Cleopatra died in an apparent suicide

It is a fact that Cleopatra died in an apparent suicide. Cleopatra VII, the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, died in Alexandria on August 10 or 12, 30 BC, when she was 39 years old. According to popular opinion, Cleopatra poisoned herself by permitting an asp (Egyptian cobra) to bite her, although according to Roman-era historians Strabo, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio, Cleopatra poisoned herself by introducing the poison with a pointed tool such as a hairpin. Modern historians argue the veracity of historical accounts concerning snakebites as the cause of death, as well as whether or not she was killed. Some scholars believe that her Roman political opponent Octavian drove her to commit suicide in a manner of her choosing. Cleopatra's tomb's location remains unclear. Octavian let her and her husband, the Roman politician and general Mark Antony, who stabbed himself with a sword, be buried together properly.

Cleopatra's death essentially ended the Roman Republic's final conflict between the remaining triumvirs Octavian and Antony, in which Cleopatra sided with Antony, the father of three of her children. Following their defeat at the 31 BC Battle of Actium in Roman Greece, Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt, where Octavian invaded and defeated their forces. Suicide allowed her to avoid the humiliation of being exhibited as a prisoner in a Roman triumph commemorating Octavian's military achievements, who would become Rome's first emperor and be known as Augustus in 27 BC. Octavian assassinated Cleopatra's son Caesarion (also known as Ptolemy XV), Julius Caesar's rival heir, in Egypt, but saved her children with Antony and transported them to Rome. Cleopatra's death signaled the end of the Hellenistic and Ptolemaic periods in Egypt, as well as the start of Roman Egypt, which became a province of the Roman Empire.