The death of Cleopatra according to Rosso Fiorentino
On the fact that Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and last of the Ptolemies, she took her own life when she was only 39, we have absolute certainty:proud and proud, much more than what the Roman sources, adverse to her, wanted to make us believe, she would never have given herself alive in the hands of Octavian to suffer the public humiliation of her triumph.
But if the veracity of the event is clear and ascertained, the same cannot be said for her modalities: how Cleopatra committed suicide ?
The most accredited version is the one told by Plutarco (https://www.pilloledistoria.it/3201/storia-antica/morte-di-cleopatra-plutarco) and taken up by other historians, according to which the woman killed herself by letting herself be bitten by a asp, a poisonous snake had her delivered hidden in a basket of figs during her imprisonment following the defeat of Actium, but not all scholars are inclined to accept this version of events slavishly.
The greatest doubts concern precisely the species to which the snake belongs, since the asp, the one mentioned, or the viper aspis , she did not live in Egypt, where it was easy to come across the viper lebetina , which, however, with its abundant two meters in length, obviously could not find space in a small basket.
The death of Cleopatra according to Guido Reni
So which snake, if it was a snake bite, put an end to the days of Cleopatra?
The most accredited hypothesis is that it was a faired echide , a very poisonous specimen inhabitant of the desert.
What if the clever ruler of Egypt had invented everything, eager to pass on to posterity the legend of a far more dignified passing than it actually was?
Some argue, convinced that Cleopatra actually committed suicide by means of a less regal drug potion , including opium , which she habitually used, a method that would have ensured a decidedly shorter and less traumatic agony than that caused by the snake's venom.
She doesn't stop there.
Over the centuries there have been other suppositions about Cleopatra's death, more or less plausible or suggestive; according to one of the aforementioned versions, Cleopatra would have pointed herself with a pin dipped in poison hidden in a jewel.
In conclusion, we can be sure of one thing, and that is that Cleopatra, thousands of years later, still manages to focus the attention of historians and enthusiasts on herself.