Book Read Free

Cleopatra and Antony

Page 37

by Diana Preston


  “concerned . . . death”: Plutarch, Of Isis and Osiris, 78.

  She and Antony . . . pleasure: The quotes in these three paragraphs are from Plu.Ant, 29–30.

  Lake Mareotis: Today Lake Mareotis is in the middle of an industrial area dotted with the flares of oil refineries, but fishermen still pole their puntlike boats through the reeds.

  “like . . . night . . . a miserable letter”: Plu.Ant, 30.

  “a partaker . . . showed”: Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome, II.74.

  “A godless . . . hand”: Vergil, Eclogue, I, lines 71–7.

  “in crowds . . . war”: App, V.12.

  At the same . . . withdrew: The quotes in this paragraph are from App, V.16.

  “Glaphyra’s . . . sound”: Martial, Epigrams, XI.20.

  slingshots . . . dick”: The Latin text of the messages on the slingshots are given in the Corpus Inscriptorium Latinarium of 1901, XI or II.2.1.

  “as long . . . speedily . . . moved . . . jealousy”: App, V.19.

  “that Fulvia . . . Italy”: Plu.Ant, 30.

  “laid . . . general . . . on falling . . . dwindle”: App, V.9 and 11.

  “She girded . . . them”: DioCass.RH, XXXXVIII.10.

  “had . . . sex . . . was . . . violence”: Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome, II.74.

  15: SINGLE MOTHER

  “delivered . . . fight”: App, V.51.

  “had become . . . anger”: ibid., 59.

  “generally . . . wife”: Plu.Ant, 31.

  “dignity . . . beauty . . . she . . . affairs”: ibid.

  “a lover . . . outrageous”: Plutarch, Life of Demetrius, I.

  “His rational . . . Egyptian”: Plu.Ant, 31.

  “we must . . . performed”: Vitruvius, On Architecture, VI.5. (Vitruvius drew on the ideas of earlier Greek writers but this is the earliest surviving architectural work.)

  16: “THE AWFUL CALAMITY”

  “Now . . . world”: Vergil, Eclogue, IV, line 4 ff. Medieval Christians took these lines as a prophecy of Christ.

  “Nor . . . whatsoever”: The decree is reproduced in several places in translation, for example, P. Jones, Cleopatra: A Source Book, pp. 205–6.

  “very . . . disorder”: Josephus, Antiquities, XIV.14.2.

  To celebrate . . . promise”: The quotes in this paragraph are from Plu.Ant, 32.

  “I could . . . at me . . . the one . . . death”: Suet.A, 62.

  “Either . . . man”: Plu.Ant, 33.

  “He . . . women”: App, V.76.

  “beneficent gods”: Quoted M. Grant, Cleopatra, p. 130.

  “beneficent gods”: Quoted 196 “full . . . dead”: App, V.89.

  “into fighting condition”: Suet.A, 16.

  “not to . . . wretched”: Plu.Ant, 35.

  “a hundred . . . warships”: ibid.

  “The awful . . . Syria”: Plu.Ant, 36.

  17: SUN AND MOON

  Unless otherwise stated below, the source for the quotes in this chapter is Plu.Ant, 36–51. Plutarch’s account of the Parthian campaign is based on a work by one of Antony’s generals, Dellius, now lost.

  “cut . . . ears . . . complete . . . blemish”: Josephus, Antiquities, XIV.13.10.

  Silver coins . . . Antony: One of the silver coins—a drachm—minted in Antioch and depicting Cleopatra on one side and Antony on the other can be seen in the British Museum.

  18: “THEATRICAL, OVERDONE, AND ANTI-ROMAN”

  “When she . . . had a great . . . to Egypt”: Josephus, Antiquities, XV.4.2.

  “realized . . . shock”: Plu.Ant, 53.

  As Antony . . . attain’: The quotes in these two paragraphs are from Plu.Ant, 54.

  “it was not . . . use it”: Josephus, Antiquities, XV.3.8.

  “he . . . war”: Plu.Ant, 52.

  Cleopatra . . . state: The quotes in this paragraph are from DioCass.RH, XLIX.40.

  “in very . . . wife . . . the son . . . for Caesar’s sake”: ibid., 41.

  Plutarch . . . costume: The quotes in this paragraph are from Plu.Ant, 54.

  the triple uraeus . . . of Kings”: For a discussion of the linkage by S.-A. Ashton of the triple uraeus with Cleopatra and of Cleopatra’s possible motives for adopting this insignia, see her article in the British Museum Occasional Paper, no. 103, p. 26, and D. E. E. Kleiner’s Cleopatra and Rome, pp. 140–42. The chief evidence for associating the triple uraeus with Cleopatra is provided by a piece of a limestone crown found in a shrine in a temple to Isis at Coptos by Sir Flinders Petrie, the front of which bears three uraei. Sally-Ann Ashton dismisses the view that the crown might have belonged to the earlier Ptolemaic queen Arsinoe II, arguing that evidence from relief carvings in the temple and from the crown itself suggest that the shrine was dedicated early in Cleopatra’s reign when she was sharing the throne with one of her two half brothers. She has also identified a blue glass intaglio in the British Museum depicting an Egyptian queen wearing a magnificent headdress with triple uraeus as a representation of Cleopatra and has linked this to a series of statues of a queen of the late Ptolemaic period, again prominently displaying the triple uraeus.

  “was only . . . son”: DioCass.RH., XLIX.41.

  And now . . . tolerate: The quotes in this paragraph are from Plu.Ant, 50 and 54.

  19: “A WOMAN OF EGYPT”

  “to avoid . . . speech”: Suet.A, 84.

  Parts . . . done so: The quotes in this paragraph are from Suet.A, 69.

  “at a feast . . . twelve . . . The gods . . . grain”: ibid., 70.

  “like the slave . . . sale”: ibid., 69.

  “that it . . . matters”: Plu.Ant, 56.

  Whether bribed . . . decree: A papyrus granting land to Canidius Crassus is reproduced and translated in P. Jones, Cleopatra: A Source Book, pp. 205–6.

  “carefully . . . Antony”: Josephus, Antiquities, XV.5.1.

  “to her . . . possible”: ibid.

  “Every practitioner . . . victories?”: Plu.Ant, 56.

  “She left . . . war”: ibid., 57.

  “diseased with desertion”: Velleius Paterculus, Roman History, II.83.

  “one . . . world”: ibid., 85.

  “the Egyptian . . . things”: DioCass. RH, XLVIII.24.

  “a slave . . . Cleopatra”: ibid., XLIX.34.

  “degenerated . . . monster . . . a crown . . . queen”: Florus, Epitome of Roman History, II.21.

  “an enormity . . . ashamed”: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XXXIII.50.

  “to be . . . understood . . . our . . . Asiatic orators”: Suet.A, 86.

  “Who would not . . . Egyptian”: DioCass.RH, L.25–7.

  “We . . . eunuchs?”: ibid., 24–5.

  “so as . . . wiles . . . no . . . treacherous”: The Alexandrian War, 24.

  “he plays . . . lust”: DioCass.RH, L.27.

  “unchastity . . . dear”: Luc.Phar, X, line 58.

  “Antony . . . Nile”: Plutarch, Comparison of Demetrius and Antony, 3.

  “as surely . . . Capitol”: DioCass.RH, L.5.

  “And . . . curse”: Oracula Sibyllina, III.75 ff.

  “the whole . . . way”: Res Gestae Divi Augustus, 25.

  Geminius . . . from you”: Plu.Ant, 59.

  “that Antony’s . . . deserted him”: DioCass.RH, L.4.

  20: THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM

  “caused . . . along”: Florus, Epitome of Roman History, II.21.

  “Their . . . clothes”: Quoted E. Bradford, Cleopatra, p. 205.

  “Who . . . way?”: DioCass.RH, L.9.

  “Some . . . birds”: Plu.Ant, 60.

  “all . . . knights . . . to demonstrate . . . people”: DioCass. RH, L.11.

  “I like . . . traitors”: Quoted M. Foss, The Search for Cleopatra, p. 157.

  “angered”: DioCass.RH, L.13.

  “upset . . . deal . . . from . . . treachery”: Plu.Ant, 63.

  “undermined . . . everything”: DioCass. RH, L.13.

  “What . . . ladle?”: Plu.Ant, 62.

  “the c
ircus . . . civil wars”: Seneca (the Elder), Suasoriae, I.7.

  “press-ganging . . . age”: Plu.Ant, 62.

  “an infantry . . . stand”: ibid., 64.

  “while it . . . a man”: ibid., 65.

  “the fight . . . towers”: ibid., 66.

  “doting mallard”: W. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act III, scene 10, line 20.

  “roasted . . . ovens”: DioCass.RH, L.34.

  21: AFTER ACTIUM

  Unless otherwise stated below the source for the quotes in this chapter is Plu.Ant, 67–73.

  “the wild . . . eunuchs”: Horace, “Ode,” I.37.

  “a Roman . . . by sale”: Horace, “Epode,” IX.

  “the leading . . . shrines”: DioCass.RH, LI.5.

  “since . . . parents”: ibid., 6.

  “His official . . . intact”: ibid.

  “He . . . unharmed”: ibid., 8.

  22: DEATH ON THE NILE

  Unless otherwise stated below the source for the quotes in this chapter is Plu.Ant, 71–84.

  “rescued . . . danger”: Quoted M. Grant, Cleopatra, p. 223.

  “a woman of insatiable sexuality”: DioCass.RH, LI.15

  “wonderfully enhanced . . . beauty”: DioCass.RH, LI.12.

  23: “TOO MANY CAESARS IS NOT A GOOD

  “as if . . . him”: DioCass.RH, LI.14.

  “to suck . . . wound”: Suet.A, 17.

  Asp is a . . . Octavian: The information on the various effects of snakebite draws on Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Cleopatra—Histories, pp. 106–7, and her source, F. W. Fitzsimmons, Snakes and the Treatment of Snakebite, Cape Town, 1929.

  “with the . . . queen”: Plu.Ant, 86.

  “too . . . good thing”: ibid., 81.

  “surpassed . . . magnificence”: DioCass.RH, LI.21.

  “came . . . corpses . . . accustomed . . . cattle”: ibid., 16.

  “They forgot . . . foreigners”: ibid., 21.

  “did not . . . casually”: Suet.A, 84.

  By now Rome . . . amulets: In the centuries following Cleopatra’s death, Egyptian and Roman art fused intriguingly in Alexandria. Catacombs built in the second century AD are decorated with carvings of cobras and of the Apis bull but also with Medusa heads. A tunic-clad figure of the god Anubis is depicted mummifying a body, while another figure of Anubis is figure of the god Anubis is depicted mummifying dressed as a Roman soldier.

  “who refrained . . . woman”:

  “a passion . . . wife”: ibid., 71.

  POSTSCRIPT: “THIS PAIR SO FAMOUS”

  “this pair so famous”: W. Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, Scene 2, line 357.

  In his Pensées: Pascal’s reflections on the size of Cleopatra’s nose are in Pensées ref. S. 32 (p. 6 of the edition listed in the bibliography). See also Pensées ref. S. 228 (p. 57).

  “yours my Roman . . . intransigent”: Vergil, Aeneid, Book VI, lines 853ff.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  CLASSICAL SOURCES

  The Alexandrian War

  Appian, Roman History

  Apuleius, The Golden Ass

  Arrian, History of Alexander

  Athenaeus, Banquet of the Learned (The Deipnosophists)

  Augustus (Octavian), Res Gestae Divi Augustus

  Aulus Gelius, Attic Nights

  Catullus, Poems

  Cicero, Tusculum Disputations, Letters to Atticus, Letters to Friends, Quintilianus, On the Consular Provinces, On the Nature of the Gods, Philippics, Pro Sestio, “Speech Before the Senate on His Return from Exile,” et al.

  Dio Cassius, Roman History

  Diodorus Sicculus, History

  Florus, Epitome of Roman History

  Herodotus, History

  Horace, Odes and Epodes

  Josephus, Antiquities, Wars of the Jews

  Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars, The Civil Wars

  Livy, History of Rome

  Lucan, Pharsalia

  Macrobius, Saturnalia

  Martial, Poems

  Ovid, Art of Love, Amores

  Pliny the Elder, Natural History

  Plutarch’s Lives, in particular those of Antony, Julius Caesar, Pompey, Brutus, Cato the Younger, Demetrius and Alexander

  Sallust, Conspiracy of Catiline

  Seneca the Elder, Suasoriae

  Strabo, Geography

  Suetonius, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars

  Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome

  Vergil, The Aeneid, Eclogues, Georgics

  SECONDARY SOURCES

  Balsdon, J. P. V. D. Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome. London: Phoenix, 2002.

  Bauman, R. A. Women and Politics in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge, 1992.

  Bevan, E. R. A History of Egypt Under the Ptolemaic Dynasty. London: Methuen, 1927.

  Blond, A. A. Scandalous History of the Roman Emperors. London: Constable, 2000.

  Boardman, J., J. Griffin, and O. Murray, eds. The Oxford History of the Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

  Bowman, A. K. Egypt After the Pharaohs. London: British Museum Publications, 1986.

  Bowman, A. K., E. Champlin, and A. Lintott, eds. The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. X: The Augustan Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

  Bradford, E. Cleopatra. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972.

  ———. Julius Caesar. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984.

  Braund, D., and C. Gill, eds. Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2003.

  Carcopino, J. Daily Life in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge, 1941.

  Carter, J. M. The Battle of Actium. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1970.

  Casson, L. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.

  Chaveau, M. Cleopatra Beyond the Myth. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.

  ———. Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.

  Clarke, J. R. Roman Sex. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2003.

  Connolly, P. Coliseum—Rome’s Arena of Death. London: BBC Books, 2003.

  Cook, S. A., F. E. Adcock, and M. P. Charlesworth, eds. The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. X: The Augustan Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934.

  Cowley, E., ed. More What If? London: Pan, 2002.

  Dalby, A. Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and Indulgence in the Roman World. London: Routledge, 2000.

  ———. Food in the Ancient World from A to Z. London: Routledge, 2003.

  Dando-Collins, S. Cleopatra’s Kidnappers. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, 2006.

  Dupont, F. Daily Life in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.

  Empereur, J.-Y. Alexandria Rediscovered. London: British Museum Press, 1998.

  Everitt, A. Cicero—A Turbulent Life. London: John Murray, 2001.

  ———. The First Emperor. London: John Murray, 2006.

  Flamarion, E. Cleopatra: The Life and Death of a Pharaoh. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997.

  Foreman, L. Cleopatra’s Palace. New York: Discovery Books, 1999.

  Foss, M. The Search for Cleopatra. London: Michael O’Mara Books, 1997.

  Fraser, P. M. Ptolemaic Alexandria, vol I. London: Oxford University Press, 1972.

  Gill, A. Ancient Egyptians. London: HarperCollins, 2003.

  Goddio, F., and A. Bernand, Sunken Egypt: Alexandria. London: Periplus, 2004.

  Grant, M. Cleopatra. London: Phoenix Press, 2000.

  ———. Greek and Roman Historians. London: Routledge, 1995.

  ———. Herod the Great. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971.

  ———. History of Rome. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978.

  Gurval, R. A. Actium and Augustus. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.

  Hamer, M. Signs of Cleopatra. London: Routledge, 1993.

  Holland, R. Augustus. Gloucestershire, England: Sutton, 2005.

  Holland, T. Rubicon. London: Abacus, 2004.

  Hughes-Halle
tt, L. Cleopatra—Histories, Dreams and Distortions. London: Bloomsbury, 1990.

  Huzar, E. G. Mark Antony—A Biography. Beckenham, Kent: Croom Helm, 1978.

  Jones, P. Cleopatra: A Source Book. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.

  Jones, P., and K. Sidwell, eds. The World of Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

  Kleiner, D. E. Cleopatra and Rome. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.

  Lane Fox, R. The Classical World. London: Allen Lane, 2005.

  Lewis, J. E., ed. The Mammoth Book of It Happened in Ancient Rome. London: Robinson, 2003.

  Licht, H. Sexual Life in Ancient Greece. London: Constable, 1994.

  Lindsay, J. Cleopatra. London: Constable, 1971.

  Meier, C. Caesar. London: Fontana, 1996.

  Mossman, J., ed. Plutarch and His Intellectual World. London: Duckworth, 1997.

  Pascal, B. Pensées. Edited and translated by R. Arieu. Indianapolis, In.: Hackett, 2005.

  Pomeroy, S. Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves. London, Robert Hale, 1976.

  ———. Women in Hellenic Egypt. New York: Schocken Books, 1984.

  ———. ed. Women’s History and Ancient History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.

  Powell, A., ed. Roman Poetry and Propaganda in the Age of Augustus. London: Bristol Classical Press, Duckworth and Co., 1992. (“Augustan Cleopatras: Female Power and Poetic Authority,” Maria Wyke, pp. 98–134.)

  Richlin, A. The Garden of Priapus. London: Yale University Press, 1983.

  Royster, F. Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon. New York: Palgrave, 2003.

  Syme, R. The Roman Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939.

  Southern, P. Cleopatra. Gloucestershire, England: Tempus, 2000.

  ———. Mark Antony. Gloucestershire, England: Tempus, 1998.

  Stadter, P. A., ed. Plutarch and the Historical Tradition. London: Routledge, Osiris, Cleopatra-Isis: The End of Plutarch’s Antony,” F. E. Brenk, pp. 159–82.)

  Stanwick, P. A. Portraits of the Ptolemies. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.

  Tannahill, R. Food in History. London: Review, 2002.

  ———. Sex in History. London: Abacus, 1992.

  Tyldesley, J. Cleopatra, Last Queen of Egypt. London: Profile Books, 2008.

  Volkmann, H. Cleopatra. New York: Sagamore, 1958.

  Walker, S., and S.-A. Ashton, eds. Cleopatra Reassessed. London: British Museum Occasional Paper, British Museum, 2003.

 

‹ Prev