‘And the word went out everywhere, that Aphrodite had come to feast with Dionysus, for the common good of Asia.’19 No role could have been better designed to tickle Antony’s fancy – no bed-partner either. Just as he had been intended to do, he had speedily made Cleopatra his mistress, and passed a delightful winter with her in Alexandria. Matrons back in Rome would swear by Egyptian methods of birth control, but Cleopatra – at least while taking world leaders to bed – had no time for fiddling around with diaphragms of crocodile dung. As with Caesar, so with Antony, she soon got herself
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