Please read this abridged edition of Plutarch's Life of Antony. Pick out a line that seems to you a particularly good example of action, drama, romance, or "game show" in the story of the 2nd Triumvirate.
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Official Blog of History 422, Ancient Rome
Plutarch's account of Antony make him very hard to sympathize with. Most of his troubles seem to be from his own fault, and his reasoning on certain matters is questionable to say the least. There is a good amount of action in this case, but I found there to be a lot of drama surrounding Antony as if he felt like people were abandoning him without reason. There was reason of course, and when Antony's army lost at Actium and others betrayed him- including Cleopatra who sends him a letter saying she had been killed- Plutarch leaves us with this statement from Antony ""This, Eros, is well done," said Antony; "you show your master how to do what you had not the heart to do yourself." He then plunged the sword into his bowels, and threw himself on a couch near by to die."
ReplyDeleteUpon his request to Eros to kill him, Eros instead kills himself, leaving Antony to do the dirty work himself. To me, it feels like Plutarch included the location Antony killed himself on for a good reason. He didn't die in battle or face Caesar in a final stand- he killed himself on a couch, which is appropriate being that Antony was not a great man in terms of skill, but rather someone that should have taken a seat rather then try to compete with such a man like Caesar.
-Zack Krage
To me this article seemed a tad bit bias against Mark Antony which I feel is warranted you can tell at the end "Antony was in his fifty-sixth year when he killed himself. He can scarcely be ranked among the great men of ancient times, for [445] he had neither genius nor moral strength, and he was too much a slave to pleasure to be considered a good man, yet few possessed more devoted friends or warmer partisans. He lost his empire by his own fault, for he deserted those who were fighting for him, and his death is an example of unpardonable weakness." This saying that he wasn't a good leader that he was weak, and enjoyed vices a little to much. this would be a good statement. Trent Dean
ReplyDeleteThe second triumvirate in it's entirety seems like a game show to me. Three very talented, very qualified men all vying for the ultimate prize to be Emperor of Rome. To me it seems similar to shows like The Amazing Race or minute to win it. There were different challenges they had to go through and each man faced hardships in there road to prize. However just like in every game show there can only be one winner and in this Octavius came out on top defeating Antony in the battle of Actium after Lepidus dropped out. And this starts the age of Augustus.
ReplyDeleteDuring reading this you see how foolish Antony was during his life. Multiple times he was given a chance and multiple times he throws it away and makes a wrong choice. It is very like a drama right at the beginning...being raised by one parent and rebelling choosing the wrong crowd to hang with and wasting away all your inheritance, but one line that just made me be like "really" was "But Antony was too fond of drinking and carousing, which gave great offence to the better class of Roman citizens; so when Cæsar came back from Spain, although he was very gentle with Antony and did much towards reforming him, he took Lepidus not Antony, to be consul with him." this once again was given a chance by Caesar and just throws it a way and loses his position when Caesar returns. Again and again Antony has a chance and throws it away just like a drama on TV.
ReplyDeleteAntony, on the other hand, accused Cæsar of certain acts of injustice, and of taking upon himself too much power. Cæsar's answer was that he had put Lepidus out of the government because his conduct had been bad; that he would divide what he had got in war with Antony as soon as Antony gave him a share of Armenia, and that Antony's soldiers had no claims in Italy."
ReplyDeleteThe drama with these two men are interesting you have one that's in Italy that has no clam and the other supositly has done acts of injustice.---Kirk Bender
Antony destroying his empire by his own doing has elements of drama. It would have been tragic to watch Antony fall so far from power either handing part of his empire to Cleopatra or not be diplomatic enough to be able to make peace with Octavian. Either way, Antony quickly loses power and along with it his life.
ReplyDelete-Jackson Pasco
This is probably overused and most obvious but the Antony/Cleopatra relationship is such a romance/drama. I would describe it as a soap opera romance. Cleopatra manipulates Antony, just like she did Julius Caesar, into marrying her just so she can get some more power in the world. Not for love or because it was arranged but simply for power. I have seen this hundreds of times in the soap operas which my mother watches... Now what she tries to do ends up backfiring on her because Antony ends up getting defeated and loses all of his power so Cleopatra's little plod did not really work out for her in the end.
ReplyDeleteMatthew Remmich
This story had elements of everything in it. The part I felt was the most interesting was the dramatic love between Antony and Cleopatra. Cleo manipulated the men in her life to gain power. She convinced Antony to marry her then used their marriage to gain control of more land and get even more power for herself. She did not expect her plans to fail when Antony gets beat and she loses all the power that came with him.
ReplyDeleteKaycee Teppo