The suicide of Cleopatra: Roman soldiers discover Cleopatra lying dead on her bed with the asp wriggling on her left arm and her dead maid lying next to the bed. Line engraving by E. Smith after D. Zampieri, il Domenichino.

Cleopatra VII (69 BC-30 BC), Egyptian Queen, lover of Julius Caesar and later the wife of Mark Antony. After the Roman armies of Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus) defeated their combined forces, Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves, and Egypt fell under Roman domination. Rather than be dragged through the city in which she had been borne as a queen, she killed herself, possibly by means of an asp, symbol of divine royalty.