Cleopatra the Great (56 page)

244 ‘the Parasite'. Fraser 1957, pp.71-3; Walker and Higgs (eds) 2001, p.232.

244 ‘members entertained one another daily in turn, with an extravagance of expenditure beyond measure or belief. Plutarch,
Antony
, Dryden trans., p.757.

245 ‘admired the prodigious variety of all things; but particularly, seeing eight wild boars roasting whole, says he, “surely you have a great number of guests”. The cook laughed at his simplicity, and told him that there were not above 12 to sup, but that every dish was to be served up just roasted to a turn, and if anything was but one minute ill-timed, it was spoil(ed.) “And” he said “maybe Antony will sup just now, maybe not this hour, maybe he will call for wine, or begin to talk, and will put it off. So that” he continued “it is not one but many suppers must be had in readiness, as it is impossible to guess at his hour”. Plutarch,
Antony
, Dryden trans., p.757.

245 ‘so good that Maroitic wine is racked off with a view to ageing it'. Strabo,
Geography
17.1.14, in Empereur 1997, p.217; Oases' wines in Poo 1995, p.20, 99; Ptolemaia festival in Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
V.198, trans., pp.400-1.

246 ‘house rang with the din of drunkards, the pavements swam with wine, the walls dripped with it'. Cicero, Second Philippic, Graves trans., p.147.

246 ‘you are a drink-sodden, sex-ridden wreck!'. Cicero, Second Philippic, Graves trans., p.105.

246 ‘soaked in wine'. Cicero, Thirteenth Philippic, 31, in Heskel 2001, p.137.

246 ‘a great man of notable ability . . . turned to alien ways and unroman vices by his love of drink and his equal passion for Cleopatra'. Seneca in Lindsay 1970 p.478.

246 ‘the Egyptian woman demanded the Roman Empire from the drunken general as the price of her favours'. Lucius Annaeus Floras in Lovric, p.72.

246 ‘swimming in Mareotic wine'. Horace 1.37.14 in Maehler 2003, p.210. 246 ‘a tongue submerged by incessant wine'. Propertius III.ll, trans., Shepherd 1985 in Maehler 2003, p.210.

246 ‘take to yourself the wine from Khargeh, from Farafra, the wine from Khargeh and Bahariya, and may your mouth be opened by it'. Poo 1995, pp.20, 99.

246 ‘drunkenness upon drunkenness without end'. Poo 1995, p.143.

247 ‘braided, beauteous, tressed, high bosomed, richly adorned, all drank with wine'. Cairo JE.29310, based on Lichtheim 1980, p.56.

247 ‘How happy is the temple of Amun, even she that spends her days in festivity with the king of the gods within her . . . she is like a drunken woman, who sits outside the chamber with braided hair and beauteous breasts'. Fletcher 1995, p.56 (based on Davies and Gardiner).

247 ‘perhaps a famous drinker whose statue could be properly placed within a precinct of the god of wine'. Ridgway 1990, p.337.

247 ‘nothing less than a symbol of Greek cultural identity'. Davidson 1997, p.40.

247 ‘no man who is a wine-lover can be of low character'. Alexis, in Davidson 1997, p.52.

248 ‘entirely of gold . . .jewelled vessels made with exqusite art'. Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
IV.147, Gulick trans., pp.174-5; amethysts in Pliny Natural History XXXVII.124, Loeb trans., p.265 and Parker 2002, p.47.

248 ‘the latest vaudeville numbers, the slinkiest hits from the Nile!'. Ovid,
Art of Love
III.316-318, in Montserrat 1996, p.117.

248 ‘Apollo is here for the dance, I hear his lyre playing and I sense the Cupids, and Aphrodite herself . . . He who madly joins the all-night dancing, staying awake til dawn comes, will receive the prize of honey cakes for playing the kottabos game, and he may kiss whom he will of all the girls and whomever he wants of the boys'. Montserrat 1996, p.179; Thompson 1964, p.163.

248 ‘she would go rambling with him to disturb and torment people at their doors and windows, dressed like a servant-woman, for Antony also went in servant's disguise, and from these expeditions he often came home very scurvily answered, and sometimes even beaten severely, though most people guessed who he was. However, the Alexandrians in general liked it all well enough, and joined good-humouredly and kindly in his frolic and play, saying they were much obliged to Antony for acting his tragic parts at Rome and keeping his comedy for them'. Plutarch,
Antony
, Dryden trans., p.758.

248 ‘the fourth krater is mine no longer, but belongs to hubris; the fifth to shouting, the sixth to revel, the seventh to black eyes, the eighth to summonses, the ninth to bile and the tenth to madness and people tossing furniture about'. Eubulus, in Davidson 1997, p.44; ‘sea sickness' in Davidson 1997, p.44.

249 ‘into the bowl in which their wine was mixed she slipped a drug that had the power of robbing grief and anger of their sting and banishing all painful memories. No one that swallowed this dissolved in wine could shed a single tear that day . . . This powerful anodyne was one of many useful drugs which had been given to the daughter of Zeus [Helen] by an Egyptian lady, Polydamna, the wife of Thon. For the fertile soil of Egypt is most rich in herbs, many of which are wholesome in solution, though many are poisonous. And in medical knowledge the Egyptian leaves the rest of the world behind'. Homer,
Odyssey
IV, Rieu trans., p.58.

249 ‘used to produce beer, and shepen occurs in medical texts'. Manniche 1989, p.131.

249 ‘to produce a narcotic-laced wine'. Nunn 1996, p.157.

249 ‘should drink their chaplets'. Pliny
Natural History
XXI. 12, in Loeb trans., p.169.

249 ‘I shall not prepare love charms against you, whether in your beverages or in your food'. PSI.1.64 in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.323.

250 ‘that remarkable and truly unique work of nature. Antony was full of curiosity to see what in the world she was going to do'. Pliny
Natural History
IX.59.119-121, Loeb trans., p.245.

250 ‘knowing that it could be recovered later on'. Rackham in Pliny IX, trans., p.244, note b.

250 Revised chemical formula based on CaCO3 + CH3COOH > Ca + H2O + C02 given at website http://penelope.uchicago.edu/grout/encyclopaediaromana/miscellanea/cleopatra.html; for pearls dissolving in acidic conditions see Allason-Jones 1990, p.128.

250 ‘at a great banquet in front of many guests, he had risen up and rubbed her feet, to fulfil some wager or promise'. Plutarch,
Antony
, Dryden trans., p.769.

250 ‘what you are doing now to me, rubbing my feet with your lovely soft hands, it is quite magnificent'. Antiphanes in Davidson 1997, p.162.

251 ‘the Inimitable Lover'. Fraser 1957, p.73.

251 ‘the erotic charge unleashed even then by lingerie, which helped women look their best for their lovers'. Varone, in Stafford 2005, p.106; Aphrodite removing breast band popular motif, e.g. Staatliche Anti-kensammlungen und Glyptothek Miinchen 8516 in Stafford 2005, fig.9.6, p.107.

251 ‘all my power resides'. Homer,
Iliad
14.214-217, trans., Graves pp.262-3; necklace ‘worn across the chest bandolier-style' in d'Ambrosio 2001, p.55; harness in Laing 1997, p.80.

251 ‘in their homes lustful embraces of their gods. People who reckon sexual excess to be piety . . . ornament their bedrooms with small painted pictures, hanging up rather high, like offerings in a temple. While lying in bed in the midst of their sensual pleasure they can feast their eyes on a naked Aphrodite locked in sexual union with Ares'. Clement
Protrepticus
IV.57-61.4, in Montserrat 1996, p.213.

251 ‘delicate, well-woven, glistening, beautifully coloured, covered with many flowers, covered with ornaments, purple, dark green, scarlet, violet, rich with scarlet blooms, purple bordered, shot with gold, embroidered with figures of animals, gleaming with stars'. Pollux of Naukratis, in Grant 1976, p.186.

252 ‘Concerning seductions: accordingly, the seducer should be unadorned and uncombed, so he does not seem to the woman to be too concerned about the matter in hand'. Philaenis, Montserrat 1996, p.113.

252 ‘saying that the plain woman is a goddess, the ugly woman charming, the elderly one like a young girl'. Philaenis in Montserrat 1996, p.114.

252 ‘to know herself, and to enter upon love's battle in the pose best suited to her charms. If a woman has a lovely face, let her lie upon her back; if she prides herself upon her hips let her display them to the best advantage. . . . If you are short, let your lover be the steed. . . . Love has a thousand postures. . . . So, then, my dear ones, feel the pleasure in the very marrow of your bones; share it fairly with your lover, say pleasant, naughty things the while. And if Nature has withheld from you the sensation of pleasure, then teach your lips to lie and say you feel it all. But if you have to pretend, don't betray yourself by over-acting. Let your movements and your eyes combine to deceive us, and, gasping, panting, complete the illusion'. Ovid,
Art of Love
III.775-778, Lewis May trans., p. 100.

253 ‘this mysterious fire, all fire, all nape-of-neck, all sigh, all pliant, all you forge in this stove of fire, breathe it also into the heart and liver, into the women's loins and belly; lead her into the house of the man, let her give to his hand what is in her hand, to his mouth what is in her mouth, to his body what is in her body, to his wand what is in her womb. Quckly, quickly, at once, at once!'. Romer and Romer 1995, p.71.

253 ‘squandering and fooling away in enjoyments that most costly of all valuables, time'. Plutarch,
Antony
, in Dryden trans., p.757.

254 ‘it came to pass under the majesty, the sovereign, Lady of the Two Lands, Cleopatra and her son Caesarion, in regnal year 11, 15th Epep, the day on which I landed forever. I was placed in the West and all the rites for my august mummy were carried out for me'. Harris Stela BM.EA.886 in Reymond 1981 pp.136-50; Walker and Higgs (eds.,) p.185 and Dunand and Zivie-Coche 2004, p.200.

254 Fulvia told ‘as long as Italy remained at peace Antony would stay with Cleopatra, but that if war should break out there he would come back speedily', Appian
Roman History
V.19, White trans., p.409.

255 ‘Lucius Antonius, you're dead, baldy. Victory of Gaius Caesar [Octavian]'. Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.239; threats against Fulvia in Wyke 2002, p.220.

255 ‘you must die'. Suetonius,
Augustus
15, in Graves trans., p.57.

257 ‘live twin births will have been fewer and survival through infancy of one or both lower still'. Baines 1985, p.479.

257 ‘not fed'. Baines 1985, p.479.

257 ‘he came from the womb with me the same day'. BM EA.826. in Lichtheim 1976, p.88.

257 ‘twin of the living Apis'. Baines 1985, p.472.

257 ‘two deities whose exact identity is not certain'. Abdalla 1991, p.189, referring to Dendera dyad Cairo JE.46278.

258 ‘the Virgin changed the fate of her Twins in the constellation of the Ram . . . sacred ram of Amun'. Tarn 1932, pp.144-5.

258 ‘Per-at. . . female pharaoh . . . Sun: Taurus 4: Jupiter in Cancer. Moon: Capricorn 20 and a half Ashmolean Museum, in Neugebauer and Parker 1968, pp.231-4; Antonius' astrologer in Plutarch
Antony
33, Dryden trans., p.759.

258 ‘he had frequently at the public audience of kings and princes received amorous messages written in tablets made of onyx and crystal, and read them openly'. Plutarch,
Antony
, Dryden trans., p.769.

259 ‘you must know that I did not see the sun because you are out of my sight; for I have no other sun but you'. Pap.Oxy.XLII.3059. in Montserrat 1996, p.89.

259 ‘pain grips me whenever I remember how he used to kiss me, all the while treacherously intending to desert me . . . beloved stars and Mistress Night, my partner in passion, now escort me once again to him toward who Aphrodite drives me, I who am betrayed. ... Be warned — I have an unconquerable will when I am enraged, when I remember I will sleep alone'. Pap.Grenf.1.1 in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, pp.107-8.

259 ‘who arose in the beginning as Magician'. Witt 1971, p.311, note 7.

259 ‘I call upon thee Lady Isis, with thy many names and many forms'. Witt 1971, p.193.

259 ‘men to women and women to men and makes virgins rush out of their homes'. PGM.XXXVI.69-71 in Montserrat 1996, p.187.

259 ‘are you a burning woman, an abominable fire, a scorching woman? You should bathe yourself in blood, you should wash yourself with urine, one should set a suit of nettles on your body. Go! No one will find enough water in the sea, you sow, for washing off your face. Your day of death is at hand'. O. Wien D.70 in Rowlandson (ed.) 1998, p.36.

260 Joint coins of Antonius and Octavia in Southern 1999, fig.20; Walker and Higgs (eds) 2001, nos. 249-50, p.238, no. 259, p.240.

261 ‘I could not bear the way she nagged me'. Suetonius,
Augustus
62, Graves trans., p.84.

261 ‘indecent haste'. Suetonius,
Augustus
69, Graves trans., p.88.

Chapter 10

264 ‘Brother of the Sun and Moon'. Tarn 1932 p.159.

264 ‘who married the Roman general, Antony'. Athenaeus,
Deipnosophists
IV, 147, Gulick trans., pp.174-5; Antonius' as consort in demotic Pap.Ash.D.39 in Reymond and Barns 1977, p.23.

264 ‘she is my wife'. Suetonius
Augustus
69, Graves trans., p.89; Earl 1968 p.51; Southern 1998, p.131.

265 ‘commits the bride's chastity to their husbands'. Verrius Flaccus in Sebesta 1997, p.535; la Folette 2001, pp.56-60; compare with ‘your red-headed wife, the one with the
seven
tressed hair'. Martial, 12.32.2-4, in la Folette 2001, p.57.

265 ‘flame colour', la Follette 2001, p.55, Sebesta 2001, pp.55-6.

265 ‘exchange vows with the goddess as our witness'. Achilles Tatius V.14, in Montserrat 1996, p.91; mosaic scenes from Antioch house in Witt 1971, p.161, pl.34.

266 ‘thus, beloved, I seize you'. La Folette 2001, p.57; ring with Antonius' portrait BM.GR.1867.5-7.724 in Walker and Higgs (eds.,) 2001, p.244.