Aeltri

There are perhaps few characters in Roman history as devious, greedy and full of lust as Antony and Cleopatra, if we believe the representations of them found in ancient history and biography. Following the battle of Actium, Cassius Dio tells us, Cleopatra tricked Antony into taking his own life. Antony chose to enslave himself to her in life, and he remained her slave in death, demonstrating his servile nature (douloprepeia), even at the end. Cleopatra, Cassius Dio concludes, had an insatiable appetite for pleasure and material wealth, an appetite that led, ultimately, to both her and Antony’s demise. According to Plutarch, Cleopatra disarmed Antony and made sport of him. From the perspective of many ancient authors, therefore, “Marcus Antonius was not merely a ruffian and a gladiator, a drunkard and a debauchee-he was effeminate and a coward” and Cleopatra was “The Egyptian whore, a drunkard, and the mistress of eunuchs.”