8. Cleopatra Dressed Up as a Goddess to Seduce Mark Antony
After Caesar was murdered, Cleopatra needed a new ally in Rome. Who better than Caesar’s number-one ally, Marcus Antonius (better known as Mark Antony)? He was a womanizer (who was also married multiple times), so Cleopatra knew she had to dress to impress when she met him. He summoned her to him multiple times, but she came on her own time!
When Cleo met Antony, she sailed up the river in regal style befitting a mysterious foreign queen, as the Romans saw her. Plutarch noted that she rode in “a barge with gilded poop, its sails spread purple, its rowers urging it on with silver oars to the sound of the flute blended with pipes and lutes.” Cleopatra herself was lying on a bed with a golden canopy and was dressed like the Roman goddess “Venus in a painting,” with her servants made up as nymphs.
Needless to say, Antony was impressed and invited her over, but she ordered that he come on board her ship. He did as he was told, and was impressed by Cleopatra’s opulence, charm, and intelligence (she could speak many different languages, and had a strong command of political and military sciences). And so an affair was begun…
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