The Life and Legacy of Mark Antony with Jeff Tatum

hello and welcome to world history encyclopedia my name is Kelly and today I'm joined by author and Professor Jeffrey Tatum Jeff is the professor of Classics at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and his research focuses on the literature and history of the Roman Republic and the circumstances of Imperial Greek literature with a specific focus on plutar today though we are going to be discussing his new book a noble ruin Mark and an Civil War and the collapse of the Roman Republic published by Oxford University press um well Jeff thank you so much for joining me today it's I'm so excited to talk to you about your new book it's my pleasure to be here thank you um so I guess we should get right into it um and start off with what your book is all about well it obviously it's it's it's about Mark Anthony so it's a it's a biography of Mark Anthony but if you compare with previous biographies of Mark Anthony you'll see that it's a lot fatter and mostly that's because it's an examination of Antony's career within the the historical moments in which he lives you know his his rise as a a young Noble his career um during the you know during a time when the the Republic is collapsing into civil war between Caesar and pompy and then obviously the triumphal period with special emphasis on Antony's Eastern career as well as the the politics in in Rome so I think of it as being about um especially the triumphal period that pivotal point when the Republic ends up being an Empire but it's focalized along Mark Anthony's career and it is an attempt to tease out aspects of Anthony's private life where we can his political life where we can okay brilliant and I know um on in the book it says that it's the fullest biography of of Mark Anthony in English to date um is there a particular reason why we haven't had anything like this already before or are you just yeah that's well the um about 50 years ago a woman named Elanor husar wrote a biography of Mark Anthony and it's a substantial work um her interest though was almost strictly political history she wasn't um you know she was a creature of her time they you know people were less interested in the cultural turn in Roman history less interested in integrating certain aspects of material culture uh and her Focus was entirely on the Roman scene you know with with with less interest in the helenic side of things um and I mean but the book was a real effort you know within its own terms to to u to address Anthony's career beyond that though there are many really entertaining and attractive biographies of Mark Anthony but they've tended to focus on the obvious narrative you know they sort of rush to getting Anthony to be conso death of Julie SE all of those sorts of things his conflict with Cicero his conflict with Octavian and of course a great deal of interest on his relationship Cleopatra so they they focus on our sources tend to focus on that our literary ones and they focus on that too which is not to say they don't have great observations to make about all of these but they're more interested in that narrative line than the universe around that narrative line at least in my view okay so you mentioned now both the literary but also the objects have you Incorporated um archaeological uh history in in this as well so have you learned about Mark Anthony through the archaeology as well as literature well less about less about um archaeological remains you know in the sense of um foundations of cities and that sort of thing but I'm heavily reliant on um inscriptions from the Eastern Mediterranean World which which which many of which I don't think have been um incorporated into a biographical treatment of anti we learn things that simply aren't in our literary sources and I've been especially indebted I'm not the first person to be indebted in this way but I'm especially indebted to the numismatic evidence that we have we can sometimes see Anthony moving around and doing various things in various cities which are entirely ignored by our literary sources and we can tease out the kinds of things he's doing when he claims to be the new dionis and whatnot in the imagery of his coins in a way that we can't tease it out in the literary sources which acknowledge that but tend to go Tut Tut Tut isn't that objectionable right so uh bringing in these kinds of evidence sort of um brings it beyond the the political lens that previous uh biographies have focused I hope so I I I hope it does our litery sources all litery sources have an agenda you know plutarch's account of Anthony wants to make you a better person Cicero's accounts of Anthony want to tell you that he was a horrible person and other historical narratives in the ancient world want to focus on his failure over against octavien you know making the point the better man won and so they're they're less interested in how Anthony projects his majesty to people in the Eastern Mediterranean world and these the way in which he he he exhibits himself with his wife Octavia as a as a formidable political pair who help to hold things together they're they're they're less interested in those kinds of issues and so we can see evidence for these things I we have to do some work because a coin doesn't tell us what it means but we can see evidence for these kinds of things in this kind of in this kind of material likewise with inscriptions we can see Anthony being celebrated in games in Athens um celebrations which aren't at all discussed in our in our literary sources because they're not interested in in in that sort of thing intriguing and so would you say that you've written this book because you wanted to bring this all together or is there another reason why you decided to write a book like this well from my student days I think like everyone who becomes a Roman historian I was very engaged with the triumviral period but at the same time a little intimidated by Ronald SS you know masterly treatment of of this period but I never stopped thinking about it I think like most classes is I've I've been engaged with with Mark Anthony everybody has an opinion about Mark Anthony you know they admire him for his glamour they disapprove of him for his lubricious whatever it is everybody has feelings about Anthony and I'm no different from anyone else and when I was encouraged by some colleagues to try and do something with in this period one of the things I wanted to do was devote more attention to his Eastern identity um and to try and make the point that that Eastern identity is not siloed off from his identity in Rome that these two halves of the world communicate they contact each other they're less alien to one another than we we sometimes suggest so in terms of why did I write the book A long-standing interest that I finally felt I could indulge and uh and then my real fascination with this Eastern material which is a material I only really started thinking about a lot when I started writing this book how brilliant do you think you could tell us a little bit about this Eastern identity and the difference between this and and sort of the general identity that we're probably more familiar with yeah well in our sources and in most accounts we think of Anthony is someone who goes to the East and succumbs to orientalism you know he postures as a God he indulges himself in Banquets and he has a liazon with with with Cleopatra and that's very very un Roman so we're told but in the helenistic East majesty and political power are conveyed by a luxurious setting by banqueting that's one of the jobs of kings and queens and all kings and queens are themselves Divine not that people think they're really Gods but being Divine project the kind of majesty that helps to to hold Society together and the Romans know about this when Roman provincial Governors go to the east they often get Divine honors um in Athens before he lost to to Mark Anthony at Philippi Brutus the noblest Roman of them all received Divine honors Romans Romans know this they're familiar with it and they understand it as a vital aspect of political communication in in the East so many of the things that Anthony does that Octavian will insist are objectionable well they are objectionable if you lived in Rome in the 3rd Century BC or something like that but most people get that this is what you do but but that doesn't mean you can't spin it and and make it and make it look bad and I think for a long time we've been a little susceptible to Octavian spin on this sort of Eastern Behavior intriguing and so a lot of this information came from inscriptions that you and and also there are very very good very very serious Scholars unpacking the way in which helenistic Kings govern their kingdoms and communicate with cities I'm I'm fortunate that I come you know at the um at a moment when for the last 20 years or so superb Scholars have unpacked helenistic cultures in a way that what wasn't available to someone like Elanor husar um so I could um take advantage of that sounds a little transactional I could I could I could benefit from their very very good work and try to fold it into Anthony's Story how brilliant and so while you were doing that did anything jump out at you that you were perhaps um surprised about like did anything did anything surprise you despite having this sort of long sort of fascination with with this figure and the history well I I think the thing that I um I suppose I knew but didn't no no um is in in working on Antony's career in the East organizing provinces dealing with cities principalities and others um I I didn't really have an appreciation of the sheer amount of work involved again we think of Anthony as all fun in games and they were fun in games but the sheer amount of work involved in regulating this part of the world militarily in terms of um Justice administration of policy extracting money for Rome I I hadn't really I I hadn't really internalized just how challenging this this is I should have done because we now you know for the last 25 or 30 years we've been very aware of how hard Roman emperors have to work to manage all of these things and we've understood how hard helenistic Kings work but um I myself I'd never really put Anthony into that that same category um but of course for a decade of his life he was the master of the Eastern Mediterranean world and doing all of this work intriguing would you say it's because he just doesn't have that um sort of mon or you know he's not King in a sense of these other kings that that just didn't really come together until you were putting this together he's not a king so we don't press our King Button he's not an emperor because he lost and um so we don't press that button and even though there are certain things we know are the case but intuitively we shy away from and every ancient historian knows that Anthony was competent well educated um and and fits nicely into what we expect of the Roman nobility we know that but intuitively we we can't not be affected by Cicero's re rhetoric and we and we can't not be affected by the um the propaganda War of the 30s we can't not be affected by Shakespeare so we we you know we we have these barriers between us and and the reality of Anthony that both matter and to some extent maybe we don't want to give them up uh so it's um it he's more challenging to recover at least he was for me than some other historical figures you just mentioned Shakespeare and I just wanted to ask quickly did you um did you work with the text at all in this biography or was it is it sort of Beyond sort of how you focusing on there are a lot of Shakespearean references and Illusions in this biography several of the titles are quotes from Shakespeare and um you know it's it's a fascinating loop plutarch's life of Antony is absolutely fundamental for a biography of Anthony and and sh Shakespeare's version of Anthony depends so heavily on plutar that there's a loop between the two and they're they're both in their different ways great artists that just makes it unavoidable that when a certain episode happens in Antony's life you you just must embrace it when I get to Antony's meeting with with Cleopatra you know that great scene in in in Shakespeare um I use Shakespeare to describe it because I couldn't do it better and when I come to Anthony's death I again quote from Shakespeare because I couldn't say it more profoundly um so there's a there's a an inas cultural dialogue but also there's a desire to see how this great poet understood this fascinating life yeah and I guess it's probably important to um highlight Anthony throughout history since you are drawing on so many different pieces of lit through you know 2000s years um it's probably worth yeah definitely highlighting all of the lay yeah it's not that people have forgotten Anthony you know if you there are certain people from Antiquity that you me if you mention their name in the cocktail party you need to explain them but if you mention Anthony or Cleopatra they you know they're onto it brilliant um I think my final question is is there something that people should really know either about Mark Anthony or your book or the or your general topic as a whole it's a big question well from a from a purely academic point of view what I would like people to get out of this book is the way in which the various facets of Greek Roman Antiquity we talk about have to be integrated in under in order to understand even political history how literature material culture culture um our our cultural understanding of of how Roman politicians behave all of this has to come together the that you know that Classics is a is an integrated discipline not a bunch of you know not a subset of of of of of of Enterprises that are going their own way that's the academic side of it on the more human side for you know for for for readers who are or non academics I'd like them I hope that when they read it they'll see that Anthony is a is a more complicated figure than the way we think about him when we think of Shakespeare or when we think of Hollywood films and that someone can be talented and profound and Earnest but at the same time be a failure um that these qualities come together I think there's there's a rich tragic very human story in in Anthony that uh that I I would I would like people to appreciate um in a way that goes beyond the kind of cardboard character that that we sometimes have absolutely thank you so much Jeff I really appreciate you coming on the channel and chatting to us about your new book um if anyone is looking to purchase a noble ruin uh we're going to link the book for Oxford University press down below so thank you so much thank you it's been my pleasure this video is brought to by world history encyclopedia for more great articles and interactive content head to our website via the link below if you like my sweater you can find this design and a bunch more in our shop at worldhistory dosto or you can find a link for it down below thank you so much for watching and we will see you soon with another video