Lives by Plutarch - 17 - Antony
Antony
Quote
"For a man such as Antony, then, there could be nothing worse than the onset of his love for Cleopatra. It awoke a number of feelings that had previously been lying quietly buried within him, stirred them up into a frenzy, and obliterated and destroyed the last vestiges of goodness, the final redeeming features that were still holding out in his nature."
Notes
Antony falls in with a group of friends who are a pretty bad influence on him growing up. He gets into drinking, women, and all kinds of hedonism, which gets him into debt and his father throws him out of the house.
But he joins the army and it helps him clean up his act. He joins up on Caesar's side of the political divide between Caesar (the populists) and Pompey (the aristocrats). Antony proves to be a strong asset though he has a "poor reputation as regards other men's wives."
Caesar defeats Pompey and gains power, and Antony devolves back into his hedonistic lifestyle. It's a bad look for Caesar, but he still sees Antony as a strong asset.
Caesar is assassinated, and the conspirators think of killing Antony, too, but they don't. At first, after the assassination, Antony helps play a role of smoothing things over politically. But then he sees a chance to win power for himself and he starts riling people up against the assassins.
Antony is looking to be Caesar's successor, but there is also Octavian, Caesar's adopted nephew, who is a challenger as well. Antony has lots of soldiers who are loyal to him so he has a big army. He and Octavian make an agreement to divide up the empire and make peace with each other. They also make agreements about who of each of their enemies they're allowed to kill. Antony has Cicero killed at this point.
Antony returns to his old hedonistic ways taking up in Pompey's old house. This pisses a lot of people off since they see it as a disgrace to Pompey's memory. Both Antony and Octavian are taking money and property from the people they've agreed to kill.
Antony goes out to conquer more countries for Rome and basks in the wealth he acquires through that. Then he encounters Cleopatra in Egypt. She is a master manipulator and charmer, having experience seducing both Caesar himself and Pompey's son. Antony is no match for her.
Back in Rome, Antony's wife is stirring up trouble, partly to get Antony away from Cleopatra. But she (Antony's wife) soon dies. Antony marries Octavian's daughter, Octavia, to cement their somewhat fragile alliance. Antony still feels inferior to Octavian, and an Egyptian diviner tells him so, too.
Tensions rise again between the two men. The Romans don't like Antony's relationship with Cleopatra especially when he gifts to her many of their colonies. But Antony remains popular with his men. They endure serious hardship through various battles. At one point on the brink of starvation, they're forced to eat plants that end up driving them mad.
Antony returns from these battles and goes back to Cleopatra, but this time his new wife is coming with. Cleopatra is suspicious that Octavian is using Octavia to spy out reasons Octavian can attack Antony. Octavian does denounce Antony, citing his extravagances, his hedonism and drug use, and his relationship with Cleopatra to do so. War breaks out between them.
Antony is too in love with Cleopatra, he's not focussed on commanding his armies. He even abandons battles to go and be with her. And she's not that attached to him anymore, at least she's not showing any attachment.
The war doesn't go well for Antony and he ends up in exile, "hating the whole human race." Plutarch says he starts following the way of life of Timon from Athens, who hated all of humanity.
Eventually he reunites with Cleopatra and they both go back to their hedonistic lifestyle while Octavian consolidates his victory. Cleopatra looks for a gentle way they can both kill themselves. She experiments with different poisons, using them on prisoners.
They also try to negotiate with Octavian, but he refuses. He demands that Antony either be killed or expelled from Egypt. War breaks out again. Antony is determined to die a glorious death in battle, but all his men defect. Cleopatra pretends to kill herself for protection.
Antony tries to kill himself and fails, though he's badly wounded. Then he finds out that Cleopatra is alive so he goes to her. They reunite briefly and then he dies.
Octavian mourns Antony's death, despite their opposition to each other. Cleopatra tries to kill herself but Octavian's men convince her that she'll be safe. In then end, she eventually does kill herself and asks to be buried with Antony.