It is an almost absolute certainty that Cleopatra did not kill herself with an asp. The most likely cause of death was another type of poison with which she would have been very familiar and which was quicker and less painful. This poison killed her and her two women companions. It has been believed that Octavian wanted her alive so that he could parade her in Rome but some recent theories suggest that he allowed her to have to poison so that he didn’t have to deal with her. When her sister was paraded in Rome many years earlier there was sympathy actually created in the crowd. Once he captured her alive and got his hands on her treasures she may have been just a burden.

(Book – Cleopatra – Stacy Schiff)