On
August 10, 30 B.C., after the suicide of her husband/lover Marcus
Antonius (and after being spurned by the much younger Octavian)
Egypt's most famous queen decided to kill herself rather than submit
to the victorious Octavian and be displayed in his triumph. In his
biography of Marcus Antonius, Plutarch describes Cleopatra's final
days; since many of the copies of this biography on the web are
incomplete or in florid language, we include the account (from the
Project Gutenberg text) here:
(89) Many kings and great commanders made petition
to Cæsar for the body of Antony, to give him his funeral
rites; but he would not take away his corpse from Cleopatra, by
whose hands he was buried with royal splendor and magnificence, it
being granted to her to employ what she pleased on his funeral. In
this extremity of grief and sorrow, and having inflamed and
ulcerated her breasts with beating them, she fell into a high fever,
and was very glad of the occasion, hoping, under this pretext, to
abstain from food, and so to die in quiet without interference. She
had her own physician, Olympus, to whom she told the truth, and
asked his advice and help to put an end to herself, as Olympus
himself has told us, in a narrative which he wrote of these events.
But Cæsar, suspecting her purpose, took to menacing language
about her children, and excited her fears for them, before which
engines her purpose shook and gave way, so that she suffer those
about her to give her what meat or medicine they pleased.
(90) Some few days after, Cæsar himself came to make her a
visit and comfort her. She lay then upon her pallet-bed in undress,
and, on his entering in, sprang up from off her bed, having nothing
on but the one garment next her body, and flung herself at his feet,
her hair and face looking wild and disfigured, her voice quivering,
and her eyes sunk in her head. The marks of the blows she had given
herself were visible about her bosom, and altogether her whole
person seemed no less afflicted than her soul. But, for all this,
her old charm, and the boldness of her youthful beauty had not
wholly left her, and, in spite of her present condition, still
sparkled from within, and let itself appear in all the movements of
her countenance. Cæsar, desiring her to repose herself, sat
down by her; and, on this opportunity, she said something to justify
her actions, attributing what she had done to the necessity she was
under, and to her fear of Antony; and when Cæsar, on each
point, made his objections, and she found herself confuted, she
broke off at once into language of entreaty and deprecation, as if
she desired nothing more than to prolong her life. And at last,
having by her a list of her treasure, she gave it into his hands;
and when Seleucus, one of her stewards, who was by, pointed out that
various articles were omitted, and charged her with secreting them,
she flew up and caught him by the hair, and struck him several blows
on the face. Cæsar smiling and withholding her, “Is it
not very hard, Cæsar,” said she, “when you do me the
honor to visit me in this condition I am in, that I should be
accused by one of my own servants of laying by some women’s
toys, not meant to adorn, be sure, my unhappy self, but that I might
have some little present by me to make your Octavia and your Livia,
that by their intercession I might hope to find you in some measure
disposed to mercy?” Cæsar was pleased to hear her talk
thus, being now assured that she was desirous to live. And,
therefore, letting her know that the things she had laid by she
might dispose of as she pleased, and his usage of her should be
honorable above her expectation, he went away, well satisfied that
he had overreached her, but, in fact was himself deceived.
(91) There was a young man of distinction among Cæsar’s
companions, named Cornelius Dolabella. He was not without a certain
tenderness for Cleopatra, and sent her word privately, as she had
besought him to do, that Cæsar was about to return through
Syria and that she and her children were to be sent on within three
days. When she understood this, she made her request to Cæsar
that he would be pleased to permit her to make oblations to the
departed Antony; which being granted, she ordered herself to be
carried to the place where he was buried, and there, accompanied by
her women, she embraced his tomb with tears in her eyes, and spoke
in this manner: “O, dearest Antony,” said she, “it is
not long since that with these hands I buried you; then they were
free, now I am a captive, and pay these last duties to you with a
guard upon me, for fear that my just griefs and sorrows should
impair my servile body, and make it less fit to appear in their
triumph over you. No further offerings or libations expect from me;
these are the last honors that Cleopatra can pay your memory, for
she is to be hurried away far from you. Nothing could part us whilst
we lived, but death seems to threaten to divide us. You, a Roman
born, have found a grave in Egypt; I, an Egyptian, am to seek that
favor, and none but that, in your county. But if the gods below,
with whom you now are, either can or will do any thing (since those
above have betrayed us), suffer not your living wife to be
abandoned; let me not be led in triumph to your shame, but hide me
and bury me here with you, since, amongst all my bitter misfortunes,
nothing has afflicted me like this brief time that I have lived away
from you,”
(92) Having made these lamentations, crowning the tomb with garlands
and kissing it, she gave orders to prepare her a bath, and, coming
out of the bath, she lay down and made a sumptuous meal. And a
country fellow brought her a little basket, which the guards
intercepting and asking what it was, the fellow put the leaves which
lay uppermost aside, and showed them it was full of figs; and on
their admiring the largeness and beauty of the figs, he laughed, and
invited them to take some, which they refused, and, suspecting
nothing, bade him carry them in. After her repast, Cleopatra sent to
Cæsar a letter which she had written and sealed; and, putting
everybody out of the monument but her two women, she shut the doors.
Cæsar, opening her letter, and finding pathetic prayers and
entreaties that she might be buried in the same tomb with Antony,
soon guessed what was doing. At first he was going himself in all
haste, but, changing his mind, he sent others to see. The thing had
been quickly done. The messengers came at full speed, and found the
guards apprehensive of nothing; but on opening the doors, they saw
her stone-dead, lying upon a bed of gold, set out in all her royal
ornaments. Iras, one of her women, lay dying at her feet, and
Charmion, just ready to fall, scarce able to hold up her head, was
adjusting her mistress’ diadem. And when one that came in said
angrily, “Was this well done of your lady, Charmion?” “Extremely
well,” she answered, “and as became the descendant of so
many kings;” and as she said this, she fell down dead by the
bedside.
(93) Some relate that an asp was brought in
amongst those figs and covered with the leaves, and that Cleopatra
had arranged that it might settle on her before she knew, but, when
she took away some of the figs and saw it, she said, “So here
it is,” and held out her bare arm to be bitten. Others say that
it was kept in a vase, and that she vexed and pricked it with a
golden spindle till it seized her arm. But what really took place is
known to no one. Since it was also said that she carried poison in a
hollow bodkin, about which she wound her hair; yet there was not so
much as a spot found, or any symptom of poison upon her body, nor
was the asp seen within the monument; only something like the trail
of it was said to have been noticed on the sand by the sea, on the
part towards which the building faced and where the windows were.
Some relate that two faint puncture-marks were found on Cleopatra’s
arm, and to this account Cæsar seems to have given credit; for
in his triumph there was carried a figure of Cleopatra, with an asp
clinging to her. Such are the various accounts. But Cæsar,
though much disappointed by her death, yet could not but admire the
greatness of her spirit, and gave order that her body should be
buried by Antony with royal splendor and magnificence. Her women,
also, received honorable burial by his directions. Cleopatra had
lived nine and thirty years, during twenty-two of which she had
reigned as queen, and for fourteen had been Antony’s partner in
his empire. Antony, according to some authorities, was fifty-three,
according to others, fifty- six years old. His statues were all
thrown down, but those of Cleopatra were left untouched; for
Archibius, one of her friends, gave Cæsar two thousand talents
to save them from the fate of Antony’s.
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