Cleopatra′s Snake or Octavian′s? The Role of the Cobra in the triumph over the Egyptian Queen

Abstract

The snake′s familiar erotic connotation, consolidated in various interpretations, tends to limit consideration of the multifaceted capacity of this symbol as a carrier of specific content, which depending on the context, may be used in various meanings. Academic discussion on the symbolic meaning of the snake in Cleopatra′s act of suicide generally confines itself only to the Egyptian perspective or, more broadly, to that of the east (the uraeus, Isis, Bacchic elements), without considering the Roman space of military symbolism. The validity of reinterpreting the snake symbol in this specific situation is supported both by the fact that an image of Cleopatra with snake on display was carried in the triumphal procession, and by Octavian′s own association with it, which ascribes a military character to the reptile and provides reasons for the propaganda use of that symbol.

Four famous suicides in history and lessons learned: A narrative review

“…Her maids also then committed suicide, possibly by asp bite or by ingesting poison (Griffiths, 1961(Griffiths, , 1965. It is worth noting that the great Roman biographer Plutarch is the only ancient author to imply Cleopatra's death was by an asp, and he was writing several decades after her death (Kostuch, 2009). In his Life of Antony, Plutarch describes how in Octavian's triumphal procession he carried an image of Cleopatra with an asp.…”