[-13-] Such words she uttered expecting to obtain commiseration:  Caesar, however, made no answer to it.  Fearing, however, that she might make away with herself he exhorted her again to be of good cheer, did not remove any of her attendants, and kept a careful watch upon her, that she might add brilliance to his triumph.  Suspecting this, and regarding it as worse than innumerable deaths, she began to desire really to die and begged Caesar frequently that she might be allowed to perish in some way, and devised many plans by herself.  When she could accomplish nothing, she feigned to change her mind and to repose great hope in him, as well as great hope in Livia.  She said she would sail voluntarily and made ready many treasured adornments as gifts.  In this way she hoped to inspire confidence that she had no designs upon herself, and so be more free from scrutiny and bring about her destruction.  This also took place.  The other officials and Epaphroditus, to whom she had been committed, believed that her state of mind was really as it seemed, and neglected to keep a careful watch.  She, meanwhile, was making preparations to die as painlessly as possible.  First she gave a sealed paper, in which she begged Caesar to order that she be buried beside Antony, to Epaphroditus himself to deliver, pretending that it contained some other matter.  Having by this excuse freed herself of his presence, she set to her task.  She put on her most beauteous apparel and after choosing a most becoming pose, assumed all the royal robes and appurtenances, and so died.

[-14-] No one knows clearly in what manner she perished, for there were found merely slight indentations on her arm.  Some say that she applied an asp which had been brought in to her in a water-jar or among some flowers.  Others declare that she had smeared a needle, with which she was wont to braid her hair, with some poison possessed of such properties that it would not injure the surface of the body at all, but if it touched the least drop of blood it caused death very quickly and painlessly.  The supposition is, then, that previously it had been her custom to wear it in her hair, and on this occasion after first making a small scratch on her arm with some instrument, she dipped the needle in the blood.  In this or some very similar way she perished with her two handmaidens.  The eunuch, at the moment her body was taken up, presented himself voluntarily to the serpents, and after being bitten by them leaped into a coffin which had been prepared by him.  Caesar on hearing of her demise was shocked, and both viewed her body and applied drugs to it and sent for Psylli,[71] in the hope that she might possibly revive.  These Psylli, who are male, for there is no woman born in their tribe, have the power of sucking out before a person dies all the poison of every reptile and are not harmed themselves when bitten by any such creature.  They are propagated from one another and they test their offspring, the