Antony and Cleopatra

Abstract
This article examines the longstanding rivalry of Rome and Parthia, which began as an unintended consequence of Crassus’ decisive defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE. It synthesizes the accounts and opinions of numerous Graeco-Roman writers from the Augustan Age to late antiquity in order to help illustrate the new and interconnected post-Carrhae world and its legacy. The rivalry of the Romans and Parthians became a primary focus of their foreign policies and drastically expanded their perceptions of the world in which they interacted. Even after the fall of the Parthians to the rebellious Sassanid Persians in the 220s CE, the Romans continued to find their three-century-long rivalry with the Parthians of interest and relevant to the changing world of late antiquity.

Inside:

--Tomb Robbery and Coffin Reuse
Was a coffin really meant for eternity? Was all tomb robbery a lawless abhorrence? We look at Kara Cooney’s study into “legal” coffin reuse. (Spoiler alert: there’s a lot of it!)

--Kleopatra Selene
The melodrama of Cleopatra VII’s political and not-so-private life has been well explored. What is less well known is that Cleopatra and Mark Antony had three children, including a daughter, Kleopatra Selene.

--The Unlucky Mummy
So, you think you know the story of the Unlucky Mummy? Think again. We explore the myths and the surprising truth about THAT mummy board.

--Spirit Birds
Not only could Egypt’s birds represent a specific deity, but also a number of concepts that were crucial to the Egyptians enjoying a successful afterlife.

--The Royal Tombs
In this final abridged instalment of Aidan Dodson’s The Royal Tombs of Ancient Egypt, the New Kingdom pharaohs embrace Senwosret III’s innovation, separate their tombs and temples, and head underground.

--What's New?
Alexandria’s “Big Black Sarcophagus” surprises with some impressed gold sheets, and the world’s oldest cheese yet discovered turns out to be the real evil.

--Plus, The Nile Crossword (NEW!), Looking Back and lots more. Enjoy your Nile time!

Edinburgh Critical Studies in Shakespeare and Philosophy takes seriously the speculative and world-making properties of Shakespeare's art. Maintaining a broad view of 'philosophy' that accommodates fi rst-order questions of metaphysics, ethics, politics and aesthetics, the series also expands our understanding of philosophy to include the unique kinds of theoretical work carried out by performance and poetry itself. These scholarly monographs will reinvigorate Shakespeare studies by opening new interdisciplinary conversations among scholars, artists and students.

RE: Facades, illusions & ideological concepts created & promoted by ancient royalty out of necessity; effective creation of an alternate version of reality. It is only by knowing this information that the true nature of ancient texts may be understood correctly. Not knowing, means making incorrect assumptions & conclusions. Important!

Nessuna donna del mondo antico ha esercitato, sui contemporanei come sui posteri, una seduzione tanto potente quanto Cleopatra VII.
A più di duemila anni dalla sua morte, la personalità della regina non ha perduto affatto la sua capacità di attrazione; anzi, ancora meglio dei Faraoni di maggior rilievo storico, incarna simbolicamente il grande e per molti versi ancora misterioso fascino dell’antico Egitto .
L'obbiettivo del mio lavorò sarà quindi quello di ripercorrere, a grandi linee e attraverso alcune tappe fondamentali che segnarono il suo ventennale regno, gli interventi apportati da Cleopatra all'interno dell'economia dell'Egitto. Ma soprattutto il mio scopo sarà quello di analizzare il ruolo svolto dalle sue emissioni monetali a scopo di propaganda, che tanto hanno influenzato la monetazione successiva alla sua morte.

This article explores the multiple genealogies of C. P. Cavafy’s
“Caesarion” (1918), a poem often claimed as a key to our understanding
of his historical poetics, by tracing its European cultural
and literary context. Despite his perception as an obsolete and
marginal historical figure, Caesarion was highly recognizable in
the poet’s time and was often portrayed in various contexts, from
scholarly studies to various forms of popular culture. The article
examines the unexpected ways in which Cavafy absorbed and
transformed elements from his main historical source, J. P. Mahaffy’s
"The Empire of the Ptolemies" (1895), and surveys the unknown
series of Caesarion’s literary depictions by several European
authors before the composition of Cavafy’s poem. As this discussion
demonstrates, Caesarion’s composite portrait is marked with insinuations of effeminacy, which may result from Caesarion's enfoldment in the legend of Cleopatra and explain this ancient historical figure’s transformation into an object of homoerotic desire in Cavafy’s
poetry. The article concludes with speculations connecting Cavafy’s
poem to the historical Caesarion’s treatment in early 20th-century
cinematic renderings of the story of Antony and Cleopatra.

Establishment of Augustus authority in partnership with Agrippa, when Rome was evolving from a “republic” into an empire, led to a political propaganda. The four series of the “As de Nîmes”, bronze coins struck under Augustus and Agrippa, commemorate the capture of Egypt and the establishment of veterans in Nemausus (Nîmes, France).
The iconography of this Roman coin is related to the specific history between 28 BC and 14 AD of Octavian and his general Agrippa, who defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, as expressed on the reverse, where a crocodile chained to a palm is depicted. Both palm and crocodile symbolize not only the capture of Egypt, but also the defeat of Mark Antony. The palm represents also the “victory” in a grotesque scene in which his love for Cleopatra converted Antony into a loser. It is then concluded that these coins preserve the memory of Octavian’s victory over the iconic figure of Antony.

For many reasons, Shakespearean texts have been used as test cases in continuing philosophical debates over the nature of the humanistic enterprise. This graduate seminar examines the dynamics of early modern criticism, concentrating on particular Shakespeare plays in relation to important theoretical developments, including the bourgeoning field of critical race studies propelled by a renewed awareness of the importance of religion in the period and in our post-9/11 world.

        A second focus of the course is major philosophers' engagement with Shakespeare, including Hegel, Karl Marx, Freud, Lacan, and Derrida. In addition to theoretical texts, we will work with a group of core play texts.

There will be ample opportunity to relate the course to any of your prior or developing interests or to work in original languages if you like. While an emphasis is placed on theoretical implications of various modes of confrontation with "Shakespeare," seminar members are encouraged to contribute to the reading list.

"Peu d’épisodes de l’histoire gréco-romaine ont suscité autant de passions que celui de l’affirmation, au cours des années 30 av. n. è., du tandem formé par la reine Cléopâtre VII et le triumvir romain Antoine. Depuis la communication augustéenne jusqu’aux représentations cinématographiques, une image stéréotypée de leurs relations s’est imposée : la brillante lagide aurait su séduire antoine et satisfaire par ce biais ses ambitions politiques. L’alliance des deux dirigeants apparaît à présent sous un jour plus
complexe ; la numismatique offre à ce titre une illustration précise de cette association à travers l’existence de plusieurs séries monétaires, de bronze et surtout d’argent, représentant les deux personnages. Cette étude vise particulièrement à réexaminer les émissions de tétradrachmes et de deniers au double portrait de Cléopâtre et d’Antoine."

Note: reviews of STFORR have been uploaded here as multiple separate files.

Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic introduces Shakespeare as a historian of ancient Rome alongside figures such as Sallust, Cicero, St Augustine, Machiavelli, Gibbon, Hegel and Nietzsche. In Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare shows Rome’s transition from Republic to Empire. Why did Rome degenerate into an autocracy? Alternating between ruthless competition, Stoicism, Epicureanism and self-indulgent fantasies, Rome as Shakespeare sees it is inevitably bound for civil war. Shakespeare and the Fall of the Roman Republic considers Shakespeare’s place in the history of concepts of selfhood and reflects on his sympathy for Christianity, in light of his reception of medieval biblical drama, as well as his allusions to the New Testament. Shakespeare’s critique of Romanitas anticipates concerns about secularisation, individualism and liberalism shared by philosophers such as Hannah Arendt, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel and Patrick Deneen.

Reviews to date: Paul Hammond, The Seventeenth Century (34.4): 547-48; Paul Innes, The Classical Review (69.2): 636-68; Jeffrey S. Doty, The Review of English Studies (70.296): 768-70; T. P. Wiseman, Times Literary Supplement (9 August 2019; cf. Letters, 20 and 27 September 2019); Andrew Hadfield, Renaissance Quarterly (73.1): 378-80; Sean Keilen, Cahiers Élisabéthains (101.1): 136-39; Andrea Campana, The Heythrop Journal (61.3): 546; Paul A. Cantor, Skenè: Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies (6.1): 255-64; cf. Patrick Gray, ‘A Reply to Paul A. Cantor’, Skenè: Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies (6.2): 5-21; Lucy Munro, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 (60.2): 400-01; Cyrielle Landrea, Anabases: Traditions et réceptions de l’Antiquité (32): 270-72; Domenico Lovascio, Early Modern Literary Studies (21.2): open access (6 pp.); Andelko Mihanovic, thersites 13 (2021): 213-21 (open access) for the special issue “Antiquipop: chefs d’œuvres revisités,” edited by F. Bièvre-Perrin; Nathanael Lambert, Parergon (39.1): 244-46; Erin Casey-Williams, Shakespeare Quarterly (volume, issue, and page numbers tbd).

This chapter focuses on the response among women writers in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain to one of the original bad girls of English literature – Cleopatra in William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Unlike other Shakespeare heroines, who are often young and tomboyish, the Bard’s Queen of Egypt is an experienced politician and a mature, voluptuous woman of ‘infinite variety’. In the broader classical and medieval literary tradition – which includes portrayals of Cleopatra ranging from the ‘fatale monstrum’ (fatal monster) of Horace’s Odes to the tragic lover in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Legend of Good Women – Egypt’s final pharaoh attracted both praise and censure. For almost all writers she was beautiful – but for some of these authors she was constant and wise, while for others she was lascivious and ambitious. Shakespeare’s play incorporates these ‘good woman’ and ‘bad woman’ characteristics into one person, endowing the work with an intriguing complexity. In this chapter, I demonstrate that female writers after Shakespeare were both fascinated and troubled by the playwright’s seemingly evil yet exceptional heroine, and detail their difficult relationships with her ‘bad woman’ characteristics. Some authors condemn Cleopatra – Sarah Fielding’s The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia highlights her dishonesty. Others refuse to present Cleopatra as evil – Margaret Cavendish frames her as a political figure rather than a sexualised woman in The Worlds Olio. Still others were fascinated with Cleopatra as a femme fatale, and wrote fiction influenced by Shakespeare’s characterisation. For example, in The Royal Mischief, Delarivier Manley frames her ‘bad woman’ heroine Homais sympathetically by focusing on her suffering and rebellion in the face of male oppression. The varied responses of these writers to Antony and Cleopatra, demonstrated through their portrayals of powerful female characters, illustrate their different approaches to negotiating traditional gender norms in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British society.

This essay juxtaposes two models of theater in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and elucidates the temporality and politics specific to each. The essay builds on recent work on empire and sovereignty in the later plays while engaging the topics of time, temporality, and religion that have become central to Shakespeare scholarship over the past decade. The first part of the essay argues that Antony and Cleopatra tracks
the emergence of Caesar Augustus' imperium from the practice of triumphal procession that imperium both extends and displaces. The play interprets this development in terms of Caesar's ambition to "possess" time as well as space—an
ambition which determines, and would be fulfilled within, the theater Caesar envisions but is denied. Shakespeare's reconstruction of Caesar's theater of empire leads, in turn, to his imagining an alternative theatrical model. The second part of the essay turns to this model as embodied in Cleopatra's suicide, which she performs as the dramatization of her earlier appearance at Cydnus, "[w]hen she first met Mark Antony"
(2.2.196). The theater of Cleopatra orients itself in relation to the biblical apocalypse and the theological conceptualizations of memory, time, and action enabled by it. Its dramaturgy unfolds as a theatrical analogue to Walter Benjamin's meditations on history, which draw similarly upon the prophetic messianism of the Hebrew Scriptures. The unlikely constellation formed by these two figures helps us to recognize Cleopatra's performance as the culmination of Antony and Cleopatra's dalliance with the language and imagery of the Book of Revelation.

There are no reliable figures on contemporary Shakespeare reception around the world. However, we can provide such figures by analysing which of the 303 global Wikipedias (in about as many languages) have Shakespeare entries and how often these entries have been viewed. These statistics enable us to concretely identify which works are the most viewed in different contexts around the world. We will see, for instance, which cultures are more interested in Shakespeare’s tragedies, comedies, histories, and poetry. We will find out which single plays are preferred in different cultures, and which plays, instead, are practically ignored abroad. In short, we can distinguish different levels of popularity of his works in different settings. Thus, we will discover that for a plurality of Wikipedias, almost fifty, Romeo and Juliet is number one in pageviews, while in many, but fewer others, it is Hamlet. In seven Wikipedias, on the other hand, Macbeth is number one, while Julius Caesar is first in still several others. Othello, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, and Antony and Cleopatra are the only other rare leaders in specific Wikipedias. In short, this article will present the basic popular global reception information about all of Shakespeare’s works, filling a lacuna in critical research; this will allow researchers to pursue more detailed levels of investigation of Shakespeare’s canonicity in different contexts across the globe.

Hasta aquí se ha hablado de festejos y solemnidades varias realmente acaecidos. Y, aunque Marco Antonio y Cleopatra, nuestros protagonistas, también tuvieron una existencia real y fueron famosos por los fastos de su vida en común, aquí van a ser solo protagonistas de papel de unas celebraciones que en la España áurea se habían convertido, por un lado, en proverbiales y casi vulgares, mientras que, por otro, daban lugar a un puñado de obras literarias entre las que sobresale, como veremos, alguna de muy alto nivel.

Objetivamos, nesse artigo, discutir o potencial discursivo das moedas para o resgate de versões menos conhecidas de personagens famosas, como Cleópatra e Marco Antônio. Selecionamos uma série de moedas, cunhadas durante toda a vida dos consortes, para evidenciar como a moeda atendia a uma demanda retórica em meio a um período conflituoso, como foi principalmente o da década de 40 e 30 a.C. Dessa forma, apesar das dificuldades em encontrar o discurso de Antônio e Cleópatra por terem eles perdido a Batalha de Ácio (31 a.C.) e terem sido representados negativamente pela literatura, demonstraremos como as moedas auxiliaram a propagar as representações que o casal buscou para si (individual e conjuntamente), de acordo com o debate político da época.

In the early modern period, the image of Cleopatra oscillated between that of neo­ Stoic heroine or loyal wife and the whore-queen who with her beauty and seductive arts plunged men into ruin. This second view was dominant until well into the late sixteenth century not only in literature: the critical aspects of contemporary visual depictions of Cleopatra have been overlooked. In particular the motif of the vipers at the breast with its allusion to nursing plays an important role here. Associations with the monstrous, and with well-known pains of hell and personifications of the vices seem quite intentional. This article looks at the origin of the motif from the point of view of the logic of punishment for sin and shows with what pre­cision the idea of a self-inflicted punishment could be implemented using the snakes and other visual clues. A thought pattern paradigmatic in Dante's "Inferno" became a pictorial concept that at the same time promised to take account of both artistic and social challenges.

Between the late 1620s and late 1640s, Jacques Blanchard, Simon Vouet, and Claude Vignon all painted the femme forte, a type of exemplary, heroic womanhood whose popularity was linked to the presence of Marie de Medici and Anne of Austria on the royal stage. This article puts French paintings of femmes fortes (strong women) from the early seventeenth century into conversation with period discourse regarding the reception of paintings and the status of women. Pictorial representation tended to cast the femme forte into contexts that compromised her exemplary status. Nude, on the verge of death by her own hand, the figure of the femme forte invited the very kind of sensual consumption that the femme forte herself attempted to disavow. Yet the ultimate threat posed by the femme forte was that her image might ‘trick’ male viewers into unwise actions.

This article aims to understand the far-stretching imperial claims—"from the Hellespont to India"—made by Cleopatra VII at the "Donations of Alexandria" ceremony in 34 BCE, and her title Queen of Kings. It is argued that as the rightful, matrilineal heir to the vanished Seleucid dynasty, Cleopatra VII and her son Caesarion possessed the necessary prestige to claim overlordship over the entire Middle East to give coherence to the Roman system of client states and rival the Parthian ruler’s claim to be the rightful King of Kings. Through Caesar’s and Mark Antony’s paternity of Cleopatra’s children, Hellenistic monarchy could thus be brought into the (republican) Roman orbit.

Les pouvoirs émetteurs en Gaule, des origines à l'époque augustéenne Cédric Lopez, Les coins à empreintes multiples : uid des Gaulois ? Benjamin D.R. Hellings & Marguerite Spoerri Butcher, uantifying relative coin production during the reigns of Nerva and Trajan (ad 96-117): Reka Devnia reconsidered in light of regional coin finds from Romania and the Northwest Koenraad Verboven & Wim De Clercq, L'ensemble monétaire (gallo-) romain de Merendree Molenkouter (Fl. Or., Belgique) Nick Vaneerdewegh, Fel Temp Reparatio: image, audience and meaning in the mid-4th century Antony Kropff, Diocletian's currency system aer 1 September 301: an inquiry into values David Martínez Chico, Un depósito de siliquae recortadas hallado en Teruel (Aragón) y asociado a clavi caligarii (post 408-411 d.C.) P.A.M. Beliën & W.A.B. van der Sanden, A sixth-century solidi hoard from the Netherlands (Zeegse 2014) Jérôme Jambu, Consulter, proposer, décider : Le processus d'élaboration d'une réforme des monnaies en pays frontalier (Flandre, 1685) Raf Van Laere, Loden penningen en aanverwante objecten operaven in de Verdronken Weide te Ieper (14de eeuw) Jan Moens, Reliability of the estimation methods of the total number of dies based on the Esty model * Chargédelacollectiondesmonnaiesgrecques,départementdesMonnaies,médailles& antiques,BibliothèquenationaledeFrance,58ruedeRichelieu,75002Paris.

This paper appeals to several primary and secondary sources on the history of the Roman Republic to argue that Gaius Octavian Caesar during the final years of the Roman Republic possessed significant political and military advantage over Marc Antony. This paper seeks to establish that by remaining in the city of Rome in the Western Republic,  Octavian Caesar collected a series of advantages that are ultimately responsible for his victory and ascendence as the first emperor of the Roman Empire.

Taking Shakespeare's unique use of the term " discandying " as a starting point, this essay argues that Shakespeare's preoccupation with food preservation in Antony and Cleopatra extends and complicates a tradition interested in preservation more broadly construed, a tradition represented and embodied by the figure of Cleopatra as a medical , gynecological, and alchemical authority on renewal. Believed into the early modern period to be the author of an apparent Book of Cleopatra, Cleopatra as a figure comes to be intimately associated with preservation and the promise of immortality. Shake-speare reimagines the figure of Cleopatra as a product of an early modern preservative culture, drawing from both ancient tradition and contemporary domestic practices to produce a figure of and for consumption. Cleopatra demonstrates that far from being a process toward permanence, preservation is both dynamic and organic, requiring the potency of the " foreign " integrated with the domestic to rethink what it means to persevere in the face of discandying.

Desde que Plutarco retrató en sus Vidas paralelas a Cleopatra muchos han sido los artistas que han dado su visión propia de la más conocida reina de Egipto, a veces falseada. Con este trabajo pretendemos profundizar en su imagen en el teatro del siglo XVII a través de dos autores y dos obras paradigmáticas: Antonio y Cleopatra de William Shakespeare y Los áspides de Cleopatra de Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla.
Para poder estudiar pormenorizadamente todos aquellos elementos de interés que dan entidad al personaje, tanto histórico como literario, estructuramos el trabajo en tres líneas temáticas de investigación:
• Cleopatra como femme fatale y hechicera
• Cleopatra como reina de Egipto
• Cleopatra como amante sincera
A través de estos tres apartados comprobamos cómo Shakespeare y Rojas Zorrilla presentan a una Cleopatra muy distinta, a pesar de partir de unos mismos pilares históricos. Asimismo, evidenciamos cómo en la obra de Shakespeare el verdadero protagonista de la tragedia es Marco Antonio, mientras que es Cleopatra quien detenta esa posición en la obra castellana.
Sin embargo, mostramos cómo convergen ambos autores en la escenografía lingüística a la hora de describir el lujo y el hedonismo de la corte egipcia.
Por encima de todo esto, el principal objetivo que pretende alcanzar esta monografía es establecer un lazo de unión entre dos grandes dramaturgos que han sabido dotar de originalidad a la ya manida historia de Cleopatra. Asimismo, reivindicamos la calidad literaria de la obra de Rojas frente a la ya reconocida tragedia de Shakespeare, pues, como indica Raymond McCurdy, uno de los principales investigadores de la obra del autor toledano, Los áspides de Cleopatra es “the most poet tragedy of love in the Golden Age”.

Artículo recogido en «Rumbos del hispanismo en el umbral del Cincuentenario de la AIH.» Vol. IV. Teatro, Roma, Bagatto Libri, 2012, pp. 133-142.