Mark Gagnon

Now, the story of the snake bite might actually be more symbolic and kind of serve a few different purposes.

symbolic ritual purposes as propaganda.

So in Egyptian mythology, the cobra was associated with divine royal protection.

So by claiming she died from a cobra bite, Cleopatra's supporters could present her death as a transformation back into her divine form as Isis.

But here's an even more intriguing possibility.

Some historians have supposed that Cleopatra might not have died at all.

Yeah.

Yeah, imagine this is a classic tale.

This is Tupac.

This is Epstein.

Some historians propose that Cleopatra might have faked her own death and escaped Egypt.

First, Octavian never displayed Cleopatra's body publicly, which would have been pretty unusual for such an important victory.

Literally, he...

claims basically all of Rome, and this woman is in the way, and he could have easily just showed her body publicly and been like, hey, we did it.

Secondly, he immediately orders the execution of Caesarian and Antony's eldest son, but allowed Cleopatra's other children to live.

If he wanted to eliminate all the threats to power, why would he have spared some of the children?

And third, there are tiny references in later Roman sources to a woman resembling Cleopatra being seen in various parts of the empire years after her alleged death.

Now,

Once again, this escape theory is difficult to prove, and it's not accepted by most modern historians, but it suggests that Cleopatra arranged a body double to be found in the mausoleum while she fled Egypt with loyalists who had basically prepared secret routes out of the country.

Now, this would explain why Octavian was so quick to execute all the male heirs, but wasn't sure whether Cleopatra was really dead and needed to eliminate potential threats for future rebellions.