Cleopatra and Antony

by Diana Preston

“a princess . . . philosophy”: al-Masudi, Les Prairies d’Or, pp. 287–88.

  “the queen . . . father . . . on to . . . see her”: Inscription on a stele from the Bucheum, which is today in Copenhagen.

  “the crowd . . . life”: Diodorus Sicculus, I.83.

  “acting . . . friends”: Caesar, Civil War, III.103.

  3: THE RACE FOR GLORY

  “the slight . . . eyes . . . which contributed . . . popularity”: Plu.Pomp, 2.

  “Jupiter . . . greatest . . . because . . . prosperous”: Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods, III.87.

  “Keep him . . . in him”: Suet.JC, 1.

  “this youth . . . girdled . . . Caesar . . . tweezers”: ibid., 45.

  “the female . . . queen . . . the bottom . . . bed”: ibid., 49.

  “In his . . . influence”: Plu.JC, 4.

  4: “ODI ET AMO”

  “the greatest . . . art”: Suet.JC, 4.

  The dinner menu survives: The menu is described by Macrobius in his Saturnalia, 3.13.10–12.

  “he gave . . . event]”: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 14.66.

  “foolish vanity”: Cic.LA, II.18.

  “Have . . . idiot”: Sallust, Conspiracy Conspiracy of Catiline, 53.4.

  “a mystery . . . to know”: Quoted E. Bradford, Julius Caesar, p. 43.

  The most famous of these sisters was Clodia: Cicero called Clodia “cow-wife, perhaps unfairly, suggested that he too was having an affair with her.

  “after . . . husbands . . . Caesar’s . . . suspicion”: Plu.JC, 10.

  “settled . . . reputations”: Cic.LA, I.16.

  “Pompey . . . girl”: Plu.Ca, 30.

  “He is apt . . . from showing”: Cic.LF, VIII.1.

  “As for . . . cesspit”: Cic.LA, II.1.

  “It . . . resources”: Plu.JC, 14.

  “talking . . . intemperate”: Cicero, “Speech Before the Senate on his Return from Exile,” VI.14.

  “the queen . . . to be one”: Suet.JC, 49.

  “a high . . . brightness”: Sallust, op. cit., 54.

  The word fascist: R. Syme’s The Roman Revolution, first published in 1939 and still in print, is preeminent among those works highlighting the resemblances between the fall republic and the rise of fascism in Europe.

  “Avoid . . . rocks”: Caesar quoted by Aulus Gelius, Attic Nights, 1.10.

  “Regions . . . people”: Cicero, On the Consular Provinces, 33.

  5: CROSSING THE RUBICON

  “The Tiber . . . sponges”: Cicero, Pro Sestio, 77.

  battle in Gaul at Alesia: Prior to Alesia, believing that the rebellious Gauls had received help from Britain, Caesar had decided on an invasion of the island. Perhaps more importantly, he had heard that Britain was rich in minerals such as iron and tin as well as in gold, silver and freshwater pearls of a particularly fine quality and large size. Caesar was known for his admiration of pearls. In 55, attempting a landing at Dover, Caesar’s troops received a severe shock, as he admitted in his Gallic Wars: “The natives sent in their cavalry and chariots which frightened the Romans who were quite unaccustomed to this type of fighting.” The Britons’ appearance, wild-haired and painted all over with blue woad, also discouraged the invaders, who only gradually made progress, winning small victories and burning farms but soon retreating back across the Channel. Caesar came in greater force the following year, landing from an armada of eight hundred ships with five legions and two thousand cavalry. This time he, in turn, shocked the Britons by bringing over a war elephant, the first of any kind to reach the island. His troops advanced much further, crossing the Thames, but the Britons usually refused pitched battles, using their chariots to deploy small numbers of men in harassing raids on the less mobile Romans. Storms in the Channel, probably not for the first and certainly not for the last time, saved Britain. Many of Caesar’s ships were wrecked and, as autumn approached, Caesar prudently withdrew.

  “I only . . . ground”: Plu.Pomp, 57.

  “a struggle . . . expense”: Cic.LA, VII.3.

  “Let the dice . . . high”: Plu.JC, 32.

  “total . . . winner”: Suet.JC, 36.

  “he was . . . mind”: Plu.Pomp, 67.

  “next to . . . army”: Plu.Ant, 9.

  “young dandies . . . unused . . .

  “young dandies . . . unused . . . hair . . . the glint . . . eyes”: ibid., 69.

  “turning . . . faces”: ibid., 71.

  “It . . . for help”: Plu.JC, 46.

  6: LIKE A VIRGIN

  Pompey’s arrival . . . murderer”: All quotes in these Plu.Pomp, 77–79.

  “it seemed . . . city”: Arrian, History of Alexander, III.1–2.

  “birds . . . numbers . . . Even . . . nation”: Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, 26.

  “the city . . . across”: Strabo, Geography, 17.1.8.

  “entering . . . angles”: Quoted in J-Y. Empereur, Alexandria Rediscovered, p. 57.

  “the greatest . . . world”: Strabo, op. cit., 17.1.13.

  recent underwater archaeology: In the 1960s, while exploring the underwater site around Fort Qait Bey, Egyptian archaeologist and diver Kamel Abouel-Saadat found chunks of statuary, including pieces of a sphinx that clearly had been cut for use in the construction of the Pharos. More recently, an Egyptian and French team exploring the Pharos area has also made interesting discoveries. Finds from this part of the harbor are on display at the Roman theater in Alexandria. They include statues that were clearly decorative rather than used as building materials, such as a red granite sphinx and two huge heads of male figures that once would have stood over twenty feet high and, honed by the waves, resemble Henry Moore sculptures. A tall carved figure of Ptolemy II with a beautifully modeled, muscular torso also found near the site of the Pharos today stands outside the new Library of Alexandria. Another Egyptian and French team has been diving on the eastern side of the Great Harbor and has done much to clarify the geography of this area in Ptolemaic times. They believe that much of it now lies beneath the corniche along Alexandria’s waterfront. They have identified Cape Silsileh as the likely site of the royal harbor and have found traces of what they believe was the Timoneum built by Antony in his final days, which would have been very close to Cleopatra’s palace. Some of their findings suggest that Strabo made errors when describing the location of the Ti-moneum.

  “a quarter . . . third”: ibid., 17.1.8.

  “on sailing . . . colours”: ibid., 17.1.9.

  “in . . . cone”: Strabo, op. cit., 17.1.10.

  “A large . . . community”: Strabo, quoted by Josephus, Antiquities, XIV.7.2.

  “A large . . . community”: Strabo, quoted by Josephus, Antiquities, 73 “his words . . . offensive . . . told . . . eating”: Plu.JC, 48.

  As tensions . . . assassins: All quotes in these two paragraphs are from Suet.JC, 50–1.

  Their first encounter . . . corrupted”: The quotes in this paragraph are from Luc.Phar, X, lines 70–108. Apart from certain temple carvings, which are anyway in a highly stylized pharaonic style and give little clue to Cleopatra’s real appearance, the only certain representations of Cleopatra are those on coins. The marble head in the Vatican is one of three sculptures generally, though not universally, accepted by scholars to be depictions of Cleopatra. Here, the face looks youthful, rounded and alluring, with full, sensuous lips and large eyes. The other representations are a marble bust in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, which has a delicately modeled, slightly thinner face and a more studiedly composed expression, and a marble head depicting a rather older woman with the same large eyes but a more pronounced chin in the Cherchel Museum in Algeria (though some believe the latter in fact depicts Cleopatra’s daughter, Cleopatra Selene). In addition, a small marble head in the Department of Greek, Roman and Etruscan Antiquities in the Louvre shares some notable similarities with the Vatican, Berlin and Cherchel sculptures and, it has recently been claimed, may also be a representation of Cleopatra. (See Peter Higgs and Susan Walker’s article “Cleopatra VII a
t the Louvre,” in British Museum Occasional Paper no. 103.)

  Other claimants to come into the frame as likenesses of Cleopatra but then to be dismissed by the majority of academics (though the arguments go on) include a marble head with melon hairstyle that Heinrich Schliemann, the excavator of Troy, claimed to have discovered in Alexandria but which was later found to be a Roman copy of a Greek sculpture of the fourth century BC; a small, high-cheekboned, hawk-nosed marble head of a woman found on Delos; and the travertine Castellani head with its distinctive aquiline nose (named for the Roman dealer Alessandro Castellani, who acquired it), currently in the British Museum. Less well known is a wooden statue now in the Seattle Art Museum carved and painted in the Egyptian style and bearing Cleopatra’s name in a cartouche on the biceps but which is widely believed to be a forgery.

  For a further commentary on images of Cleopatra, both Hellenic and J. Tyldesley, Cleopatra, pp. 60–69.

  “according . . . charming . . . which . . . Egyptian”: Plu.Ant, 27–8.

  “intellectual . . . charm”: Sallust, Conspiracy of Catiline, 25.

  Though some . . . mixed stock: For a J. Tyldesley, op. cit., pp 27–32.

  “This ruse . . . fall for her”: Plu.JC, 49.

  “His baldness . . . of it”: Suet.JC, 45.

  a bizarre lotion: The baldness cure is given in M. Grant, Cleopatra, p. 67.

  “Believe . . . comes”: Ovid, Art of Love, II, lines 717–32.

  7: THE ALEXANDRIAN WAR

  Unless otherwise stated below, the source for the quotes in this chapter is The Alexandrian War, believed to have been written by one of Caesar’s officers.

  The rapprochement . . . world’: The quotes in these three paragraphs are from Luc.Phar, X, lines 109–72.

  “he damaged . . . Cleopatra”: Plu.JC, 48.

  “weapons . . . palace”: Luc.Phar, X, lines 478–84.

  “weapons . . . palace”: Luc.Phar, 82 “a most . . . enemy”: Suet.JC, 35.

  “from roof . . . heavens”: Luc.Phar, X, lines 500–2.

  “because . . . Pharos”: Caesar, Civil War, III.112.

  “habitually . . . affairs”: Plu.JC, 49.

  “was towing . . . Egyptians”: Suet.JC, 64.

  “Cleopatra’s wicked beauty”: Luc.Phar, X, line 137.

  “it might . . . governor-general”: Suet.JC, 35.

  “Why . . . instruments?”: Ovid, Amores, II.14, lines , II.14, lines 27–28.

  “nearly to Ethiopia”: Suet.JC, 52.

  “Caesar seems . . . situation there”:

  “Caesar seems . . . situation there”: Cic.LA, XI.15.

  An inscription in Memphis: For an alternative view of the significance of the inscription for the date of Caesarion’s birth see J. Tyldesley, Cleopatra, pp. 101–3.

  the Temple of Hathor: This temple, at Dendera, some forty miles north of Luxor and lying amidst fields of sesame, is one of the most complete remaining temples of the Ptolemaic period. Built on the granite foundations of an earlier temple dating from the time of Cheops, it is still ringed by three mud-brick enclosure walls. Its huge columns are decorated with carvings of the smooth-featured, half-smiling, cow-eared face of Hathor, traces of the original blue paint of pounded lapis lazuli still visible. Long, shallow flights of stone stairs lead up past life-size bas-reliefs of priests, the treads smoothed and worn by thousands of feet. On the ceiling of a chamber on the upper story, the figure of the goddess Nut stretches out, her arms extended, as she swallows the disc of the sun that will travel through her body during the hours of darkness and that she will give birth to as the dawn rises. A wall carving depicts Isis lovingly embalming the body of her husband, Osiris. To the back of the main temple, opposite the reliefs of Cleopatra and Caesarion, is Octavian’s temple to Isis, where he is depicted offering a mirror to Hathor and Horus.

  8: “VENI, VIDI, VICI”

  “there . . . Rome . . . dangerous rifts”: The Alexandrian War, 65.

  “Veni . . . vici”: Plu.JC, 50.

  “his swaggering . . . him”:

  “as if . . . was”: Plu.JC, 51.

  “one . . . fits”: ibid., 53.

  Epicureanism: It is ironic that epicurean has come to mean a sensualist who is, as often as not, greedy.

  “opened . . . entrails”: App, 96 “In present . . . disgraceful”:

  “In present . . . disgraceful”: Plu.

  “I am . . . over them”: ibid.

  “it was . . . Greece”: Plu.JC, 55.

  “a feeling . . . human about them”: Cicero,

  9: “SLAVE OF THE TIMES”

  “I hate . . . bitterness . . . Her . . . speech”: Cic.LA, XV.15.

  “I hate . . . bitterness . . . Her . . . speech”:

  “No boy . . . Curio’s”: Cic.Phil, II.18.

  “a private . . . generals . . . owed . . . women”: Plu.Ant, 10.

  “those filthy . . . tombs”: Martial, quoted A. Dalby, Empire of Pleasures, p. 31.

  “two . . . tenants . . . a building . . . profit”: Cic.LA, XIV.9.

  To the east . . . price list”: All quotes in this paragraph come from Martial, quoted in A. Dalby, op. cit., pp. 216–18.

  “the last year of confusions”: Quoted D. Ewing-Duncan, The Calendar, p. 45.

  “Yes . . . edict”: Plu.JC, 59.

  “the slave of the times”: Quoted T. Holland, Rubicon, p. 338.

  10: THE IDES OF MARCH

  “provided . . . himself”: Suet.JC, 83.

  “more succulent provender”: ibid., 38.

  “admitted . . . children”: ibid., 52.

  “only . . . Parthians”: ibid., 79.

  “a groan . . . Forum”: Cic.Phil, II.34.

  “The amazing . . . freedom”: Plu.Ant, 12.

  “Where . . . from . . . it . . . advance”: Cic.Phil, II.34.

  “was . . . substance”: Suet.JC, 77.

  “I’m not . . . lean ones”: Plu.JC,77.

  “if only . . . now . . . Brutus . . . today”: Suet.JC, 80.

  Just before . . . gone”: The quotes in this paragraph are from Plu.JC, 63 and 65.

  “Caesar . . . my son!’ ”: ibid., 84.

  11: “FLIGHT OF THE QUEEN”

  “Antony asked . . . tyrant”: DioCass. RH, XLIV.34.

  “the spirit . . . boys . . . absurd”: Cic.AT, XIV.21.

  “Freedom . . . not”: ibid., XIV.4. (What, one wonders, would Cicero have made of the follow-up to the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq?)

  “She’ll . . . tomorrow”: Cicero, Quintilianus, VI.3.75.

  “I see . . . queen”: Cic.AT, XIV.8.

  “I am hoping . . . Caesar”: ibid., XIV.20.

  “I am hoping . . . queen”: ibid., XV.4.

  “If she . . . lacked everything”: Josephus, Antiquities, XV.4.1.

  “With regard . . . their security”: Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, 3.

  “the seams . . . feet”: Suet.A, 94.

  “I shall . . . feet”: DioCass.RH, XLV.2.

  Busts . . . together: The quotes in this paragraph are from Suet.A, 73, 79, 80 and 83.

  “I cannot . . . place”: Cic.AT, XIV.12.

  “The young . . . to me”: ibid., XIV.11.

  “spurned . . . obscurity”: Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome, II.60.

  “had been . . . moneychanger”: Suet.A, 2.

  “Julius . . . adoption”: ibid., 68.

  “used . . . shells”: ibid..

  “that Caesar . . . paternity”: Suet.JC, 52.

  “I found . . . no method”: Cic.AT, XV.11.

  “You, boy . . . name”: Cic.Phil, XIII.11.

  “We are amazed . . . Caesar”: Cic.LF, XI.3.

  “Life . . . breathing . . . The slave . . . not”: Cic.Phil, X.10.

  “not to speak . . . words”: Cic.LF, XII.2.

  “gladiator . . . massacre”: ibid.

  “to subjugate us”: Cic.LF, XII.23.

  “have the city . . . sincerity”: Cic.AT, XVI.8.

  “asked . . . their homes”: App, II
I.42.

  “He got . . . send-off”: App, III.46.

  feathery papyrus: Papyrus has recently been reintroduced to Egypt from Kenya.

  “No one . . . best”: quoted H. Volkmann, Cleopatra, p. 23.

  12: RULER OF THE EAST

  “set . . . them”: App, III.70.

  “Antony’s . . . circumstances . . . Antony . . . eaten . . . ate . . . man”: Plu.Ant, 17.

  “this heaven-sent boy”: Cic.Phil, V.16.

  “Octavian must . . . extolled”: Cic.LF, XI.20.

  “If you . . . this will”: Suet.A, 26.

  “as if . . . estate”: Plu.Ant, 19.

  The troops . . . murder him: The quotes in these five paragraphs come from App,

  IV.5–30.

  “terrible . . . plans”: Quoted A. Everitt, Cicero, p. 308.

  “What gladiator . . . stroke?”: Cicero, Tusculum Disputations, II.41.

  “You . . . crimes?: App, IV.32.

  “he placed . . . sword in”: Plutarch, Life of Brutus, 52.

  “they courteously . . . epithets”: Suet.A, 13.

  “a puny . . . body . . . has . . . defeated”: DioCass.RH, L.18.

  “Kings . . . by him”: ibid.

  “The city . . . wind-pipes”: Plu.Ant, 24.

  “His weakness . . . families”: Plu.Ant, 4 and 36.

  13: MIGHTY APHRODITE

  Unless stated otherwise below, the quotes in this chapter come from Plu.Ant, 24–27.

  The quotes in the first paragraph are from App, IV.64.

  Plutarch lusciously . . . Tarsus: For Enobarbus’ report of Cleopatra’s arrival in Tarsus in Antony and Cleopatra Shakespeare drew heavily on Sir Thomas North’s lyrical translation of Plutarch’s account.

  Appian believed . . . sex: The quotes in this paragraph are from App, V.

  “the topmost . . . pearls”: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, IX.54.

  An American academic: The article on how pearls dissolve is by B. L. Ullman in The Classical Journal, February 1957, Vol. 52, pp. 193–201.

  “prepared . . . region”: Socrates of Rhodes quoted in Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned, IV.147.

  14: “GIVE IT TO FULVIA”

  Antony . . . sandals: The quotes in this paragraph are from App, V.11.

  During . . . to be”: The quotes in these two paragraphs are from Plu.Ant, 28.

  “in the robe . . . Isis”: Plu.Ant, 54.

  Isis’ “many-colored . . . moon”: The description of Isis comes from Apuleius, The Golden Ass, XI. 3–4.