The Memoirs of Cleopatra (149 page)

Marc Antony has not been blessed with so many biographies to choose from. The most recent, Eleanor Goltz Huzar’s
Mark Antony
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978), is difficult to find but worth the search; Jack Lindsay’s
Marc Antony: His World and His Contemporaries
(London: Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1936) is well written; and Arthur Weigall’s readable
The Life and Times of Marc Antony
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1931) completes the trio.

Biographies aside, I can recommend a number of books about the period in general and other specific topics. Peter Green’s
Alexander to Actium
(Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990) is a huge, sweeping, brilliantly written panorama of the three-hundred-year Hellenistic Age; Paul Zanker,
The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), is a careful and interesting study of the ways Octavian used visual images to create his own myth; Robert Alan Gurval,
Actium and Augustus
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), is a close look at the symbols used by Octavian after he vanquished Antony. John M. Carter,
The Battle of Actium: The Rise and Triumph of Augustus Caesar
(New York: Weybright and Talley, 1970), is an invaluable study of the situation, and actually quite favorable toward Antony; Ronald Syme,
The Roman Revolution
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939), is the classic study of the period, and has no illusions about Octavian.

On more general topics, Roland Auguet,
Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games
(London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1972), tells about the games and spectacles in gory detail; Guido Majno,
The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), offers a compulsively readable account of ancient medicine by an eminent modern scientist/physician; Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa,
A Taste of Ancient Rome
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), reveals everything you always wanted to know about Roman dinner parties, and how to give one.

There is also Michael Grant’s
The Army of the Caesars
(New York: Scribner, 1974), covering equipment and tactics; Judith Swaddling,
The Ancient Olympic Games
(London: British Museum Press, 1980); and Lionel Casson,
Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times
(London: British Museum Press, 1994), a fascinating guide as to what went on on the seas long ago.

From
The Complete Works of Horace
by Horace, edited with an introduction by Casper J. Kraemer, copyright
^©
1936 by Random House, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

From
Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets
by Willis Barnstone, copyright
^©
1962, 1967, 1988 by Willis Barnstone. Reprinted by permission of Schocken Books, distributed by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Copyright
^©
1956, 1972 by the Estate of Horace Gregory, from his
Poems of Catullus
(Norton, 1972). Used with permission.

From
Virgil’s Eclogues: The Latin Text with a Verse Translation and brief notes
by Guy Lee (Francis Cairns Publications: Liverpool 1980).

Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Loeb Classical Library from Virgil’s
Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid I–IV
, translated by Rushton Fairclough, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1916, 1935. Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Loeb Classical Library from
Dio’s Roman History
, vols. VI and V, translated by Ernest Cary, Ph.D., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1916, 1987. Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

From
The Nile
by Emil Ludwig, translated by Mary H. Lindsay, Translation copyright 1937 by Emil Ludwig. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

From
Collected Poems
by Robert Graves, Carcanet Press Limited, copyright 1937. Used with permission.

From
A Child’s Book of Myths and Enchantment Tales
by Margaret Evans Price, Checkerboard Press, 1986. Used with permission.

Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Loeb Classical Library from
Alexandrian, Spanish, and African Wars
, by Caesar, translated by A.G. Way, M.A., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1955, 1988. Loeb Classical Library is a registered trademark of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

From
The Greek Anthology
, edited by Peter Jay, translated by Peter Jay. Translation copyright 1973, 1982 by Peter Jay. Used by permission of Penguin Books UK Inc.

From
The Bible as History
by Werner Keller, William Morrow and Co., revised edition copyright 1980. Used with permission.

Three excerpts from
Hymns to Isis in her Temple at Philae
, by Louis V. Zabkar, copyright 1988 Brandeis University with permission from University Press of New England.

From
The Odes of Horace: The Centennial Hymn
, translated by James Michie, copyright 1965 by James Michie, Macmillan Publishing.

From
Cleopatra
, by Jack Lindsay, Constable Publishers, copyright 1971.

1. Alexander the Great was a role model for Cleopatra and Mardian. How important is having a role model for children struggling with unhappy lives? Whom would you select as a role model for yourself, or for your children?
   
2. Caesar seemed to have few human weaknesses beyond his epilepsy: He was always calm in a crisis, never lost a battle, and seemed to need no one. Do you find such qualities in a person attractive or otherwise?
   
3. Caesar may have been a man ahead of his time—open to new ideas, customs, and people. Do you think his idea for a multinational empire was feasible in his era? Was resistance to his plans one of the factors in his assassination?
   
4. After Caesar’s death, Octavian’s future looked bleak, while Antony had enormous power. Why do you think it was Octavian who ultimately triumphed?
   
5. Cleopatra’s reputation as an extravagant voluptuary owes much to stories like the time she met Antony in Tarsus, in a ship with perfumed sails, and drank the pearl dissolved in wine. Do you view such gestures as expressions of her personality, or as business investments designed to promote an image?
   
6. In her heart, had Cleopatra already decided to seduce Antony when she set out for Tarsus? Was it passion or politics that drew her to him? Is there anything to the accusation that she was attracted only to married Romans with power?
   
7. In Cleopatra’s relationship with Caesar, he was the dominant one, while with Antony, she had more power. What qualities did each man bring out in her, and, in your opinion, which relationship suited her better?
   
8. Antony exalted his lack of moderation as part of the Dionysian ideal. Shakespeare stressed the noble aspects of that trait, including great generosity of spirit, whereas Antony’s enemies in Rome said he was debauched and weak. What do you think? Was it his character—or his bad luck—that condemned him to failure?
   
9. Octavian declared war on Cleopatra, rather than on Antony, ridiculing her foreign ways and declaring, “We must allow no woman to make herself the equal of a man.” In our day, many women applaud her for “making herself equal to a man,” and her exoticism appeals to us. At the time, were Octavian’s charges grounded in facts, or just politically expedient propaganda?
   
10. After the defeat at the battle of Actium, Cleopatra hid the truth from her people, to gain herself time. Was this a wise move, or does it prove that the Romans were right to condemn her as duplicitous and scheming?
    
11. “He must die as a Roman, I as an Egyptian,” Cleopatra says. How did the deaths they chose reflect their different cultures? Why do you think Antony’s was soon forgotten, while Cleopatra’s has become legendary?
    
12. “I had tried so many plans, staked myself so many times, gambling on this action or that.” What do you think of Cleopatra’s willingness to take risks? Do her risks remind you of any chances you have taken, even if entire kingdoms were not at stake?
    

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