Introduction | Cleopatra and Caesar | Antony and Octavian
War of words and spectacle | The end of the affair
The consequences | Find out more

The end of the affair

In 32 BC, Octavian finally declared war ... against Cleopatra. He would be fighting, not against a Roman general, but against a dangerous oriental monarch. Octavian sailed eastwards to confront Antony and Cleopatra, who were then wintering on the west coast of Greece.

Depression and drink
When it came, the great battle of Actium (see box) was a fiasco. According to Octavian's historians, the couple escaped to Egypt to spend their last months in drunken revels. They may have been drinking, but they also sailed into Alexandria with their flags flying, as if from a victory, and then made several attempts to sue for peace. Remembering them only as ill-fated lovers is to fall completely for Octavian's propaganda.

However, they must have been pessimistic about the future. Antony built a kind of beach hut and, suicidal, lived there like a hermit. Cleopatra eventually coaxed him out of his depression, and they indulged in a final frenzy of feasting and merriment. But it was merriment with an edge: they changed the name of the 'Society of Inimitable Livers' – the drinking club they had founded in the good days – to the 'Company of the Inseparable in Death'.

Octavian had to return to Rome to pay off some of his creditors before he could pursue his enemies to Egypt. On his arrival in March 30 BC, Cleopatra and Antony tried to negotiate with him, but he refused and ordered his legions to close in.

Suicide
The precise details of what followed are not clear – the only certain fact is that, soon after, Antony and Cleopatra both died.

A romantic myth surrounds their deaths. Antony thought Cleopatra was dead and stabbed himself, only to discover that she was still alive. He was taken to her and died in her arms. According to Plutarch:

She tore her clothes in grief over him, beat her breast with her hands, and raked it with her nails. She smeared some of his blood on her face, and called him her master, husband and emperor.

Before Cleopatra could commit suicide and join Antony, she was taken prisoner by Octavian. But, so the story goes, Cleopatra tricked him and managed to kill herself by the bite of an asp.

In fact, Antony may have been quite prepared to kill himself without the Romeo and Juliet-style mix-up. Suicide was the only honourable option for a defeated Roman general. Even Plutarch recognised this, reporting his supposed suicide speech:

Cleopatra, it's not the loss of you that hurts, because I shall be joining you very soon. What hurts is that, for all my great stature as a commander, I have been shown to have less courage than a woman.

Whether Cleopatra wanted to join Antony is debatable. Octavian probably wanted her dead – as long as she was alive, she was a threat. He may not have killed her, but just encouraged her to see suicide as her best option. As for Cleopatra, she had no intention of being paraded in chains through Rome.

Her death certainly had all the hallmarks of one of her stage-managed events – with an eye on image and immortality to the last. She died a dignified, regal death, dressed as a queen and as Isis. Even her method of suicide was full of symbolism to an Eastern audience. The snake was a sign of the royal house of Egypt, an emblem of Isis and a symbol of rebirth and renewal, of eternal life, not death.

Octavian allowed Cleopatra to be buried with Antony – their tomb has never been found. She was 39; he was 52. Octavian had Caesarion murdered and then declared Ptolemaic rule to have ended. Cleopatra was the last – in a 3,000-year-old line – of the pharaohs. Egypt was now just another Roman province.

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