

through all the multitude, that Venus was come to feast with Bacchus for the common good of Asia. The market place was quite emptied, and Antony at last was left alone sitting upon the tribunal while the word went. perfumes diffused themselves from the vessel to the shore, which was covered with multitudes, part following the galley up the river on either bank, part running out of the city to see the sight. Her maids were dressed like Sea Nymphs and Graces, some steering at the rudder, some working at the ropes. She herself lay all along, under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a picture, and beautiful young boys, like painted Cupids, stood on each side to fan her. she came sailing up the river Cydnus in a barge with gilded stern and outspread sails of purple, while oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps. She made great preparations for her journey, of money, gifts, and ornaments of value, such as so wealthy a kingdom might afford, but she brought with her her surest hopes in her own magic arts and charms.
#Real julius caesar and cleopatra full#
Their acquaintance was with her when a girl, young, and ignorant of the world, but she was to meet Antony in the time of life when women's beauty is most splendid, and their intellects are in full maturity. "She had faith in her own attractions, which, having formerly recommended her to Caesar and the young Pompey, she did not doubt might prove yet more successful with Antony.

We join his story as Cleopatra receives Antony's summons to join him: Plutarch was a Greek historian who wrote a history of the life of Antony in the first century AD. ".carried away by her to Alexandria, there to keep holiday, like a boy, in play and diversion, squandering and fooling away in enjoyment that most costly of all valuables, time." Antony enjoyed women and once he saw her, he fell under her spell. As she made the final leg of her journey up the river Cydnus she traveled in a magnificent barge filled with flowers and scented with exotic perfumes while she reclined on deck surrounded by her servants and trappings of gold.

Eventually surrendering to the inevitable, Cleopatra sailed from Egypt to the city of Tarsus. Her initial response to Antony's summons was to delay her journey - possibly to send the message to the Roman leader that as a queen in her own right, she was not at his beck and call. Their relationship produced a son and was ended only by Caesar's assassination. Her first conquest was Julius Caesar in 48 BC. In 41 BC he summoned Cleopatra to meet him in the city of Tarsus in modern-day Turkey.Ĭleopatra was a seductive woman and she used her talents to maintain and expand her power. But Antony needed money to put his plan into action and he looked to Cleopatra - ruler of Egypt and the richest woman in the world - to supply it. The Parthian Empire located in modern-day Iraq posed a threat to Antony's eastern territory and he planned a military campaign to subdue them. By 41 BC Antony and Octavian (who would later change his name to Augustus) shared the leadership of Rome and had divided the state into two regions - the western portion including Spain and Gaul ruled by Octavian, the eastern region including Greece and the Middle East ruled by Antony. Rome descended into anarchy and civil war. The seed that spawned their relationship was sown with the murder of Julius Caesar in March 44 BC (see The Assassination of Julius Caesar). When Roman troops engulfed the Egyptian city of Alexandria and threatened their However, their relationshipĮnded in mutual suicide in 30 BC, eleven years after it started, Making the world we live in today a different place. If Antony had succeeded in wining sole control of Rome withĬleopatra as his queen, he could have changed the course of the Roman Empire, The romance between Antony and Cleopatra might haveĬhanged the world.
