Death of Cleopatra and Roman Annexation of Egypt
Also called: Death of Cleopatra, End of the Ptolemaic dynasty
When Octavian entered Alexandria in 30 BC, Antony and Cleopatra took their own lives one after the other. The Ptolemaic dynasty, nearly three centuries old, came to an end and Egypt became a Roman province.
Reginald Arthur · Public domain · Source
In the summer of 30 BC, the year after Actium, Octavian’s army invaded Egypt and entered Alexandria on 1 August. Hearing that Cleopatra was dead, Antony fell on his sword; Plutarch tells that he was carried to the mausoleum where she had taken refuge and died at her side.
Facing capture and display in a Roman triumph, Cleopatra died around 10 August at the age of thirty-nine. The story that she let an asp (a cobra) bite her is well known, but even Plutarch wrote that no one knows the truth. Caesarion was captured and put to death.
So ended the dynasty founded by Alexander’s general Ptolemy, and with it, by convention, the Hellenistic age that Alexander’s conquests had begun. Egypt became a province governed directly by the emperor and served as Rome’s granary.
