3-098-944 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Cleopatra, 1881. Depiction of the death of Cleopatra (c69 BCE-c30 BCE), Queen of Egypt, who died after being bitten by an asp. The tip of the snake's tail can just be seen at the base of the column on the right. Plutarch, in Parallel Lives: Antony, describes this episode thus: "But death was so sudden that Caesar's envoys found the guards who knew nothing; and when the doors were opened, they found her dead and lying on her golden bed, adorned with royal majesty, and her slave Ida likewise dead at her feet; Carmione, the other, half-dead and grave, was girding her and arranging the diadem as befitted a queen descended from so many kings; and without saying a word, she too fell down not far from the bed." The painter took some liberties to emphasize the drama of the scene, and also introduced an eroticism not present in the Greek historian's chronicle.