Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

To hear your voice is pomegranate wine to me
I draw life from hearing it
Could I see you with every glance
It would be better for me
Than to eat or to drink

The last moments of Cleopatra VII Philopator, before she committed suicide with a venomous snake thinking Mark Anthony was killed in the Decisive Battle of Actium defending her against Octavian Caesar in Greece . Preferring death to the humiliation of a Roman triumph.

Cleopatra (69-30 BC), queen of Egypt (51-30 BC), celebrated for her love affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. In 51 BC, on the death of her father, King Ptolemy XII Auletes, Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII succeeded jointly to the throne. In the third year of their reign Ptolemy drove Cleopatra into exile. Roman general Julius Caesar arrived in Alexandria, became Cleopatra's lover, and returned her to the throne, after which Cleopatra lived in Rome as Caesar's mistress. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Cleopatra returned to Egypt. Roman general Mark Antony then fell in love with Cleopatra and moved to Egypt. Later Antony returned to Rome, where he married Octavia, a sister of Caesar's heir, Octavian, later Emperor Augustus. When Antony went to the East as commander of an expedition against the Parthians in 36 BC, he and Cleopatra reunited. Following Antony's victory over the Parthians, Antony and Cleopatra lived in Egypt until 32 BC, when Octavian declared war against them. Following the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Cleopatra and Antony fled to Alexandria, where they both committed suicide.

Many layers of Cleopatra:
At the first glance, we see a lioness proud with calm and confident eyes the defender of Egypt, yet on the second layer; a woman, a mother, a queen who lost a nation, at this point Anthony is dead and Cleopatra is been left all by herself with a son called Caesarian from Julius Caesar and twins from Mark Anthony, she is scared and helpless and at the last layer a frightened kitten.