Team Antony & Cleopatra

AGRIPPA

Two thousand and fifty three years ago today, August 1st, in 30 B.C., Marc Antony committed suicide by falling on his own sword. He had suffered serious desertions among his troops the day before during the Battle of Alexandria, and, despite an early victory, the desertions proved too much and he was ultimately defeated. After returning to Alexandria, he received false information that his wife, Cleopatra VII, had already taken her own life.

After the grief stricken man had already stabbed himself he was told she wasn’t really dead, and he was taken to her where she was in hiding with her ladies in her mausoleum. The doors had been barred against intruders and the dying man had to be hauled up to her through an open window. He survived for only a few minutes after he reached her, and died in Cleopatra’s arms.

January 14 is Mark Antony's 2105th birthday! On contemporary Roman fasti, such as the Fasti Verulani (below), the date is marked as D•VITIOSUS•EX•S•C.

image source (the first full line says: [F xi]x EN d . vitiosus . ex . s . c . anT . naTal, i.e. F [nundinal day] xix [days before the Kalends] EN [endotercissus: the type of day, where most religious or political proceedings were not permitted in the morning or evening but were acceptable in the middle of the day] d [dies] vitiosus ex . s . c . [abbreviation of Ex Senatus Consulto i.e. by decree of the Senate] anT [abbreviation for Antonius/Antony] naTal [abbreviation of natalis, a substantive noun meaning "birthday"] transl.: "a defective day, as decreed by the Senate, Antony's birthday")

Octavian (not yet Augustus), after the death of his brother-in-law/ally-turned-enemy at Actium in 30 BC and his assumption of power over Rome, had the Senate label Mark Antony's birthday as a DIES VITIOSUS (i.e. a bad, faulty, defective, corrupt day) so that Antony's remaining followers would be unable to celebrate his birthday.

friends, romans, countrymen, lend me your ears—-