Cleopatra and Antony. Plutarchs view of the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra was that, on the one hand, Antony was mad in love with her, where he abandoned his old lifestyle to embrace her way of living, but on the other hand he was neede

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Part 1 Cleopatra

Read the following passage carefully at least twice. What does it tell us about Plutarch’s view of the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra?

At the beginning of the passage Plutarch makes clear that, Cleopatra captivated Antony using her charm and intelligence, and kept him under her “control”. ‘Cleopatra […] kept him in constant tutelage, and released him neither night nor day’ (Plutarch, in AA100, Assignment Booklet, 2011 p.18). In the second phase of the passage Plutarch gives us a sense that Cleopatra was with Antony at all times, as he constantly use the words “with him”. It’s clear that Plutarch sees Cleopatra as a manipulative woman, and her alliance with Antony was nothing more than politics, and she was using Antony with the intension of saving her beloved nation, as she did with Julius Caesar.  Many people say that Cleopatra did what she felt was necessary to save Egypt, whatever the price she would have to pay. ().

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Antony was bewitched by Cleopatra’s charm and intelligence; he’s love for Cleopatra was portrayed as madness (book 1, Reputations, p.9). On the second part of this passage we can see that Antony was willing to impress Cleopatra at any cost. He took her fishing once, but he was frustrated for having bad luck and Cleopatra was there to see, therefore he was pretending it was him who caught the fishes, but instead he got help from his servant, who fastened the fishes to his hook under the water. In this passage we can see that Antony was frustrated with himself ...

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