At the moment there is no academic consensus and, barring the miraculous discovery of Cleopatra's remains in sufficiently well preserved condition for autopsy, there never will be. The exact circumstances of her death are shrouded in mystery and controversy. With a little digging, we can examine why this confusion surrounds such an important and conspicuous death, but ultimately it remains an open ended question.

Many contemporary authors wrote about her apparent suicide. These included the Olympus the physician and close confidant who advised her on how to carry out the deadly deed, Nicolaus of Damascus the historian who tutored her children before joining the cause of Augustus, and Strabo a geographer who was in Alexandria at the time of her death. And Octavian, his memoirs and his recollections of the reports brought to him by the guards he assigned to Cleopatra. There are others, but these are the names which come up most often. Since none of these accounts save Strabo's have survived we are forced to rely on later texts which cite these sources (This is why you cite your sources)

Plutarch’s Life of Antony and Dio’s Roman History both worked from the accounts of Olympus, Nicolaus, Octavian and likely various other accounts that are no longer extant. Interestingly, Plutarch and Dio list several rumours as to the cause of her death including the bite of a venomous asp, the use of a poisonous ointment spread on the skin, and the injection of poison into her arm via a needle(s). Strabo corroborates these accounts by mentioning the rumours he had heard concerning her death. Strabo offers up both the asp’s bite and the ointment as causes of death, along with alternate rumours that she had committed suicide or was assassinated. This last bit is an interesting one and I want to point out that some historians have suggested that Cleopatra's suicide was either facilitated by Octavian or was even an assassination, because of the general inconsistencies and apparent improbabilities in traditional accounts. I personally tend to stay with the traditional narrative of her committing suicide out of political necessity but it is worth noting that there is an alternate narrative where her death served the purpose of ensuring she would no longer be a threat to Octavian.

That death by asp venom would be an exceedingly painful end is certain, but we can not really be sure that this would have dissuaded her. On the one hand, the effects of an asp’s bite were already well known in ancient Egyptian medical literature by the Ptolemaic period and she was said to have conducted extensive research of her own on the effects of a wide variety of venoms and poisons found in nature, so she would have known what she was getting into despite Plutarch’s claim that she “discovered” asp venom to be the quickest and least painful. On the other hand, suffering may not necessarily have dissuaded her as much as may assumed at first. After all, she had supposedly previously hoped to commit suicide via dagger, and (according to Plutarch) had carved into herself with her nails out of grief for Antony, and began the difficult process of killing herself via starvation and fever until Octavian threatened to kill her children unless she ceased this effort.

Even with all this, there is no reason that she would have killed herself with a snake of all things unless she had a very good reason. But really, why would anyone do that? Some scholars have suggested that she may have chosen to commit suicide by asp in order to draw connections to Egyptian spirituality. Not only were snakes and serpentine motifs strongly tied to divine and dynastic themes, but in Egyptian mythology Isis gained power over Ra when she saved him from the bite of an asp, one of the few things that could a god. By taking her own life in this way, she may have wanted to send a powerful message with her death or to undergo a form of apotheosis and secure her own divinity in death. As romantic as this idea is, it seems a bit of a stretch to assume that she would go through all that trouble to connect her death to Egyptian mythology, especially if we consider that Hellenistic philosophy like Epicureanism as well as Greek and even Roman religious tradition would have also pervaded her thought.

The main problem with the asp story is that it would have been hard for her to acquire the snake, and harder still to make it kill her. Unfortunately merely referring to an “asp” is quite vague and we can not sure which snake she may have employed. Usually, an Egyptian cobra is the culprit and its effects (including possibly pain, swelling, nausea/vomiting, convulsions, necrosis, diarrhea) can be fatal. However, a cobra large enough to deliver a fatal dose of venom to a fully grown woman, even a small one, would require a large specimen that would be impractical to conceal in a “basket of figs” or a “jar of water” as the stories claimed. Then we have to consider the fact that Cleopatra did not commit suicide alone, she was assisted and accompanied by two women of her court, Charmian and Iras. These women were said to have poisoned themselves, possibly by ingestion, ointment or needle but certainly not by the same cobra as it would not have anywhere near enough venom to pull this off. Additionally, getting a cobra to bite her in a lethal spot would have been quite difficult for anyone not used to working with cobras and ancient accounts provide different theories as to how she provoked it. At the same time if we accept the fact that she kept and studied a wide range of venomous reptiles in order to plan her suicide then she would have known how to induce a bite and handle them properly. Like a depressing Crocodile Hunter (“Oy look at this little sheila. Those fangs are some real beauts, y’see those are going to be latched onto my arm a lil later but for now let's examine this lovely little creature that's gonna put an end to my misery. Look’s a bit like Nepthys I reckon.”). I regret typing that.

We do not have any conclusive evidence as to what killed her from an ancient or modern autopsy, and our reports on the condition of her body are far removed and vague. Since her body has not been found and her remains are likely in no condition to examine we have to rely on textual evidence. Apparently she was in a peaceful and dignified state when found, this could be partly attributed to the efforts of Charmian and Iras who arranged her body, but she should still have displayed tightness or pain in her face and possibly tightened muscles if she did die of painful venom. The guards who found her reported no marks, blistering or discolouration either even though this should have been present in the area of a cobra bite. They were said to have found two pinpricks in her arm which may have been a snake bite or needles.

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