Anthony and Cleopatra

In our current western culture when the name “Cleopatra” comes to our minds we tend to associate it with cinema, Elisabeth Taylor and all the glamour surrounding it. I present you with an extract from Cassius Dio a Roman writer from the second century AC where he expresses his version of the story or “facts”

She had, it was believed, enslaved him so completely that she had persuaded him to act as gymnasiarch for the Alexandrians; she was saluted by him as ‘queen’ and as ‘mistress’. And she had Roman soldiers in her bodyguard, all of whom had her name inscribed upon their shields. She visited the market-place with Anthony, presided with him over festivals and at the hearing of lawsuits, rode with him on horseback even in the cities, or else was carried in a litter, while Anthony followed on foot together with her eunuchs. He also referred to his headquarters as ‘the palace’, sometimes carried an Oriental dagger in his belt, wore clothes which were completely alien to Roman custom, and appeared in public seated upon a gilded couch or chair. Painters and sculptors depicted him with Cleopatra, he being represented as Osiris or Dionysus, and she as Selene or Isis, and it was this practice more than anything else which gave the impression the she had laid him under some spell and deprived him of his wits. Indeed she so enchanted and enthralled not only Anthony but all the others who counted for anything with him that she came to entertain the hope that she would rule the Romans as well, and whenever she took an oath, the most potent phrase she used were the words, ‘So surely as I shall one day give judgement on the Capitol’.

Cassius Dio, 50.5; quoted from Cassius Dio: The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus, trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert, Penguin Books, 1987.

Cassius Dio wrote these statements more than 200 years after the Romans were the victors of the battle of Actium in 31 BCE. Both Mark Antony and Cleopatra were defeated and consequently Egypt taken control by Octavian. This fact gave a certain power for the Roman writers to write history for the advantage of their own nation rather than taking an impartial approach towards it. The established Roman morals of that time were implicit and explicit on those statements. Cassius Dio, as a Roman himself, writes on his speculation of certain “visible” facts. The Roman point of view of that period can be also found on writings from other authors of that period such as Plutarch and Horace.

Cleopatra aims to gain not only top political powers in Rome but also to proudly elevate the aspects of her culture and this is noted in Plutarch’s registered accounts of a meeting between Cleopatra and Anthony in the ancient Cicilian city of Tarsus in 41 BCE: “She (Cleopatra) came sailing up the river Cydnus in a barge with a poop of gold, its purple sails billowing in the wind, while her rowers caressed the water with oars of silver which dipped in time to the music of the flute, accompanied by pipes and lutes.” (Scott-Kilvert, 2008) This exoticism was a very important aspect that at least the local population could not ignore. According to Plutarch, “Great multitudes accompanied this royal progress, some of them following the queen on both sides of the river from its very mouth while others hurried down from the city of Tarzus to gaze at the sight.” (Scott-Kilvert, 2008)

Horace, who was a Roman poet of the first century BCE, wrote an ode in 65-8 BCE, inspired by the story of Marc Antony and Cleopatra. A poem is not an historical record and can be interpreted very subjectively, but in this particular one it is evident that Marc Antony had been omitted. It is also clear that the author seems to have mixed feelings towards Cleopatra. He mentions that she is either a “mad queen” or “(...) she looked for a nobler death and did not have a woman’s fear of the sword (...)”. (West, 2008)

Coming back to Dio's text, he writes that “Painters and sculptures depicted him with Cleopatra, he being represented by Osiris or Dionysius, and she as Selene or Isis, and it was this practice more than anything else which gave the impression that she had laid him under some spell and deprived him of his wits.” Here, it seems that Dio was giving special importance to the religious side of the alliance, implying that Antony had lost his reason. How could the Roman hegemony possibly deal with the fact of being merged with such an alien nation such as the Egypt of Cleopatra? The author goes even as far as putting these words in Cleopatra’s mouth: “So surely as I shall one day give judgement on the Capitol”. How Dio knows about this is at least questionable.

Moreover, the term ‘queen’, which Dio uses, had strong negative connotations among the Roman people, because the Roman Empire was once a monarchy, “but its kings had been removed in a bitter struggle and the system of government that replaced it, the Republic, was designed to avoid the concentration of power in an individual’s hands.” (Fear, 2008) Thus, according with the law of that time, a king or a queen would not be permitted to rule Rome. And the perspective of Rome being ruled by a foreign queen would be outrageous to say the least.

 

In Dio’s account, I think there is a general sense that Cleopatra has very cleverly, as a woman ruler, manipulated some of the most powerful men of her time. Having this happened in ancient times, it seems to me that it stands today as an example of authority over social constraints for contemporary woman.