The Death of Cleopatra: How?

Abstract Questions regarding the method by which Cleopatra at the age of 39 took her own life on that fateful 12th day of August in 30 BC during her twenty-second regnal year were raised almost immediately after the event. This essay begins with a consideration of an image of the dying Cleopatra, commissioned by Octavian/Augustus, which serves as an introduction to the survey of the literary testimonia, grouped together by those passages which agree on the agent. In so doing, the essay suggests the identity of that agent by the vocabulary used in its description. The observations drawn are then synthesized in order to arrive at a plausible answer.