The suicide of Cleopatra: Cleopatra is shown seated on a chair with the asp wriggling up her left arm while her maid shields her face in a gesture of horror and grief. Line engraving by J.G. Wille, 175-, after C. Netscher.

Cleopatra VII (69 BC-30 BC), Egyptian Queen, lover of Julius Caesar and later the wife of Mark Antony. After the Roman armies of Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus) defeated their combined forces, Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves, and Egypt fell under Roman domination. Rather than be dragged through the city in which she had been borne as a queen, she killed herself, possibly by means of an asp