Cleopatra and Antony had a setback at Cape Taenarum at the southern tip of Greece. The land forces they had left at the promontory of Actium had surrendered to Octavian for a price of an amnesty; the ships they had abandoned had almost all been burned. Aware of his weak position, Antony dismissed the handful of friends still faithful to him. He sailed to Libya to meet the 4 legions he had stationed in Cyrenaica while Cleopatra went on to Egypt to await him. When Antony learned that these legions too had defected, his friends were hard pressed to keep him from suicide.

Back in Alexandria, Antony's depression deepened. He had a small cell built for him on the jetty by the port and lived their as a hermit. He called it his Timoneion referring to the legendary misanthropic hermit, Timon of Athens. It took all Cleopatra's energy to bring him back to life. She organized feast upon feast, coming of age parties for Antyllus, Antony and Fulvia's son and for Caesarion and finally a party for her husband's 53 birthday. Finally Antony rejoined his friends, no longer practitioners of the "inimitable life" but now calling themselves a "company of death". They had agreed to die together but meant to pass their last hours in mutual pleasure.

Cleopatra knew that Octavian would not stay in Italy where he had returned but would soon seek to settle, once and for all, the conflict with Egypt, Antony and herself. She conceived a flight eastward and had the ships saved at Actium portaged to the Red Sea but the Arabs at Petra were allies of Octavian. They seized her ships and burned them. There was now nothing left to do but wait for Octavian.

In early 30 BC, Octavian reached Egypt's eastern border with an army. Roman legions under the command of Cornelius Gallus were stationed on the western border. The country was caught in a vise. Cleopatra and Antony attempted to negotiate, sending an envoy to Octavian. Cleopatra wished to protect her children and ensure the continuance of the Ptolemaic line. Antony was prepared to renounce all his authority and return to private life in Egypt or Greece. "He offered to take his own life, if in that way Cleopatra might be saved." Dio Cassus says. Octavian did not answer Antony but instead responded to the queen who had sent him her scepter and diadem as token of her allegiance, demanding she abdicate immediately and have Antony executed. She refused.

According to Plutarch, by now "Cleopatra was busied in making a collection of all varieties of poisonous drugs." and, like her predecessors, prepared her tomb, a high square tower, lit by two windows. There she piled up her treasure of gold and jewels, her furniture, her perfumes and a great deal of wood to send it all up in flames should the Romans try to take it.

In the spring of 30 BC, Octavian's legions seized Pelusium, in early summer, they were at the gates of Alexandria. Antony led a successful sortie with his cavalry, but the battle wasn't decisive. On July 31, Antony's army attacked Octavian. It was a greatly diminished army - only the infantry going into battle. His cavalry and navy had already surrendered. Around midnight, men said there was a noise of music in Alexandria as well as the ghostly wailing of choirs and a hubbub of people as if revellers were leaving the city. The sound went along the main street of the city to the eastern Canopic gate nearest the Roman camp and then stopped. To the augurs, the meaning of the omen was clear. The god Dionysus, whom Antony had striven to follow and imitate all his life, was abandoning him. This was defeat indeed. The Roman legions remained at the gates of Alexandria and Antony withdrew into the city.

Cleopatra entrenched herself in her mausoleum and it was then that Antony heard a report that from his generals that Cleopatra had died. The story is that he then seized his sword, handed it to his slave Eros and begged him to pierce his breast, but the young man used it on himself. Inspired by such courage, Antony then used the sword on himself just as Diomedes, Cleopatra's secretary, burst in to announce that the queen still lived.

The dying Antony had himself carried to the mausoleum to see her. Cleopatra had barricaded her in to protect herself from Octavian's soldiers. With the help of two servants she hauled her lover's body bleeding body up through the window with ropes.



"When she had got him up, she laid him on the bed, tearing all her clothes, which she spread upon 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 her own evils."



Thus Plutarch describes the famous scene, Antony urged Cleopatra to try anything to save her life, so far as might be honorably done," and then died in her arms.

Octavian feared that Cleopatra would kill herself and he wanted her alive and humbled to walk through Rome in chains in his triumphal procession. He commanded Proculeius to do anything to take her prisoner but Cleopatra would only negotiate through her closed door. She sought only one thing; that her children should live and rule in Egypt. Gallus, another messenger, distracted the queen while Proculeius entered hte tomb by a window, surprised Cleopatra and wrenched her dagger from her hand.

On August 1, BC, Octavian's army over ran the city. He had the city searched for Antyllus, Antony's son and for Caesarion. Antyllus was betrayed by his tutor and his though was cut in the temple where he sought asylum.....the temple that Cleopatra had dedicated to Caesar's manes. Caesarion was no where to be found, his mother had arranged for him to escape to India.

Octavian authorized Cleopatra to perform Antony's funeral rites and she fulfilled this last task. She was determined to die rather than suffer the humiliation of Octavian's triumph. Unarmed and under constant surveillance, she stopped eating. The wounds she had inflicted on herself at Antony's deathbed were infected and she was failing. Octavian threatened that if she continued, he would cause her children to die 'shamefully'. She allowed herself to be treated and began to eat.

Octavian finally came to see her. Dio Cassius accused the queen, in his history of Rome, of trying to seduce Octavian. The reality was that the queen, pale and feverish, was in no condition to seduce anyone. She did offer Octavian jewels, gifts for his wife and sister and appealed to his pity. He believed she wanted to live.

Cleopatra was to leave for Rome in three days. The moment had come. She visited Antony's tomb once more and began her last preparations. Her two servants, Iras and Charmion, bathed her, adorned her with cosmetics, and dressed her in queen's robes. She ate a magnificently presented meal and then sent Octavian a tablet asking to be entombed beside Antony.

Too late, Octavian's people rushed to the queen. She lay lifeless in state, with Iras and Charmion dying by her side. Doctors and healers were summoned in haste, but nothing could bring the three women back to life. Cleopatra, thirty nine years old, had chosen the only freedom left to her - death. Caesarion was lured back to Egypt with promises of safety and was executed. The three other children of Cleopatra's were sent to Rome to live with Octavia. After their education, Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Phladelphus disappeared from history. Their sister, Cleopatra Selene was married to Juba II of Mauretania by whom she had a son, later excuted by the Emperor Caligula, and a daughter who married Antonius Felix, the governor Judea known to the apostle Paul.

The most brilliant of all Cleopatra's deep political perceptions was the clear understanding that Egypt could never be saved from Rome except by a Roman. Where she faltered was in her failure to go further and see that no Roman, not even Julius Caesar or Antony, could do this for her country so long as she herself was in his train. And it was always her country, or her Ptolemaic dynasty which she equated with her country, that she had foremost in her mind.

Shakespeare, putting into words the wonder not of a contemporary Roman but of all time, wrote simply:



She shall be buried by her Antony.

No grave upon the earth clip in it

A pair so famous.