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The Last Days of Cleopatra : A Chronological Problem1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

T. C. Skeat
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Extract

Of all the Ptolemaic kings and queens of Egypt none met so intensely dramatic a fate as the last Cleopatra, and of none are the closing days more minutely described. In these circumstances it is all the more remarkable that there is no surviving record, even approximate, of the date of her death, nor, so far as I am aware, has any modern historian seriously attempted to determine it.

We may commence our investigation with the capture of Alexandria by Octavian. The date of this event is known from one literary source, Orosius (VI, 19, 16), who probably derived his information from Livy, and one inscription, the Fasti Antiates (CIL 12, p. 248= x, 6638). Both give the date as 1 August, and this may be taken as correct.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1-2 , November 1953 , pp. 98 - 100
Copyright
Copyright ©T. C. Skeat 1953. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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Footnotes

1

Apart from some compression this paper is reproduced in the form in which it was read at the Papyrological Congress held in Paris in 1949. I have, however, added a few footnotes giving the essential references and added an appendix, setting out my conclusions in tabular form.

References

2 For a clear and authoritative statement of the facts see P. V. Neugebauer, ‘Der Julianische Kalender und seine Entstehung,’ Astronomische Nachrichten, Band 257, Nr. 6149, Kiel, 1935, cols. 65–74.

3 e.g. in P. Oxy. 1453, introd.; H. Gauthier, Le Livre des Rois d'Égypte, t. 4 ( =Mém. de l'Inst. fr. d'arch. or. du Caire, t. 20), 1916, 416, n. 2.

4 Mizraim VI, 1937, 40 Google Scholar.

5 Revised edition, 1923, 307. The statement is repeated in the same author's Life and Times of Marc Antony, 1931, 417, and in P. G. Elgood, The Ptolemies of Egypt, 1938, 231. In the same way H. Gauthier, l.c., dates Cleopatra's interview with Octavian to 28 August.

6 ed. Stählin, XXI, 129, 1–2.

7 M. L. Strack, Die Dynastie der Ptolemäer, 1897, 70, and A. Stein, Untersuchungen zur Gesch. u. Verwaltung Agyptens unter röm. Herrschaft, 1915, 73, Anm. 4 refer the passage to Caesarion, but without conviction.