The Mysterious Death Of Cleopatra (2008)
Discovery Channel
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Documentary Description
Egypt’s last pharaoh, femme fatale, romantic icon, the ancient world’s most famous woman, the lover of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, the ruler of the Egyptian empire. This is the historical image of Cleopatra – a woman who died for love, the victim of a self-inflicted snakebite.
Now 2000 years after her death, this special investigation penetrates the distant past and sheds new light on Cleopatra’s extraordinary life and her mysterious death.
Top US criminal profiler Pat Brown and a team of experts in archaeology and toxicology, psychology and Egyptology, re-examine the suicide story and find that all the leads point to a very different story – the murder of the Egyptian queen. The team identify a prime suspect, a man who had everything to gain by Cleopatra’s death.
Plutarch and later writers, including Shakespeare, write of Cleopatra, with her empire on the verge of collapse committing suicide, heartbroken following the death of her lover Marc Antony. But although this romantic story has been retold the world over, this film discovers that the facts just don’t add up. Far from a romantic suicide, this film unearths evidence that could point to a case of cold-blooded murder.
Pat Brown’s chief suspect is Octavian, the man who defeated Marc Antony and Cleopatra’s forces the year before her death. He occupied Cleopatra’s capital and was poised to claim supreme power. As the film shows, he had the motive, the means and the opportunity. After all, the highest stakes in the ancient world were up for grabs.
Source: ABC
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