Cleopatra
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Cleopatra
Compare and contrast the ways in which the passage below attempts to discredit Antony with the ways this is done in the speech attributed to Octavian by Cassius Dio.
The passage in the assignment booklet and the speech attributed to Octavian by Cassius Dio in reading 1.1 of Book 1 Chapter 1 both combine a powerful description of how Antony was as a man.
Both Plutarch and Octavian used a different approach to the subject but with a similar ending; in both passages Antony is being presented as a man who has been subjugated by the charms of Cleopatra who was very beautiful with a mighty character. Both Plutarch and Octavian agreed on the fact that Cleopatra was the one responsible for Antony’s decline; In Plutarch’s passage Antony was accused of excesses in his behavior towards Cleopatra “at a banquet with a large company present he had risen from his place and anointed her feet” almost like a helpless slave who could not control his emotions; a blind and manipulated man, a man with a noble character who has been reduced to a mad man.
Octavian on the other hand described Antony as a man who “embraced alien and barbaric customs” The intonation of Octavian’s speech seems harsh, bitter and disappointed; Octavian stresses how Romans were “the rulers of the greatest and best part of the world and yet they find themselves spurned and trampled upon a woman of Egypt” .It was commonly known that in Rome a woman was incapable of rational thoughts or fit to rule an empire or command an army but here they had Cleopatra who was in fact a woman and a ruler.
Both Plutarch and Octavian describe Antony as a lost man who ridiculed himself in front of his people. Plutarch portrays a peculiar and absurd image of Antony “who would read love letters aloud in front of kings and tetrarchs” and he “would walk away and leap to his feet while Furnius was pleading a case from his tribunal to accompany Cleopatra hanging on to her litter” .
Octavian describes him with harsh...
Compare and contrast the ways in which the passage below attempts to discredit Antony with the ways this is done in the speech attributed to Octavian by Cassius Dio.
The passage in the assignment booklet and the speech attributed to Octavian by Cassius Dio in reading 1.1 of Book 1 Chapter 1 both combine a powerful description of how Antony was as a man.
Both Plutarch and Octavian used a different approach to the subject but with a similar ending; in both passages Antony is being presented as a man who has been subjugated by the charms of Cleopatra who was very beautiful with a mighty character. Both Plutarch and Octavian agreed on the fact that Cleopatra was the one responsible for Antony’s decline; In Plutarch’s passage Antony was accused of excesses in his behavior towards Cleopatra “at a banquet with a large company present he had risen from his place and anointed her feet” almost like a helpless slave who could not control his emotions; a blind and manipulated man, a man with a noble character who has been reduced to a mad man.
Octavian on the other hand described Antony as a man who “embraced alien and barbaric customs” The intonation of Octavian’s speech seems harsh, bitter and disappointed; Octavian stresses how Romans were “the rulers of the greatest and best part of the world and yet they find themselves spurned and trampled upon a woman of Egypt” .It was commonly known that in Rome a woman was incapable of rational thoughts or fit to rule an empire or command an army but here they had Cleopatra who was in fact a woman and a ruler.
Both Plutarch and Octavian describe Antony as a lost man who ridiculed himself in front of his people. Plutarch portrays a peculiar and absurd image of Antony “who would read love letters aloud in front of kings and tetrarchs” and he “would walk away and leap to his feet while Furnius was pleading a case from his tribunal to accompany Cleopatra hanging on to her litter” .
Octavian describes him with harsh...