Cleopatra the Great

by Joann Fletcher

  With the dying Antonius helped to a bed which was presumably part of the funerary furniture, Cleopatra covered him in her sheet-like mantle and began to mourn in traditional fashion, ‘beating her breast with her hands, lacerating herself, and disfiguring her own face with the blood from his wounds, she called him her lord, her husband, her emperor, and seemed to have pretty nearly forgotten all her own evils, she was so intent upon his misfortunes’. As he did his best to calm her, he ordered wine from the funerary stocks and, after drinking his last, advised her to put her trust in Gaius Proculeius, one of Octavian’s staff but an honourable man. Reminding her that he had lived a full life and had been the most illustrious and powerful of men, he told her not to grieve but to remember their past happiness together. And then he died in her arms.

  Panicking that the distraught Cleopatra would kill herself and torch her treasure, Octavian sent for Proculeius and ordered him to get her out alive. Unable to gain access via the sealed entrance, Proculeius requested she came out, to which she agreed providing Octavian would allow Caesarion to rule Egypt. Assuring her she could trust Octavian, Proculeius then had his colleague Cornelius Gallus keep her talking while he and the freedman Epaphroditus used scaling ladders to gain entrance through one of the upper-storey windows. As her servants shouted out to warn her of the men’s arrival, Cleopatra pulled out her dagger to stab herself but was forcibly seized by Proculeius who removed the weapon. And, given her well-known interest in toxicology, or perhaps following a tip-off, he then ‘shook her dress to see if there were any poisons hid in it’.

  Taken prisoner, she was escorted back to the palace with Epaphroditus as her guard, and, although allowed to keep her retinue, was placed under house arrest in quarters which had no doubt been thoroughly searched for any means by which she might harm herself. This action may also have been influenced by the suicide of her eunuch attendant Mardion, who ‘had of his own accord delivered himself up to the serpents at the time when Cleopatra had been seized . . . and after being bitten by them had leaped into a coffin prepared for him’.

  Meanwhile, Octavian himself finally entered Alexandria, promising his troops a financial incentive if they did not sack the city. Clearly unsure of the reception he might receive from the notoriously violent citizens, he decided to appear with the Alexandrian philosopher Arius Didymus, his newly appointed adviser on Egyptian affairs, ‘holding him by the hand and talking with him’ as Octavian called a public meeting in the Gymnasion. The citizens of Alexandria had mixed feelings for Cleopatra as a Roman collaborator, and now listened as their new Roman master, flanked by his massed ranks of troops, told them they were all free of blame. Of the Roman supporters of Cleopatra’s regime Canidius Crassus, Quintus Ovinius and various others had been summarily executed, and only the admiral and former consul Sosius spared. But Octavian declared he would spare the citizens too because their city was so large and beautiful, because of his feelings for his new friend Didymus and, he announced, for the sake of the great Alexander, whose tomb Didymus now took him to see.

  Apparently visiting the Soma to pay his respects — while seeing how much of the Ptolemies’ famous wealth remained there — Octavian entered the subterranean burial chamber and ‘had the sarcophagus containing Alexander the Great’s mummy removed from the mausoleum . . . and, after a long look at its features, showed his veneration by crowning the head with a golden diadem and strewing flowers on the trunk’. Unfortunately while viewing the body he ‘actually touched it, with the result that a piece of the nose was broken off, so the story goes. Yet he was unwilling to look at the remains of the Ptolemies, although the Alexandrians were very anxious to show them; Octavian commented, “I wished to see a king, not corpses”.’

  Presumably unimpressed that the famous treasure was no longer present, save for Alexander’s gold breastplate which it would have been impolitic to take, Octavian declined the offer to visit the city’s temples. Instead he sent his troops into the Caesareum, the great temple of his adoptive father Julius Caesar, following a tip-off from Antyllus’ tutor Theodoras that Antonius’ son had taken refuge there. When the fourteen-year-old was found cowering at the feet of Caesar’s statue he was ‘dragged from the image of the god Julius, to which he had fled, with vain pleas for mercy’. He was then beheaded, allowing his tutor to steal the necklace from what remained of Antyllus’ neck before he was captured himself and crucified on the orders of Octavian in punishment for having tried to steal from the body and perhaps to silence him too.

  Troops were sent south to seek out Caesarion and his three half-siblings. The three youngest were tracked down to their hiding place in Thebes and sent back to Alexandria under guard while Caesarion, trying to leave the country with a large amount of treasure, was persuaded by his tutor Rhodon to return to Alexandria and negotiate his future. Hearing that the pharaoh was making his way back to the royal city, Octavian ‘sent cavalry in pursuit’ to bring him back under guard too.

  Having seized one half of Cleopatra’s treasure from Caesarion, Octavian turned his attentions to the rest and, after managing to reopen the tomb, began to remove its precious contents. Chief among these was the body of Antonius which Octavian wished to see for himself. Well known for according full honours to his own fallen enemies, news of his death made such an impact on his former allies that ‘many kings and great commanders made petition to [Octavian] for the body of Antonius to give him his funeral rites, but he would not take the corpse away from Cleopatra by whose hands he was buried with royal splendour and magnificence, it being granted to her to employ what she pleased on his funeral’.

  With no further details known, she presumably ordered his body to be washed and laid out ‘in state, clothed in splendid raiment’. Although Roman tradition favoured cremation, as had been done for Caesar, there is no mention of this for Antonius who, the ancient sources claim, was ‘embalmed’. Yet since his burial ‘is not likely to have been delayed more than one or two days’ after his death, the standard seventy-day procedure would have been impossible. So either his body was left untreated and simply interred in Cleopatra’s mausoleum in a sarcophagus already in situ, or she made arrangements for the body to be handed over to the embalmers who would then have begun their ten-week task, perhaps within her funerary complex, while she initiated the mourning rites which traditionally lasted for the duration of the embalming process.

  Isis incarnate, now the archetypal grieving widow, genuinely mourned her dead Osiris-Dionysos, savagely tearing her face and chest as she lamented the death of Antonius and the end of their dreams. Black eye paint running down her bloodied cheeks would have mingled with the dust she threw over her head until, completely breaking down, she was taken back to the palace, still under guard, her physician Olympus reporting that ‘in this extreme of grief and sorrow’ she had ‘inflamed and ulcerated her breasts with beating them’. Yet, regardless of his treatment, ‘she fell into a high fever’ between 3 and 8 August and, refusing all food and drink, simply wished to die, asking Olympus to help her do so.

  At this point Octavian intervened, and, using ‘menacing language about her children’, informed her that death was not an option. She must eat and take suitable medication since, so the ancient sources claim, he wanted her alive so that she and her remaining family could appear in Rome to star in his Triumph. Although the reality of a widowed mother and her children might not quite measure up to the terrifying character he had created, some believe he simply wanted her to disappear as soon as possible with no blame on his part. Her execution would certainly damage his reputation for clemency, while, if allowed to live, she would always be a figurehead for rebellion. Yet the ancient sources were almost certainly correct in their belief that she was to feature in his Triumph, for if Octavian had truly wanted her dead he could simply have allowed her to die as she had wished instead of threatening her children.

  The sources also claim that Octavian himself visited her around 8 August to check on her recovery, and although some authorities
doubt whether such a meeting ever took place and are of the opinion that it was simply invented for dramatic effect, it may well be that direct contact was made if both parties were now residing within the same palace complex, particularly if one was anxious to gain a full picture of all the wealth the other still had in her possession. It is said that, when Octavian was admitted, Cleopatra was lying in bed with Olympus still in attendance, but immediately rose up and fell at his feet, playing along as conquered victim ‘as if she desired nothing more than to prolong her life’. Although the recent mourning had left ‘her hair and face looking wild and disfigured, her voice quivering, and her eyes sunk in her head’, she nevertheless retained ‘her old charm and the boldness of her youthful beauty’ and ‘still sparkled from within’. Some even claimed she had ‘dressed herself with studied negligence — indeed, her appearance in mourning wonderfully enhanced her beauty’, presumably in spite of the self-inflicted gouges; having had Caesar and Antonius, they claimed, she now tried to seduce Octavian, only ‘the chastity of the princeps [Octavian] was too much for her’.

  This is a risible claim in the light of Octavian’s known promiscuity, and in any case it is hard to believe that Cleopatra could have demonstrated any such reaction to this rather mundane-looking little man whose sole intent was to make an inventory of her remaining assets. For, as the sources do in fact reveal, ‘having had by her a list of her treasure, she gave it into his hands’, until her finance minister, Seleucus, pointed out that certain articles seemed to have been omitted. At this she is said to have grabbed her minister by the hair and struck him before admitting that she had indeed kept back a few ‘women’s toys’ — pieces of jewellery she had selected as gifts for Livia and Octavia.

  Cleopatra had convinced Octavian that she did indeed intend to live, and so, reassured that she was fit to travel to Rome, he withdrew, satisfied that he had deceived her, ‘but in fact, was himself deceived.’ Already well aware of his plans for the Triumph, Cleopatra was determined to avoid this at all costs; she would literally rather die. Octavian’s poets claimed, accurately for once, that ‘she, seeking to die more nobly, showed no womanish fear of the sword . . . resolved for death, she was brave indeed. She was no docile woman but truly scorned to be taken away in her enemy’s ships, deposed, to an overweening triumph’. When she was informed by Octavian’s officer Publius Cornelius Dolabella that Octavian was about to leave for Syria, while she herself would be sent to Rome in three days’ time, Cleopatra put her final plan into action.

  On 10 August, she requested to be allowed out of her quarters in order to pay her final respects to Antonius before she left Egypt for ever. Still too weak to walk, she was carried in her litter to her funerary complex in the company of Eiras and Charmion and on arrival made appropriate offerings for his soul, perhaps favourites such as ‘pure wine and fragrant oil of spikenard, balsam too, and crimson roses’. As she prayed to Antonius’ spirit, she told him ‘no further offerings or libations expect from me; these are the last honours that Cleopatra can pay your memory . . . But if the gods below, with whom you now are, either can or will do anything, 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 had to live without you.’

  When she returned to the palace, passing Epaphroditus and the guards, she withdrew behind the emerald-studded doors into her private quarters, ordering her attendants to prepare her a bath. After she had bathed and perfumed herself, Eiras styled her hair into its usual melon coiffure, carefully braiding each section, pulling it back and securing it in a bun at the back of her head with several large hairpins. Then, with Charmion’s help, ‘she put on her finest robes’ and reclined to eat a splendid lunch, no doubt accompanied by the very finest of wines and polished off with a few large figs brought in fresh from the country.

  She then called for a writing tablet and stylus, and in a final missive to Octavian echoed Antonius’ desire that they should be buried together in the same tomb. After she had sealed the letter with her signet ring, it was passed out to Epaphroditus who sent it by messenger to Octavian. She dismissed all her staff except Eiras and Charmion, her two most trusted servants, who had supported her through much of her eventful life and would now play their parts in Cleopatra’s final performance. Yet it would be a performance which is even now still shrouded in mystery. For, despite the famous snakebite scenario, the ancient sources admit that ‘no one knows for certain by what means she perished’ since ‘what really took place is known to no one’.

  Certainly Cleopatra’s famous asp can be dismissed as a work of fiction based on her caricature-like effigy with snakes coiling up both arms in the manner of the goddess Isis. When the effigy was later paraded around Rome it was described by Octavian’s poets Virgil, Propertius and Horace, who pictured ‘the pair of asps in wait for her’ and as she ‘handled fierce snakes, her corporeal frame drank their venom.’ Like so much else they produced, an historical inaccuracy. But the image for which they are responsible — the tragic Cleopatra expiring with at least one asp in tow, an image endlessly recycled by artists down the centuries — is now firmly lodged in history.

  Although some later sources claim that ‘an asp was brought in amongst those figs and covered with the leaves’, and that when Cleopatra saw it she simply said, ‘ “So here it is” and held out her bare arm to be bitten’, the presence of such a snake raises a considerable number of problems. The term ‘asp’ is used to describe any snake capable of puffing wide its neck and can be applied to several kinds of North African viper, including Vipera aspis, the horned viper (Cerastes cornutus) and Cerastes vipera, which has even gained the nickname ‘Cleopatra’s asp’. Yet a viper’s bite causes an intense reaction: burning pains spread throughout the body, the blood clots, creating disfiguring purple blotches and swellings, and vomiting and incontinence precede the final loss of consciousness.

  Since such a snake would have been completely unsuited to Cleopatra’s known desire for a dignified end, it has therefore been suggested that the ‘asp’ was in fact the Egyptian cobra, Naja haje, whose poison acts rapidly on the nerves. Other than two small marks from the fangs, there is no damage to the skin. A slight drowsiness leads to gradual paralysis of the body, ending in a fatal coma in full accordance with the ancient description of Cleopatra’s choice of snake-based poison ‘which without convulsion or groaning brought on a heavy drowsiness and lethargy with a gentle sweat on the face, the sense being stupefied by degrees; the patient, in appearance, being sensible of no pain, but rather troubled to be disturbed or awakened like those that are in a profound natural sleep’.

  Almost a century ago it was also suggested that Cleopatra’s choice of the cobra may have been based on symbolic reasons, since snakes in general and cobras in particular were an integral part of Egyptian, Greek and Roman symbolism from Alexandria’s ‘good spirit’ Agathos Daimon to the classical ‘ourouboros’ representing the beginning and end of all things. Alexander himself was believed to have been conceived by means of a sacred snake which could also be the bringer of death. Isis and her consort Osiris-Serapis were both worshipped as snakes; Isis as the great magician Weret-Hekau appeared as a cobra, and the goddess’ acolytes carried snakes in much the same way as did devotees of Dionysos. Yet it is the cobra’s identification with the sacred uraeus serpent of ancient Egypt which seems to have generated most interest in terms of Cleopatra’s motivation. It was worn as an emblem on the crown of all Egyptian pharaohs, and it is claimed that Cleopatra would have regarded this symbol of divine kingship as the perfect means of achieving immortality and most fitting to her status as the last pharaoh of Egypt.

  Yet this ingenious explanation ignores the fact that the uraeus was meant to spit venom at the pharaoh’s enemies and not at the monarch — not to mention the fact that she already regarded herself as immortal in the form of the Living Isis. And having done al
l she could in life to guarantee the succession of her son Caesarion, she could surely never have wanted to depict herself as the last of her line.

  The use of a cobra also fails from a logistical point of view; because all its venom is discharged in the first bite, a single cobra could never have supplied the means for all three women to take their lives at the same time. Several snakes would therefore be required; in addition, cobras containing sufficient venom to kill a single human are around six feet in length. To conceal three such snakes would require a basket of figs so large that it could surely never have been smuggled past the guards — an unlikely scenario recalling the way in which Cleopatra herself is usually believed to have been smuggled into the palace by a late-night carpet salesman in another episode of creative embellishment.

  To circumvent the problem, the ancient sources suggest that a snake may already have been well hidden within Cleopatra’s quarters, ‘kept in a vase, and that she vexed and pricked it with a golden spindle till it seized her arm’. As a tale which grew in the telling, it was eventually claimed that she had actually been killed by a ‘two-headed serpent capable of bounding several feet in the air’, and after biting her it had hidden in a pot-plant until Octavian arrived, when it jumped out and bit him too.

  The popular desire to believe in a snake-induced suicide seems to ignore the fact that a snake itself did not have to be physically present for its poison to be employed, particularly by a woman apparently so well versed in toxicology. With cobra venom providing a relatively pain-free death without unfortunate side-effects on the body, it was surely simply a matter of hiding its poison prior to use, perhaps blended into some form of ointment as mentioned in one source compiled only a few years after the event. Furthermore, little notice seems to have been paid to several ancient sources which claim that ‘she had smeared a pin with some poison whose composition rendered it harmless if the contact were external, but which, if even the smallest quantity entered the bloodstream, would quickly prove fatal, although also painless; according to this theory, she had previously worn the pin in her hair as usual’, for ‘it was also said she carried poison in a hollow bodkin, about which she wound her hair’.