Revisiting Cleopatra's Suicide

I recently watched "Mysterious Death of Cleopatra" on Discovery.

The basis of the show was to prove that Cleopatra's death wasn't a suicide as commonly accepted but in fact a murder had been committed. Once this theory was removed the goal was to find the suspect and murderer. Criminal profiler Pat Brown pointed the finger at Octavian - better known as Augustus. Read more about here at History News Network.

The part of the show that raised my ears (figuratively speaking) was the end. The show concluded that Cleopatra may have lost the battle to Octavian but had won the war because she remained (thanks in part because people believed she came back as the Egyptian goddess Isis) etched in the minds of people for posterity.

I remember my professor in a Roman Classics course opening the segment on Augustus (who happened to be the great nephew of Caesar) by proclaiming that Augustus was among the most remarkable figures in human history. Taken in a global context of history he was right. Augustus was a master propagandist, military director who set up a standing army and created the famous Praetorian Guards. He further commissioned impressive engineering feats through Rome's famous roads and instilled several reforms to Rome's administrative culture - to name a few.

Above all, Augustus brought Rome's empire to its most powerful and glorious heights. It was under his autocratic reign Rome existed under Pax Romana (27B.C. to 235 A.D.) - although, the period wasn't always necessarily pristine. Nonetheless, Augy basically laid the foundation to a period in Roman history in which Gibbon's termed the "happiest in mankind" during the 2nd century.

I think his place in history is secure and above Cleopatra's.

TV producers just can't resist romanticizing things, eh? Cleopatra was murdered (as was her teenage son she conceived with Julius Caesar) and thanks to Ms Brown justice seems to have been brought to history.

However, she was also power hungry and a seducer. So...what comes around...

Image: Theda Bara as Cleopatra.