Asp – or ash? Climate historians link Cleopatra's demise to volcanic eruption
Study of ice-core records and Ancient Egyptian documents suggests environmental forces helped seal the last Ptolemaic ruler’s fate in 30BC
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
Tuesday 17 October 2017 13.21 EDT
Last modified on Wednesday 18 October 2017 03.34 EDT
The fall of Cleopatra’s Egypt to Augustus, the first Roman emperor, is usually told as a melodramatic power struggle between elites on the world stage.
Cleopatra famously forged a doomed political alliance with the Roman general Mark Antony, who was also her lover. But when their combined forces were defeated at the battle of Actium, the pair killed themselves and Egypt became a province of the newly formed Roman empire.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/17/asp-or-ash-climate-historians-link-cleopatra-demise-volcanic-eruption-nile
