Cleopatra’s death is one of the most well-known and dramatically depicted events in ancient history. According to the version, dramatized in popular culture via Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 movie Cleopatra and Shakespeare’s play Antony and Cleopatra, the defeated queen arranged for a snake to be smuggled into her mausoleum. This is the version that usually involves the snake hidden in a basket of figs and usually imagined as an Egyptian cobra. As the story goes, the snake bit her, and she was discovered dead along with two of her servants shortly afterwards. Meanwhile Rome, and by extension Augustus (then Octavian), was denied the spectacle and satisfaction of parading her through the streets in chains during a triumphal procession. However, when we turn to the ancient sources, we get differing accounts including the snake story. Additionally, when we examine those sources more closely, our certainty around this version of events collapses almost immediately.

Our Evidence

The most important thing to understand about Cleopatra’s death is that we do not have a contemporary eyewitness account. Cleopatra died in 30 BCE. Most of the surviving written description of her death was composed much later, sometimes hundreds of years later, by authors with their own agendas writing under Roman occupation.

Our main sources for Cleopatra’s death include Strabo, the ancient Greek historian, geographer, and philosopher. He was writing in the late first century BCE or early first century CE. Additionally, we have Plutarch, a Greek philosopher, biographer, and historian, writing around 100 CE. Plutarch liked creating character sketches of his subjects to prove philosophical points about what a good ruler should be. Sometimes tweaking events or accounts to reflect what he thought their character was, meaning while he is generally accurate as a historian, we should compare his accounts to other ones to get a clearer picture. Finally, we also have Cassius Dio, a Roman senator and historian of Greek origin, writing in the early third century CE. All three of these historians were Greeks writing under Roman rule. This is important because Cleopatra herself was partially Greek, being a descendant of Ptolemy I Soter, one of Alexander the Great’s generals. This means all of them had experienced life in places either involved with or under the control of Rome. None of these historians were Egyptian, and none were direct eyewitnesses. They all were working from other earlier accounts, and these accounts also had their own agendas. All surviving versions of Cleopatra’s death therefore are shaped by ancient Roman politics, and Augustus’s propaganda efforts to paint her as a villain.

Strabo is our earliest surviving author to mention Cleopatra’s death. His account is brief and already has an alternate version of her death. He reports that Cleopatra died either by the bite of an asp or by applying a poisonous ointment, and does not report that one version of her death is more accurate than the other (Strabo, Geography 17.10):

[Augustus] forced Antony to put himself to death and Cleopatra to come into his power alive; but a little later she too put herself to death secretly, while in prison, by the bite of an asp or (for two accounts are given) by applying a poisonous ointment;⁠ and the result was that the empire of the sons of Lagus, which had endured for many years, was dissolved.

This is important since if the snake story were well established and widely accepted, it is difficult to explain why the earliest source treats it as only one possibility among several. Strabo also provides us with no details about baskets, figs, or dramatic staging.

The version most people recognise comes from Plutarch’s Life of Antony, from his series of biographies (The Parallel Lives) that compared famous Romans with famous Greeks. Antony’s biography is paired with that of the Athenian orator Demetrius. Therefore, this source is also not directly written about Cleopatra but was written to focus on Mark Antony’s life and character in comparison to that of Demetrius. Writing more than a century after Cleopatra’s death, Plutarch describes the basket of figs, the hidden snake, and puncture marks on Cleopatra’s body. However, Plutarch is also explicit about his own uncertainty. He states outright that no one knew for certain how Cleopatra died and records alternative explanations, including poisoning by other means (Plutarch, Life of Antony 86.2):

But the truth of the matter no one knows; for it was also said that she carried about poison in a hollow comb and kept the comb hidden in her hair; and yet neither spot nor other sign of poison broke out upon her body… These, then, are the various accounts of what happened.

The snake tale is presented as a story, amongst several possible versions, not as an established fact. Plutarch also includes a detail that complicates the snake narrative considerably. He reports that Cleopatra had experimented with different poisons on condemned prisoners to determine which produced the least painful death (Plutarch, Life of Antony 86.2). This strongly suggests methodical planning and control, something we know fits better with Cleopatra’s character up to this point according to historians Stacy Schiff (2010) and Kara Cooney (2018). It does not suggest reliance on a live animal whose behaviour could not be guaranteed. Plutarch’s account is literary, moralising, and anecdotal. This is exactly what we would expect from his biographical style in a biography about a Roman written long after actual event took place.

Cassius Dio, writing over two centuries after Cleopatra’s death (thereby also being the furthest removed from it chronologically), offers a more confident narrative. He mentions small wounds on Cleopatra’s body and treats the asp as a plausible explanation (Roman History 51.14). But even Dio admits uncertainty and presents the snake as one option among several. By this point, the snake story appears to have become accepted as tradition. However, this does not make it true. This just means it had become narratively useful by the time Dio was writing his account.

The missing snake

Another account we have is also the most overlooked one. As reported in other sources, Cleopatra’s physician, Olympos, reportedly wrote an account of her death. According to Plutarch, Olympos did not mention a snake (Life of Antony, 86) This omission is striking. As historian Stacey Schiff observes, if Cleopatra’s death involved a large venomous reptile introduced into a sealed mausoleum, it is difficult to explain why a medical witness living at the time of Cleopatra’s death would ignore it entirely (Shiff 2010, pp. 293-395). Even if we accept the ancient literary accounts at face value, the snake story encounters serious logistical and medical difficulties.

The snake usually identified as Cleopatra’s asp is the Egyptian cobra (Naja haje). These snakes are large, dangerous, and difficult to control. They do not reliably strike on command, and venom delivery varies widely between bites. The idea that one snake could efficiently kill Cleopatra and two servants, without chaos or prolonged suffering, is biologically implausible (Schäfer & Mebs 2010). Snakes are not something that are necessarily known for their precision. Cobra venom also typically causes pain, swelling, paralysis, and prolonged distress, meaning death is rarely quick (Burstein 2007). Ancient descriptions of Cleopatra’s body, however, emphasise that she appeared calm and composed, with minimal visible trauma. Poison fits those descriptions far better than a snakebite.

Why make up the snake?

If the evidence is weak, why has the snake story survived? As Egyptologist Kara Cooney (2018) has shown, powerful women in the ancient world were routinely reshaped into symbolic figures after their deaths. Cleopatra’s end was deliberated constructed probably by Augustus. The snake, already traditionally associated with Egyptian kingship, offered a visually and symbolically rich way to frame her fall.

Additionally, Roman authors had strong incentives to depict Cleopatra as exotic, theatrical, and ultimately self-destructive. A dramatic suicide by snake transformed a defeated enemy into a cautionary tale, placed nearly all blame on her, and neatly closed the story of the civil wars (Walter & Higgs 2001, pp. 25-27). The first literary reference to a snake that we have comes precisely from one of these Roman authors, the Roman poet Horace in his Odes 1.37 (written circa 23 BCE) in which he states:

But she, intending to perish more nobly,

showed no sign of womanish fear at the sword,

nor did she even attempt to win

with her speedy ships to some hidden shore.

And she dared to gaze at her fallen kingdom

with a calm face, and touch the poisonous asps

with courage, so that she might drink down

their dark venom, to the depths of her heart,

growing fiercer still, and resolving to die:

scorning to be taken by hostile galleys,

and, no ordinary woman, yet queen

no longer, be led along in proud triumph.

However, as historian Jane Draycott emphasises in Cleopatra’s Daughter (2022, pp. 32-38), Cleopatra’s death did not end her political significance. Her children were absorbed into the Roman imperial system, where their mother’s image continued to be carefully managed. A queen who chose a dramatic, almost mythical death was far easier to neutralise than one who was remembered as an intelligent and calculating political operator who used poison to control her own fate. The snake story helps domesticate Cleopatra’s legacy into something suitable for public consumption that would make Augustus and Rome look great, while painting Cleopatra as an exotic, out of control, foreign, woman.

Once the snake story entered public discourse, it became self-reinforcing. As Schiff (2010, p. 296) notes, it survived precisely because it was irresistible. Painters, poets, and playwrights preferred a queen with a serpent than one who had died probably using far more boring methods. By the time Cleopatra’s daughter, Cleopatra Selene, was being presented as a Roman client queen, the image of her mother had already been fixed.

Most modern historians agree on the following, Cleopatra did die by suicide and chose to do so deliberately to avoid humiliation in Augustus’ triumph. We also think that the method was most likely poison, administered in a controlled and reliable way possibly via a drink, ointment, or poisoned implement such as a hairpin, rather than via a snake (Roller, 2010 pp. 169-172). This explanation fits the ancient evidence, medical realities, and Cleopatra’s documented strategic intelligence far better than the snake story.

Conclusion

It is highly unlikely that Cleopatra died by suicide using an asp. The snake story relies on late Roman literary sources that contradict earlier accounts and each other. It raises serious practical difficulties and aligns suspiciously well with symbolism, propaganda, and artistic convention. Like many famous “facts” about the ancient world, it survives not because it is well supported, but because it is dramatic.

Cleopatra’s suicide is historical; the snake almost certainly is not. However, once a dramatic story takes hold, as can be seen with other ancient “facts,” it can be nearly impossible to kill.