Cleopatra Dies: Egypt's Last Pharaoh Ends a Dynasty

Cleopatra VII Philopator died in Alexandria on August 12, 30 BC, at the age of thirty-nine, choosing suicide over the humiliation of being paraded through Rome as a captive in Octavian's triumphal procession. The popular account says she was bitten by an asp, but ancient sources are inconsistent, and modern historians consider poison equally plausible. She was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a Greek-speaking royal house that had governed Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great nearly three centuries earlier. She was also the first of her dynasty to actually learn Egyptian, a detail that reveals how thoroughly the Ptolemies had ruled Egypt as foreign occupiers for 250 years. She spoke at least nine languages and presented herself publicly as the incarnation of the goddess Isis, a calculated piece of political theater designed to legitimize her authority with the Egyptian population. Her relationships with Julius Caesar and then Mark Antony were political alliances as much as personal attachments: she needed Roman military power to hold her throne against her own family members, several of whom she had executed. When Octavian's forces defeated Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Cleopatra attempted to negotiate directly with the victor, offering treasure and political submission. Octavian refused. Antony, believing a false report that Cleopatra was dead, fell on his sword. Cleopatra followed shortly after. With her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire and would not regain full sovereignty for nearly two thousand years.