ABSTRACT
The union of Caesar and Cleopatra was in principle a state alliance between the Roman and the Grecian commonwealths. In 1599 the Swiss visitor at the Globe Theatre in London saw a comedy, for so was “Julius Caesar” described. Within a month, Queen Cleopatra sailed for Alexandria, taking her three-year-old son Caesarion. In “Romeo and Juliet” is the apotheosis of young passion; in “Antony and Cleopatra” mature enduring love. And with Octavian master of the West, seated in Rome, what hope have Cleopatra and her son Caesarion, if Antony prove false? Antony’s lieutenants had scored several victories over the Parthians, a cavalry folk holding Hyrcania, which now is Northern Persia. In secular history two women only, Joan of Arc and Cleopatra, are the most memorable, known to all nations and ages as the supreme exemplars of sacred and profane love, remembered by everybody.
