How Does Antony Have Power In Cleopatra By Plutarch

To begin, Plutarch uses the idea of people who have power do not want to lose it as an incredibly important lesson throughout the story by depicting how Antony always did what was necessary to stay in power. For example, Plutarch spent a considerable amount of time depicting Antony and Octavia getting married as well as Antony seemingly naming Cleopatra the “Queen of Kings” and himself the “King of Kings”. He describes his children as the

“King of kings”, and gives them control over land that they may not even have control over (Plutarch 515). Plutarch also describes that Cleopatra, “dressed in the habit of the goddess Isis, and gave the audience to the people under the name of New Isis” (Plutarch 515).

Plutarch writes about this to allude

Plutarch chooses to write about this point in Antony’s life to show the reader this idea that not all people that seem to have power actually have it. Though Antony practically named himself and Cleopatra the rulers of most others, that is nominal and miniscule to the power that say, Augustus, has over the Romans.

To continue, Plutarch shows the loyalty of Octavia to Antony as people staying loyal to corrupted leaders. While Octavia was Antony’s wife, they were rarely with each other and Antony was clearly in love with Cleopatra, yet she still decided to stay with Antony and take care of their kids, Antony’s affairs, and even Antony’s first wife, Fulvia’s, kids as well. She knew that Antony did not love her, but she was still loyal to him and took care of all his affairs. Even her brother, Augustus “commanded her to live in a separate house; but she refused to leave the house of her husband,” because she was loyal to him even though she knew that he did not love her. She knew that if she left, her brother would be able to freely declare war on Antony and she did not want that (Plutarch 514). To add, in the very next paragraph,

An example of this is when Antony goes to war for Cleopatra. Plutarch examines this point in Antony’s life and blatenly adds some of his own commentary to this topic. The war began because Agustus declared war on Cleopatra, knowing that Antony would fight for her. The battle took place in the water, yet Plutarch explains that Antony is an incredibly powerful and strategic commander on land. This was because of Cleopatra and Plutarch ended up labeling this as an “grave miscalculation”. During this slaughter of Antony’s men, Plutarh describes what happened here as, “Antony showed all the world that he was no longer actuated by the thoughts and motives of a commander or a man, or indeed by his own judgement at all, and what was once said as a jest, that the soul of a lover lives in someone else’s body, he proved to be a serious truth” (Plutarch 522). In this way, Plutarch could be describing the love that Antony had for Cleopatraby fighting a losing battle for her. As Plutarch describes it, he lost all judgement for what was right that he did anything Cleopatra told him to do. Yet, this was a reckless move on Antony’s part. Plutarch then goes on to describe that it was “as if he had been borne part of her, and must move with her wheresoever she went, and as soom as he saw her ship sailing away, he abandoned