Rome’s backing and a commander who badly needed Egypt’s grain and treasury, each taking what they needed.
The asp and the triumph
Octavian wanted Cleopatra alive — to lead the queen of Egypt in chains through a triumph was the ultimate prize. She first tried to stab herself with a dagger and was disarmed, and stopped a hunger strike under threats to her children’s lives. In the end she asked to worship at Antony’s tomb, and on returning shut herself away in full regalia. When the guards broke in the queen was already dead on her golden couch, one of her two maids dead and the other dying — and the dying one was still setting her crown straight. The asp version is the most widely told (some say it was hidden in a basket of figs), and the poison version is equally supported. In Octavian’s triumph it was her statue that was paraded — an asp coiled around its arm.
Version differences
Suicide by asp is the most popular version (Plutarch himself doubted it); there are also poison and poisoned-needle versions. Her looks were uglified by Roman propaganda, and surviving coin portraits don’t match the "peerless beauty" image — her weapons were intellect and political skill, not mere beauty.
Echoes today
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
The screen image of the "Egyptian temptress"From Elizabeth Taylor onward she is the most-portrayed ancient woman on screen; the very label "temptress" continues the Roman smear campaign.