Antony And Cleopatra
Updated 2007-03-23 17:00:00
Mark Antony's been in Egypt long enough to have had a couple of kids with Cleopatra, start wearing eyeliner, and turn into a crack whore like his new girlfriend. Yet he still dreams of returning to and ruling Rome. To that end, he's trying to provoke a war with Octavian by holding back grain shipments, and all of Rome is hungry. But the people blame Octavian for the famine, just because he's in charge and everybody loves Antony. Octavian sends Julii Cooper and Octavia to Egypt, ostensibly to try to reason with him, but really it's win-win for Octavian: he either gets the grain, or Antony publicly repudiates his wife and lover and loses the support of the Roman people. Antony does the latter, making his women bake in the sun outside until he sends Vorenus out to turn them away. Julii Cooper's seriously pissed, especially when Posca and Jocasta decide to stow away with them on their ship back to Rome. Once they all get back, Posca supplies Octavian with Antony's will, in which he declares himself Cleopatra's husband and bequeaths her Rome and the West. And now Octavian has his motivation -- and unanimous public support -- for his war. He asks Pullo to accompany him east so that he and Vorenus might mediate between the two parties, but Pullo's got some business to take care of at home first. While he's saying goodbye to Gaia (now his lover), his hairy, tongueless pet Memmio escapes from his cage in the Collegium basement and ends up mortally wounding her. Gaia makes a deathbed confession regarding the murder of Eirene, so Pullo strangles her and defiles her corpse. He'll be in a great mood when he gets to meet his son Caesarion next week. Oh, and there's way too much sex again.