Antony and Cleopatra

Rome. Egypt. Love. War. Over 2,000 years ago, the fates of two ancient worlds collided in one of history’s most legendary love stories: Antony and Cleopatra. In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr Daisy Dunn to uncover the truth behind the myth - from their first meeting at Tarsus to the political intrigue that scandalised Rome. It was an affair that ignited a civil war, forged an empire that lasted for an age and gave rise to one of world history's most dramatic and tragic deaths, so join us to discover how passion, ambition, and betrayal reshaped the ancient Mediterranean world. Watch this episode on our NEW YouTube channel: @TheAncientsPodcast https://www.youtube.com/@TheAncientsPodcast MORE The Cleopatras https://open.spotify.com/episode/0kI3w89qAY0cQn2tec0ucS?si=ulnT44L7RcmfQgjYW3z7SA The Rise of Mark Antony https://open.spotify.com/episode/1VnUtmGIVq588mRItlN3c0?si=UN8oEifWREmaFSQ-rHY-UQ Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

  Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe. Hello, I hope you're doing well. I'm in a very good mood here, one, because I'm just off to the pub to see my friends this fine Sunday afternoon, and secondly, because we've just released, we've just published the Ancients YouTube channel.

• 0:43Tristan Hughes?

  I'm really excited to see the channel finally up, so you can watch these episodes as well as listen to them, if you so wish. A new, exciting age in the story of the ancients. Now, today, we have a classic for you. We're exploring the story of Antony and Cleopatra. What's the fact, what's the fiction, with the likes of Shakespeare and so on? It's a great episode, and I'm delighted to welcome back for it my good friend, Dr Daisy Dunn. Daisy, she's fantastic, such a wonderful speaker, so much fun, and I hope you enjoy.

• 1:26Tristan Hughes?

  Just over 2,000 years ago, the world witnessed the fall of ancient Egypt and the rise of imperial Rome. Two civilizations closely intertwined in more ways than one. At the heart of this tale is one of history's most famous love stories, a Roman general and a Ptolemaic queen, Antony and Cleopatra. It's a story immortalised, thanks to Shakespeare and so many others down through the centuries. But what's the truth behind these legendary lovers? How did their paths cross? Why did Antony's affair with Cleopatra become so despised in Rome? What were Cleopatra's motives behind the match?

• 2:07Tristan Hughes?

  And how did it all end up so tragically, with a Mediterranean-wide civil war that ended both the Roman Republic and pharaonic Egypt? This is the story of Antony and Cleopatra, with our guest, Dr Daisy Dunn.

• 2:23Tristan Hughes?

  Daisy Dunn, it is great to have you back on the show. It has been too long.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  It has been too long.

• 2:28Tristan Hughes?

  And we are talking about Antony and Cleopatra. They must be one of the most famous lovers from ancient history and also a great symbol for two of these superpowers colliding, Rome and Egypt.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  They are. I mean, it's just, it's such a kind of iconic story, isn't it? If you say ancient well to anybody, they think Antony and Cleopatra.

• 2:48Tristan Hughes?

  And why do you think, I mean, their story, the allure of it has endured down to the present day, but so much so that everyone will know the names Antony and Cleopatra?

• 2:57Speaker 01

  I mean, I think it's the intensity of it, don't you? I mean, I think it's such a tragic story. You have these two kind of impossibly glamorous, impossibly sexy individuals who are kind of living and loving and then ultimately dying together. And it's not going to be a spoiler alert to anyone to say that they come to a really sticky end.

• 3:14Tristan Hughes?

  That's the end of the show right there.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  But I mean, it's a gift to, I mean, you can see why people in cinema love it, writers love it. You can kind of just see them falling and you kind of want to see in slow motion how they got to such a point. How do these people who seem to be flying so high ultimately end up where they did?

• 3:33Tristan Hughes?

  And is it that idea, you know, this sexy couple, their loving life, almost in contrast as well to their main opponent, Octavian, later the Emperor Augustus, who's often seen as more of an upright character, I guess.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  I think there's a bit of that as well. I mean, he looks kind of grey by comparison. I mean, doesn't he? I mean, he's like, he's a young guy, but then he becomes emperor and he's all about sort of morality, even though he's kind of breaking his own rules. He's actually a bit of a ladies' man himself, but Mark Antony much more lives up to that reputation.

• 4:01Tristan Hughes?

  Absolutely. And that's kind of endured all the way to the present day, hasn't it? In representations on TV, in movies. I mean, ever since Shakespeare, over the last 500 years or so, there's always that depiction of Mark Antony as the playboy and Octavian as the other and Cleopatra basically being a symbol of Mark Antony as a playboy.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  I think that's true. I think that's true. And I think it's fair. I mean, all the sources you read describe Mark Antony as being with this woman, that woman, you know, he's with an actress one minute and then he's getting married and then he's cheating. He does seem to be exactly what you call him, a playboy.

• 4:32Tristan Hughes?

  Let's set the scene first of all with the background. Let's introduce these protagonists in our story today. When in time are we talking with the beginning of their story? Is this, this must be the mid first century B C thereabouts?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Exactly, we're talking sort of forties B C, yeah.

• 4:50Tristan Hughes?

  Let's introduce Mark Antony first of all. What is his story? What's the situation with him as we get to the forties B C?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  So Mark Antony is one of the great figures of late Republican Rome. He has, he's sort of distantly related to Julius Caesar on his mother's side. And he's served under Caesar. He's kind of been with him in Gaul. He has been master of horse to Caesar, which is kind of quite a fancy title. When Caesar was dictator and he was out of the city, Mark Antony was essentially in control. So he's, he's almost like a deputy to Julius Caesar. He helps him to defeat Pompey the Great. So he's very much sort of up there, but it's really after the assassination of Caesar in forty four B C that Mark Antony comes into his own. Because he is sort of determined to, to sort of avenge the death of Caesar.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  But so is the heir of Caesar, who is the great nephew Octavian, who becomes the future Emperor Augustus. I think we'll call him Octavian to avoid confusion.

• 5:50Tristan Hughes?

  It's Octavian today.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I mean, you can kind of see from the beginning, you've got these two people who are very sort of wedded. They're very loyal to the idea of Caesar. There's going to be rivalry between them, and there is. But they do manage to pull together and to sort of form this alliance with a third character who's Marcus Emilius Lepidus. And we call this the second triumvirate. And it was ratified by the Senate and it essentially allowed them to put on a united front to defeat the key assassins of Julius Caesar. And Antony really makes a name for himself at the Battle of Philippi in forty two B C. He's there. He is with Octavian and I'd say really this is the kind of high watermark of his career.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  He really performs excellently at Philippi. And as a result of that victory over Brutus and Cassius and so the key assassins, he emerges on top and then as part of this alliance, they're able to essentially carve up the empire into three parts to look after.

• 6:52Tristan Hughes?

  Because it's very much, I mean, at the Battle of Philippi or the Battles of Philippi, isn't it? Mark Antony is the general, he's the man, the charismatic leader. He's got the military experience and Octavian, although he's his ally, although he's got troops, he looks a bit of a wet rag in particular. It very much is Mark Antony's show. This is what he's good at. So winning a military victory this time, as you say, it really just rises his reputation even further.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  It does and I think he actually teases Octavian afterwards, but kind of like sitting it out and being a bit of a kind of, you know, wet kind of weekend of a man.

• 7:25Tristan Hughes?

  So uneasy, uneasy allies right there. So it's looking good for Mark Antony at that time. I mean, which portion of the empire does he receive in that cutting up after Philippi?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  So essentially, I mean, Octavian takes Italy, which is a difficult, I mean, that sounds easy. It's not, that's almost the short straw in this because he's got to rehouse all the veterans after the Battle of Philippi. There are lots of kind of land confiscations, people are being dispossessed. It creates chaos in Rome. Lepidus gets sort of North Africa and Mark Antony focuses very much on the eastern provinces.

• 7:55Tristan Hughes?

  Which will then of course include Egypt. So can you introduce us Egypt at this time? What kind of kingdom is ruling Egypt? And who is this pretty remarkable ruler?

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Cleopatra.

• 8:08Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, there we go.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Oh, there you go. So I love how we call her Cleopatra for a start. I find this kind of interesting because she's Cleopatra the seventh officially, which is not the only Cleopatra. She's not the first Cleopatra. She is essentially, she's part of this long line of Tolmaic rulers. So Egypt's been ruled by this, this kind of dynasty and it's been passed down. We've got to go back to your favourite era, Alexander the Great, just temporarily.

• 8:31Tristan Hughes?

  We can, we can.

• 8:32Speaker 01

  I know, I know, I'm going to indulge you. And so Ptolemy, general of Alexander the Great, trusted friend, he is the one who inherits the kind of Egyptian portion of the kingdom after Alexander's death. And the Ptolemies are descended essentially from him. You get Ptolemy, Ptolemy, Ptolemy, Ptolemy. And then you get some girls in there as well.

• 8:52Tristan Hughes?

  More Cleopatres, Cleopatres, Cleopatres. They're not very diverse with their names, are they? They like a name and they stick to it.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  They do. And Cleopatra's father was Ptolemy the 12th.

• 9:02Tristan Hughes?

  Yes.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Alites, the flute player. So indication of his musical interests there. And really, he is sort of responsible for her coming to power initially. She's kind of co-ruling with him. He dies in 51 B.C. And she is the eldest surviving child. So therefore she gets to rule. She is named as his heir, along with the eldest of her two younger brothers, who becomes Ptolemy the 13th.

• 9:29Tristan Hughes?

  It's pretty, you know, difficult stomach today, but there was a lot of that brother, sister ruling and marriages in Ptolemaic Egypt, wasn't there? And Cleopatra the 7th was the next in line for that.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Exactly. And it's really difficult to understand, I think, today if people say, oh, you know, isn't that weird? Isn't that strange? And I think we're not really looking at a kind of sexual relationship between the two of them at the beginning, at least. I mean, she is 18 and he's about 10. So we can't really go there. We can't go there. But I mean, the really difficult thing is they don't get on. And almost immediately, civil war breaks out between these two siblings, wanting sort of sole rule or kind of at least dominance over the rule of Egypt. And it really gets very, very messy. Long story short, Julius Caesar comes in and cleans it all up for them. How much detail should I go into here?

• 10:19Tristan Hughes?

  Let's explore it a bit. I mean, I also want to mention that, in my opinion, the Ptolemies must be one of the most, if not the most dysfunctional family from the whole of history. And that's saying something in itself, but I feel they just go an extra step, including the Julio-Claudians, I must admit. But yes, come on then, let's introduce Julius Caesar. How does he shake things up? And this ends up well for Cleopatra.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  It does. He arrives in Alexandria. And he, I mean, his first goal really is to try and reconcile the two siblings and to honour the agreement that these two will be co-rulers of Egypt, which is what the father had wanted. But it's incredibly difficult. I mean, Cleopatra's been driven out during this. They're really at loggerheads. And so you have something called the Alexandrian War developing. And I mean, the difficulty for Caesar is he's having to deal with a lot of men on the side of Cleopatra's brother, because he's only ten years old. He's very much under the thumb of his advisers, his tutors, one of them's Eunuch, you know, got these kind of crazy long list of people. They are very much kind of calling the shots on his side.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  When the war breaks out, Ptolemy actually ends up drowning during it. So he is out of the picture. And the relationship between Caesar and Cleopatra develops in that period, and a child is conceived.

• 11:38Tristan Hughes?

  Has he gone a romantic trip down the Nile as well, don't they? Caesar has a little sojourn in Egypt with Cleopatra. It all seems rather lovely.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  I love the descriptions of it as well. It's so sort of romantic of the two of them just kind of gliding along, having a wonderful.

• 11:51Tristan Hughes?

  This is my kingdom.

• 11:52Speaker 01

  This is my kingdom, you know, enjoy it. And they, you know, they have a son. And this is, this is actually great news for Cleopatra, because she's having to then rule with her other brother, who's Ptolemy XIV.

• 12:02Tristan Hughes?

  Okay.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  And she doesn't really want to be with him either. And, you know, a little later on, there's pretty good evidence that she actually poisons him to get him out of the way, so that she can make Caesarion, her child by Caesar, her co-ruler instead.

• 12:15Tristan Hughes?

  There we go. Well, how do we then get to this time when Cleopatra does become the sole ruler? Because we've still got to get through, what you've mentioned earlier, the assassination of Julius Caesar.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  We do. And really interestingly, she's actually in Rome at the time of the assassination, which I don't remember even sort of learning at school. I just always paint her as being over in Egypt, don't you? Don't kind of think that.

• 12:37Tristan Hughes?

  And to actually make that voyage is quite something in itself, with all the pageantry that there must have been, showing that she was a pharaoh of Egypt, arriving in Rome, being so different to what, you know, a Roman woman was expected to be. And, you know, it is a big episode when she goes to Rome.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  It is, it is. It's very, very much so. All the pomp and ceremony is laid on for her. She is staying not right in the middle of Rome, which I think is interesting. She is now in the area of kind of Trestevere in Rome, which is quite the cool side, you know, if you're going to Rome. So she's across the Tiber, but she's not right in the kind of thick of it. But she's there, you know, with her, with Caesarion, she's there. Meeting a lot of very important wealthy Romans. And in forty six, Caesar actually officially recognizes her as the ruler of Egypt and as a friend of the Roman people. And the Romans have done the same for her father. But it's really very much kind of cementing the fact that she is there in power.

• 13:27Tristan Hughes?

  Do you think it's likely that Mark Antony would have met Cleopatra that far back when she was the consort of Julius Caesar?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  I think almost certainly. I can't imagine him not meeting her when she was in Rome. It seems that most people were, he was sort of in power in those kind of circles, were meeting her. And to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't actually met a little bit earlier as well, because there was a point in her father's rule when he was actually deposed, he ended up sort of being shifted from his throne and he had to come to Rome. And Rome actually helped him to regain his power. And I think in that process, I mean, there's a strong possibility, I think, that Antony would have met her. She should have been young at that stage, but quite possibly, I think, they've certainly known each other, I reckon, before they actually get together.

• 14:10Tristan Hughes?

  Absolutely. Well, Julius Caesar is assassinated. So what happens to Cleopatra after that? I'm guessing she goes back to Egypt.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  She does go back to Egypt. We know that from Cicero. He describes her as sort of staying back. And that's that letter, I think, is about a month later. So she doesn't stick around. And I think, I mean, her position is slightly uncertain at that point, you know, Caesar's dead, what does that actually mean for her?

• 14:32Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, she could potentially have been targeted in Rome, possibly, right? If there were the enemies of Julius Caesar hanging about?

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Exactly. I mean, I think she just actually doesn't know. I think that's my impression. She doesn't really know what this means for her. She is determined to get back to safety, get there with Caesarion, you know, get out of the way and probably lay low for a little bit.

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• 15:29Speaker 03

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• 16:30Tristan Hughes?

  How powerful does she then become in those years? Whilst Mark Antony and Octavian, they're rising to the fore, and they ultimately fight the likes of Cassius and Brutus at Philippi. What has Cleopatra been doing up in Egypt?

• 16:41Speaker 01

  She, I mean, she's trying to deal with a quite a difficult situation in Egypt. For a start, there's a lot of social problems. There's famine, there's trying to organise the grain supply, all this kind of stuff. So she's trying to be a good ruler to her people. And I think from a Roman perspective, she's still seen to be incredibly useful to them. I mean, so much so that, I mean, Cassius had actually asked her for supplies and ships.

• 17:04Tristan Hughes?

  They're all asking her for help.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  They all see her as the money. That's the thing, she is the money, and she knows that. So she knows she could actually potentially be useful. So I think that's what her position is, I think, at that point.

• 17:15Tristan Hughes?

  The moneybags, I'm guessing, is how important that is when they're fighting the wars against each other as well. And the manpower, I mean, does Egypt, I'm presuming, has a lot of sway over places like Judea and Syria as well? Being such a big Hellenistic power? Yes, it's not at the great reaches that it had been under earlier Ptolemy's, but still that legacy of influence must be there as well.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah. We're not talking about Alexandria in isolation. I think it's really easy to lose track of the fact that actually there's got quite a wide dominion here, and there are sort of feelers going out in all directions.

• 17:47Tristan Hughes?

  So Cassius tries. Does he succeed? Does he fail? Do we have Cleopatra's troops on their side at Philippi?

• 17:52Speaker 01

  No, it's actually a really complicated sort of situation. I mean, this is the thing. I think when when Antony and Cleopatra initially get together, Antony's actually summoning her quite with a lot of reproach. He's actually upset. He's like, I've heard that you've been helping out Cassius. You know, whose side are you on? I mean, that's how their relationship begins, which isn't a very good beginning, is it, for a relationship? And she says, oh, no, I can explain. And essentially, I think Cassius had been going on and on and on at Cleopatra for help. And she had been prevaricating. She kind of didn't really want to supply him with troops. There's some indication that she was sending some supplies to Dolorbella, who was another kind of key Roman, who was at that point governor of Syria, which Cassius could potentially intercept.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  And she ended up trying to send ships instead to to Mark Antony and to Octavian. But they didn't actually get there. They were actually wrecked in a storm. So it's kind of like a non-story, but it creates a little bit of tension between her and Antony at the beginning.

• 18:50Tristan Hughes?

  It's also kind of damaging that Hellenistic reputation of their great warships being like the the most impregnable military vessels of the time. And then you lose.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  You lose them.

• 18:58Tristan Hughes?

  You lose them in the storm, trying to go for this fight.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  It just shows you nothing is certain, is it?

• 19:03Tristan Hughes?

  No, absolutely not. Well, it's also really interesting, a bit of a side note. You've got big bad King Herod trying to carve out his kind of take back his kingdom in Judea, right next door as this is all happening. But Cleopatra does go up to one day Turkey to meet Mark Antony. So what is this?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  There are two separate meetings. All right. The first one is Tarsus.

• 19:22Tristan Hughes?

  Okay.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  This is when they first get. This is in forty one.

• 19:25Tristan Hughes?

  Okay.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  B C. And they, I mean, they have this kind of splendid meeting. I have to say, this is all full glamour, this situation. Antony arrives, and as I said, it's been a little bit difficult between them. She kind of keeps him waiting. She comes in on the most luxurious barge you can imagine. And this barge has purple sails. It has silver oars. It's covered in gold and it's sort of reeking of incense. It's the most luxurious, splendid kind of barge you could possibly imagine. And Antony sees her and he's like, oh my goodness. Like you can imagine this kind of gawping face because she has done herself up as if she is a goddess Isis, which is a goddess that she identified with. Some sources say Aphrodite, the actual is quite similar.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Whatever, she looks like a goddess and she's surrounded by these attendant women who are done up as nymphs. And we've said, you know, Antony's a playboy. He's in heaven right now. I mean, the source, I think it's Plutarch, one of our great sources on their story. He's the great stuff biographer, Greek biographer, writing in the first century, so not too far, far removed in time. He says that Mark Antony was, you know, a man, I think it's about forty two at this stage. And he says he was almost like a youth. He was completely captivated by her beauty, by her intellect. And he just sort of reduced to being almost like a boy.

• 20:44Tristan Hughes?

  It seems so easy for her to do at the same time with all the luxuries that she throws at him. I mean, but quite the fact she, she'd done her homework, knowing that Antony was coming there with the thought of telling her off. And then she just completely flips the script by just showing how powerful, beautiful, you know, she is a pharaoh of Egypt and she keeps him waiting.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  She keeps him waiting, which I love. I like, I love the whole idea that she actually is then sort of taking control and she's saying, this is what we're going to do. She then has him to dinner. And that's even more extravagant because, I mean, bear in mind, she's on her home turf. So she has access to all these lovely things. What's he supposed to bring? It's like, you know, you're going to like a really nice house and you don't know what to bring. You can't bring some after eight, so you've got to bring something really nice. He's got nothing really to, to deliver.

• 21:27Tristan Hughes?

  Bring a helmet, bring a sword, I don't know, a cloak.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  But I think she, she really feels this because what we read is that he enters this amazing room, which is beautifully lit. And everything is sort of gold, all the cutlery, all the kind of goblets, everything is gold and beautiful. And there were wall hangings and there were beautiful chairs. And then she says, oh, at the end of the evening, you can take home whatever you like. Because she knows he can't compete. I mean, he's like, he's the traveller here, you know, he doesn't have the sort of wherewithal to be able to provide in this way.

• 21:56Tristan Hughes?

  How does he react to all of this? Is it very much hook, line and sinker from start to end? I mean, what does he do next?

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, I think, I think it's really easy to kind of get wrapped up in the romance of all of this. Like, it is this kind of transactional at the same time as being this great sort of love story. I think at this point, he is very aware that he needs to get something out of Cleopatra. You know, he is that he needs to pay off his legions from Philippi for a start. He has ambitions in the east. She has the money, he doesn't have the fleet, you know, she has the the possibility of actually helping him. So there's something that, and she, at the same time, she needs some kind of support and I think, and sort of assurance. And she's certainly worried about her situation in Egypt.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  Particularly, I think there's a problem with her sister, which is another sister called Arsinoe, who at one point she actually declares herself to be the ruler of Egypt. And she really, she wants her out of the way and Antony's going to help her to do that. So, I mean, there's something on each side for for both of them. And I think because of that, they end up kind of extending their time together. So you see them actually wintering together all the way through sort of forty one into forty in Alexandria, having this kind of lovely time.

• 23:08Tristan Hughes?

  So Antony does go from meeting Cleopatra at Tarsus to going back with her to Alexandria. And do we think this is when their relationship does become sexual?

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah. I have no doubt because, I mean, for a start, we know that she actually conceived two children. So you've got the evidence there. We don't need to speculate. She was pregnant with twins. She calls them, I love their names, they're amazing, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. And Helios means the sun. Selene means the moon. So she has the sun and moon twins. I mean, come on, like, that's amazing.

• 23:42Tristan Hughes?

  Very celestial and the world above kind of thing like that. Do you think she really had this idea, she brought completely into the belief that, you know, she was divine or her position, you know, in the Ptolemaic dynasty as a pharaoh meant that her and her offspring, you know, whether it was with Julius Caesar or Mark Antony, that they would be divine too?

• 24:00Speaker 01

  I think there's this idea that's definitely, it's intrinsic to rulers though in history, isn't it? That you've got some kind of divine support to the fact that you've actually been selected to be ruler. You feel like there's something special running through your blood. And I think Cleopatra is no exception for that.

• 24:15Tristan Hughes?

  Meanwhile. Back in Rome, poor old Octavian, trying to sort out the veterans and the like, being upright, or maybe not as upright as, you know, we sometimes portray him as. What's the reaction in Rome as they're hearing all of these reports from the East about Antony now wintering in Alexandria, having a whale of a time with Cleopatra and so on?

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Well, I imagine they're hearing quite a lot of the gossip. I mean, we have quite outlandish stories, which are in our sources, which I imagine in this sort of thing, which is being spoken about in Rome. So these very sort of luxurious dinner parties, Cleopatra drinking a pearl, you know, that lovely story. She drinks the pearl. It's fantastic. So in one of those many very extravagant dinners together, she bets Mark Antony that she could consume the equivalent of 10 million sesterces, sesterces being the Roman currency, in a single banquet. And then he says, oh, you can't. And she says, I can. And then she takes a huge pearl from her ear and she supposedly dissolves it in vinegar in a cup and drinks it. And people have been debating for centuries whether this is actually possible.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  But it just gives you an idea of the kind of life that they're living and the kind of stories which might have been sort of circulating in Rome. You have the opposite extreme of that as well. You have the two of them dressing up in disguise as paupers and looking into the windows of the poor people in Alexandria as just to kind of see, I mean, can you imagine if our royal family did that? I mean, the PR is potentially absolutely catastrophic for them.

• 25:42Tristan Hughes?

  Didn't you hear later with emperors like Nero and the like, who do that kind of dressing up and concealing themselves, to kind of mingle with everyday people?

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And if you get caught, I mean, the repercussions are quite bad. So I think the Romans are definitely hearing gossip and hearing scandalous gossip. And they are not pleased about it because Mark Antony's married. He has a Roman wife called Fulvia.

• 26:05Tristan Hughes?

  Well, yes, so Fulvia also feels important to introduce to the story at the moment because, you know, she is still Mark Antony's wife at the end of the day and she's in Italy.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  She's initially Pausa Fulvia. To my mind, she's one of the most amazing women of this period. She has two little sons with Mark Antony, so while Cleopatra's giving birth, she's there sort of raising these two boys. And she is trying to keep his end up essentially in Rome. She is coming to loggerheads with Octavian, and they seem to have had a very difficult relationship, and this seems to stem back from the fact that she gave her daughter by a previous marriage, Claudia, to Octavian in marriage. And she and Octavian fall out, and Octavian returns Claudia, the daughter, to her, and he says, it's okay, she's still a virgin, I haven't touched her. But for Fulvia, this is like the last straw,

• 26:55Speaker 01

  and she decides to actually whip up war against him.

• 26:59Tristan Hughes?

  Wow.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  This is extraordinary. She actually goes to Mark Antony's brother, Lucius, and we have something called the Perusian War breaking out this time, so it's sort of 41 to 40 B.C., so exactly that period where Antony and Cleopatra are together. It ends up being this kind of extraordinary showdown in the city of Perusia, and it turns into a siege. We actually have these kind of slingshot bullets, which I love. Have you seen them?

• 27:22Tristan Hughes?

  I have. I love these slingshot bullets because they also have some quite crude messages on as well, don't they?

• 27:27Speaker 01

  They're foul. Like, translating them makes you blush. I mean, like, you have some of these-

• 27:31Tristan Hughes?

  We're gonna do Tiberius later, okay?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  I know, what?

• 27:33Tristan Hughes?

  So that makes you blush.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  I'm gonna warm up, I'm gonna warm up. So some of them are saying things like, "I'm aiming for Octavian's asshole." And then, but I prefer the ones for Fulvia, they're saying things like, "I'm aiming for Fulvia's clitoris," which is quite, you know, quite anatomical for that time. I mean, I can't think of another word. So these have been found, but, I mean, the really sad thing is Fulvia is instrumental, and she's seen to be this sort of key player. She is getting troops, she's supposedly holding on to a sword, addressing the men, but it all goes disastrously wrong. And the side of Octavian ends up getting the upper hand. They starve the citizens of Perusia into submission. And Fulvia and Lucius are spared, but about 300 senators who'd been sort of on their

• 28:18Speaker 01

  side are supposedly sacrificed on the altar of Julius Caesar.

• 28:21Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, well, I didn't realise how many senators went in to support them, because initially, if you just say the Perusine war in Perusia, it feels like one city against the entirety of Rome and Italy. But it actually seems like it wasn't actually as clean cut as that, as simple as that, that Octavian always had the upper hand, but he does ultimately win out.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  He does win out, and then this is disastrous really, because, I mean, the historians of the time, I'm talking about Plutarch and then also Cassius Dio and others, so he's writing a bit later, second to third century, they are really, really hard on Fulvia. They say that her whole kind of ideal of creating this war, her kind of objective, was to get Antony home. She'd heard the rumours.

• 29:01Tristan Hughes?

  Interesting.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  About the affair with Cleopatra. And they think, they say, well, the only way she could possibly try and grab him was to cause chaos, basically, in Italy and get him home. I don't think that's fair.

• 29:14Tristan Hughes?

  Is that a classic trope, isn't it? It makes it too black and white, saying one woman was jealous of the other, so they tried to get their husband back.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 29:21Tristan Hughes?

  By doing something like that.

• 29:22Speaker 01

  Exactly. I really think she was feeling the fact that Octavian was getting the upper hand, and she was trying to do something for her husband to kind of help his hand while he's away all this time. But it's just not recognised in that way.

• 29:35Tristan Hughes?

  And as you said, her family's pinned her colours, you know, to that faction. And when Mark Antony hears all about this, and how it ultimately goes Octavian's way, does that actually force him to act, though?

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Well, he's furious. I mean, he's not happy about it.

• 29:50Tristan Hughes?

  He's furious with his wife and his brother, or with Octavian?

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Well, kind of both, but it's mainly Fulvia, because, I mean, Fulvia really wants to meet him after this, and he agrees to do so. So they meet up in Greece. She sails all the way there with the two boys, and there's this very sort of brief perfunctory reunion. And then he just leaves her and he goes off because he's been summoned to a conference with Octavian back in Italy in Brundisium, so it's right in the south of Italy. And it's really difficult because Fulva then dies, she's fallen unwell when she's in Greece. He's gone back to Italy just to try and patch things up with Octavian. And I mean, that does work. I mean, there's this sort of renewal of this triumvirate, this alliance for power. Their kind of special areas are slightly altered insofar as Octavian now has a big

• 30:39Speaker 01

  problem confronting him in Sicily. Sextus Pompeius.

• 30:42Tristan Hughes?

  Sextus Pompey, isn't it?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Yes, he's the son of Pompey the Great and he's at large, he seems to be sort of causing a lot of chaos with the grain supply, which is coming via the waters of Sicily into Italy. And there's no fleet at that point to really deal with him. So you have Marcus Agrippa, who I love, by the way. I mean, he is, forget Mark Antony, Marcus Agrippa is the guy, he's the man. He's the one who arranges this sort of any harbour, he builds up a fleet, he trains about twenty thousand former slaves to form a kind of navy and to see off the threat of Sextus Pompey. So all of that is going on and this is going to be sort of Octavian's focus going forward. The relationship, as I said, is renewed, so the situation from Mark Antony, he's having

• 31:25Speaker 01

  to look much more into kind of Parthia, sort of Iranian kingdom we're talking about. So it's renewed and then the whole deal is sealed. They often have a marriage to seal the deal when these alliances are made, it's a very, very sort of Roman thing. And Mark Antony agrees to marry the sister of Octavian. She's Octavia and he, I mean, he should have been really happy about this because she is so popular. She's one of the most popular women in Rome. All the sources are, they just describe her as extraordinary, she's beautiful, she's kind, she's everything you'd possibly want. And because she's so popular, that ought to sort of rub off well on Mark Antony because his popularity has taken a downturn since his relationship with Cleopatra and all the

• 32:10Speaker 01

  gossip about that. So by marrying Octavia, he should be kind of on the rise at this point. And they seem to have like a very happy beginning to their wedding by all accounts. Cleopatra's kind of out of the picture suddenly. Which is astonishing. We've got her so sort of prominent in our sources. And then suddenly, Mark Antony's there, he's beginning a new family life. He's married to Octavia. They have two daughters by thirty seven B C. So they're very much, you know, seem to be having a happy life and they're based largely in Athens, actually.

• 32:38Tristan Hughes?

  But I think that once again shows, as you mentioned earlier, how the story of Antony and Cleopatra, it's not a love story or not just a love story, you know, it's a political kind of unity. And earlier on in the thirties, near, you know, forty, forty one, you know, Mark Antony saw benefits of, you know, being with Cleopatra at the time. But now he's had this offer of Octavia and this, you know, peace with Octavian, renewed peace. And he sees that actually that is the better opportunity for him at the time. So it seems like, as you were saying, maybe at least early on, he does realise that actually Octavia is a better bet for him than Cleopatra at this time.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  I think almost certainly that he he knows what he's got to do. He's had this sort of situation in in Rome and and in Perugia. And he's just thinking like, this is my business now. In the interest of the alliance, I'm going to do this, go through the wedding. And, you know, you kind of, you're just at this point, I think I'm praying for Octavia, thinking I just hope that this works out well for her, you know.

• 33:31Tristan Hughes?

  Completely. And also you did mention there in passing, it feels a good time to introduce him to the story because he will come back later, won't he? The figure, the one and only Agrippa and his building of a fleet, which also feels important because he's not a navy man at that time. But he has to learn the ropes from the beginning.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  He does. And he's one of those extraordinary figures where he seems to have come from quite a modest, humble beginning. We don't know very much about his childhood. And he ends up being educated alongside the future Octavians. They meet when they're very young, just before Octavian becomes the heir of Caesar. And so he becomes a very trusted sort of deputy to him very, very early on. And he has a great military beginning, but he doesn't have naval experience at all. And he's, you know, called in to deal with Sextus Pompeius. He has to learn it all himself. And he does. He's just seems to, he's one of those characters. Whatever situation he's thrown into, he seems to just excel in. I mean, he's extraordinary.

• 34:23Tristan Hughes?

  With the Suez of Rome or, you know, the Straits of Messina, isn't it? He's he's amazing story. And he's important for when when we go on later and such an vital asset for Octavian. Well, let's keep moving the story forwards. It all looks quite nice for Mark Antony, you know. Peace with Octavian once again, marriage to Octavia.

• 34:43Tristan Hughes?

  When does he start looking back east? When does Cleopatra come back into the fold?

• 34:47Speaker 01

  He seems to get the itch after just a few years. And no, forget the seven year itch, seven years, god, that would be something for Mark Antony. He, he is getting it.

• 34:56Tristan Hughes?

  Can't control himself.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  He can't control himself. But again, it's not just for Cleo. He'd like to think, okay, he's just really missing Cleopatra. He has an ulterior motive, he always has an ulterior motive. Thirty seven B C, he starts to think, I really want to invade Parthia.

• 35:12Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  And I think at this point, he's really aware of the fact that he hasn't really had any great military victories since Philippi. A long time has passed. He's got nothing really to his name. He lacks the legitimacy of Octavian. Octavian is the chosen successor of Julius Caesar. What does Mark Antony have? Like, he doesn't seem to have anything. He, he kind of thinks, in Rome, the only real way you can win glory is by conquering a foreign enemy. So he did well at Philippi, great, but that's a civil war. You know, that's not the same.

• 35:47Tristan Hughes?

  It's Roman on Roman, isn't it?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  It's Roman, it's not the same as conquering a foreign people.

• 35:51Tristan Hughes?

  Because you can't really do a triumph if you're fighting Romans, can you as well? Because ultimately, you'll be celebrating killing fellow, fellow citizens.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  That's exactly, you can't get the triumph. The triumph is the great sort of celebration that all military leaders aspire to. He wants one of those. And the biggest one you can possibly get at this time is over Parthia because there's, I mean, Rome has beef with Parthia. Not that far long, long ago in time, so fifty three B C. There's a real difficulty. There's a humiliating loss of the Romans to the Parthia. So this is Crassus, this is Carai. This is the loss of the Roman standards, the eagles, legions and just pride. So Romans feel that they need to avenge that. And Mark Antony thinks that he's the guy to do that.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  What started the civil war? What ended the conflict in Vietnam? Who was Paul Revere? And did the Vikings ever reach America?

• 36:57Speaker 03

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• 37:46Tristan Hughes?

  So he has that ulterior motive of going to Parthia. So Cleopatra must be, given her power at the time in Egypt, you know, the clear ally to get close to for this motive.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. And he sees that she's the one who can fund this. She can potentially get, you know, fleets to him and help him out with this. And he actually, he goes back, he meets her in Antioch. He grants her territories, which is quite extraordinary. He gives her, oh, it's a list of them, like Phoenicia, Cyprus. And these are places essentially which had been within the domain of the Ptolemies back in history. So he kind of feels like he's giving them back to her. And in return, he wants her help. And he manages to get it so that he can actually launch his invasion in early 36.

• 38:32Tristan Hughes?

  But that's so interesting. I feel, maybe not the secret motive, but that is a clear motive for Cleopatra, isn't it? She is living at a time when she's hearing all the stories of how powerful the Ptolemaic dynasty once was, the great Hellenistic superpower, you know, beating the Seleucids and so on. And she wants to kind of revive that Golden Age of Ptolemaic power. And she sees Mark Antony as the person through which she can do it. And she achieves it with those territories that he gives her.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. So she's getting something out of it. She's not just there, you know, helping out her darling lover. I mean, she is, she is very much wanting her side, and she's getting it.

• 39:05Tristan Hughes?

  So how does the war go?

• 39:07Speaker 01

  The war is a disaster.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  You can almost see it written on the wall, can't you? I think you can almost anticipate that this is going to be a disaster, Francine, because he wants it so much. You know, it's terrible. I mean, she supplies him with ships and with money. And he sets out and he has this kind of quite complicated plan. He decides he's going to invade via Armenia. And Rome is allied with Armenia at this point. And they decide they're going to go via the sort of from the south of Euphrates. Cleopatra kind of accompanies him part of the way. And this is a really long journey for an army. This is such a long journey. Antony's right at the front. He goes and lays siege to a particular town, which is Media. And you can ask me where that is. I'm just looking at your face.

• 39:55Tristan Hughes?

  Media is northern Iran.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  It's northern Iran. So it's kind of Iranian Azerbaijan.

• 39:59Tristan Hughes?

  Yes.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Right. So he is laying siege there. That is, he thinks it's going to be easy. It's not. He just doesn't seem to be able to break through. And meanwhile, he's got coming up the rear, he's got his baggage train. And this is a vast baggage train. It's got all his siege engines. It's slower to move. It's got all the pack animals, you know, it's slow. And he makes this sort of fatal mistake of putting two of his less experienced legions in charge of this baggage train. And the Parthians think, ah, I know what we're going to do. They attack his baggage train. They kill those legions. And there's absolutely no sort of supplies then for Antony. And he's there, besieging, besieging, besieging, but not getting anywhere. He blames the Armenian cavalry for letting him down and not actually getting him out of this difficult situation.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Probably slightly unfair, there's this kind of bad planning on his part. And ultimately, he just has to recede. He has to withdraw. And as he's withdrawing, his men are absolutely exhausted. They are hungry. There are no supplies for him. And he ends up having to go back to Cleopatra with his tail between his legs. They reconvene near modern Beirut. And he's, I mean, he's, he's thought this is going to be the making of him, but actually the Parthian expedition was the breaking of him.

• 41:11Tristan Hughes?

  Breaking, oh, great line, great line. So does Cleopatra welcome him back? Because I feel we're now getting to a time where it's almost, even though he suffered this loss, still quite a high point in their relationship with the, this thing called the donations of Alexandria?

• 41:25Speaker 01

  Yes. So this is a kind of, again, you could see this as a disaster PR wise, or as a very good vision of what, what Antony was envisaging for the future. Possibly both, I think, likely both. So they come together again. The donations for Alexandria is this really bizarre event. He is on a high because he manages in the meantime to score a victory over the Armenians, who he thinks should let him down.

• 41:50Tristan Hughes?

  He blames, okay, right, yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  So he dresses up as Dionysus, as you do, yeah. He has a celebration for that. And then you have the donations in the gymnasium, and so it's great sort of open space. He appears, I'd say probably almost certainly in the disguise of Dionysus again. Cleopatra's definitely in Isis gear. And they love dressing up, these two. They really like their dressing up. They sit down on two gold thrones, and they have their children with them. And they've got three children by now, because they've recommenced their relationships. They've got the twins.

• 42:22Tristan Hughes?

  Yep.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  And they've got another son.

• 42:24Tristan Hughes?

  Okay.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Who is Ptolemy Philadelphus.

• 42:27Tristan Hughes?

  Okay, oh, so a Ptolemy, okay.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Another Ptolemy, yeah. You've got to have another one. And then Caesarion as well. Caesarion, I think, is about thirteen years old at this point. And they're on kind of mini-thrones, which I think is quite cute. And Mark Antony declares that Cleopatra is queen of kings. Caesarion is king of kings. They are official rulers of Egypt. He says that one of the twin sons, the twin son, rather, he has control over Parthia. He says that the girl has Cyrenica. He gives all these kind of territories to them. And this is kind of a symbolic thing because, I mean, it's not, they're not really his to give, if you know what I mean. Like, they're declared to be sort of rulers and have ownership of these places. And he doesn't, and this is just totally mad. I mean, it's pie in the sky. I mean, it really is.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  I mean, Octavian is not going to stand for it for one minute.

• 43:17Tristan Hughes?

  Overstepping the mark and, you know, so and Cyrenica, so that's kind of Libya today, the Benghazi area, isn't it?

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 43:22Tristan Hughes?

  They're kind of spur in the land. So they're kind of showing off their power and seemingly giving territories, calling themselves kings and queens, which must be, yeah, exactly. Also, a Roman calling himself, you know, a king or being associated with royalty, should have learned something from Julius Caesar there, you feel. But he evidently hasn't. How does this result in the complete breakdown of relations with Octavian?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Octavian loses it. I mean, it's a gift to Octavian, really. He now kind of goes up the ante on the kind of propaganda campaign against Antony. He goes and retrieves his will, which is kept in the guard of the Vestal Virgins. And he claims to reveal to the people what it says. And he says that Antony intends to leave his property to his heirs. His true heirs are going to be Cleopatra and the Egyptian family, essentially, not his Roman-born children.

• 44:13Tristan Hughes?

  And Octavia is out of the picture now as well, is she?

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Well, he, it's horrible. I mean, she, she goes over and tries to sort of reconvene with him. She does her best, but ultimately he serves her with divorce papers.

• 44:23Tristan Hughes?

  Wow, okay. It feels like Mark Antony has crossed his own Rubicon, or shall we call crossed his Nile by this point. There's no going back, you know, to then serve divorce papers to Octavia. Octavian's already raging and he's just decided, right, well, let's do this then.

• 44:39Speaker 01

  I think then there's nothing he can really do. He's outlawed by the Senate. He seemed to be a threat. They seem to be very worried in Rome that he might end up sort of ruling Rome from Alexandria. And Octavian declares war on Cleopatra, Cleopatra alone.

• 44:52Tristan Hughes?

  Interesting. Okay, okay. And is that how he frames it in the Senate as well? You know, this barbarian queen, this non-Roman queen who's now a threat to the state of Rome.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Precisely.

• 45:03Tristan Hughes?

  And so, how does it go from there? How do they prepare for this big climactic war, which is the climax to the Antony and Cleopatra story?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  It is. So we're coming up to the Battle of Actium, Tristan. I know it's a favourite of yours.

• 45:15Tristan Hughes?

  Well, almost as good as Alexander, yeah, you're quite right.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  So this is going to be like the final showdown between Octavian and Antony. And I say Octavian, I say Marcus Agrippa is really playing the major role here on the, on the kind of Octavian side. Antony tries to send Cleopatra away. He says, you know, go to safety. She refuses. She wants to stay with him for this. And I think it's not just, you know, love that's binding them at this stage. I feel like emotionally they are invested in this together. They're in it together.

• 45:41Tristan Hughes?

  So how many years have they now been together? It must be a good five, six or seven years by this time.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, more than that. We're coming up for, so Tarsus, I think was 41. Battle of Actium is happening at the beginning of September 31.

• 45:52Tristan Hughes?

  And take out a couple of years when he's gone back to Italy and reconciled with Octavia for a bit.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  But it's 10 years with breaks.

• 45:57Tristan Hughes?

  Okay, right. And, and so Mark Antony by this time, he's gathered a large army from the eastern portion of the empire. Actium, so that's kind of northwest Greece, that kind of, the bay almost in Eperus, Arta today, Ambracia. So a big land army, but also big navies. You'd think with the Ptolemaic support, you know, as mentioned earlier, the Hellenistic superpowers are known for their massive warships, like their sevens, eights, nines, tens. It's like the dreadnoughts of the ancient world. Against the Roman ships, you would think that, I mean, they had the advantage.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  They should have had the advantage. They absolutely should have had the advantage, but they just didn't have the kind of figure that, that Octavian does in Marcus Agrippa. Because he masterminds this. I mean, he manages to sail over with their fleet. He's like going to be using some smaller ships in this. Which ends up being a good idea. He manages to seize some of Antony's supply ships en route, which kind of spooks him. They take over Corfu, so they can kind of use that as a naval base, which is a good move. And then Marcus Agrippa essentially organises a blockade. So you've got to imagine Actium as being kind of like a crescent shaped bay. And you've got Antony's boats and then Cleopatra had her own armada of sixty, a kind

• 47:14Speaker 01

  of reserve armada, which is lined up behind. And then you've got these boats and there's basically like a massive standoff between these two sides. And you kind of gradually you get sort of firing of missiles between ships. They're just kind of waiting for something to happen. And it's ultimately it's one of Antony's side, one of the ships starts to move forward and that provides the opportunity for Marcus Agrippa to really get things going. And what we're really seeing there is kind of like ramming of individual ships. And there's a lot of kind of fire, but it's it's slightly murky in the sources because when you read the sources, you think this is a total damp squib of a of a battle, like.

• 47:49Tristan Hughes?

  Speak for yourself.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  But at the same time, you read that there are 5,000 losses and it's unclear whether that's on Antony Cleopatra's side or that's overall. I mean, but that's quite a lot. I mean, that's considerable, right, for for a relatively small bay. But what happens in the event is that as these two sides are engaging, water opens up between the two and Cleopatra just decides to sort of sail through it and sail off. And I I mean, in my own head, I kind of think this was always going to be the plan. I just don't think Mark Antony would have let her be part of this had it not been for her having like an escape route. So she she takes it. Antony sails after her. He leaves then his ships to be kind of finished off by by Octavian. And at that point, it's it's it's game over for them.

• 48:34Tristan Hughes?

  Which is completely opposite to the Mark Antony of earlier years, you know, who's fighting with his men in the mountains of northern Italy or whatever, and he's always there with them. And then he just runs off. It also screams in a weird kind of way, like the Battle of Salamis or something like that with Queen Artemisia and the like, and almost a trope of the powerful queen then making a break for it out of it. So I don't know how much we can believe of it or not, or.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  I know, it's tricky. It is tricky. Our accounts of Actium are really problematic. And I absolutely think there are shades of Artemisia. She's the sole naval female commander in the Greco Persian wars. And I kind of think that was very much in historians' mind as they were describing that. But Cleopatra isn't a hero in the same way. Artemisia was kind of hailed as being a heroine.

• 49:11Tristan Hughes?

  There you go. Well, you know more than I do on that. And we could nerd out, well, I could nerd out on the military details of Actium, but we certainly, I'll spare you the the pain of that for the moment. We'll move on to the end. So they don't die at the Battle of Actium, but it's a clear crushing victory for Octavian and Agrippa. Mark Antony abandons his army and his navy. They retreat to Egypt, and this is almost, I mean, you know, famous from Shakespeare. This is the last act of the two together.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I I kind of say Shakespeare isn't a terrible source for this because actually he was taking most of the the plot of this part of the the play from Plutarch, who was our main source on this. And it's it's very much wrapped in romance and it's very difficult to know exactly what to believe. But I mean, there's a sense of dejection, particularly on Antony's side. Earlier in the kind of heyday of their romance, they'd been these kind of great cup of love and they'd had this sort of society of inimitables, they called it. They kill that off and become partners in death. This is what we're told.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  So she, I mean, she for her part, Cleopatra, tries to raise a navy. She tries to raise some ships in the kind of Red Sea region, but every which way is blocked by Octavian and the alliances that he has formed. So it's incredibly difficult.

• 50:20Tristan Hughes?

  With the Red Sea as well, that feels just out of the way anyway.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but she she has kind of has this plan. I kind of think she she might have been wanting to to go away. There was some speculation she was wanting to get to India.

• 50:30Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, okay.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Sent Cesarean off there, but she just can't get away. So she knows that she's trapped. So what she do, she traps herself even more. She goes to the mausoleum that she was building. And she seals herself inside with two of her serving women who are Eros and Carmion. And she sends notice to to tell Antony that she's dead. And he hears this and then he resolves to commit suicide. And he can't do it himself, it seems. He asks one of his slaves called Eros to do it for him. Eros kills himself. Antony then tries to stuff himself, but he's not very good at doing it. So he fails on that front. And ultimately, what we're told is that he is bleeding.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Cleopatra hears that he is, you know, in a bad way and asks for him to be brought to her mausoleum, to her tomb. And it's a two-story mausoleum. They've sealed themselves in, so he can't come in through the door. He is wrenched up. Lifted in through the window by these three women and he dies in her arms.

• 51:28Tristan Hughes?

  So they die together in Cleopatra's mauslim, where that is, we don't know today.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Great mystery. Under the sea, I would say.

• 51:36Tristan Hughes?

  Under the sea, Lachyas peninsula way, probably. And then, so Cleopatra is the last one standing?

• 51:40Speaker 01

  She's the last one standing, so we know that she outlives Mark Antony. And she is trying very much to bargain with Octavian. She is determined to save Caesarion. She really was trying to get Egypt really to be inherited by her children. At one point, Octavian says, you know, we'll, we'll look after you, we'll be fine for you if you give up Antony. This is sort of earlier in the situation. At this point, it just becomes a lot of negotiations between the walls. And it becomes so bad on her side, she's basically, she knows what Octavian wants, which is to drag her alive as a prisoner, show her off in his great parade that he's going to celebrate afterwards for his victory in Rome. That's the last thing she wants. So she tries to commit suicide by cutting herself.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  She's stopped by the Romans, she's dragged off to the palace. And she has to make other plans. And I mean, Plutarch tells us that she's been actually investigating poisons and other means of trying to kill herself for some time. And the great famous story is that she gets what she wants. She gets the poisonous snakes, an asp is what we're told in the source, under a pile of figs in a basket, brought to her door, and then it's a bite that kills her. It seems unlikely, doesn't it?

• 52:51Tristan Hughes?

  Yes.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  I mean, some historians have tried to say, oh, it must have been a cobra, it might have been another kind of snake. I think the most convincing thing we get from this is that after she does actually succumb, there are said to be puncture marks on her arm. And I think maybe for people thought, looked at those and thought snake. I mean, most kind of rational people probably would have looked at that and thought needle or like fatal injection of some kind. I think she probably did poison herself. I think she probably had a supply of poison.

• 53:17Tristan Hughes?

  They did face injections back then. Can they do that?

• 53:19Speaker 01

  Well, they could, they could inject with a sharp object.

• 53:21Tristan Hughes?

  Right, okay, yes. And also, if you're handing figs to someone, surely you can smuggle also a knife or something that isn't a poisonous snake beneath the figs, can't you? But it's a knife kind of. I was gonna say romantic, maybe not romantic.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  How romantic.

• 53:33Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, no, maybe not that, but you know what I mean? It's a very memorable end to the story, isn't it?

• 53:38Speaker 01

  It is, it is.

• 53:38Tristan Hughes?

  These kind of Romeo and Juliet-esque, you know, kind of dying so close together. And yet, they are ultimately the losers. I mean, their legacy has endured down to the present day, thanks largely to Shakespeare, should we say?

• 53:49Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. Shakespeare, we have to thank for that. And as I said, I mean, he's using Plutarch, and I think this is a really nice way to sort of look at the story. It's an accessible way of understanding it.

• 53:58Tristan Hughes?

  How would you think Antony and Cleopatra's legacy, whether endured at all in Roman imagination after 30 B.C., when Octavian becomes the top dog, he will ultimately become Emperor Augustus? Do you think actually their story is popular in Roman times? Or it is only later with Shakespeare and now down to the present day that we have it like front and centre when we think ancient history?

• 54:21Speaker 01

  I think people are definitely talking about it, partly because there are efforts then to kind of kill off her dynasty entirely. Caesarion is killed as a threat to Octavian, he's 16 at that point, the eldest son of Antony, ditto. The younger ones are actually raised by darling Octavia, you know, Wonder Woman. When the daughter grows up, she manages to, she gets married to King Juba, the future king of Mauritania. So, you know, there is some future for them, but she, and Cleopatra is the last of the sort of the Thalmud rulers of Egypt. She's the last pharaoh. And I think this is a huge endpoint for the Romans, and they're talking about her a lot. We're told that actually statues of her kept up in some areas.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  So I think people want to remember her and want to talk about her. But from the kind of Roman perspective, it's very much a key victory.

• 55:11Tristan Hughes?

  Daisy, I could ask so many more questions about this, but we have to finish here. What a story to do, Antony and Cleopatra. It just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the show.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  It's my pleasure.

• 55:25Tristan Hughes?

  Well, there you go. There was the one and only Dr Daisy Dunn, returning to the show to talk through the story, the legendary story of Antony and Cleopatra. I hope you enjoyed the episode. An episode which you can now also watch on our new Ancients YouTube channel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. Please follow our show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. That really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. If you'd also be kind enough to leave us a rating as well, we'd really appreciate that. Now, don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hit's podcasts ad-free, and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe. That's all from me. I'll see you in the next episode.