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Mark Antony with Alex Gough · The Partial Historians

• Dr Rad 0:15 Welcome to the Partial Historians. Dr G 0:19 We explore all the details of ancient Rome. Dr Rad 0:23 Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I'm Dr. Rad. Dr G 0:33 And I'm Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories. Dr Rad 0:44 Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad. Dr G 0:59 And I am Dr. G Dr Rad 1:02 And Dr. G, we are joined by an author of historical fiction today. Alex Gough is our special guest, and he shares our passion for all things ancient Rome. He is famous for his Roman historical adventures and has produced series such as the Cabo Chronicles and the Imperial Assassins, which was set in the reign of the Severans. He also writes a monthly Substack newsletter on interesting people and aspects of life in ancient Rome, called Roman Lives: Life in Rome. If you would like to know more about his work, be sure to check out his website romanfiction.com. Alex has recently been spending a little time with Mark Antony, the main character in his latest series. The series has four volumes: Caesar's Soldier, Caesar's General, Caesar's Avenger, and the final installment, Caesar's Nemesis, which has just been released, tells the story of Antony's clash with Octavian. Welcome to the show, Alex. Alex Gough 2:10 Thank you very much. Thank you for having me here. Dr G 2:12 Yeah, we're super excited. Mark Antony is one of these figures in history that just sort of looms large over the late Republic in really particular ways, so getting to see him out and about doing his business, I think, is phenomenal stuff. And I'm interested just to get us started. What drew you to Mark Antony for your latest series? Alex Gough 2:34 So I'd finished off my last series of after Caracalla was was stabbed to death. That seems a good place to stop it. So I was having lunch with my with my publisher, and we were just chatting about what to do next. And I quite fancied doing something. My my previous book has been much more sort of action adventure. I quite fancied doing something a little bit more serious and sort of biographical, historical fiction, but also sort of basing it on a big character. And we just who can we do because we've had you know there's been books about Machanibal and Spartacus and endless books about Caesar. And I said I don't think there's been much about Mark Antony. So what about Mark Antony? He said great, let's do it. So I put together a proposal. And and actually the more I hadn't really written about the Republic before, I'd mainly been writing about the Empire. But yeah, the more I looked into it, the more I thought this this is perfect. And he was kind he was present at the whole of the fall of the the Republic and the and the beginning of the Empire and the the events he physically personally witnessed were just was just incredible. So you could basically write the end of the the republic and the rise of the empire entirely through his eyes, so it was just yeah, it's just perfect. And so the more the more I researched him, the more I kind of got to like him as well. So he's you know he's turned out to be a a nicer guy than I than I thought based on you know if you look at the Rome BBC HBO series or any of the you know the previous you know films and things that he's appeared and he's he's not the same person you see there. He's there's aspects of him that people bring out, but yeah, I've I've enjoyed spending a few years with him, and it's it's been quite sad putting him to well in his grave. Dr G 4:18 You've taken him to the very end. No more, Anthony. No more. Dr Rad 4:24 Well, you've kind of highlighted some of the issues, I suppose, with writing about Mark Antony. I mean, there are some extremely negative things that exist in the sources, given the way things end up for him. So, how did you manage to craft your own characterization of Anthony? Alex Gough 4:41 So, obviously, a lot of lot of research, a lot of reading. I I watched some of the portrayals of them. I didn't. I mean, I do love the HBO Room Rome series, and James Purefoy's. I mean, everyone who likes Rome loves that, doesn't he? And James Purefoy obviously is brilliant, and. And and then I watched I watched half of the Cleopatra film with Elizabeth Taylor, and I only got halfway through because it's so long. But it's you know it kind of gives you an impression. But it's much more interesting reading the contemporary sources and then the sort of the modern scholarship about it and the modern the modern biographies and things. And there's a there's a quite a lot of biographies about him, considering how much how little fiction's been written about him. So that's that's quite interesting. So yeah, kind of from all that, I got that he's he's for his time. He's quite a nice guy. He's he was respectful to his enemies. Like for them, this is I'm going to qualify. This is all for the most part respectful to his enemies, like Brutus, but not Cicero. He was he was very loyal to his friends to the point of naivety. He was he was quite funny. He had a really good sense of humor. He was personally brave and strong, and a good military tactician, if not necessarily a good strategist, and yeah, the the sources are are incredibly hostile. You know, we know a lot of his life through Cicero's Philippics, which we'll discuss a bit more. But the the Philippics were a series of diatribes that Cicero wrote or spoke against him after Caesar had died, and they're they're named after the the speeches that Demosthenes gave against Philip, Alexander the Great's father. So that's that's how they got their name, and he basically just sort of piled on yeah slander after slander on him as he as he was gaining power, and Cicero was was was trying to counter him. And but and it is interesting because there's quite a modern day perception of Cicero being like the one of the best people of the Roman Republic, and you know a scholar and a man of peace and all this sort of thing, but so it's been quite good fun actually writing him as the enemy and bringing out his his not so so nice traits. So you've got like the Robert Harris trilogy where Cicero is the absolute hero, and and my editor actually who's who's a classicist idolised Cicero, so he find it found a really a real struggle to to read me demolishing his character. But but yeah, there there is you could take you can take sides and you can put spins on it. And obviously, I'm writing this from the point of view of Mark Antony, so from that point of view, Cicero has to be the the enemy. But you know, he did he did say some say and do some pretty appalling stuff, and it's Cicero, and so I think it was relatively easy for me to accentuate that. Dr G 7:50 I think that's fair. Cicero, for all of his output that has survived, lucky for him, there is that revelation through the way that he really works the rhetoric to try and bring down Antony through that set of speeches, and obviously, if we're taking Antony's side, this is this is not good news. Cicero is no friend of Mark Antony, and he knows it. So, when we're thinking about Antony's life, we've got these very famous sections. Obviously, the height of the politics post the assassination of Julius Caesar, but I wonder to what extent we know things about his youth and his family background and his rise to power. Alex Gough 8:35 Yeah, we do know quite a lot. So his grandfather was Marcus Antonius, who was a great orator, who was highly respected by by Cicero, and and kind of a lot of the family kudos came from him. His father, unfortunately, was not such a success. He was another Marcus Antonius. He was given a command of the fleet to try and combat the pirates in the Mediterranean, which eventually Pompeii sorted out. But he was a complete failure, and he died in Crete. And after he died, he was given the cognomen Creticus, so Marcus Antonius Creticus, which on one side is ironic because it's a you know that's usually given to someone who's who's got a great victory. It also means man of chalk, so it's a it's a real slur. So his so he's basically his father's died age 11, and they're they're pretty broke with a the family name completely trashed. But his mother's a quite strong character, and she marries a senator called Lentulus Sura, who seems to be quite a good father figure, and to Anthony. And unfortunately, he then gets mixed up in the Catiline conspiracy. Have you covered that at all? Do I need to summarize it? Or Dr G 9:57 oh no, please do. Yeah, just just a just a just a small summary Alex Gough 10:02 A snippet. So basically, a very rich sorry a very famous noble senator who was in massive debt called Catiline tried to cancel all debt to get himself out of trouble. Tried to do it through the courts and was opposed by Cicero and ended up within an armed rebellion, but also supposedly tried to get a conspiracy together that would that would murder Cicero and various important people in the Senate and seize power. And this was Cicero's greatest moment, where he discovered this plot and by force of his personality, managed to manage to put it down, and he basically went banged on about it for the rest of his life. And so, and he called himself like father of the country, and got all these honorifics and stuff. Which was, in the scheme of things, it's probably a relatively minor thing, but because it was Cicero, and because of Cicero's self publicity, it was huge, but the reason there were impacts on Mark Antony, there was there was talk whether Mark Antony was involved in it or not. He'd been very young at the time if he was he was I think maybe 17 or 18 when that happened, and yeah, the the link is that his stepfather Lentulus Sura was was one of the conspirators, and he was caught out by in Cicero's trap, and where he basically Cicero confronted them in the Senate, and then rounded up these I think it was five senators and had them executed without trial, and that was that had massive repercussions for for Cicero going forwards, but for me that's the start of Antony's enmity with Cicero. Not least because when his mother went to try and get his stepfather's body for burial, Cicero refused and wouldn't let her have it until eventually, after a lot of begging and humiliating themselves, he he released the body, so for me that from his late teens, Antony hated Cicero. Now there's a the most recent biography by Geoffrey Tatum says that Cicero was a was a family friend of the Antony's, and it was quite late in his Antony's life that that they started to fall out. But I I don't quite buy that. I just I don't know how you would get even if they were superficially polite to each other because of the society they moved in. I'm not sure how you'd get past the whole executing my stepfather kind of thing. So yeah, so that that's kind that's his that's his father and his stepfather, and at this point he was just a kind of a wayward youth partying on the streets of Rome with his with his mates Clodius Pulcher, who will probably get onto as well, and his best friend Curio. And at some point, someone said, "You really need to sort yourself out. So, as most noble Roman youths do, he went to Greece to study philosophy. And there's this brilliant scene I love, based on apparently what happened, which is when they turn up in the docks at in Greece. These youth, these Roman youths, are met by gangs of rival philosophy gang philosophy cults who are all trying to recruit them to their own philosophy schools, and they're literally just they could be fighting on the beach to try and get the best students. So yeah, a bit of time doing with that. Then he was he was then recruited by a man called Aulus Gabinius to go and serve with him in the in Egypt and and in the Near East or Middle East, Judea, etc. And this is where he probably met Cleopatra for the first time when she was 13 years old, and obviously massive in his life. But at this point, if you read Plutarch, I think he's he's suggests that Antony was immediately infatuated with her. Which again, I don't buy. She he his tastes seem to run to the more mature ladies, and he's all his all his wives, and you know they were they were usually widows or people who'd had people married before, and his lovers tended to be older. And so I I've written this as an encounter between a a young heroic soldier and a spotty, ugly little girl who's, but they kind of there's a kind of friendship that develops there, but it's in no way romantic. So I've not been no dewy-eyed about that. And then he's he performs really well in in in heroically, and he comes to the attention of Julius Caesar, who he's basically started to show his own personal courage. He won a crown for being the mural crown for being the first over the wall of a city they were besieging, and so Julius Caesar basically taps him up and takes him off to. Gaul to help him fight his his battle there. In the book, I've had him also going on Julius Caesar's second expedition to Britannia, which is not attested, but the timing possibly fits. And Julius Caesar was was pretty sparing with his praise of subordinates, so he if he'd been there, he probably wouldn't have got a mention. So I thought that was quite nice to put him in Britannia. But again, there's one of the books that one of the biographies says there's absolutely no way he could have been in in Britannia because of X Y Z. I think it's interesting as a sort of scientist, some medical scientists in training, I don't know what you think about this, but how dogmatic some historians can be about that might tell you a little bit. But the amount of times I've read while I've been doing doing research where it is clearly impossible that, or it's definitely X Y Z, and you can't get away with that in medical science. It's not least because you know next week someone may bring out a paper just just proving what you've just said. So I don't know what you think about that that kind of broader subject. Dr G 16:08 I think in terms of doing history, you have to be very careful because it only takes one piece of evidence to sort of swing things in a different direction. And when it comes to ancient history, we have so few sources already on the table, so really we're dealing with just the bare fragments of what might be a picture to begin with. So really, the history for an ancient historian is trying to stitch together the little bits that we have and be like, this is as plausible and as probable as I can make it. Yeah, and historians who are interested in dogmatic positions, I think maybe the lesser of the historians amongst us. Alex Gough 16:48 Yeah, well, some of these are things written by highly respected historians, as far as I can see. But you know, in terms of publications, etc. But but there's it just yeah, it does seem to be temptation to to just go that little bit beyond the evidence when I'm when I'm reading these things, and of course, as a historical fiction writer, I've got a free pass, so I can the way I write and and and it's similar to most historical fiction writers, but I do have a strict rule that I won't put, I won't make anything up that couldn't be true, which means that I will fill in gaps, and I might take the lesser, the less plausible of two possibilities because it's more interesting. But I won't actually say something happened when everything points to it not happening. I mean, one example of that is in my last series. Julia Domna is is in history as Caracalla's mother, but there were rumours and stories that she was actually his stepmother, and they had an affair. And so I thought, well, that sounds more fun. So it was. So I made her his stepmother and then have an affair. But it's plausible. It's it's improbable, but it's it's possible. Dr Rad 17:59 That sounds like a good line to take to me for a historical fiction writer. So, looking at Anthony's whole life, perhaps you've just given us a great summary of his early years. But what do you think are some of the most formative moments throughout his entire life? Alex Gough 18:14 So, obviously, I think his the death and failure of his father and the death of his stepfather, well, the death of his father and failure gave him a lot to prove. That the death of his stepfather gave him a lifelong enemy. I think Greece gave him a good founding in oratory, which he did use. Obviously, most notably with Caesar's funeral speech, he used a good effect to push his career forward, and then his his hero honed his battle skills in in the Middle East and with Aulus Gabinius. So he, I think, that kind of formed him in many ways. And then, obviously, fighting alongside Caesar in Gaul really would have exposed him to extraordinary tactical and strategic ability, and also raised him up in the eyes of Rome itself. But but he also had some really powerful female influences in his life, and his mother was one, and she was the one who demanded her husband's body back from Cicero, and then later on during the the prescriptions, Antony is kind of forced into a situation where he has to put his uncle, his mother's brother, on the prescription list in order to. I think it was in order to get Cicero on the list. I think that was that was the compromise they made-it was certainly someone that Octavian didn't want to put on there. So he said, "Well, if I do this, you've got to put someone important on as well. And so the the soldiers came round to kill Lucius Caesar, Julia's brother, and she basically stood in between the the soldiers and the and. Her brother and said, basically, you're going to have to go through me first, and I'm the mother of the guy who sent you. And so they actually spared his life, and he was he he survived. So really strong influence with his mother. And then going forwards, he had Fulvia. It was another really strong influence in his life, and fascinating character in her own right, and I love writing about her. I think she's she's an amazing character, and but she's obviously because of all the sort of slanders about fancy being weak and ruled by women. I think there's a obviously there's a difference between being influenced by strong women and being ruled by them, but I think Cicero made some comment about Cleopatra owing Fulvia a debt because she'd she'd basically turned Anthony into a little submissive little wimp, and Cleopatra could then exploit. So yeah, it's so yeah, strong women and some some tragic youth, and and then but then some strong male influences in his life as he went forward as well. Dr G 21:09 And I think this is where we want to talk about Caesar and the and the so there's the strongest influence, Alex Gough 21:17 and yeah, I mean obviously Mark Antony wouldn't have been anything that we know of him without Caesar, and he'd have been, you know, he'd probably have had a moderate career in the Senate. But but no, but by siding with Caesar in the Civil War and being by his side when he crossed the Rubicon, it's yeah that that was kind of everything. It was interesting, actually, because one of the reasons that Caesar's all through the war in Gaul, Caesar had this lieutenant called Labienus by his side, who was a brilliant general and was his second in command. And just towards the end of the time, as he was as he was finally defeating Vercingetorix, Antony became the the favored one, and Labienus was kind of sidelined, and a lot of Caesarr probably owed a lot of his victories to Labienus, and so when he crossed the Rubicon, Labienus defected to the other side and was a massive thorn in Caesar's side going forward. So it was kind of yeah, Mark Antony supplanted Labienus as the as Caesar's second in command, and then stood by him and was given a huge amount of responsibility in the civil war. He was Caesar split his army and took half of it across to Greece to to confront Pompeii and told Antony to bring the rest. And Antony was was stuck because of the weather, with Caesar sending him increasingly desperate threats and and and pleading to get him to come across. And Antony bravely sort of risked everything to to get his fleet across and and bailed Caesar out. And yeah, so and he was kind of he was pretty important in in Pharsalus. He was he was a commander of one of the wings. So when Pompey was finally defeated, after which he was sent back to Italy to to look after it. As I think at this point, Caesar would have been dictator, and Antony would have been his second in command officially, which is the master of horse. So at this point, Antony was had got some real power, which he completely squandered by partying, hanging out with his mistress Cytheris, who is another amazing character. She was a she was a mime and a courtesan, and she seemed like a lot of fun. He used to he used to drive around according Cicero. He used to drive around in carriages pulled by lions with Cytheris at the front and his mother in the in the back of the part of the the train, but yeah, he was. I've written that he basically Caesar forced him to give Cytheris up because it wasn't it wasn't seemly for a man of his position. But basically, he he didn't run Italy very well, and he fell out with Caesar when Caesar returned, and we kind of went into a little bit of a wilderness for a little while. But just towards the end of Caesar's life, he came back into it. He managed to patch things up, and just before Caesar's assassination, there was this really key moment at a festival called the Lupercalia, where I think the years of Rome run around naked and women with belts, strips of goat skin, or something. I think that's think that's very bright. Dr G 24:33 Yeah, a proper fertility ritual. Dr Rad 24:38 That's your rich Saturday night. Yeah. Alex Gough 24:42 And this year, so 44 BC, this it ended with Caesar sitting on a on a throne and Mark Antony offering offering him a crown, and this is a really controversial moment in Caesar's life. So Caesar was Rome worked. Massively allergic to kings after they they got rid of the the kings many hundreds of years before and hated the concept of kings and Caesar I think in one in one reading of it Caesar wanted to be a king and Antony was offering him the crown and Caesar was gauging the reaction of the crowd to see whether they would tolerate it, and in another reading of it, Caesar was refusing the crown to prove to the crown that he didn't want to be a king. But if, as you sort of read the very last days of Caesar, he did become increasingly autocratic and a little bit mad and and ill, you know, and he had this this epilepsy which may have been affecting his his personality or his abilities, so I don't think it's impossible that he did actually want to be a king. I don't think that's the the commonest held view, but I don't think I don't think it's impossible. But anyway, he the crowd wouldn't let it happen, so so that went on that went away. But then a month later, it was the Ides of March, and and Antony was was supposed to be at Caesar's side, and if he had been, he there's every chance Anthony was a big bloke, and he was he was pretty handy. There's every chance that he would have stopped the the assassination because it was it was you know a very tentative botched assassination with you know people being very uncertain of themselves and but as it was he was stopped outside the Senate and delayed by a couple of his friends who were in on it so that Caesar went in alone and and got murdered and Antony survived because Brutus said we're only getting rid of Caesar. We're not doing a purge of of all the Caesarians. So Antony was survived, and at this point he was consul. So with Caesar dead, he was now the and Caesar was co-consul. So Antony was the sole consul and the and the most powerful man in Rome, having come from absolutely nothing. Dr Rad 27:00 What a sliding doors moment for him! There's a movie in there somewhere. Alex Gough 27:06 Well, there's there's various what if moments in Mark Anton's lives, and I think it emphasises how important he is as a character. Dr Rad 27:15 Yeah, definitely. Now, as you've highlighted in that little discussion, Anthony's obviously very much known as a military man. That's where he seems to shine a lot in his life, and so your books obviously contain a lot of really vivid battle scenes. And I'm curious to know how you script these moments. Alex Gough 27:36 I'm a I'm a vet by by training and form of profession. Weirdly, there's three vets who write Roman historical fiction: me and Ben Kane and Manda Scott, who all used to be vets. It's a bit, it's a bit gruesome, but there's probably not very many people in the world who know what it's like to cut into living flesh. So that that helps. But yeah, obviously, lots of imagination, trying to trying to sort of picture the picture sort of the the fear and the horror and the smells and the noises, and the whole book is written entirely through Mark Antony's eyes. It's it's close third person, which means that I could pretty much change it from he to I, and not have to change a single scene because there's nothing in the book that Mark Antony wouldn't have witnessed or or been you know be aware of or watched. So yeah, all the battles are written from his point of view, and in some of those cases he is sitting back because he's commanding, but quite often he's at the forefront with his sword, you know, rallying the troops, or or especially in his early career, actually getting stuck in. So, but the but these big set piece battles, especially Roman against Roman, were were often just just big shoving matches where two huge armies would walk slowly towards each other and toss their spears and then run the last few yards and then smash into each other, and then they just it'd be the one who kind of stabbed and pushed the hardest. And I think from what I've read at the start of the battle or during the main battle, there were probably relatively few casualties. It was only when one of them broke that the real massacres began and they started to yeah. Well, they're they split into groups and ran away, and they're unprotected and threw away their swords, and that's when most of the casualties were inflicted. So they are they're not. I think Hollywood will often often depict these little groups of one on one combats in these sorts of things where you know the the battle breaks breaks up into 1000 you know gladiator fights, but it's it was nothing like that. Dr G 29:44 It sounds horrifying, I have to say. And Alex Gough 29:48 No, it's yeah, it would be horrific. And I think, although we don't, I don't think the Romans had a concept of PTSD. There was, I was reading a paper recently about alcoholism and and addiction in in veterans and Roman veterans and I think there were yeah I think there's a lot of that going on in my my new series which is set in Hadrian's Reign the main character is a is a gambling bankrupt gambling addict because of his PTSD his way of coping. Dr G 30:21 I can sense how that might happen. Yes, yeah. the The horrors of war, I think, are like fundamental to the Roman experience in particular ways. And I know that for Dr. Rad and I, following the history of Rome has been. It does feel like it's battle after battle, Dr Rad 30:37 One battle after another. One might say Dr G 30:39 And the Roman historians themselves don't tend to give you too much detail, but it is something that is persistent in the Roman experience. To switch focus slightly, I'm interested in what you can tell us about your process of writing these sorts of stories, where you're combining the political, you're combining the history and the military all together. Alex Gough 31:05 Yeah, the first thing was basically just to sort of jot down what happened with a big sort of timeline, and then work out where that was going to go. And it was it was supposed to be a trilogy, and very quickly I went back to my editor and said I can't fit this in three books too much, and he said that's fine. So yeah, it's it's basically plotting out, and then I think the first step after that then is to work out where each the ending of each book will fall because you need to have a you know a dramatic cliffhanger as it were. So the the end of the first book was the ends with the Battle of Alesia and the sort of beginning of the of the civil war, and then second book's death of Caesar, and third book is Octavia. End of third book is Octavian and Antony falling out. So he got so managed to find some quite nice points to to do the arc of where these plots will go. Excuse me, and then yeah, and then it's a case of trying to do the character arcs, and that's interesting as well because the main character in my previous books will be fictional. So you can, you know, you have these in writing. You're supposed writing fiction. You're supposed to the characters are supposed to develop and grow, etc. And but you're constrained by what actually happened in in sort of biographical fiction. But obviously, you know, Anthony is a perfect character that went through a lot of changes and a lot of lot of personal growth. So yeah, it's it wasn't too different from writing the the more ictional versions, but yeah, he was. But yeah, there's a lot more detail of what actually happened, and also I think a lot more politics than these books than than the previous ones. Dr Rad 32:56 So, which part of Antony's life proved to be the most difficult to write about, perhaps because there was just like a lack of source material, or maybe because it's just too famous and people would come in with a lot of you know expectations. What did you encounter when you were scripting his story? Alex Gough 33:14 Yeah, so obviously that you've got the hostile sources we mentioned, and so much of what we know about Antony comes from Cicero, who hated him. The mutual loathing, and then also, of course, the subsequent history was all written by people who owed their lives and livelihoods to Augustus. So, and and he was Antony's next great enemy after after Cicero. So, all the sources are heavily biased against Antony, or pretty much, or some some have been a little bit more generous. But and Plutarch, for example, writing much later, gives quite a nice, well-rounded version of him. But yeah, I think so. The hostile, the hostile sources are a big part. It's sort of a challenge, and it's fun to to make make up bits that we don't we don't know. I'm trying to fit everything together with the known history when you're you're trying to add things add things back in. That can be quite that can be quite tricky to make things plausible when you don't actually know for sure what's what's going on. Another thing about, for me, I found difficult was, yeah, if you spend this much time with a character, you kind of have to like them a bit, and and the more I the more I wrote about Auntie, the more I liked him, the more I read about him, which made when, but he wasn't perfect, and which made it very disappointing when he was actually bad, and you'd kind of have these moments of like, oh, Anthony, Really, you're letting me down, buddy. Dr G 34:45 Right when I need you. Fair enough. I think that that sort of it's almost like the way you're describing it feels a little bit like the way actors tend to talk about inhabiting roles, where it's like you've got to have a sort of. Genuine love and respect for the character that you're trying to bring to life, Alex Gough 35:04 Especially because you're because I'm written it entirely from his point of view, and the only inner monologue is his. There's no inner monolog from any other character. He can he can guess what other people are thinking, but he doesn't know. So yeah, I guess there is quite a big parallel to to acting the role. Dr G 35:20 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you-you've become Anthony in this process of writing these books, and so when he lets you down, like that's real. That's like it's a tough time. Yeah. So if we're thinking about the series as a whole, and aside from Antony, was there any particular characters that you really enjoyed writing as well? Alex Gough 35:40 Yeah, I mean, he's he's not the best known known character, and he's he he dies relatively early in the series. But Clodius Pulcher is one of my favourites. He'ss absolutely crazy. Dr G 35:51 A legend in his own mind. Alex Gough 35:53 He was a good friend of Antony's. He's a little bit older. Yeah, they they did quite a lot of stuff together. But yeah, that's obviously a whole other episode. But it's it's really good fun writing about a character that's kind of much more mad and bad and dangerous to know, to to paraphrase the quote. So yeah, he's fascinating. Fulvia, I mentioned really strong, really clever, really sad, and I think there was a really overlooked love story going on there. I think I think Anthony was really in love with Fulvia, and he got he was obviously got sidetracked by Cleopatra, and it was quite tragic at the end. And I think, but I think he really, especially in the early days with Fulvia, I think she supported him through some really hard times. I think he relied on her for advice. I think, yeah, I think they had a really close bond. He was a good stepfather to her children from her previous marriages. He was also married to his two of his best friends, Clodius and Curio, who were both and widowed from both of them. And so he'd obviously known her for a very long time before that. And yes, she's a she's a very clever, powerful woman who was basically almost doing her best to rule Rome as best a woman can in many ways. But I think it was more of a partnership. I don't think she was in charge the way Cicero was was implying. But so she's interesting. Cytheris, I mentioned his his courtesan lover. I've fleshed out her character quite a lot, and turn that into a little bit of a love affair, and just try to imagine what it would have been like of a woman in her position, where she was a I think she was a freed woman by that stage, but kind of still obliged to do to be a court stand by her by her patron. So there's kind of that there's that sort of coercion side of things, but also I think she had a lot of autonomy. I think she could choose or reject who she wanted, and I think she was one of Brutus' lovers at one point as well. So it was quite interesting. So she was fun, and then as I said, making Cicero evil-that was great. Dr Rad 35:54 I don't think you have to push too hard for that one. Dr G 35:54 We'll stand by you on that regift system. Don't worry. Dr Rad 35:54 Now, your last book in this series gets to focus on probably actually one of the better known parts of Antony's life, and of course takes us through his relationship with Cleopatra, the romantic phase, not the he bumps into a pimply teenager phase, and we're huge fans of Cleopatra on this show, so we're dying to have a little bit of insight into how things turn out for them. Alex Gough 35:54 So actually, he yeah, I think comparing to Octavia at this stage, he had an affair with a an Eastern queen called Glaphyra, who for for a few months, and she seemed she seemed like an interesting character and very much a sort of prototype for Cleopatra in many ways. But I think she possibly wasn't influential enough to to keep his attention. So yeah, he when he ended up with with Cleopatra, having known her reasonably well through through Julius Caesar previously, he does seem to have been completely enchanted by her. So I don't know if he was infatuated with her while she was with Caesar, or it was a bit of a bro code, don't go don't go near kind of thing. But obviously, by all accounts, she was not a beautiful woman. Although there's some of the coins, so there's coins with over like a massive hooked nose and look a bit witchy, but I've read that that's actually a kind of emphasising her link with the Ptolemies. So it's less of a less of a comment on what she actually looked like and more of more of a statement on her ancestry and the sort of the most famous statue of her. I think she looks she looks fine personally, but anyway she was she was said at the time to not be particularly beautiful, but incredibly alluring, and you know, incredible, incredibly intelligent woman. You know, spoke. I think she was the first Ptolemaic pharaoh to speak Egyptian. Dr Rad 35:54 Yes Alex Gough 35:54 And she's yeah spoke multiple multiple languages and knew how to run a country. Very strong, pretty ruthless. But yeah, he obviously. Fell head over heels with her, and they seem to have a lot of fun together. There's a couple of couple of anecdotes. I think these are both in Plutarch. There's one where they go fishing together down the Nile, and Anton's not really done much fishing before. He's not really very good at it, so he pays some divers to take some fish and go and put them on his hooks, and he pulls them, pulls them up, and says, "Look what I've caught! And Cleopatra knows full well what's going on, so she pays a diver to go down and put a dried and salted fish on his hook. So when he pulls it up, it makes it obvious that she's in. She knows what he's doing. I know that he's kind of. I think there was a moment of anger followed by actually that's quite a good joke. And then there's another time where he they have a bet together as who can put on the most expensive dinner, and this is kind of in their in their later years when they're really getting very hedonistic, and Anthony puts on this this sumptuous, incredibly expensive expensive banquet and says beat that, and then the next day Cleopatra has this banquet, which is okay. And then she takes out a priceless pearl earring and dissolves it in a strong wine and drinks it, and and then that's basically worth more than than any number of banquets, and so she wins the bet that way. So yeah, I just think they have a lot of fun together, and but I think they they also relied. I think, as I said, he's he he was often in partnerships with with strong women, and I think Cleopatra advised him and helped guide his career. Not always in in hindsight in the direction that would have been best for his own personal career, but but there would have been certainly from her point of view, having a strong Roman devoting his energies to the protection of Egypt was was the right thing to do, and and actually Egypt was so rich and the East was so powerful, it it wasn't without the benefit of hindsight, it wasn't that bad an idea to concentrate his energies in the east? Dr G 35:54 Yeah, it certainly has a lot to offer. Alex Gough 36:51 Yeah, and then obviously you've got the the tragic ending. I mean, I do. There's a couple of aspects where Actium and and also at the very end where you wonder about Cleopatra's motives and actions, and was she actually putting herself before Antony or the interests of her country, which wouldn't be surprising. I think she was a very proud Egyptian, very proud of her country, and wanted to keep it independent. So, at the end of the Battle of Actium, the battle is in the balance. The two fleets are meeting, and and and and it could have gone either way. And Cleopatra spots a gap in the Roman line and flees, and so Antony is forced to decide: Does he stay on and fight? In which case, you know, he might lose Cleopatra because she might be captured, or does he follow her and his own ship and lose the battle? And he chose to follow her, and that was probably a fatal mistake. There was there was certainly no going back from that. By the time that happened, and they they escape back to Alexandria, there was that was that was it all over. And then right at the end as well, there's a there's a moment where Cleopatra's boarding herself up in her mausoleum, getting ready to self immolate before Octavian reaches her, and Antony is elsewhere, and he receives a message that she's dead, and he stabs himself. And as he's dying, he receives a message that's like surprise, he's not dead. And so he's then there's this horrible time where he is dragged across Alexandria and then put in a sling and pulled up, sort of bouncing up the walls is is groaning in agony to to be pulled up into into Cleopatra's arms where he he dies, but you know the question is, was it more convenient for Cleopatra to now to have Mark Antony out of the way so that she could make a deal with Octavian, and so did she deliberately send a message saying she was dead in order because she knew he would then kill himself to just kind of free things up for her, so that could have been a little bit of a cynical move on her part. That might be being ungenerous, but it's suspicious. Dr G 44:10 It is one of those intriguing moments in history, and there's - it's a shame you haven't watched the rest of the 1963 Cleopatra because there is a version of that scene that does come up - but to think speculatively for a moment, do you think there's a way in which Antony could have won in this civil war? And if he had, what would the world of Rome look like? Alex Gough 44:38 Oh yeah, yeah, it's brilliant. Brilliant question to think about, and I wrote I wrote a Substack article on this recently, and so it's kind of fresh in my mind. There were so many times when Antony could have chosen something that would have cemented him with supreme power. So very early on, he could have, as after Caesar's death, he could have. Sided with the Senate against Octavian. He could have sided with Sextus Pompey against against Octavian. So Sextus Pompey was Pompey the Great's son, and he had gathered quite a powerful navy and army in Sicily, and was was quite a problem. And actually, allying with him would have would have made someone fairly inassailable, but obviously in the in the early days after Caesar died, you know, as Cicero said, he was kind of a a bit of a joke character. Octavian, no one took him seriously. No one thought that this was actually going to go anywhere. So I don't think Anthony thought he was someone he really needed to deal with. Dr Rad 45:38 Well, he was a teenager, basically. Speaker 1 45:41 Yeah basically, yeah, and I think no one knew how brilliant and horrifically ruthless he was going to be. So, yeah, so that kind of, and but also just going forwards, he, as where I said, he was naively trusting. There are a number of times where he he he made treatise with Octavian and took him at his word when he had Octavian exactly where he wanted him, and could have just could have crushed him, and then decided instead to make a treaty, especially after he was married to Octavian sister Octavia, that she patched things up between them when he could easily have allied with Sextus, crushed Octavian, and just been ruler of the world. And then as soon as he goes back to back to Greece or back to the east, Octavian goes back on his words and seizes Gaul and takes his armies off him, and that that happened at the time and again where Octavian would break his word to Antony, and Antony would keep trusting him and for quite a long time. So, so he had plenty of opportunities early on to to beat Octavian. Later on, there was a really clinching moment. It was a big part of the final book, where Mark Antony invades Parthia with the biggest armies ever assembled, and things just go wrong right from the start. He he sort of taking a leaf out of Caesar. He boldly leaves this baggage train behind and and marches on ahead to catch the Parthians by surprise because he's been told the city ahead is undefended and unfortified, which turned out to be a lie for the king of Armenia, who's betrayed him. The king of Armenia is guarding the baggage train, and soon as the path probably tells the Parthians where it is, as soon as they attack, he flees, and his baggage train with all his siege equipment and all his supplies is completely destroyed. And this was, although he sort of fought on from there, this was kind of wrecked his his chances of invading Parthia almost before it started, and if he had won in Parthia, again his his military renown and his prestige and his riches would have been completely unassailable. Whereas he came back to sword to Egypt as a kind of bit of a broken man at that stage. He led his army back in this heroic retreat, and which showed the absolute best of his character. But he and he did preserve quite a lot of the army. He could potentially have have invaded again, and that's and that's a big what if there, which we'll come back to in a second. But yeah, that's another point where he could have he could have won. And then Actium, as I said, that that's Agrippa did a brilliant job strategically of strangling Anton's supplies. So that was kind of the battle was almost over before it began because of how good Agrippa was. But despite that, Antonius still could have won. He had the most powerful land army, and there were some moments both in the naval battle and in the land battle where he could have won. So yes, many times where he could have won, which then leads on to the what what could have happened if he had won. And as I said, one of the big consequences I think would have been just shifting the whole empire east and its focus. I think he could have learned from his mistakes, he's had most of his army intact. If and he could have re-invaded Parthia and conquered it, because Parthia was was relatively divided at the time, and there were certain alliances he could have exploited. And if he had, then he might not have immediately set up a capital in Alexandria, but I think de facto he he would probably have lived there with Cleopatra, turned it into into the de facto capital, and focused all his energies east. So one consequence of that would be you'd have Parthia closer links with India, closer links with China, and all that flow of knowledge and wealth sort of coming into the Roman Empire would have would have greatly changed how quickly they sort of science, etc. developed, and also he he wouldn't have focused on the West, so he'd have kept Gaul, but probably wouldn't have invaded Britain. So he'd have had no no London, none of the Roman cities. That would probably just remain a sort of fragmented state until the some of the northern tribes eventually invaded them and united it. Christianity is a big one. Would it would Christianity have been able to develop if the Roman Empire was thriving in the East and bringing in Eastern religions like Mithraism and Zoroastrianism? Potentially, you know, if Zoroastrianism was already, you know, if he conquered Parthia brought Zoroastrianism back, would there have been any room for Christianity? You know, 60 years later, so we might we might not have had a Christianity or Islam at all. So yeah, I mean, going forwards, and at that point, it just becomes you know wings were butterfly. Anything could happen after that. So we'd just be living in a completely different world, you know, different industrial revolutions, different world wars, all this sort of thing. But yeah, I think we-if Antony had won or had defeated Octavian at any point-and there was no one else really, apart from Octavian, who who could have confronted Antony. All everyone else was dead in all the civil wars. Then Antony would have been the supreme ruler with Cleopatra. You'd have had an Eastern influence, and we've just been in a completely different world. Dr Rad 50:44 So intriguing, especially because presumably it would also have meant that Caesarion would have lived to be a man. Yeah, children with Cleopatra and Antony, they would have obviously got to grow up with their parents as opposed to being raised by Octavia in Rome. It's such an intriguing fleet of possibilities. Alex Gough 51:06 Yeah even even the sort of the Near East immediately after would have been you know so so obviously completely different. But yeah, I think Cleopatra would have made sure that Caesarion was co-emperor, and of course Anthony might not have lived that long. He was you know his liver would have turned out because him how he drank. So if he maybe avoided an assassin's knife, but I think Cleopatra was she was younger and she was I think she'd have ruled with Caesarion for a long time, and I think that would have been the the foundation for the new sort of Roman dynasty. And you know Caesarion could have could have then played on his connections with Caesar just as Octavian did. Dr Rad 51:39 Hmm. I mean, would have probably had a completely different understanding of Cleopatra herself if this union had survived beyond the 30s BCE. Alex Gough 51:49 I think we might have seen a little bit more of the ruthless ruler. Dr Rad 51:53 Perhaps would they have turned on each other? Dr G 51:54 Uh oh Alex Gough 51:58 I don't think he'd have needed to. I think I think he'd have been quite content to let her do what she wanted for the most part, and I think if he didn't conquer Parthia, I think he'd probably be like, "I'm done now." He's going to put his feet up and do a bit of a Tiberius and let Cleopatra rule in his. Dr Rad 52:13 I'm too old for this shit. Yeah. Alex Gough 52:16 Axactly. Dr Rad 52:18 Fantastic. Well, look, you've given us a bit of a hint about your next project. I think you mentioned something about setting your next series in Hadrian's reign. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're working on next now that Anthony is dead and buried, unfortunately? Alex Gough 52:34 Yeah, it's very sad. But yeah, I'm now doing a series set in the start of the reign of beginning and start of the reign of Hadrian. It's going back to this kind of action adventure. It's it's called Hadrian's Jackals, and it's a bunch of ne'er-do-wells and outcasts who have been recruited by Hadrian's mother or adopted mother Plotina to basically do the the tasks of keeping Hadrian safe that you wouldn't necessarily trust the Praetorians to do, given their track record of assassinating emperors. But there are see they've recruited them because no one really wants to join that sort of group. They've basically got a bunch of no-hopers. So it's a it's the gambling addict I mentioned. There's an escaped slave. There's an exiled poet with anger management issues. There's a there's a centurion who's who's written about in Pliny. We don't know his name, but we know that he was exiled for adultery with a senator's wife, and she was exiled to a different island as well. So you've got a heartbroken senator, a heartbroken centurion, and then you've got a retired Vestal Virgin, which and thank you, Dr. G, for your for your advice about what a retired Vestal Virgin might do with her life. Dr G 53:48 Ah fantastic! Oh, I look forward to seeing. Sounds like it's going to be fun. Alex Gough 53:55 Yeah, it's a lot of fun to write. Dr Rad 53:57 Well, listeners, there you have it. You obviously want to go out and get your hands on copies of all of the Mark Antony series, and you'll obviously want to keep your eyes peeled for the first book in this new series. Do you know when that's going to be coming out? Alex Gough 54:13 Yeah, Hadrian's Jackals out in November. Dr Rad 54:15 Oh, okay, cool, excellent. So possibly a Christmas buy. Alex Gough 54:19 Absolutely, yeah. Dr Rad 54:21 Oh, thank you so much for coming on the show, Alex. We really love talking to you all about Mark Antony. We are probably about 10 years away from talking about his lifetime on our show, so it's nice to be able to touch base with him now and then. Alex Gough 54:35 Excellent. Yeah. Well, I'm sure I'll still be listening when you get there. Thanks very much. Thanks very much for having me on. Dr G 54:42 Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can find us on Patreon and Ko-Fi. We've also published two books on ancient Roman history, "Rex: the Seven Kings of Rome", examines the different literary accounts of the earliest rulers recorded in Roman history. "Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire" is full of the sorts of stories the Romans wished you didn't know about them, and is guaranteed to make for interesting conversation. Thank you to all our Patreon supporters. We are truly humbled by your patronage. Transcribed by https://otter.ai