Mark Antony Quotes

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him; The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones, So let it be with Caesar ... The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answered it ... Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest, (For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all; all honourable men) Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral ... He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man…. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man. You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause: What cause withholds you then to mourn for him? O judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason…. Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!

Hot from hell. Caesar's spirit raging in revenge. Cry,havoc! And let slip the dogs of war.

The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix.

Are you prepared to be the complete Watson?" he asked. "Watson?" "Do-you-follow-me-Watson; that one. Are you prepared to have quite obvious things explained to you, to ask futile questions, to give me chances of scoring off you, to make brilliant discoveries of your own two or three days after I have made them myself all that kind of thing? Because it all helps." "My dear Tony," said Bill delightedly, "need you ask?" Antony said nothing, and Bill went on happily to himself, "I perceive from the strawberry-mark on your shirt-front that you had strawberries for dessert. Holmes, you astonish me. Tut, tut, you know my methods. Where is the tobacco? The tobacco is in the Persian slipper. Can I leave my practice for a week? I can.

But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world; now lies he there. And none so poor to do him reverence. O masters, if I were disposed to stir Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, Who, you all know, are honourable men: I will not do them wrong; I rather choose To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, Than I will wrong such honourable men. But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar; I found it in his closet, 'tis his will: Let but the commons hear this testament-- Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read-- And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds And dip their napkins in his sacred blood, Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, And, dying, mention it within their wills, Bequeathing it as a rich legacy Unto their issue.

She’d so believed he could—that decades marked by disdain for emotion could have been nothing more than a faint memory in his checkered past. That she could love him enough to prove to him that the world was worth his caring, his trust. That she could turn him into the man of whom she had dreamed for so long. That was perhaps the hardest truth of all—that Ralston, the man she’d pined over for a decade, had never been real. He’d never been the strong and silent Odysseus; he’d never been aloof Darcy; never Antony, powerful and passionate. He had only ever been Ralston, arrogant and flawed and altogether flesh and blood.

In fact Cleopatra was indebted to Fulvia for teaching Antony to obey a wife's authority, for by the time he met her he had already been quite broken in and schooled to accept the way of women.

What was said of an earlier tribune was more true of Antony: “He was a spendthrift of money and chastity—his own and other people’s.” The brilliant cavalry officer had all of Caesar’s charm and none of his self-control. In 44 the conspirators had deemed him too inconsistent to be dangerous. After the Ides Mark Antony was in his glory, entirely the man of the hour—at least until Octavian arrived. Cleopatra

His words hit me. He knew about Mila’s and Gabriel’s love… perhaps he could change things. If he did, Eli and I could be together freely, but until then there was no happy ending. I could feel it. The love that Eli and I have was great, but when has any great love in history ended well? Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, or Tristan and Isolde? Each and every one ended in tragedy, be it death or banishment.

When it grew cold enough to shut the doors, and have fire at night, first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table, then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day, and then father lined us against the wall, all in a row from Laddie down, and he pronounced words—easy ones that divided into syllables nicely, for me, harder for May, and so up until I might sit down. For Laddie, May and Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland's history, the Christian Advocate, and the Agriculturist. My, but he had them so they could spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the proper way to read them. I could do "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "Casablanca," "Gray's Elegy," or "Mark Antony's Speech," but best of all, I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl." When he was tired, if it were not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs. Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and they were pretty, and "very useful too," like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey's Second.

You might think that this at least had the effect of keeping Cicero alive, but that’s the irony. He would soon be killed by Mark Antony anyway. And even if he had survived? His career would have been over anyway because he’d lost all credibility. He died pathetically, losing not only his life but multiple chances to have been a hero.

The emperor Caesar Augustus had a parakeet who greeted him daily, and after his victory over Mark Antony in Egypt in 29 B.C., he purchased a raven whose trainer had taught him to say “Ave, Caesar Victor Imperator.” (The trainer had wisely taught another bird to say “Ave, Victor Imperator Antoni” in case the battle went the other way.)

She did not approach Caesar wrapped in a carpet, she was not a seductress, she did not use her charm to persuade the men in her life to lose their judgement, and she did not die by the bite of an asp…Yet other important elements of her career have been bypassed in the post-antique recension: she was a Skilled naval commander, a published medical authority, and an expert royal administrator who was met with adulation throughout the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps seen by some as a messianic figure, the hope for a future Eastern Mediterranean free of Roman domination.

Did you see Octavia? MESSENGER Yes, revered Queen. CLEOPATRA Where? MESSENGER In Rome, Madam. I saw her face as she walked with her brother and Mark Antony. CLEOPATRA Is she as tall as I am? MESSENGER She is not, madam. CLEOPATRA Did you hear her speak? Is her voice pitched high or low? MESSENGER Madam, I heard her speak. She has a low-pitched voice. CLEOPATRA That’s not so good. He cannot like her long. MESSENGER Like her? Oh, Isis, that’s impossible. CLEOPATRA You’re right. Charmian, she’s both dull-spoken and dwarfishly little.—Did she carry herself with majesty? Compare her to any memory you might have of royalty. MESSENGER She creeps along. Moving or standing still, her bearing is about the same. She has a body, not a life. She’s more like a statue than a living, breathing human being. CLEOPATRA Is this true? MESSENGER If not, then I have no powers of observation. CHARMIAN There aren’t three people in all of Egypt who could do better. CLEOPATRA He’s very observant. I can tell. She doesn’t have anything going for her so far. This messenger is wise. CLEOPATRA (to MESSENGER ) How old do you think she is? MESSENGER She was a widow previously, madam CLEOPATRA A widow? Do you hear that, Charmian? MESSENGER And I think she’s at least thirty. CLEOPATRA Do you remember her face? Was it long or round? MESSENGER Round enough to be unattractive. CLEOPATRA Usually that means a person is foolish. What color is her hair? MESSENGER Brown, madam, and her forehead As low as she would wish it.

J.B. Bury once followed Pascal in suggesting that the cause of the foundation of the Roman Empire was the length of Cleopatra’s nose: had her features not been perfectly proportioned, Mark Antony would not have been entranced; had he not been entranced he would not have allied himself with Egypt against Octavian; had he not made that alliance, the battle of Actium would not have been fought—and so on.

And yet that performance has a method. Trump's artlessness, like Mark Antony's, is only apparent. Listen, for example, as he performs one of his favorite riffs. He begins by saying something critical of Mexicans and Chinese. Then he turns around and says, 'I love the Mexican and Chinese people, especially the rich ones who buy my apartments or stay at my hotels or play on my golf courses.' It's their leaders I criticize, he explains, but then in a millisecond he pulls the sting from the criticism: 'they are smarter and stronger than our leaders; they're beating us.' And then the payoff all this has been leading up to, the making explicit of what has been implied all along. 'If I can sell them condominiums, rent space to them in my building at my price, and outfox them in deals, I could certainly outmaneuver them when it came to trade negotiations and immigration.' (And besides, they love me.) Here is the real message, the message that makes sense of the disparate pieces of what looks like mere disjointed fumbling: I am Donald Trump; nobody owns me. I don't pander to you. I don't pretend to be nice and polite; I am rich and that's what you would like to be; I'm a winner; I beat people at their own game, and if you vote for me I will beat our adversaries; if you want wonky policy details, go with those losers who offer you ten-point plans; if you want to feel good about yourselves and your country, stick with me. So despite the lack of a formal center or an orderly presentation, Trump was always on point because the point was always the same. He couldn't get off message because the one message was all he had.

Many soldiers closed their minds to the suffering of the Belgians as they focused on the priority of killing the enemy. Those who did care were marked for life by the horrors that they witnessed. Villages,

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle: I remember The first time ever Caesar put it on; 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent, That day he overcame the Nervii: Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through: See what a rent the envious Casca made: Through this well-beloved Brutus stabb'd; And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it, As rushing out of doors, to be resolved If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no; For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel: Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him! This was the most unkindest cut of all; For when the noble Caesar saw him stab, Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, Quite vanquishi'd him: then burst his mighty heart; And, in his mantle muffling up his face, Even at the base of Pompey's statua, Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.

1595, Richard Field, fellow-alumnus of the King Edward grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon, printed The lives of the noble Grecians and Romanes, compared together by that grave learned philosopher and historiographer, Plutarke of Chaeronea: translated out of Greeke into French by James Amiot, abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the Kings privie counsell, and great Amner of France, and out of French into English, by Thomas North. This was the book that got Shakespeare thinking seriously about politics: monarchy versus republicanism versus empire; the choices we make and their tragic consequences; the conflict between public duty and private desire. He absorbed classical thought, but was not enslaved to it. Shakespeare was a thinker who always made it new, adapted his source materials, and put his own spin on them. In the case of Plutarch, he feminized the very masculine Roman world. Brutus and Caesar are seen through the prism of their wives, Portia and Calpurnia; Coriolanus through his mother, Volumnia; Mark Antony through his lover, Cleopatra. Roman women were traditionally silent, confined to the domestic sphere. Cleopatra is the very antithesis of such a woman, while Volumnia is given the full force of that supreme Ciceronian skill, a persuasive rhetorical voice.40 Timon of Athens is alone and unhappy precisely because his obsession with money has cut him off from the love of, and for, women (the only females in Timon’s strange play are two prostitutes). Paradoxically, the very masculinity of Plutarch’s version of ancient history stimulated Shakespeare into demonstrating that women are more than the equal of men. Where most thinkers among his contemporaries took the traditional view of female inferiority, he again and again wrote comedies in which the girls are smarter than the boys—Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, Rosalind in As You Like It, Portia in The Merchant of Venice—and tragedies in which women exercise forceful authority for good or ill (Tamora, Cleopatra, Volumnia, and Cymbeline’s Queen in his imagined antiquity, but also Queen Margaret in his rendition of the Wars of the Roses).41

Canopus, lure of the dissolute and the anxious, where Hadrian and Antinous, like Cleopatra and Mark Antony before them, amused themselves in 130, and which made sufficient impact on Hadrian for him to give its name to part of his palatial villa at Tivoli, also lay on a tributary of the Nile west of where the river runs today. From the fourth century onwards a series of natural disasters wiped Canopus off the map. The rise of Christianity had long destroyed the temples and removed the treasures of pagan religion, and the depravity against which both ancient and Christian commentators had inveighed came to a truly biblical end.

The legion was raised by Mark Antony. He filled the ranks with men from Cleopatra’s army. When Antony was defeated by Octavian, the Twenty-Second was integrated into the rest of the army and has been stationed on the Nile since then. They’re a mix of Greeks and Egyptians from the Nile cities.

The memory of Mark Antony and his attempts to create a new eastern Hellenistic empire had not yet died. So sensitive was the situation under Augustus that the emperor prohibited independent visits to the new province by Roman senators and eminent knights.

Octavianus took the name Caesar Augustus, and the title princeps et imperator. However, Augustus was shrewd enough to see that the best way to secure his reign was to present it not as the establishment of something new, namely a Roman empire, but as the restoration of something old: Polybius’s and Cicero’s balanced constitution. Augustus was like the architect who renovates an old apartment building by keeping the original Gilded Age façade but putting in completely brand-new fixtures. The façade included the conveniently dead figure of Cicero, who would be posthumously elevated to the status of a Roman Socrates—the virtuous man made impotent by the viciousness of his enemies, including the hated Mark Antony. It was a reputation Cicero would retain without interruption through Victorian times.

was in this volatile backdrop that Mark Antony left Rome on October 9, 44 BCE, for Brundisium to rally his troops.

Mark Antony and Cleopatra took what was left of their entourage and set sail off the shores of the Greek mainland.

Mark Antony’s small fleet managed to escape to Alexandria,

Realizing that there was nowhere left to run, Mark Antony and Cleopatra chose to take their own lives.

Mark Antony stabbed himself with his weapon before dying in Cleopatra’s embrace.

however, Mark Antony flatly refused, claiming that upon Caesar’s death he had found the state treasury empty.

Octavian raised the army with the full intention of deposing Mark Antony.

Mark Antony was ready and arrived shortly thereafter with his Macedonian troops.

Mark Antony assembled his troops on the side of the road hidden in the brush, and when Octavian’s men passed by, they struck.

Mark Antony’s men were caught completely off guard and decimated in short order.

Here for the first time, Octavian proved himself in battle, and Mark Antony was utterly defeated.

Octavian could have pursued and overtaken the fleeing Mark Antony, he refused to do so.

he still harbored the notion that he could convert Mark Antony into an ally against the senatorial opposition

it didn’t take Mark Antony very long at all to build a new army for himself in Gaul.

It was for this reason that he came into contact with Caesar’s prior associate Mark Antony.

This was a complete fabrication. In reality, the treasurer was empty because Mark Antony had drained it to pay off his huge debts.

Most troubling for Romans who read it was the fact that Mark Antony had requested

Mark Antony was now surrounded, and the knowledge of the trap they were in facilitated massive defections from Antony’s remaining troops.

Mark Antony then mounted the stage to address his soldiers, supplying them with several unsatisfactory explanations

Mark Antony hoped would buy the loyalty of the troops. But the amount he offered was such a paltry

Greatly dissatisfied with Mark Antony, whole legions began to abandon him and pledge allegiance to Octavian.

heir, it was Octavian’s right to demand his inheritance from the acting consul—which was Mark Antony.

In April of 43 BCE, the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian would face off once again.

Aku membayangkan dirimu berbaring di atas sofa seperti sebuah novel yang belum selesai aku baca. Kutemukan sebuah luka yang selama ini engkau tutup-tutupi. Sebuah luka parut di bawah perutmu yang baru kemudian aku ketahui ternyata menyiratkan begitu banyak kebahagiaan. Telah bertahun tahun lamanya aku ingin mengungkap apa yang sebenarnya engkau pikirkan. Tapi engkau bukanlah sebuah cerita yang mudah untuk dimengerti. Aku memasang kamera pengintai jarak jauh hanya untuk memperbesar wujudmu dan mengenali karaktermu. Menelisik detail dari sidik jarimu atau mengintai apakah engkau akan menyingkap rok abu abu yang engkau kenakan itu dengan sepenuh harap. Tapi pada wajahmulah aku menemukan apa yang selama ini aku cari-cari. Bukan pada sepasang bola matamu yang kecoklatan dan seolah mengantuk itu, melainkan pada terakota bibirmu yang merona seperti daun peperomia. Pesona sebentuk kerinduan atas sebuah akhir cerita yang sama sekali tak terduga. Baru aku sadari, bahwa kebahagiaan itu hanyalah sebagian saja dari apa yang aku rasakan, penggalan dari sebagian bab yang sudah aku tamatkan sebelumnya. Aku tak pernah mendapati riwayat yang lebih menggugah dari kisahmu. Cerita yang memaksaku berpikir, hanya untuk melihat betapa beruntungnya diriku bisa merasakan mirakel-mirakel kecil yang engkau ciptakan lewat sentuhan jari tanganmu. Bagaimana kau hadirkan pagi dan kehangatan mentari pada sebuah gelas yang engkau minum, atau temaram rembulan pada kasur yang engkau tiduri. Lewat mimpi kau membagikan cinta untuk semua orang. Dan di setiap lembaran baru yang aku baca aku selalu menemukan keajaiban baru yang tak pernah aku temukan dalam hikayat manapun. Meskipun aku tak habis mengerti, bagaimana engkau bisa menghadirkan kisah yang menakjubkan serupa itu? Seperti tak letih melahirkan makna-makna baru bagi kehidupan. Seperti mengajak orang untuk menjadi bahagia. Dari bibirmulah aku mengerti bagaimana mengucap kata-kata cerdas yang akan mengubah hidup orang lain. Seperti seolah memanipulasi pikiran orang demi untuk menuruti apa yang engkau inginkan. Di atas sofa itu engkau berbaring. Seperti seorang putri raja yang tengah tertidur dalam keabadian, dan menunggu kehadiran seorang pangeran untuk membangunkan dirimu dengan sebuah ciuman di bibir. Seperti seekor putri duyung yang menangis di atas sebuah batu karang menunggu kekasih hatinya yang tak kunjung tiba. Demikianlah engkau menyihir diriku dengan rangkaian peristiwa dalam sebuah prosa liris, tak mengharap kisah tragis serupa Cleopatra - Mark Antony atau Salim - Anarkali. Seperti membaca sebuah dongeng yang tak ada habisnya, sebab setiap paragraf bisa setiap waktu berubah dan kau reka ulang beribu bahkan berjuta kali. Sedang aku hanya bisa menduga-duga bagaimana kisah itu akan berakhir.

No one can talk about meritocracy in the UK until the monarchy has gone. This is the 21st century, for God’s sake. There is no justification for a monarchy. It symbolizes every conceivable force of anti-meritocracy and unequal opportunities: one rule for them and a different rule for everybody else. The only legitimate “monarch” would be one of Plato’s philosopher kings: the non-hereditary smartest person in the country. Imagine how different the UK would be if its head of state were its most intelligent person, from any background, rather than some old German pensioner with no discernible talents whatsoever. Mark Antony said to Octavian, “You, boy, owe everything to your name.” Likewise, the Queen of England owes everything to her name. She has nothing else to commend her.

Very little is known about Mark Antony’s mother.

By Mark Antony’s day the free inhabitants of all of Italy south of the Po had become Roman.

On 14 January 83 BC friends and relatives of Mark Antony’s parents were called to their house.

brilliant discoveries of your own two or three days after I have made them myself all that kind of thing? Because it all helps." "My dear Tony," said Bill delightedly, "need you ask?" Antony said nothing, and Bill went on happily to himself, "I perceive from the strawberry-mark on your shirt-front that you had strawberries for dessert. Holmes, you astonish me. Tut, tut, you know my methods. Where is the tobacco? The tobacco is in the Persian slipper. Can I leave my practice for a week? I can." Antony smiled and went on smoking. After waiting hopefully for a minute or two, Bill said in a firm voice: "Well then, Holmes, I feel bound to ask you if you have deduced anything. Also whom do you suspect?" Antony began to talk. "Do you remember," he said, "one of

and that he and Mark Antony were the only two lovers she ever took.

While Mark Antony paraded as Dionysus, and Sextus Pompey claimed Neptune as his father, Octavian officially called himself Divi filius, at the same time invoking the patronage of Apollo.

Mark Antony took the same line.

and he captured and eventually executed the official incoming governor, Mark Antony’s brother Gaius.

Villicus Vadum: Soldier Of Fortune by Stewart Stafford I am the ghost of lupine Romulus, Founder of Rome, hear my tale, Of Villicus Vadum - young, driven, Steward to Senator Lucius Flavius. Villicus wanted Flavia, the senator’s daughter, But she was betrothed to Marcus Brutus; A consul of noble and virtuous stock, Villicus conspired to take Flavia's hand. Treachery and deception were his tools, Knavish peacock of Rome's epic stage, Sought to take Flavia from Marcus Brutus, To snatch and cage his treasured gem. Bribed a false soothsayer to trap her, Believing her beloved began with V, Flavia agreed to elope with him to Gaul, With Brutus vowing deadly vengeance. Fleeing to the bosom of Rome's enemy - Vercingetorix, at war with Julius Caesar, Villicus offered to spy on the Senate, While plotting to seize Gaul's throne. Queen Verica also caught his eye, Villicus was captured by Mark Antony, Taken to Caesar's camp as a traitor; Brutus challenged him to a duel. Brutus slashed him but spared his life, They dragged Villicus to Rome in chains, To try him for his now infamous crimes; Cicero in defence, Cato as prosecutor. Cicero argued Villicus acted out of love, And that his ambition merited mercy, Cato wanted death for his wicked threat, Julius Caesar pondered a final verdict. Villicus - pardoned but banished from Rome, Immediate death if he returned to Flavia, Villicus kissed the emperor's foot for naught, Flavia refused to join him in fallen exile. Now learn from this outcast's example, friends, That I, Romulus, warn you to avoid at your peril, Villicus Vadum, the wrath of the gods upon him, Until time ceases, sole spectre of night's edge. © Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.

One of the consuls in 41 B.C. was Lucius Antonius, Mark Antony’s brother,

Most of the programme of stripping laboratories and factories was marked by chaos and disaster.

Few crimes were considered more scurrilous than suicide, as in Sonnet 66 (“ Tired with all these, for restful death I cry”), as in: Cassius, Brutus, Portia, Romeo, Juliet, Othello, Ophelia, Lady Macbeth, Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Charmian, Goneril, and Eros. During Shakespeare’s life, suicide was considered an act of murder against God, Nature, and King, a trinity of stigmas so severe that even a nobleman who offed himself would have his assets seized. Only one man in England had a samurai approach to the art of self-destruction, and that was Shakespeare himself, who seemed to admire it under certain circumstances.

The most effective example of separatism is the encirclement of Gaza, trapping more than 2 million Palestinians behind high fences, under constant drone surveillance, infrequent missile attack, and largely closed borders enforced by Israel and Egypt. When Israel completed the sixty-five-kilometer high-tech barrier along the entire border with Gaza in late 2021, at a cost of US$1.11 billion, a ceremony in southern Israel took place to mark the occasion. Haaretz described the wall as “a complex engineering and technological system: the only one of its kind in the world” that required construction assistance from Europe.

CICERO’S CIVIL WAR Against Mark Antony: January–April 43 BC

The Peacock & The Eagle: Cleopatra's Entry Into Tarsus by Stewart Stafford Cleopatra arrives, regal and mighty, From ocean spray as Aphrodite, Wealthy and waif, yearning for her, Dared all to defy her possessive aura. Mark Antony, struck by her sultry gaze, Lepidus, prisoner in a bureaucrat's maze, Sees power slipping from a friend’s hand, Ensnared by a siren from a scorched land. Lepidus was Caesar's trusted right hand; A granule falling through hourglass sand, Antony, headstrong military provocateur; Funeral orator from bloody crown auteur. Bargain's scorpion pincers; no longer twain: Cleopatra was Ceres, promising Rome grain, Antony was Mars' armed emissary, Business and pleasure's flood tributary. Antony: "Barge of emerald, Elysium's onyx! Beyond counsel words of sage sardonic, Gliding the Cydnus's silken seam, This Nile Helen shall be my queen." Lepidus: "Pleasure vessel of a floating whore, Yours for a sesterce on the Tiber's shore, Honour your oath, noble Roman creed, Lest passion’s shipwreck sets out to sea.” "This Venus virago on her mirage barge; Serpent prow, silver oars, rhythmic charge! What hubris to think she can equal, The bloody talons of our Roman eagle!" Antony: "Feast your eyes past peacock's bower, She speaks Rome's tongue of naked power. Mark it, that obsidian Sphinx stings - Human head, lion's body, eagle wings! "That is the form she takes to the public: I smell a perfumed alliance for the Republic! With Plebeians as her tickled cats, they hum, I crave her beauty and company. Come!" © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.

The punishment of shaving a woman's head had biblical origins. In Europe, the practice dated back to the dark ages, with the Visigoths. During the middle ages, this mark of shame, denuding a woman of what was supposed to be her most seductive feature, was commonly a punishment for adultery. Shaving women's heads as a mark of retribution and humiliation was reintroduced in the 20th century. After French troops occupied the Rhineland in 1923, German women who had relations with them later suffered the same fate. And during the second world war, the Nazi state issued orders that German women accused of sleeping with non-Aryans or foreign prisoners employed on farms should also be publicly punished in this way. Also during the Spanish civil war, Falangists had shaved the heads of women from republican families, treating them as if they were prostitutes. Those on the extreme right had convinced themselves that the left believed in free love. (The most famous victim in fiction is Maria, the lover of Robert Jordan in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.)

After the humiliation of a public head-shaving, the tondues - the shorn women - were often paraded through the streets on the back of a lorry, occasionally to the sound of a drum as if it were a tumbril and France was reliving the revolution of 1789. Some were daubed with tar, some stripped half naked, some marked with swastikas in paint or lipstick. In Bayeux, Churchill's private secretary Jock Colville recorded his reactions to one such scene. "I watched an open lorry drive past, to the accompaniment of boos and catcalls from the French populace, with a dozen miserable women in the back, every hair on their heads shaved off. They were in tears, hanging their heads in shame. While disgusted by this cruelty, I reflected that we British had known no invasion or occupation for some 900 years. So we were not the best judges.

I am going to tell a story: Once Upon A Time there was a man and a woman. The man and the woman were dreaming. The man and the woman dreamed each other and when they finished dreaming they had invented each other. So I am going to tell the story of a dream: Once upon a time there was a couple: the ideal couple, the perfect couple, the archetypal couple, who would combine in their two faces the features of all the lovers of history, all those who might have been able to fall in love with each other, all those ever imagined by the poets, and all those unimagined yet. They were (or would be) Abelard and Héloïse, Venus and Tannhäuser, Hamlet and Ophelia, Agathe and Ulrich, Solomon and the Shulamite maiden, the Consul and Yvonne, Daphnis and Chloe, Percy and Mary Shelley, the narrator and Albertine, Jocasta and Oedipus, Hans Castorp and Clavdia Chauchat, Pygmalion and Galatea, Othello and Desdemona, Penelope and Ulysses, Baudelaire and Jeanne Duval, Laura and Petrarch, Humbert Humbert and Lolita, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, Alonso Quijano and Dulcinea, Leda and the Swan, Adam and Eve, Wagner and Cosima, Pelléas and Mélisande, Cleopatra and Mark Antony, Calisto and Melibea, Faust and Gretchen, Orpheus and Eurydice, Romeo and Juliet, Heathcliff and Cathy, Tristan and Isolde, Rilke and Lou Andreas-Salome, Jason and Medea, Miranda and Ferdinand, Kafka and Milena, Electra and Agamemnon, Don Juan and Thisbe, von Aschenbach and Tadzio, Poe and Annabel Lee, Borges and Matilde Urbach. As the curtain rises they are kissing each other passionately in the middle of a steamy, shadowed park, underneath the pines. Is this not perhaps the ideal beginning of any love story? Not to forget that there is also a unicorn, a tree laden with garnet-colored fruit, and a large neon sign hanging above them both that reads: A Mon Suel Desir. If we look carefully we will notice that the park is surrounded by water on all sides—that is, this is an island. The story might well begin at any moment.

The wise are instructed by mathematics, average minds by science, the stupid by bad philosophy, and the brute by religion and mysticism. What was Cicero’s fate? He was executed by order of Mark Antony. Fulvia, Antony’s wife, spat on the great orator’s severed head and then, setting it on her knees, opened the mouth that had spoken so eloquently against her husband and made so many wondrous speeches. With a pin from her hair, she savagely pierced Cicero’s dead tongue. We won’t let the stupid silence us. Reason shall prevail. The Brazen Head still lives.

in 2014,439 which are all serious inquiries into these kinds of activities. Prominent people in Europe said to have engaged in such heinous crimes include Cyril Smith, Antony Blunt, Sir Peter Hayman, Colin Peters, Sinn Fein, and other politicians, judges, and pop stars.440

Although the nucleus might have been recognized by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in the late 17th century, it was not until 1831 that it was reported as a specific structure in orchid epidermal cells by a Scottish botanist, Robert Brown (better known for recognizing ‘Brownian movement’ of pollen grains in water). In 1879, Walther Flemming observed that the nucleus broke down into small fragments at cell division, followed by re-formation of the fragments called chromosomes to make new nuclei in the daughter cells. It was not until 1902 that Walter Sutton and Theodor Boveri independently linked chromosomes directly to mammalian inheritance. Thomas Morgan’s work with fruit flies (Drosophila) at the start of the 20th century showed specific characters positioned along the length of the chromosomes, followed by the realization by Oswald Avery in 1944 that the genetic material was DNA. Some nine years later, James Watson and Francis Crick showed the structure of DNA to be a double helix, for which they shared the Nobel Prize in 1962 with Maurice Wilkins, whose laboratory had provided the evidence that led to the discovery. Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray diffraction images of DNA from the Wilkins lab had been the key to DNA structure, died of cancer aged 37 in 1958, and Nobel Prizes are not awarded posthumously. Watson and Crick published the classic double helix model in 1953. The final piece in the jigsaw of DNA structure was produced by Watson with the realization that the pairing of the nucleotide bases, adenine with thymine and guanine with cytosine, not only provided the rungs holding the twisting ladder of DNA together, but also provided a code for accurate replication and a template for protein assembly. Crick continued to study and elucidate the base pairing required for coding proteins, and this led to the fundamental ‘dogma’ that ‘DNA makes RNA and RNA makes protein’. The discovery of DNA structure marked an enormous advance in biology, probably the most significant since Darwin’s publication of On the Origin of Species .

You [Mark Antony] assumed a man’s toga and at once turned it into a prostitute’s frock. At first you were a common rent boy; you charged a fixed fee, and a steep one at that. Curio soon turned up, though, and took you off the game. You were as firmly wedded to Curio as if he had given you a married woman’s dress. No boy bought for lust was ever as much in his master’s power as you were in Curio’s. How many times did his father throw you out of his house? How many times did he set watchmen to make sure you did not cross his front door? And yet under cover of night, driven by lust and money, you were let in through the roof tiles.

At present, the ottoman was occupied by a pair of cats who eyed Alex with blasé effeteness. He stuck his hands in his pockets and eyed them back. "Romeo and Juliet," she told him. "They used to be lovers, but since that visit to the vet they're just friends." "Are they friendly?" he asked, stretching out a hand at Romeo's funny pushed-in face. "They're cats," she said, grinning as Romeo turned up his nose at the outstretched hand. Juliet wasn't interested, either. They poured themselves off the furniture, then minced away. "I think they've been talking to your friends at the restaurant," Alex said. "They don't talk to anyone." She saw him glance at the terrarium on the windowsill. "The turtles are Tristan and Isolde, and their offspring are Heloise and Abelard." "So where are Cleopatra and Mark Antony?" he asked. "In a tomb in Egypt, I imagine. But you can look in the fish tank and see Bonnie and Clyde, Napoleon and Josephine, and Jane and Guildford." He bent and peered into the lighted tank. "Fun couples. Is it a coincidence that they all ended tragically?" "Not a coincidence, just poor judgment." "Isn't it bad karma, naming your pets after doomed lovers?" "I don't think they care.

The case of Mark Antony affords one of the most extraordinary examples of the power of unlawful love to lead its deluded and infatuated victim into the very jaws of open and recognized destruction that history records.