ABSTRACT
Plutarch’s Life of Antony is an unforgettable masterpiece of Greek literature.1 Powerfully charged with theatrical or operatic vicissitudes against exotic backdrops, it has always struck the popular imagination.2 But the Life is also a masterpiece of striking ambiguity in character portrayal.3 The tremendous fascination and electrifying effect of certain scenes must at least in part be attributed to Plutarch’s manipulation of the dramatic vicissitudes of Isis and Osiris, which are the foundation of the Isiac religion.4 Antony and Cleopatra virtually play out the roles to which they were assimilated, or inversely-where the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, or fortune, fate, and destiny turn against them-become anti-heroes, an antiOsiris and anti-Isis.
