Donations of Alexandria — Antony and Cleopatra
Mark Antony distributed eastern kingdoms to Cleopatra and her children at a ceremony in Alexandria in 34 BC, and Octavian used it to destroy him. The two had been together since 41 BC, when Antony summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus to answer for her conduct in the civil wars and she arrived on a barge with silver oars, which is Plutarch's account and probably her own staging. The relationship was political as much as anything else. Antony had the eastern half of the Roman world and needed Egypt's grain and money for a campaign against Parthia; Cleopatra needed a Roman protector to keep her throne and to recover Ptolemaic territory. The Donations of Alexandria followed a partial success in Armenia. Antony sat with Cleopatra on golden thrones, declared her Queen of Kings and her son by Caesar co-ruler and legitimate heir of Caesar, and assigned Armenia, Media, Cyrenaica, Cyprus and parts of Syria to their children. Every part of that was calculated to be intolerable in Rome. It gave away territory that only the senate could dispose of, it dressed a Roman magistrate as a Hellenistic monarch, and it advertised a rival claim to Caesar's inheritance against Octavian's adoption. Octavian read the will out in the senate. Antony had also divorced Octavia, Octavian's sister, which converted a political quarrel into a family one in public. War was declared on Cleopatra in 32 BC, Actium was fought in 31, and both were dead by August 30 BC. Almost every source we have was written under the winner or after him, which is worth remembering before treating any of the famous details as fact. Cleopatra was a competent ruler of a difficult kingdom who spoke nine languages and was the first Ptolemy in three centuries to learn Egyptian.
- Year: 34 BCE
- Category: Political
