The story of Cleopatra’s death, as handed down to us by her conqueror, is that she killed herself by means of a poisonous snake. According to Suetonius, the stunned Octavian summoned snake charming Psylli to suck the poison from puncture wounds found on her arm. Later, she was depicted in a wax effigy during Octavian’s ...
For over 3000 years, Egypt was home to a fertile and prosperous civilization. But by 69 BC, when Cleopatra VII was born, Egypt’s power was failing. The country was ruled by a dynasty of pharaohs know as the Ptolemies, Greeks who had arrived from Macedonia in 323 BC. Egypt was also in danger of being ...
Roman military and political leader and triumvir, eldest son of Antonius Creticus and grandson of Marcus Antonius, the Roman orator. Having served under Gabinius in Syria (57), he joined Caesar, to whom he was related on his mother’s side, in Gaul (54) and became one of his most trusted officers and devoted supporters. On his ...
The year was 1818. The location was ruins of the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s Villa outside Rome. The wealthy owner of the estate grounds on which the ruins lay had his head groundskeeper engaged in a general cleanup and renovation of the site. Since there was a considerable amount of usable scrap lumber on the estate, ...
