Dion Cassius also states that the true cause of Cleopatra’s death was unknown. One account was that she punctured her arm with a hair-pin (βελόνη) which was poisoned. But even as to the punctures on the arm, Plutarch does not seem to state positively that there were any. The “hollow comb” is hardly intelligible. Plutarch’s word is κνηστίς, “a scraping instrument of any kind.” One MS. has κιστίς, “a small coffer.” Strabo (p. 795, ed. Casaub.) doubts whether she perished by the bite of a serpent or by puncturing herself with a poisoned instrument. Propertius (iii. 11, 53) alludes to the image of Cleopatra, which was carried in the triumph—
Brachia spectavi sacris admorsa colubris
Et trahere occultum membra soporis iter.
An ancient marble at Rome represents Cleopatra with the asp on her arm. There was also a story of her applying it to the left breast.
Cleopatra was born in B.C. 69, and died in the latter part of B.C. 30. She was seventeen years of age when her father Ptolemæus Auletes died: and upon his death she governed jointly with her brother Ptolemæus, whose wife she was to be. Antonius first saw her when he was in Egypt with Gabinius, and he had not forgotten the impression which the young girl then made on him at the time when she visited him at Tarsus (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 8). Antonius was forty years old when he saw Cleopatra at Tarsus, B.C. 41, and he would therefore be in his fifty-second year at the time of his death (Clinton, Fasti).
[480] Octavia’s care of the children of Antonius is one of the beautiful traits of her character. She is one of those Roman women whose virtues command admiration.
Cleopatra, the daughter of Antonius and twin sister of Alexander, married Juba II., king of Numidia, by whom she had a son Ptolemæus, who succeeded his father, and a daughter Drusilla, who married Antonius Felix, the governor of Judæa. The two brothers of Cleopatra were Alexander and Ptolemæus.
Antonius, the son of Fulvia, was called Iulus Antonius. He married Marcella, one of the daughters of Octavia. In B.C. 10, Antonius was consul. He formed an adulterous intercourse with Julia, the daughter of Augustus, which cost him his life B.C. 2. Antonius was a poet, as it seems (Horat. Carm. iv. 2, and Orelli’s note).
The elder Antonia, the daughter of Octavia and Antonius, married L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Cneius, who deserted to Cæsar just before the battle of Actium. This Lucius had by Antonia a son, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who married Agrippina, the daughter of Cæsar Germanicus. Agrippina’s son, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, was adopted by the emperor Claudius after his marriage with Agrippina, and Lucius then took the name of Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus. As the emperor Nero his infamy is imperishable.
The younger Antonia, the daughter of Octavia and Antonius, married Drusus, the second son of Tiberius Claudius Nero. Tiberius had divorced his wife Livia in order that Caesar Octavianus might become her husband. The virtues of Antonia are recorded by Plutarch and others: her beauty is testified by her handsome face on a medal.
The expression of Plutarch that Caius, by whom he means Caius Caligula, “ruled with distinction,” has caused the commentators some difficulty, and they have proposed to read ἐπιμανῶς, “like a madman” in place of ἐπιφανῶς, “with distinction.” Perhaps Plutarch’s meaning may be something like what I have given, and he may allude to the commencement of Caligula’s reign, which gave good hopes, as Suetonius shows. Some would get over the difficulty by giving to ἐπιφανῶς a different meaning from the common meaning. See Kaltwasser’s note.