The Death of Antony & Cleopatra (30 B.C.E.)

0:00 The final stage of the civil war between Octavian

0:12 and Antony kicked off in the spring of 30 B.C.E., when Octavian landed in Syria.

0:19 Octavian was using Agrippa’s plan for the campaign,

0:23 which was to attack Egypt from two directions,

0:26 one army from Syria and the other from Libya,

0:28 each army being shadowed by a fleet as they marched up the coast.

0:33 Two armies, two fleets, attacking from both land and sea from two directions.

0:39 Many independent moving pieces with no single point of failure.

0:43 Classic Agrippa.

0:53 Back in Egypt, Antony and Cleopatra had come to the realization

0:57 that after losing tens of thousands of soldiers to desertion,

1:02 they were no longer capable of defeating Octavian on land.

1:05 They tried sending peace offers to Octavian.

1:09 Octavian never responded.

1:11 They tried sending him a massive bribe.

1:14 He kept the bribe.

1:18 Cleopatra then had an idea.

1:20 She figured out how to turn her useless

1:23 Mediterranean fleet into a Red Sea fleet.

1:26 With enough manpower and enough engineering,

1:28 she believed that she could drag her ships over land, Fitzcarraldo style.

1:33 Once they had a fleet in the Red Sea,

1:36 they could credibly threaten to cut off Egypt’s trade with the east.

1:40 She believed that Octavian would rather negotiate

1:43 with them than deal with a headache like that.

1:45 If he didn’t want to negotiate,

1:47 then she and perhaps even Antony could escape to the east.

1:51 Incredibly, she had her eye set on northwest India,

1:55 where a number of ethnically Greek kings

1:57 would have been sympathetic to her cause.

2:01 Talk about some out of the box thinking!

2:04 I like this plan!

2:06 Not even Agrippa had imagined Egypt pulling a stunt like this.

2:10 Cleopatra put her plan into action.

2:13 She gathered the necessary manpower,

2:15 and began dragging the first group of ships overland.

2:20 But when they were about half way to their destination,

2:24 they were ambushed by Arab camel riders from the city of Petra.

2:29 The ambush was successful,

2:30 the camel riders killed the labourers and burned the ships.

2:35 You might ask why this happened.

2:38 The Arab kingdoms in the region were not

2:40 happy with Antony’s reorganization of the Roman East,

2:43 and this was their way of getting revenge.

2:47 An unintended consequence of Antony’s reforms.

2:51 After learning of this defeat,

2:53 Antony urged Cleopatra to give up on her extremely good idea.

2:58 A mistake, in my opinion.

3:01 Antony still had hope that his 50,000 soldiers

3:05 from Greece were wandering around the Roman East somewhere.

3:08 We know that they surrendered to Octavian last year,

3:12 and if Antony was clear-headed about it he would have known it too.

3:16 But he was holding onto a deluded belief that they

3:18 would appear up just in the nick of time.

3:22 Shortly after this, King Herod of Judea

3:25 betrayed Antony and went over to Octavian’s side.

3:29 He rolled out the red carpet and spared no

3:33 expense supplying Octavian’s legions as they passed through his territory.

3:37 When Antony heard this bit of information, reality really started to set in.

3:43 According to Plutarch, “none of this news upset [Antony.] It was as if

3:47 he was pleased to put aside his hopes since

3:50 in doing so he could also let go his worries.”

3:55 The couple began throwing expensive dinner parties every night,

3:59 and would load their guests up with gold and treasure before sending them home.

4:04 It was as if they knew that the end was near.

4:09 Antony led his armies on a few excursions that were

4:12 intended to slow the enemy down, with mixed results.

4:15 Minor victories in the east, minor defeats in the west,

4:18 nothing that would make much of a difference.

4:22 By July 31st, Antony had returned to Alexandria, and Octavian was at the gates.

4:37 That evening, Antony was in a dark mood.

4:40 He knew that there was only one thing left to try,

4:43 but he was fairly certain that it would not work.

4:46 He was finally looking at his predicament clearly.

4:49 This was probably his last night on Earth.

4:52 He hosted a feast, and told his Roman generals, “drink deep,

4:57 for tomorrow you may have a new master.” On the morning of August 1st,

5:05 Antony led what remained of his army through the gates of Alexandria.

5:11 Cleopatra sent what remained of her fleet out of the harbor in support.

5:16 They both knew that Alexandria was in no position

5:20 to withstand a siege against such a massive force.

5:23 Their only hope was to go on the offensive and win an unexpected victory.

5:29 Due to Agrippa’s strategy, one victory would not be enough.

5:33 They had to win on land and at sea at the same time.

5:37 Of course there was very little chance of this working.

5:40 Agrippa had another army and another fleet on the way.

5:43 Even a crushing victory would only buy them some

5:46 time until they had to do the whole thing again.

5:50 But this was how Antony wanted to go down.

5:52 In a blaze of glory.

5:59 Antony’s army left the gates, and Cleopatra’ fleet left the harbor.

6:04 And then, to Antony’s utter dismay, Cleopatra’s ships immediately surrendered.

6:10 The naval assault on Alexandria would go unchallenged.

6:15 Victory was now impossible.

6:17 When Antony’s cavalry saw this, they fled.

6:22 Antony was left to face Octavian with only his infantry.

6:26 He harassed and attacked Octavian’s forces, but they easily held their ground.

6:31 By the end of the day most of his army had been lost,

6:35 but improbably, Antony was still alive.

6:38 He fled back through the gates of Alexandria in defeat.

6:42 Despite his best efforts, Antony had failed to go out in a blaze of glory.

6:59 Antony re-entered the royal palace and began causing a scene

7:03 by screaming at random people as they scurried by.

7:06 How could this happen?

7:07 Why would the ships surrender without even putting up a fight?

7:11 He must have been betrayed.

7:13 Who else could it be?

7:15 It had to be Cleopatra.

7:16 She must have ordered her ships to surrender.

7:27 Now we get into a real ambiguous section, because every surviving account

7:31 of these next events are significantly different.

7:33 What we know for sure is that at this time,

7:37 one of Cleopatra’s servants approached Antony

7:39 and informed him that the Queen was dead.

7:42 The other thing that we know for sure is that this was not true.

7:47 She had in fact taken refuge in her mausoleum for her own safety.

7:59 Some versions of this story would have

8:01 you believe that this was simply a misunderstanding.

8:05 That’s way too cute, I don’t buy it.

8:08 It is my opinion that Cleopatra heard from her servants

8:12 that Antony believed that she had betrayed him,

8:14 and told a servant to go and tell him

8:17 that she was dead in order to escape his wrath.

8:19 But again, that is only my opinion.

8:22 When Antony heard of Cleopatra’s supposed death,

8:25 Plutarch has him saying the following: “O Cleopatra,

8:30 I am not distressed to have lost you, for I shall straightaway join you;

8:34 but I am grieved that a commander as great as I should be

8:38 found to be inferior to a woman in courage.” What a charming guy.

8:46 Antony drew his sword and handed it to his servant,

8:52 who was apparently named Eros.

8:56 Eros as in…erotic?

8:57 That can’t have been his real name, right?

9:00 Were Antony and Cleopatra giving their servants erotic little nicknames?

9:04 That’s nasty, man.

9:05 Seems like an HR issue at the very least.

9:10 Eros accepted Antony’s sword.

9:12 Antony ordered Eros to kill him.

9:16 Eros did the funniest possible thing under the circumstances.

9:19 He killed himself instead.

9:24 Eros dropped to the ground and Antony was in shock.

9:30 He shouted at nearby servants for help, but they all fled.

9:34 Antony decided that he had to do the deed himself.

9:37 He picked up his sword, turned it around, and jammed it through his ribs.

9:42 In true Roman fashion he was aiming for his heart,

9:45 but in true Antony fashion he missed.

9:48 He hit his stomach instead.

9:51 Stomach wounds are not immediately fatal, but they are extremely painful.

9:56 Servants scattered as Antony’s anguished cries filled the royal palace.

10:02 He begged passers by to finish the job, but nobody dared touch him.

10:08 Eventually, word got back to Cleopatra that Antony

10:11 was mortally wounded on the floor of the palace.

10:14 She probably felt sorry for him, again, that’s just my opinion,

10:17 and ordered her servants to bring him to her in her mausoleum.

10:30 A word about Cleopatra’s mausoleum.

10:32 The structure was two storeys,

10:35 which seems like an unnecessary feature for a tomb

10:37 but they did things a little differently back then.

10:40 The top floor had been converted to a living quarters,

10:43 in case Cleopatra needed a place to hide out while the Romans sacked the city.

10:48 The bottom floor had been filled to the brim

10:52 with treasure amassed from all across Egypt,

10:55 alongside a dangerous amount of flammable material.

10:59 From these facts alone, her calculations seem clear.

11:02 She had plenty of cards to play and was perfectly willing to negotiate,

11:07 but if that failed, she was also willing

11:09 to destroy an unthinkable amount of wealth and…herself.

11:13 And then of course there was

11:16 the most important feature of Cleopatra’s mausoleum.

11:19 Near the entrance, there was a clever contraption built into the wall.

11:24 Once triggered, the contraption dropped a giant stone slab in front of the door.

11:29 By the time Cleopatra learned of Antony’s condition,

11:32 that contraption had been triggered.

11:34 Cleopatra was locked inside her own tomb.

11:37 Her only means of communication with the outside

11:40 world was a small balcony on the second level.

11:44 In time, Antony was brought to Cleopatra’s mausoleum,

11:52 but the servants found that they had no

11:56 way of bypassing the stone slab to get inside.

12:00 Cleopatra ran out onto the second floor balcony and began barking orders.

12:05 The mausoleum was still being worked

12:07 on, so there was some construction equipment nearby.

12:11 There was a rope and pulley system that was

12:13 meant to haul stone up the side of the building,

12:15 and Cleopatra instructed her servants to tie

12:18 that end of the rope around Antony’s waist.

12:21 Cleopatra and her two ladies in waiting grabbed the other end of the rope,

12:25 and using all of their strength, lifted Antony into the air.

12:36 Plutarch describes the truly bizarre scene.

12:44 “Witnesses say that this was the most pitiful sight imaginable.

12:48 Up he went, soaked in blood and in the throes of death,

12:53 stretching his arms out towards her even as he

12:56 dangled in the air beside the wall of the tomb.

12:59 The task was no easy one for a woman:

13:02 clinging to the rope as, with the strain showing on her face,

13:06 Cleopatra struggled to bring the line up,

13:08 while on the ground below people shared her agony

13:12 and called on encouragement to her.” It was a heroic effort.

13:19 Cleopatra and her ladies in waiting used all

13:23 of their muscles to get Antony up onto the balcony, and then into the mausoleum.

13:28 When Cleopatra saw the state that Antony was

13:31 in, she literally rended her garments in grief.

13:35 She scratched at her chest and smeared

13:38 Antony’s blood on her face and wailed uncontrollably.

13:41 This behaviour was not unheard of in the ancient world,

13:44 but it belonged at a funeral.

13:47 Antony begged her to be calm.

13:49 He told her that Octavian was the kind of man that could be reasoned with.

13:54 He urged her to get whatever deal for herself that she could.

13:59 He then asked for a drink of wine, probably to help with the pain, and died.

14:11 There’s a pretty strong case to be made that Cleopatra was way ahead of Antony,

14:17 already thinking ahead to negotiations with Octavian.

14:20 Why else physically separate herself from a defeated

14:24 Antony by locking herself in her mausoleum?

14:27 Why else gather all that treasure into one place,

14:30 alongside the means to destroy it?

14:32 She must have thought that a bargain was possible.

14:39 Somebody from Antony’s camp stole his bloody sword from the floor

14:42 of the palace and personally delivered it to Octavian.

14:46 We are told that Octavian wept when he received the sword.

14:51 You can believe that if you want.

14:53 I don’t.

15:02 The next morning, Octavian entered Alexandria.

15:05 He was accompanied by a local philosopher who had agreed to show him the sights.

15:10 This was partially for his own benefit I guess,

15:13 but it was mostly a signal to the locals

15:15 that he was not going to loot or destroy the city.

15:21 Octavian had never been to Egypt before, and what he saw moved him deeply.

15:27 Huge buildings made out of expensive stone.

15:31 Magnificent public works.

15:33 Roads that were actually pleasant and functional.

15:36 The greatest center of learning in the world.

15:37 The kind of smart, walkable,

15:38 mixed-use urbanism that’s illegal to build in many American cities.

15:43 Romans considered their city the center of the civilized world,

15:48 but compared to Alexandria, Rome was a backwater.

15:51 Many have guessed that Octavian’s positive experience in Alexandria influenced

15:56 his own ambitions when it came to reshaping Rome later in life.

16:11 Octavian sent agents to negotiate with Cleopatra,

16:13 but she would only speak to them through the stone slab.

16:18 Cleopatra wanted a formal agreement from Octavian that upon her death,

16:22 the Kingdom of Egypt would go to her children.

16:25 If he would not make that commitment,

16:27 she threatened to burn the mausoleum to the ground,

16:31 destroying her treasure and herself.

16:33 This dialogue went back and forth for a while, but no agreement was reached.

16:39 The next day, the negotiations continued.

16:41 While Cleopatra was busy speaking through the stone slab,

16:46 one Roman negotiator grabbed a ladder

16:48 and sneakily climbed onto the second floor balcony.

16:52 He descended the stairs and walked up

16:55 behind Cleopatra and her ladies in waiting.

16:57 He scared the crap out of them.

17:00 Cleopatra jumped back, and screamed, “wretched Cleopatra,

17:02 you are taken alive!” She drew a dagger and stabbed herself.

17:08 The Roman negotiator physically overpowered

17:09 her, and got the dagger away from her.

17:12 The wounds were found to be superficial.

17:15 Cleopatra was now the prisoner of Octavian, and in captivity she fell ill.

17:21 It’s possible that one of her self-inflicted wounds got infected.

17:33 Cleopatra and Octavian meet face to face about a week later.

17:38 There are two versions of this meeting that are quite different,

17:42 but the most believable version comes from Plutarch.

17:45 He describes Cleopatra as being disheveled, dressed in rags,

17:50 and visibly sick from the infection or whatever it was.

17:54 She had also stopped eating.

17:56 In this version, she throws herself at Octavian’s feet,

18:00 and begs for the lives of her children.

18:04 At the time, Cleopatra was literally the richest person in the world.

18:09 Octavian asked her for a complete inventory of her personal wealth.

18:14 Gold, treasure, property, everything.

18:16 Nobody said it out loud, but a deal was taking shape.

18:21 Cleopatra’s vast personal wealth in exchange for the lives of her children.

18:26 Cleopatra provided the inventory,

18:28 but one of her servants came forward and completely threw her under the bus

18:33 by telling Octavian that she had omitted

18:35 her entire jewelry collection from the list.

18:39 Surely this was Cleopatra’s backup plan, as the jewelry alone would have made

18:44 her a wealthy woman for the rest of her life.

18:48 She saved face by offering the jewelry collection

18:51 as a gift to the women in Octavian’s family.

18:54 Octavian accepted.

19:04 Shortly after this meeting, word got back to Cleopatra that preparations

19:09 were being made to send her to Rome.

19:12 This meant that Octavian intended to have her walk in his Triumph.

19:16 Cleopatra’s sister had walked in a Roman Triumph,

19:20 and for a Queen of Egypt, there could be no greater humiliation.

19:26 Nine days after the death of Antony,

19:29 Octavian and Cleopatra appear to have come to an understanding

19:34 regarding Cleopatra’s personal wealth and the fate of her children.

19:39 Cleopatra arranged for a massive midday feast for her and her two servants.

19:45 After the meal, she asked one of her Roman guards to deliver a note to Octavian.

19:51 Some time later, Octavian received the note.

19:53 It simply read the following,

19:55 “I wish to be entombed alongside Antony.” Realizing the implications,

20:00 Octavian rushed to Cleopatra’s living quarters.

20:05 When he entered the room, the Queen was reclined on a sofa,

20:09 impeccably dressed in full royal regalia, dead.

20:12 One of her ladies in waiting lay dying on the ground,

20:17 and the other was not far behind

20:19 her, making some final adjustments to the Queen’s clothing.

20:33 Nobody knows exactly how Cleopatra died.

20:36 Some say that she was killed by a snake

20:40 that was smuggled inside a basket of figs.

20:43 Others say it was poison.

20:45 I don’t find the snake story likely, and frankly I’m always surprised whenever

20:51 serious historians take it at face value.

20:54 We know that Octavian’s Triumph would later have

20:57 a painting that depicted Cleopatra being bitten by a snake,

21:01 but since the snake was Egypt’s national animal,

21:04 this could be read as purely symbolic.

21:07 All of the serious contemporary sources say that death

21:11 by snakebite was a public rumour at the time,

21:15 perhaps a rumour that started when Octavian showed

21:17 the public a painting of that very thing happening,

21:20 but nobody really takes it seriously as a definitive explanation

21:24 for her death until like 200 years after the fact.

21:29 Notably, the Romans tore the room apart after Cleopatra died,

21:33 and nobody ever found a snake.

21:35 That seems like an important detail to me.

21:39 One of the strongest bits of evidence

21:41 against the snakebite theory is that Plutarch

21:44 mentions off-handedly that Cleopatra had become obsessed

21:47 with finding the most painless way to die,

21:50 and had spent some time researching different kinds of poisons.

21:55 The Egyptians knew a lot about poison,

21:58 and they were very much aware that unlike poison,

22:02 snakebites were not painless and they were not predictable.

22:06 One ancient source goes further,

22:08 and says that Cleopatra was rumored to wear a hollow

22:12 pin in her hair that she filled with a deadly poison.

22:16 That same source notes that Cleopatra’s body was found with marks on her arms,

22:22 which very well may have been where she stuck herself with the pin.

22:27 In my eyes, this is the most likely explanation.

22:31 Cleopatra died on August 10th of 30 B.C.E.

22:35 She was 39 years old.

22:45 Immediately after Cleopatra’s death, her son by Julius Caesar, Caesarian,

22:49 now 17 years old, was caught trying to flee the country.

22:54 As the illegitimate son of Julius Caesar,

22:57 Caesarian was a direct rival to Octavian-

23:00 or at least that’s what Octavian believed.

23:02 He ordered him put to death.

23:11 But aside from Caesarian,

23:13 whatever deal had been worked out between Octavian and Cleopatra,

23:18 Octavian appears to have honoured it.

23:20 He rounded up Cleopatra’s other three children,

23:24 and had them shipped to Rome to be raised by his sister Octavia.

23:28 That meant that Octavia was raising one child from Antony’s previous marriage,

23:33 two children from her marriage to Antony,

23:36 and three children from Antony and Cleopatra.

23:39 Octavia never remarried,

23:40 and I don’t blame her, it sounds like she had her hands full.

23:45 Cleopatra’s children were raised with honour and dignity,

23:49 which honestly is surprising.

23:51 When they were of age, the daughter was married to King Juba of Mauretania,

23:56 which is a fitting match for the child of the last Queen of Egypt.

24:01 It seems that after the marriage,

24:04 all three remaining children moved to North Africa where

24:07 they lived out the rest of their lives in prosperity.

24:15 Octavian formally annexed Egypt on August 31st of 30 B.C.E.

24:21 We all know that the month of July got its name from Julius Caesar,

24:29 in honour of his birthday.

24:31 August got its name from Octavian,

24:33 and there’s a common misconception that this was also in honour of his birthday,

24:38 but that’s not true.

24:40 August was named in honour of Octavian’s conquest of Egypt.

24:43 That’s how big of a deal it was.

24:53 For the better part of 19 years,

24:56 ever since Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Rome had been at war with itself.

25:02 And now, with the defeat of Marc Antony

25:06 and the conquest of Egypt, Rome was at peace.

25:11 It was the end of an era,

25:13 or perhaps it’s better to say that it was the beginning of a new one.

25:18 The victory transformed the 33 year old Octavian

25:21 not only into the richest man on Earth,

25:25 but much more importantly, into the unrivaled master of Rome.

25:30 For the rest of Octavian’s life the people

25:34 who knew him would simply call him Princeps,

25:37 or First Man, but history would call him by a different name.

25:42 Emperor.