Death of Cleopatra
A film by Patty Mooney
Alexandria, 30 BCE. The last Pharaoh of ancient Egypt chooses to die on her own terms rather than be paraded through Rome.
Watch the film
Free to watch
Her last days
One defeat at sea ended nearly three centuries of Ptolemaic rule. Within a year, Egypt belonged to Rome.
- 31 BCE
Actium
Octavian, the future Emperor Augustus, defeats the forces of Cleopatra and her lover Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium.
- 30 BCE
Alexandria
Octavian pursues them to Alexandria. Believing Cleopatra already dead, Antony falls on his sword. He is carried to her and dies in her arms.
- 30 BCE
The choice
With Roman soldiers closing in, and Octavian planning to march her through Rome as a prisoner in his triumph, Cleopatra takes her own life. Two of her attendants die with her.
How did she die?
No one knows for certain. The ancient historians disagree, and scholars still debate it.
A snake in a basket of figs
The most widely accepted account. Cleopatra had a venomous snake, most likely an asp (an Egyptian cobra), smuggled into her chambers hidden among figs, and let it bite her.
Plutarch
Poison instead of a snake
A similar story, but with doubt about the snake. This account raises the possibility that she used poison.
Cassius Dio
A poisoned hairpin or ointment
Other theories suggest she carried poison in a hollow hairpin, or applied a poisoned ointment.
Later theories
About the film
The death of Cleopatra VII is one of history’s most dramatic and debated moments. In Death of Cleopatra, filmmaker Patty Mooney returns to Alexandria in 30 BCE, as Octavian’s forces close in and the queen realizes that her defeat means not only the end of her reign but the end of Egypt as an independent power.
When Octavian found her body, he was reportedly furious that she had escaped him. Her death ended the Ptolemaic dynasty, and Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.
Ruler, lover and icon of defiance, Cleopatra has lived on ever since in literature, art and film.
Her act is often seen as a calculated choice to keep her dignity in the face of certain conquest.
- Title
- Death of Cleopatra
- A film by
- Patty Mooney
- Subject
- Cleopatra VII, the last Pharaoh of ancient Egypt
- Setting
- Alexandria, Egypt, 30 BCE
- Studio
- New & Unique Videos®
- Price
- Free to watch
More free films
Begin with Hypatia of Alexandria, set in the same city four centuries later.
- Hypatia of Alexandria
- Oh Pompeii
- Dear Athena
- Sally Ride’s Astral Dream
- The Sinking of the Yukon
- Teeth of a Fox