The Life and Times of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt / A Study in the Origin of the Roman Empire

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

When Octavian read the letter which Cleopatra’s messenger had brought him, he realised at once what had happened, and hastened to the mausoleum. Changing his mind, however, he sent some of his officers in his place, who, on their arrival, found the sentries apprehensive of nothing. Bursting open the door they ran up the stairs to the upper chamber, and immediately their worst fears were realised. Cleopatra, already dead, lay stretched upon her bed of gold, arrayed in her Grecian robes of state, and decked with all her regal jewels, the royal diadem of the Ptolemies encircling her brow. Upon the floor at her feet Iras was just breathing her last; and Charmion, scarce able to stand, was tottering at the bedside, trying to adjust the Queen’s crown.

One of the Roman officers exclaimed angrily: “Charmion, was this well done of your lady?” Charmion, supporting herself beside the royal couch, turned her ashen face towards the speaker. “Very well done,” she gasped, “and as befitted the descendant of so many Kings”; and with these words she fell dead beside the Queen.

The Roman officers, having despatched messengers to inform Octavian of the tragedy, seem to have instituted an immediate inquiry as to the means by which the deaths had taken place.[146] At first the sentries could offer no information, but at length the fact was elicited that a peasant carrying a basket of figs had been allowed to enter the mausoleum, as it was understood that the fruit was for the Queen’s meal. The soldiers declared that they had lifted the leaves with which the fruit was covered and had remarked on the fineness of the figs, whereupon the peasant had laughed and had invited them to take some, which they had refused to do. It was perhaps known that Cleopatra had expressed a preference for death by the bite of an asp,[147] and it was therefore thought that perhaps one of these small snakes had been brought to her concealed under the figs. A search was made for the snake, and one of the soldiers stated that he thought he saw a snake-track leading from the mausoleum over the sand towards the sea. An attendant who had admitted the peasant seems now to have reported that when Cleopatra saw the figs she exclaimed, “So here it is!” a piece of evidence which gave some colour to the theory. Others suggested that the asp had been kept at hand for some days in a vase, and that the Queen had, at the end, teased it until she had made it strike at her. An examination of the body showed nothing except two very slight marks upon the arm, which might possibly have been caused by the bite of a snake. On the other hand, it was suggested that the Queen might have carried some form of poison in a hollow hair-comb or other similar article; and this theory must have received some support from the fact that there were the three deaths to account for.

Presently Octavian seems to have arrived, and he at once sent for snake-doctors, Psylli, to suck the poison from the wound; but they came too late to save her. Though Octavian expressed his great disappointment at her death, he could not refrain from showing his admiration for the manner in which it had occurred. Personally, he appears to have favoured the theory that her end was caused by the bite of the asp, and afterwards in his Triumph he caused a figure of Cleopatra to be exhibited with a snake about her arm. Though it is thus quite impossible to state with certainty how it occurred, there is no reason to contradict the now generally accepted story of the introduction of the asp in the basket of figs. I have no doubt that the Queen had other poisons in her possession, which were perhaps used by her two faithful women; and it is to be understood that the strategy of the figs, if employed at all, was resorted to only in order that she herself might die by the means which her earlier experiments had commended to her.

Octavian now gave orders that the Queen should be buried with full honours beside Antony, where she had wished to lie. He had sent messengers, it would seem, to Berenice to attempt to stop the departure of Cæsarion for India, having heard, no doubt, that the young man had decided to remain in that town until the last possible moment. His tutor, Rhodon, counselled him to trust himself to Octavian; and, acting upon this advice, they returned to Alexandria, where they seem to have arrived very shortly after Cleopatra’s death. Octavian immediately ordered Cæsarion to be executed, his excuse being that it was dangerous for two Cæsars to be in the world together; and thus died the last of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs of Egypt, the son and only real heir of the great Julius Cæsar. The two other children who remained in the Palace, Ptolemy and Cleopatra Selene, were shipped off to Rome as soon as possible, and messengers seem to have been despatched to Media to take possession of Alexander Helios who had probably been sent thither, as we have already seen.

In my opinion, Octavian now decided to take over Egypt as a kind of personal possession. He did not wish to cause a revolution in the country by proclaiming it a Roman province; and he seems to have appreciated the ceaseless efforts of Cleopatra and her subjects to prevent the absorption of the kingdom in this manner. He therefore decided upon a novel course of action. While not allowing himself to be crowned as actual King of Egypt, he assumed that office by tacit agreement with the Egyptian priesthood. He seems to have claimed, in fact, to be heir to the throne of the Ptolemies. Julius Cæsar had been recognised as Cleopatra’s husband in Egypt, and he, Octavian, was Cæsar’s adopted son and heir. After the elimination of Cleopatra’s three surviving children he was, therefore, the rightful claimant to the Egyptian throne. The Egyptians at once accepted him as their sovereign, and upon the walls of their temples we constantly find his name inscribed in hieroglyphics as “King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Son of the Sun, Cæsar, living for ever, beloved of Ptah and Isis.” He is also called by the title Autocrator, which he took over from Antony, and which, in the Egyptian inscriptions, was recognised as a kind of hereditary royal name, being written within the Pharaonic cartouche.[148] His descendants, the Emperors of Rome, were thus successively Kings of Egypt, as though heads of the reigning dynasty; and each Emperor as he ascended the Roman throne was hailed as Monarch of Egypt, and was called in all Egyptian inscriptions “Pharaoh” and “Son of the Sun.” The Egyptians, therefore, with the acquiescence of Octavian, came to regard themselves not as vassals of Rome, but as subjects of their own King, who happened at the same time to be Emperor of Rome; and thus the great Egypto-Roman Empire for which Cleopatra had struggled actually came into existence. All Emperors of Rome came to be recognised in Egypt not as sovereigns of a foreign empire of which Egypt was a part, but as actual Pharaohs of Egyptian dominions of which Rome was a part.

The ancient dynasties had passed away, the Amenophis and Thutmosis family, the house of Rameses, the line of Psammetichus, and many another had disappeared. And now, in like manner, the house of the Ptolemies had fallen, and the throne of Egypt was occupied by the dynasty of the Cæsars. This dynasty, as it were, supplied Rome with her monarchs; and the fact that Octavian was hailed by Egyptians as King of Egypt long before he was recognised by Romans as Emperor of Rome, gave the latter throne a kind of Pharaonic origin in the eyes of the vain Egyptians. It has usually been supposed that Egypt became a Roman province; but it was never declared to be such. Octavian arranged that it should be governed by a praefectus, who was to act in the manner of a viceroy,[149] and he retained the greater part of the Ptolemaic revenues as his personal property. While later in Rome he pretended that Cleopatra’s kingdom had been annexed, in Egypt it was distinctly understood that the country was still a monarchy.

He treated the Queen’s memory with respect, since he was carrying on her line; and he would not allow her statues to be overthrown.[150] All her splendid treasures, however, and the gold and silver plate and ornaments were melted down and converted into money with which to pay the Roman soldiers. The royal lands were seized, the palaces largely stripped of their wealth; and when at last Octavian returned to Rome in the spring of B.C. 29, he had become a fabulously rich man.

On August 13th, 14th, and 15th of the same year three great Triumphs were celebrated, the first day being devoted to the European conquests, the second to Actium, and the third to the Egyptian victory. A statue of Cleopatra, the asp clinging to her arm, was dragged through the streets of the capital, and the Queen’s twin children, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, were made to walk in captivity in the procession. Images representing Nilus and Egypt were carried along, and an enormous quantity of interesting loot was heaped up on the triumphal cars. The poet Propertius tells us how in fancy he saw “the necks of kings bound with golden chains, and the fleet of Actium sailing up the Via Sacra.” All men became unbalanced by enthusiasm, and stories derogatory to Cleopatra were spread on all sides. Horace, in a wonderful ode, expressed the public sentiments, and denounced the unfortunate Queen as an enemy of Rome. Honours were heaped upon Octavian; and soon afterwards he was given the title of Augustus, and was named Divi filius, as being heir of Divus Julius. He took great delight in lauding the memory of the great Dictator, who was now accepted as one of the gods of the Roman world; and it is a significant fact that he revived and reorganised the Lupercalia, as though he were in some manner honouring Cæsar thereby.[151]

Meanwhile the three children of Cleopatra and Antony found a generous refuge in the house of Octavia, Antony’s discarded wife. With admirable tact Octavian seems to have insisted upon this solution of the difficulty as to what to do with them. Their execution would have been deeply resented by the Egyptians, and, since Octavian was now posing as the legal heir to the throne of Egypt, the dynastic successor of Cleopatra, and not a foreign usurper, it was well that his own sister should look after these members of the royal family. Octavia, always meek and dutiful, accepted the arrangement nobly, and was probably unvaryingly kind to these children of her faithless husband, whom she brought up with her two daughters, Antonia Major and Minor, and Julius Antonius, the second son of Antony and Fulvia, and brother of the murdered Antyllus. When the little Cleopatra Selene grew up she was married to Juba, the King of Numidia, a learned and scholarly monarch, who was later made King of Mauretania. The son of this marriage was named Ptolemy, and succeeded his father about A.D. 19. He was murdered by Caligula, who, by the strange workings of Fate, was also a descendant of Antony. We do not know what became of Alexander Helios and his brother Ptolemy. Tacitus tells us[152] that Antonius Felix, Procurator of Judæa under the Emperor Nero, married (as his second wife) Drusilla, a granddaughter of Cleopatra and Antony, who was probably another of the Mauretanian family. Octavia died in B.C. 11. Antony’s son, Julius Antonius, in B.C. 2, was put to death for his immoral relations with Octavian’s own daughter Julia, she herself being banished to the barren island of Pandateria. Octavian himself, covered with honours and full of years, died in A.D. 14, being succeeded upon the thrones of Egypt and of Rome by Tiberius, his son.