Talk:Mark Antony

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[edit] older entries

i would like to read about mark antony and what he was like. please send me some more infomation concerning this. Yours Truly, Taryn L-M Reed. Hotmail: slimmy_chik@hotmail.com

[edit] Considering the children

When Octavius invaded Egypt, where did he take the children captive? Were they all with Cleopatra and Mark Antony or were they all sent away and just ran into Octavius on the way? The children were Caesarion, Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene, Ptolemy Philadelphus and Mark Antony's two boys Antyllus and Iullus. Octavius killed Caesarion and Antyllus, but let the others go, sending them all to live with Octavia. Why did he let the others go? Selene I could understand, she a girl and couldn't cause too much trouble. The two boys Antony had with Cleopatra, were both quite young and may have been let off... But why Iullus? --80.193.19.191 20:24, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Augustus probably spared Iullus' life because he was a child still (IE had not put on his manly gown). At the time of the then Gaius Octavius (Augustus) capture of Egypt, the children were all of certain ages. Caesarion and Antyllus were both seventeen. They were grown-ups in the Roman world, as many boys started to take resonsiblity. However Octavius probably would have killed Caesarion no matter how old he was as he was too much of a threat for Rome.The other kids, Alexander, Selene and Ptolmey were still quite young and Romans didn't like killing children if they didn't have to. The twins were no older then Octavius' own daughter, who was just a little girl at the time, so I can understand why spared them.
Iullus, on the other hand, was fifteen. A few years older, he probably would have been killed too. Nonetheless, the two sons of Cleo and Antony died and no one knows why (It's unlikely Augustus killed them after sparing their lives). The only ones who really gained anything out of being spared were Iullus and Selene. Octavius treated them both very kindly, allowing Selene to marry Juba II of Numidia and Iullus was praetor in 13 BC, consul in 10 BC and Asian proconsul. His mistake was getting up to some ooh laa laa with Augustus daughter, Julia. C'est la vie, eh? --Camblunt100 16:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)


A seperate consideration:

Octavian did not let Alexander Helios nor Ptolemy Philadelphus go -- they were hung on crosses next to their brother. The Holy Bible says that the malefactors that were cruxified with Christ shared in his condemnation (shared in his accusation, were also accused of being Kings). These three Kings.. three Theives...Three Male-factors... with the "Donations" of Alexandria, octavian's propoganda was that "Cleopatra" had stolen these lands from rome. Thus her children who were in possession of this "stolen" property are the "Theives". The birth of Jesus Christ starts with the Imposter imposing a tax on all the world, and further it states, that the taxing was first made when quirnius was governor of Syria (this is only possible after the removal of young Philadelphus). This is octavian asserting all the authority he derived from murdering the King of Kings and rightful heir. Some may consider this heresy, but the reality is that octavian and herod both were imposters that stole other's Rightful kingdoms. herod bleed to an end the Hasmonean house and Octavian brought to an end the House of Ptolemais.Proverbs 1. +*

+* One has to seriously doubt the credibility of the above quoted biblical theory that Philadelphus and Helios were crucified with Christ. They were captured twenty years before Christ was even born. We'd have to presume that they were, in Helios' case, past sixty years old when a later Emperor decided to hang them on crosses beside Jesus Christ. In truth, they disappeared from the historical record while they were still children, even though their sister did not.--Stephdray 15:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


      • Some say that octavian let alexander and philadelphus live, where? what happened to them? Alexander was engaged to Iotape, where are their children? The whole reason they went to war was based on Antony "abandoning" his wife in Rome, and giving his inheritance to Philadelphus and Alexander-- 'and the "ex-wife" gets the kids?' a jealous/scorned woman? They were equally as threatening as Iwa n Ntr the moment they were crowned -- for their entire lifetimes could they legitametly claim rulership in those territories.
Octavian couldn't have killed the two younger boys because he had already spared their lives. The twin Alexander Helios was in the victory walk chained up Cleopatra Selene (and maybe Iullus?) but the younger one could have easily died of illness on the way back or knocked off by other things or people on the way back to Rome. It can be a dangerous journey for little children, bare in mind. Besides, why not kill Iullus? He killed Antyllus, he killed Caesarion, and if what you say is true, he killed Alexander Helios (who was not much older then Octavian's own little girl) and Philadelphus (a very young child)... why not Iullus? The boy would without a doubt habour revenge for the deaths of his brothers and his father, not to mention he was several years older then the young two boys. Why not kill all the boys... Antyllus, Iullus and Caesarion were more of a threat then Alexander and Philadelphus, yet he kept Iullus alive. It says in the histories that Octavian intended on giving Selene, Iullus, Alexander and Philadelphus to Octavia, who was anything but a jealous and scorned woman-- was it his fault not all of them made it to the house? --Camblunt100 13:31, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Since the article itself refers to Antony as Marcus Antonius, which was the name to which he would have answered, wouldn't it make sense to make Marcus Antonius the article and render Mark Antony as a redirect like Marc Antony, the other recognized Anglicized spelling? Jeff Anonymous 14:13, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think the title of a page is supposed to be the name which is most often searched for/recognized by, and how many people actually know his name was Marcus Antonius?

Kuralyov 07:26, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

For me you are welcome to make the move. [[User:Muriel Gottrop|muriel@pt]] 10:02, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It should stay at Mark Anthony, as this is the most common name in English. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:12, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is old, but i've always seem him referred to as Marc Anthony(not Mark) in every history book and article on him i've ever read. I agree with JeffTL's suggestion to change the name. Spyke 21:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd be curious as to what scholarly works you've seen calling him "Marc Anthony". Encyclopaedia Britannica (standard English-language source for general knowledge) and the Oxford Classical Dictionary (standard English-language source for the classics) both call him "Mark Antony"; Britannica acknowledges "Marc Anthony" as an occasionally-used byname, but the OCD does not.
Looking through the two dozen or so books about the topic on my bookshelf, I can find only references to "Mark Antony", never to "Marc Anthony"; these include my translations of Suetonius, Plutarch and Caesar; Dodge's biography of Caesar, Meier's biography of Caesar (in English translation), Everett's biography of Cicero and Rice's biography of Cleopatra; and a half a dozen or so college textbooks and other works on Roman history. The only book I can find here that doesn't call him "Mark Antony" is Seager's biography of Pompey, which only ever calls him "M. Antonius". And if we want to branch into literature, everyone from Shakespeare to Robert Graves to Colleen McCullough has called him "Mark Antony".
I will admit that I have seen him called "Marc Anthony" many times in informal or casual settings—restaurant names, movie reviews, passing mentions in newspaper articles—but these have always looked to me more like ignorant misspellings, borne out of the simple fact that these are the forms of the English forenames "Marc" and "Anthony" with which the authors are most familiar, than genuine proof that this is a more prevalent legitimate spelling than the traditional "Mark Antony" that is (in my experience) pretty much universal in English-language works on Roman history. Binabik80 20:46, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
Addendum: Flipping through my sources again today for a debate on nomenclature over at Talk:Augustus, I notice that in fact, Rice's biography of Cleopatra gives Antony's praenomen as Marc, not Mark (but still gives his surname as Antony, not Anthony). I don't know how I missed it the first time, but I felt I should note it here in the interests of intellectual honesty. Binabik80 20:25, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Discrepancy between two articles

I've read both the Marcus Antonius and the Cicero articles, and there is a discrepancy between the two entries on the death of Cicero. In the Cicero article, the death of Cicero is attributed to Antonius' request. In the Antonius article, Cicero's death is attributed to suicide. It might be helpful to edit one or the other of the articles for consistency's sake. -Hilary Agrippina121@aol.com (19 Jan 2005)

  • There is no discrepancy: Antony sent men in pursuit of Cicero to murder him; Cicero tried to escape but he couldnt, so he killed himself. It was suicide, but due to Antony's wish to get rid of him. You are of course welcome to rephrase the articles to make the point clearer. I like your user name. muriel@pt 20:40, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Cicero fled, but was caught and decapitated by his pursuers on December 7, 43 BC." The Marcus Antonius article states that he committed suicide. That seems like a discrepancy to me. I like your user name too. -Ariadne (21 January 2005)

Now that I've raised the issue, I'm not sure of the appropriate method to correct it. According to Plutarch, the centurion Herennius decapitated Cicero. Plutarch does remark that Cicero held forth his head for judgment, but I am not sure that it can be classified as a suicide in the same sense as that of Antonius or Cleopatra. Livy's description accords with this. I'm more inclined to edit the article to label Cicero's death as murder, but that he gave himself up to death with dignity. Plutarch: Cicero (48) "He was all covered with dust; his hair was long and disordered, and his face was pinched and wasted with his anxieties -- so that most of those who stood by covered their faces while Herennius was killing him. His throat was cut as he stretched his neck out from the litter." -- Hilary (21 Jan 2005)

  • Dear Hilary, please feel free to improve the articles with information you find relevant. Be bold! muriel@pt 14:29, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • Cicero was executed, according to Everitt's biography. This has been changed.

[edit] Nomenclature

Following on a little from the discussion on the article's Title above, I'd like to gauge people's reaction to the idea of changing Antony's name to Antony (from Antonius) throughout the article. Personally I'm very much in favour of referring to Romans with anglicised names by those names; I've discussed the issue at a little length on my user page and encourage any comments people have about it on my talk page, but to summarise briefly for a discussion on Mark Antony:

  • All the other articles for Romans with anglicised names use their anglicised names (Pompey, Caesar Augustus (Octavian), Livy, Virgil).
  • We're writing in English and, as the article admits in its first sentence, Mark Antony is his name in the English language; Antony is correct in English just as Antonius is correct in Latin.
  • Both laymen and scholars refer to him as Antony, so by referring to him as Antonius we're not accruing for ourselves any sort of patina of scholarly credibility (IMHO, quite the opposite).
  • Most critically, and (again IMHO) trumping all other arguments, by using names with which the vast majority of our readers are unfamiliar we actively work against our highest purpose here of making knowledge freely available to those who seek it; we make our information less accessible to our readers by using a name that doesn't allow them to place that information in context with what they may already know, and therefore make it harder for them to find the understanding they want and that we're supposed to be trying to give them.

I look forward to hearing everyone else's comments. Binabik80 17:32, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Having heard no objections, I'm now going to make the change.Binabik80 15:27, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I for one saw no harm in leaving Antonius as Antonius. Antonius is quite correct in English -- if the article is at Mark Antony with a redirect at Marcus Antonius in case someone enters it, calling him Antonius in the article makes sense and would appear to be sound encyclopedic work. I don't see how it harmed accessibility at all -- as long as if you type in Mark Antony, the article comes up. But hey, qué será será. Jeff Anonymous 03:41, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure how it could be sound encyclopaedic work; I've never seen a single English language encyclopaedia that refers to him as Antonius (though admittedly I don't go around reading Mark Antony articles from sundry encyclopaediae; however, I know for a fact that Encyclopaedia Britannica certainly refers to him as Antony); moreover, I can think of only 2 Roman history books I've ever read that referred to him as Antonius, both of which referred to all Romans by their Latin names (Pompey was Pompeius, Livy was Livius, etc.), which Wikipedia doesn't; and I can't remember any one of over a dozen classical studies professors & instructors referring to him as anything other than Mark Antony over my four years of college. I'll admit this is all anecdotal evidence (anyone have a survey from a scientifically random sample showing the prevalence of Antony or Antonius in academia?) but, since it's anecdotal evidence that includes both the English language's most recognised encyclopaedia & most of the standard English works on the fall of the Roman Republic, to me this makes Antony standard usage and Antonius non-standard.
Even so, I wouldn't find Antonius objectionable (since it is, of course, factually correct) if it wasn't for the accessibility issue--the name Mark Antony carries an instant recognition value for the average English speaker (most of whose knowledge of Roman history comes from Cleopatra, I, Claudius, Asterix or Gladiator) that Antonius simply will never have. When a reader reads in the Julius Caesar article that Caesar was offered a crown by Antony, or in the Publius Clodius Pulcher article that Clodius' widow subsequently married Mark Antony, he knows instantly who's being talked about & can contextualise that information into the rudimentary frame of knowledge he already has about the topic. If he reads in Clodius that, say, "Clodius then married Fulvia, who after his death would go on to marry Marcus Antonius," he doesn't get that same recognition value at all. So once we've established the desirability of standardising such references to him in other articles, using the non-standard reference in his own article just seems to me, well, rather odd.
But of course, this is all my opinion. Binabik80 18:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Not really true

I dont write in English so good,so I apologise for it, but this part of the article is not accurate:

"Then came the day of Caesar's funeral. As Caesar's ever-present second in command, partner in consulship and cousin, Antony was the natural choice to make the funeral eulogy. In his speech, he sprang his accusations of murder and ensured a permanent breach with the conspirators. Showing a talent for rhetoric and dramatic interpretation, Antony snatched the toga from Caesar's body to show the crowd the scars from his wounds. That night, the Roman populace attacked the assassins' houses, forcing them to flee for their lives."


^^^^^^^^^^

It is historical fact that Shekspare wrote that speech in his act:"Mark Anthony and Cleopatra".

The real, original speech was not preserved and Shekspare only wrote what he thought Mark Anthony might have said.

Therefore,it would be good if someone added it up to this article. I could have done it, but like I said, I dont write English very well, so its better if someone else do itDzoni 02:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Shakespeare's speech is based on the following passage from Plutarch's Life of Antony, which clearly says that Antony showed the bloody toga and the wounds to the crowd:
As Caesar's body was conveying to the tomb, Antony, according to the custom, was making his funeral oration in the market place, and, perceiving the people to be infinitely affected with what he had said, he began to mingle with his praises language of commiseration, and horror at what had happened, and, as he was ending his speech, he took the under-clothes of the dead, and held them up, showing them stains of blood and the holes of the many stabs, calling those that had done this act villains and bloody murderers. All which excited the people to such indignation, that they would not defer the funeral, but, making a pile of tables and forms in the very market-place, set fire to it; and everyone, taking a brand, ran to the conspirators' houses, to attack them.
The deleted passage you questioned is entirely consistent with this account, so I am restoring it.Paul B 12:48, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


Can you give the link to that,or at least show that passage in latin languageDzoni 13:21, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Online versions _[1] [2] Shakespeare's speech, as it happens, appears in Julius Caesar, not Antony and Cleopatra. Paul B 20:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


You gave me english version by accident.Can you give the original,latin version,just to make sure that its right,because you know that someone could change english version any way he wants.You dont have to give the whole version,just that passage in latin,because im pretty sure there is no passage like thatDzoni 01:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

It was written in Greek, not Latin. I don't think there's an elaborate internet conspiracy to rewrite Plutarch! Paul B 23:40, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Please stop focusing on irrelevant things.I know its written in Greek,but I dont know Greek,do I,so I asked you for Latin passage.My point is:your are English,and your sources could be very well written by yourself or some other English or American historian.


I think tht we`ll agree that they are not the highest experts in this matter,since Amirica wasnt made back in the time about we are talkin about,and England was a land full of Wild people.So,Latin translation of Greek writings would be accetable,if you want to have a serious grounds.Off course,you can always just use force and put whaetever you like in the article,but if you dont prove it with Latin or at least Greek(old Greek) passage,then you know as well as I do that its not valid at all.Dzoni 03:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

This gets a little silly here, doesn't it? For one thing, why is a Latin translation of Plutarch's works any more legitimate than an English translation? Surely all the liberties you accuse the translator of his work into English of taking could also be taken by someone translating the work into Latin. For instance, I could translate the passage into Latin (from the English) for you right now if you'd like. So pointing out that Plutarch wrote in Greek is not "irrelevant"—the Greek is his original text, and anything in any other language, whether Latin, English, or Japanese, is a translation.
And Plutarch is such a well-known source, with so many different translations (into English and pretty much every other major language on Earth, plus a number of not-so-major ones) over the centuries that all agree with each other, many of which are easily available online, that no, I would absolutely disagree with the notion that we need to cite in its original Greek a passage that appears in every English translation of Plutarch's Antony in order for the citation to have validity (which, of course, isn't even what you're requesting—you expect someone to find for you a Latin translation of the passage that would be equally as illegitimate as any English translation).
You have made an allegation about the accuracy of the information in the article but have provided no information to back it up. You have been provided with a link to Plutarch's work (in English) to counter your argument. In order for your position to retain any validity, you need to produce a version of Plutarch's Antony that doesn't contain the very famous passage regarding Antony's actions at Caesar's funeral. In the original Greek would be best, since it would settle the argument right there; producing it in translation (whether in English, Latin or anything else) will merely necessitate having to go to the Greek to settle the matter. (And I freely admit, I've never read Plutarch in Greek. Maybe we are the victim of a massive conspiracy by everyone who's ever translated him into English over the past three centuries, and by the several people I've met who have read his work in the original Greek. I'm not sure what they'd have to gain, though.)
It does seem a little odd to me that you're arguing about our sources on Mark Antony without, apparently, having read what's pretty much our only major source on him (we also have minor contributions from Appian and Dio Cassius), especially given that the people you're arguing with clearly are familiar with Plutarch. I'd recommend you check him out, not just because he's so central to our understanding of the Classical world, but because he's also a pretty entertaining read.
And I really don't understand what the conditions of America and England during the first century BC have to do with anything—are you saying that if we came from countries that were already part of the Mediterranean cultural sphere during that period, like Spain or Tunisia, that somehow our knowledge of Plutarch would be less suspect to you? (Quite apart from your implication that the Americas somehow didn't exist before being discovered by Europeans—perhaps I'm merely misunderstanding what you were trying to say.) Binabik80 21:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mark Antony in popular culture

anyone think this should be a new section of this article?Im thinking of adding it but also think that someone will delete it straight away. Dermo69

I like the idea. The popular interpretations of Antony (Shakespeare's Antony-as-avenger, Colleen McCullough's Antony-as-accessory) are at least as influential today as the historical record. Cranston Lamont 22:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] This article is ancient propaganda? Mark Antony Smeared

Has anyone heard of the arguments that our account of MA has been corrupted by Augustan propaganda?

Every historical view is tainted. After all, history is always written by the victor. It's thus somewhat to be expected that Anthony's picture is somewhat "rewritten" (although the real victim and target of Octavian's wrath was the "foreigner" Cleopatra who had seduced the "Roman" general). Nonetheless it's an established fact that he lead a bawdy live in his youth. -- fdewaele, 6 February 2007, 11:30

[edit] Glaring omission

All Roman citezens had three names, but Marcus Antonius's third name, the cognomen, is not found in the article. Forget about the name of the article; it's missing part of the person's name. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.35.93.125 (talk) 02:32, 21 March 2007 (UTC).

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