The suicide of Cleopatra: Cleopatra is lying dead on her bed, mourned by a servant. Etching by G.B. Cipriani after B. Cellini.

Cleopatra VII (69 BC-30 BC), Egyptian Queen, lover of Julius Caesar and later the wife of Mark Antony. After the Roman armies of Octavian (the future Emperor Augustus) defeated their combined forces, Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves, and Egypt fell under Roman domination. Rather than be dragged through the city in which she had been borne as a queen, she killed herself, possibly by means of an asp, symbol of divine royalty. The cap of liberty etched at the foot is a mark of association with Thomas Hollis, who had commissioned the print from Cipriani: Hollis was a republican and promotor of civil liberties