Doomed to Fail

Ep 13 - Part 1: Romancing The Queen - Cleopatra & Mark Antony

Episode Summary

Let's talk about one of the most epic love stories of all time - Cleopatra and Mark Antony (who she was with AFTER she had kids with Julias Ceaser) - There is incest, war, spies, intrigue, double-crosses, and more. Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt clash in this classic love story! Pretty great that 2000 years later we are still talking about it!

Episode Notes

Let's talk about one of the most epic love stories of all time - Cleopatra and Mark Antony (who she was with AFTER she had kids with Julias Ceaser) - There is incest, war, spies, intrigue, double-crosses, and more!

Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt clash in this classic love story! 

Pretty great that 2000 years later we are still talking about it! 

Episode Transcription

Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor

 

hi friends Taylor from Doom to fail we have 13 more episodes to put through re-releasing for you um as a reminder

our beginning episodes our first 26 we did two stories per episode but they ended up getting really long so we

decided to do them Monday and Wednesday releasing twice a week and then on Fridays I'm re-releasing our older

episodes as shorter like Clips so this one is on the famous love of Mark

Anthony and Cleopatra that caused Wars and there's Intrigue and there's incest

and there's fighting and there's murder and there's a snake and it's a very very fun fun story so we hope you enjoy any

questions or concerns or ideas we're at Doom toil pod gmail.com thanks a matter

of the people of State of California versus orthal James Simpson case number ba09 and so my fellow

Americans ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your

[Music] country okay Taylor we're recording accepts you accept Okay so we'll go

ahead and get started welcome to Doom to fail the podcast where one of us is

gonna be sick for a while and this time is Taylor's turn I'm joined here by Taylor my co-host hi Taylor hello how

are you I'm probably better than you yeah I was sick this like this morning I

couldn't talk when I woke up and now I feel like a little bit better but still like kind of dizzy yeah so we were

discussing changing up the production schedule and recording more than one of these a week so that we can have moments where we're sick and not have to hop on

and record while feeling shitty so we'll make that a reality and stuff yeah

exactly we'll do exactly we'll get there um so Taylor we are going to go through our

drink schedule at this point so why don't I tell you mine then you can tell me yours mine is going to be Kors which

is a taste the Rockies because we're going to go to Colorado for the True Crime side of our story today so for my

drink we're going to be having some KES because we are going to be in Colorado for the True Crime side of our story

today and Kors is a taste of the Rockies apparently they say that they brew it

using water from the Rockies I believe but mostly they're famous because their cans turn blue or the mountain turns

blue when it's cold enough to drink so I don't know why I'm giving people a lecture on what Kors is as though people

don't know it's like most be in the world but there you go I'm like is there is there a Coors that's not a a Coors

Light is there like a not light Kors I feel like I've seen like a yellow tan or

champagne colored Coors before that feels like that might the regular Coors that's right it's like a champagne color

I dud right yeah but good for them good for their marketing and branding people because that's more I mean when I think

of Kors I think Kors light actually kind of with light too totally I I feel like I wouldn't I don't know anyone who's

like oh just have like a Budweiser not light but I don't know what that tastes like so maybe I should try that too light you're like I want to buy I

want to drink a lot of these so I'm going to pretend this is like a diet food yeah exactly exactly yeah we

another podcast idea will reminisce about different alcohol things that we like um Katie of the Schmid Clan I'm

calling them uh texted me this week saying there's definitely farting they

listen to the last episode and said there's farting from 7 minutes to 11 minutes I went back and listened people

it is my dog who would record themselves farting and then publish it publicly and

advertise it publicly like why would I do that I'm sure people do that and they get a lot of money for it but that's a

whole different ball game that's another genre we are not that that is not the demographic I'm shooting for here I it's

obviously coming from my end but why would I do that because so is going to

shake when she shakes her collar make sounds then she'll tap on glass when she wants to be let out or she'll like wine

in the background like I need to figure out what it's a dog so funny it is I would never deliberately record

myself farting and then posting it publicly to the world so I don't know

can Kade Katie y all have a very similar perspective on this um yeah maybe it's a

you problem it's a them problem anyway that's my rant that's my

my my quick rant for the day but I'll um okay so let's get to your drink Taylor

awesome so I actually I also have a little bit of um notes from last week and some things I wanted to share um I'm

drinking a hot ttty because my throat hurts but it has nothing to do with my story are you actually drinking a hot

totty uhhuh that is awesome I love hot toties it's delicious I made it out of

honey and a little bit of lemon and some tea and some whiskey did you use regular lemons

yes okay so here's a secret to like a phenomenal hot totty use Meer lemons

which are sometimes hard to come by little sweeter they're a little sweeter they add this little kick to it they

just completely because it's acidic so it balances out the you know harshness of the um the bourbon which is amazing

so yeah we really need to start an alcohol podcast I think oh man that

sounds fine it's the thing that's gonna kill kill me so that's cool um cool okay

so I have some notes from last week re Joe Rogan Juan from California says vs

is on the wrong side of the Pitchfork on this one sorry Juan from California how convenient is this Juan Carlos your

husband it is my husband yes it's it's also a Rick and wordy reference which I thought was funny um and then George

from New York who is my friend George who lives in New York says here's what I'm willing to agree with about George Joe Rogan he has has a podcast he has

guests he has an audience thank you for coming to my TED Talk I mean he nailed

it nobody can deny that yep all true all true I also have been having like a a

rough week in general because I'm just like wasn't feeling well and so I've been thinking like I should be nicer to

people who believe in God and not be such a jerk about it and have some balance but I'm also just so mad and I

also saw something this week from a dad on LinkedIn who's like how can dads do work life balance and I've just like

never been so mad after reading that and so I was like I just I was wondering if there's some sort of like strangle thing

you can buy to like strangle it to like get the rage out that's where I'm coming from I don't have children so I don't

understand the sentiment uh it's just like it's like a mom thing dads have no problem dads get paid more money dads

are fine you know so whatever I've been kind of mad this week

um and another thing I've been annoyed about is which I've slacked you about is I've been like hey everybody like our

podcast and rate it and then like no one does it and I'm like just do it because I have a terrible salesperson so I'm

just like I said so so do it so I'm gonna work on our pitch I just added us to LinkedIn I'm just trying to get in

front of more people so I mean you gotta you got to offer people something like I offered in that Facebook channel to send

people autograph pictures of our face nobody took us 35 people saw it and like

two people liked liked it so no one wants that I don't know we have to think of something else we got to think of

something else okay yep alcohol recipe book by Fara Taylor I love that I love

that so I also before I get started wanted to say thank you to some people who are actively listening um to

especially Christine and Kelly who've been um giving me a lot of feedback and um I know they listen to it every week and it's really fun so thank you both

okay so now I'm after I've that's those are my notes and kind of where I'm coming from but so of course we're doing

like relationships and events and things that are that are failures throughout history um this

relationship is one of the ones that kind of comes up first whenever you Google historical relationships that were like tumultuous and ended in

tragedy so I also was making a timeline that I showed you and I'll post it on

our socials but I'm like what timeline am I in when I'm talking about my historical things and so much of it is

like after 1600 which makes sense because there's records and tracks but

there's so much stuff that happened before that so I'm like how can I find stuff that actually is ancient and then

it gets me into my two types of existential dread I have like the future

existential dread like when will the robots kill us when will we kill each other with nuclear weapons when will the

aliens kill us when will nature kill us how will nature kill us you know all those things that are normal you got to

stop watching the news I know I also have historical existential dread which is like what don't we know how can we

possibly know anything how are we Gathering these stories from like remnants of clay pots and coins and there's just so much that I don't know

about and I wish that we knew more so anyway this is the best that I can do in

20 minutes of a topic that people spend their whole entire lives studying from like bits and pieces of pottery and the

stories of the victors so I don't know I don't know if this is true it's kind of true and it might as well be true and it

doesn't matter it's very stressful um is your is your point that whoever wins is

the one who defines Theory yeah yeah that's fair especially with these like super ancient stories I just don't know

but I'm GNA tell you as much as I can about Cleopatra and Mark Anthony oh

that's a great one yeah you know what when you said the oldest story I thought Cleopatra and I was like who was the guy

and I kept thinking it was that guy who Colin frell played in that movie The

biopic where oh my God this is I have to edit this out this is terrible what's

her name Angelina Jolie was the mom remember and then ASP killed her the as

kills Cleopatra potentially so who's Colin Ferell wait Colin frell is Mark Anthony

then I am right right I guess I didn't watch that but probably there's also

Caesar she also was with Caesar for a little bit so we'll get to that uh hold

on I'm going to look this up right now what is the movie I I didn't

alander that's what it is okay has nothing to do with your story yeah I definitely have to edit this out well

it's like similar you know there's this there's so many there's so many stories like of of these dramas and there's so

many civil wars in this story that I'll talk about like just it's constant battle so if you're thinking of like

what it was like to live at this time and we are pre zero so we're in the BC times which is as I've already said it's

really hard for me to go backwards in time but I'll give you some dates um so we start St in BC in this story and I I

didn't watch as that many like dramas but I did listen to arrest his History

Podcast definitely have learned the story from Dan Carlin I watched ancient Rome on Netflix which is like half

documentary half show which is kind of fun and I also just was looking at an

article on history.com and then um I also I don't know if I told you this but when I was a little a little girl I

wanted to be an egyptologist that was like my dream I like really cool yeah hey do you think do you think we

should go to Dan Carlin and ask him for sponsorship money at this point given that we plugged him like every other

episode uh yes all right I don't know how go to his house in in some way okay

I don't know how to get a hold of him I guess we need an agent okay this proc this might be a longer process than I

thought does anyone know Dan Carlin tell him we said hello and just write to us and let us know yeah um oh he's the best

yeah so I just loved ancient Egypt history I think it was like I don't know if it's still a big thing for like kids to know a ton about but I had like

hieroglyphic stamps and I remember in like the 90s when my family moved to Las

Vegas and the Luxor was brand new I was just like oh my God you know just so excited about it so loved hearing the

history of of Egypt because it's super interesting it's also interesting as I like learn more like the civilization of

Egypt didn't change for thousands of years and now this story is going to be the very end of Egypt as like being

ruled by Egyptian pharaohs so we're at the tail end of it so speaking

of tail end and timelines here are our main characters this Julius Caesar he was born in 100 BC there's Mark Anthony

it's not Anthony it's Anthony a n t o n y born Marcus Antonius in 83 BC and then

in 69 BC Cleopatra the 7th Philip was born in in Egypt so just thinking about

I wrote Oh Christ so here's just like a little bit of their ages Caesar is 17 years older than Mark Anthony he's 31

years older than clar Patra and Mark Anthony is 14 years older than Cleopatra if that matters I'm just telling you how

old they are it does it matter or no I mean kind of I mean we have talked about

like huge age differences I think 31 years is a big age difference for that's fair dating um but but you know they

also were very similarly like the similarly politically inclined and everything so I don't think it was just

that but it is a big big difference so this is something that like I said someone will spend their whole entire

life studying and talking about and I'm going to try to do it in 20 minutes but I'll try to Benchmark some dates around Cleopatra and her life and then also

remember we're going backwards because we're in BC time so Julia Caesar in a

nutshell and I think I mentioned him in the Nero episode as well he is a general and a dictator of Rome he was a big part

of the end of the Roman Republic so at this time when we're in like the

50s the 50 BC Rome is having a ton of Civil Wars so specifically he's Caesar

is in a civil war with pompy so p n PE who was once part of the triumvirate

which is a group of three who ruled Rome together around 60 BC so that was pompy Caesar and cus were trying to kind of

stop the Roman Republic and turn it into an Empire and they had the Triumph ver which is like the first group of people

being like we're going to over our rule is higher than that of the Senate of like the Democratic role yeah this is

just expansion right it's like a land grab yeah yeah so pompy who's one try from time for it him and Caesar are

potentially like they're friends like they're talking about you know doing this ruling together and ppy marri

Caesar's daughter Julia and by all accounts they did really love each other but Julia died in childbirth and it

devastated pompy and his relationship with Caesar was never the same which is like a lot of this probably wouldn't have happened if Julia had lived because

then they would have continued to kind of rule together but they started to drift apart now that they weren't family

anymore so that's happening in Rome there's a big Civil War in 51 BC over in

Egypt Cleopatra becomes Co co-ruler when her dad toy the seventh dies she co-

rules always with a a man who's her both her sibling and her husband which is a

thing so she marries her brother telm me the eth so it's a whole thing it's a lot

EGP rulers it's a whole bunch of marrying your brother or your cousin or whatever like it's very much like we've talked about a million times like you

shouldn't do that it makes dead rulers because of at this point just feels like

we there's so many of these out there at this that we've already covered like yeah the the shock value of it's worn

off yeah it's bananas so she's married to her brother he's younger than her and they're co-ruling Egypt together so just

to talk about Cleopatra for a little bit like as a person obviously we don't know know a ton about her that's true like we

know like the records that people have of her she is one of the last pharaohs of Egypt the civilization's been around

for thousands of years but we're here at the tail end she was very smart and very Charming she spoke a ton of languages

one of the actual like kind of firsthand accounts comes from Plutarch I think it's about a hundred years after she

died but he wrote about that people said that she was known for her beauty and charm she could speak several languages

she was very intelligent and quick witted captivating personality she was very popular so this is all stuff that

we don't know for sure but I think like the one thing that is maybe unfair to her and her like intellectual prowess is

that conventionally she's not very pretty so there's like busts and coins

with her on them and she's not like a perfect like Beauty so some people say

that she was and I feel like they might be using that as an excuse to be like this is how she got so powerful because

she was so beautiful and seductive but she also like other people are like she wasn't that beautiful so it's like a

couple things that we like know about her that are facts she was Greek so she was from ma Macedonia like Dan harand

says and which is in Greece and she comes from like a long line of of Greek

Emperors of pharaohs of Egypt who are not ethnically Egyptian she was one of the only pharaohs who bothered to learn

how to speak Egyptian just like Katherine the Great bothered to learn Russian when like other people hadn't and people have had issues with like the

movies that she's Port portrayed in like Elizabeth Taylor and galado is about to play her because they're white U but

cleopetra wasn't ethnically African or Egyptian she was Greek the issue that I have with those actors playing her is

that they're gorgeous I say like yeah you have Elizabeth Taylor Who's like I

guess considered back in the day and even today like one of the most iconically beautiful women that's ever

existed but you're saying that she looked more like buzz from Home Alone like I don't know she was a normal

person like she wasn't like this astounding Beauty and I don't know if that matters like that's just I I don't

know I don't know where that fits into her story and I'd have to think about it for like years to try to make sense of it but she wasn't like striking

beautiful like galado is distractingly beautiful you know yeah like yeah well and it's also hard to tell because

you're looking at like Renditions that yeah it's a painting it's hard to really

visualize I mean I'm looking at one of them which was it looks like a modern pain meaning based off of a bust of her

face um I mean the one that you would like look for the look at the coin like the coin of her is probably like the

closest yeah she's got a Roman nose Like You Can Tell She's Got she's definitely got a Roman nose like that's normal

that's whatever yeah so like some of my opinions on this are like beauty is

subjective a so whatever our historians writing away her power as something she got from being so beautiful and sexy are

they harping too much on her not being beautiful does it matter like I don't know but just so we know like the answer

I think and I think that we've maybe talked about this before in like the realm of like dating and relationships

it's just like be cool and people will like you you know so like she was cool

and so regardless of what she looked like people liked her and she got some dudes to like her too so that's a little

bit about her maybe what she looked like maybe where she came from in 48 BCE she

is forced to flee Egypt she goes to Syria her and her brother husband tmy VII start a civil war so there Civil War

in Rome and now a Civil War in Egypt so her and her brother are fighting for the for the Pharaoh Throne um in 48 BC

Julius Caesar arrives in Alexandria which is um a port city in Egypt so this

is where a lot of this like action takes place it's that like the tip top of the Nile and Alexandria was founded by

Alexander the Great in 331 BCE so it's been around for a while by this time and

it's a center of learning culture diverse populations of Greeks Egyptians Jews other cultures a lot of people live

there as well as obviously a ton of enslaved people live there as well but it's the Port City lots of trade grain

Papyrus like it sounds very fun like it sounds like very bustling the Library of Alexandria is still there it has between

40,000 and 400,000 Scrolls all this like information that Lighthouse that we

talked about is one of the wonders of the ancient world that was still standing education was really highly

valued so it's like a pretty Cosmopolitan City for being in BC times yeah sounds like

King's Landing kind of yeah it probably is you know like all these are very similar to like things that we've heard

infin things so we're in 48 BC pompy and

Caesar have just had a huge battle I cannot pronounce this it's the Battle of farcus and a lot of Romans died and so

I've been saying there's been a bunch of Civil Wars like these are Legions that are going back and forth between Civil

Wars been so many so imagine if in like the US Civil War the North and South South fought and then it ended and they

were like great now it's east and west and now it's tall people versus short people and now it's like this versus this and it just goes on forever and so

like you're fighting someone that you fought with last year you know yeah you're like this year we're enemies because of something new and sounds

staring yeah so pompy and Caesar you know they used to be almost related because of Caesar's daughter now they're

in this their fight so many people have died pompy gets to Alexandria a little before Caesar and he ask he asks toy to

help him so he says help me defeat Caesar and toy wants to have Caesar on his side so in his own civil war against

Cleopatra and so he cuts toy Cleopatra's husband brother cuts off pompy's head

and gives it to Caesar when Caesar arrives because he knows that Caesar's coming to Alexandria as well and he does

this to be like hey I want you to be on my side look what I did for you I killed pompy and such a morbid gift it is and

Julius Caesar surprisingly is not happy he's like ew like he doesn't he's upset

and there's like some things that are like lot of conjecture like why is he upset like they've been fighting for

years they used to be friends they're fighting for years tons of like normal people have died during this these like

battles and this huge War but I imagine this is what I think have been reading about this as little as I have that

being the head of someone who used to be friends with who was married to your daughter who almost brought you a grandchild it's a little bit of like a

[ __ ] how do I get here you know just like but like all like I don't know I think just as a general rule kind of

like we always say like don't kill your family also just never gift somebody a human head like it's just never going to be received well no that's definitely

fair it's a good life rule I think I think I can stick by that one yeah to makes sense so like definitely not like

a silver platter with like a thing over the top you know like um that's not great so Cesar is not impressed but he's

in Alexandria and now telling me this is It's hard to say tell me because it starts with a P so hopefully I'm getting

it right but it's p t o l o m y so T me is like is like okay well now Caesar

since you're not happy about this like great gift I bought you um he puts him sort of in jail in Alexandria and is

trying to wait figure out what his next step is so while Caesar is stuck in

Alexandria Mar Anthony is in charge of Rome so he's been like a high up General in Caesar's Army for a whole time and he

does a pretty bad job he's just like living a nice life in Rome while people of Rome are starving which we've seen

again and again and we're only at episode 13 but another thing that I think we could maybe stand by is it

seems like if you just feed people everyone will be happy you know yeah there's got to be something biologically

in humans that once they attain a certain level of success they just literally cannot think like normal human

yeah they just can't can't remember that like oh maybe I should you know spend money on the people that I've that I

rule rather than a gold hat you know or like anything else it's just so so crazy

did you ever watch that interview that Ellen did with Bill Gates back in the day people would like ask him how much

he thinks things cost and he was like so comically off on it I think he said like a banana is probably $20 cuz he just

doesn't know they're so out of touch you're right no that's definitely fair they're like so far away from it they

can't even imagine like what do you mean you can't you know like like Marie Marie Anette saying let them eat cake she

didn't really say that but like the idea is like well we have all this cake here why don't they just have this you know but like no they have nothing like you

don't understand like what it's like to live on like that side of the of the spectrum did you really say that I could

have sworn that I heard somewhere that she said something different she didn't say that yeah no

yeah that's definitely revisionism but she did not say that but but but the same idea that like if you're living in a place where like you've never been

hungry you don't really understand what it could possibly be like for people who are hungry of course so that's what

happening in Rome there's also riots in Rome you know tons of riots during this time a lot of people are starving Rome

has a population about a million people at this point so there's a lot like a lot of people there which is you know a

huge City even in now times famously Cleopatra comes back to Alexandria she

sneaks in to come to Caesar's Aid and asks him to take her side so some of the

rumors are that she came rolled up in a carpet so like they brought him a carpet and unrolled and she was like Tada I'm

here or in like a linen bag or like in a box or like whatever like she came in

like a fun way and surprised him cuz she had to sneak back in and so she he

really he likes her he likes her likes the cut of her giib you know he likes this like trick that she did he likes that she speaks all these languages

she's really smart he's in his 50s she's in her 20s but they see something in each other and they start a relationship

so in 47 BCE Cleopatra gives birth to their son who she named cerian so they

have one child together and another thing about like Cleopatra being like this like crazy temptress it's probably

that she only had like two lovers in her whole life and they were Caesar Caesar and Mark Anthony that might have been it

for her you know sweet um so the next year I'm I'm by the way Taylor just so you know I'm actually looking up if we

named them cerian sections because of this guy yeah can you tell me more about that let me know what you find because I

don't know what that means it's so it's not spelled like the way we spell

cesarian section but let's see I'm going I'm going to be a little I'm going to put a finer point on this why do we call

them cerian sections Roman law under Caesar

decreed that all women who were so faded by child birth must be cut open hence

cesarian other possible Latin Origins include the verb sare meaning to cut in

the term seus that was applied to infants born by postmortem

operations um that makes sense if the mom dies they just take it out gross yeah but I don't like that doesn't

actually like whatever so it is definitely Roman in nature but we don't

know where the word actually originates from but it sound I mean it had to be like something related to this guy yeah

definitely and I don't again like talking about uh like fake things like in the the new Game of Thrones show The

House of the Dragon they are there's ton of child birth and death and child birth but when they do perform a cesarian

they're like the mom is not going to live you know they just cut her open they're like we have this is like it's last chance to like get the baby out and

I did also something on Instagram a while ago about maybe when that was happening that like midwives or whatever

they're called in Africa have been performing them for like hundreds of years cuz they knew how to do things

like wash their hands with alcohol and like make a small cut and get the baby and take care of the mom and like all

the things that like we didn't figure out in the west until like a 100 years ago wow which is super interesting yeah

so anyway also this dude's name is ceran which is just that if if it is related to that it means to cut and somehow

whatever so they have a son name is cesan and then Caesar defeats tel me the

eth and restores Cleopatra to the throne of Egypt telling me Cleopatra's brother

husband dies in The Nile he drowns while escaping she may have had a they that might have been on purpose like making

sure that he didn't survive while he was escaping Alexandria so the next thing that she has to do is marry her other

brother tel me the nth who I think is like an infant at this time she just like has to be married to someone else in order to rule um she can't like

technically do it by herself which is dumb but she's married to her infant brother now but she's definitely like

dating Caesar and um she also has her annoying sister our killed and in one of

the podcasts I listened to they described arony as the Prince Harry of Egypt so you can make your own assump

assumptions about how annoying she was wait is Harry annoying yes

okay you feel see we we decide I think at some point Taylor that one of us feels strongly about one thing and the

other one doesn't like I don't have any opinion of him so I'm just GNA I'm going to go with your version of who here he

is we just watched the the South Park from this past season about him and Megan marle where they're like they do

go on a worldwide privacy tour and during the tour Harry's like playing his drums and has a sign that says like

leave us alone stop staring at me it's really funny because they're like they're like holding these signs they're

like stop looking at me leave me alone we want our privacy but they're like yelling it in the middle of all the town squares so that's an idea doing right

now yeah so yeah so all of her siblings are are dead she's co-ruling with her baby

sibling they stay in Alexandria for a while and they both go to Rome and so we've talked about this before 44 bce.

ID of March March 15th um Julius Caesar's assassinated he's stabbed to death in the Senate after his death

Catra returns to Egypt so she was there while he was murdered and she had to

like get out fast so she got out of of Rome super fast took cesarean with her they went back to Alexandria and they

did some ruling of Egypt there together in 41 BCE Mark Anthony is now part of

the second trium veret so a second group of three dudes who are trying to rule Rome together and he summons Cleopatra

to sarus which is a place where he like wanted to get her to be an ally for to him so they have this meeting they might

have met before but the the myth around this meeting is that she arrived on like

a golden barge you know like carried by enslaved people with like purple sails

and roow ores of silver and she made herself to look like the goddess Aphrodite and there's like a gold canopy

and she people dressed like cupid and just like a really big like show going into to meet him and Mark Anthony loved

it because he thought he was he thought he was the embodiment of the Greek god dianis so like he was a lot and but he

he loved the show she loves these Grand entrances yeah she loves that and I

think that's probably because she knows that like these dudes love that [ __ ] you know they're like oh I love you make me

feel special so that was to working for them and so they had a a lot of fun

together they had a group called the imitable lovers which was like a group of people that would hang out every night and have like a game night and

drink a lot and eat a lot and like just have a lot of fun by 37 BCE Mark Anthony and Cleopatra have had three children

together Alexander Helios Cleopatra Selena and and tety philadelphias they

rule Egypt for a little while during this time as well the rule rule is loose cuz they're children but the children

are like definitely airs to the Egyptian th and so they have those kids in 37 BCE

they're living together they're super happy but Mark Anthony's actually been married this whole time from 40 to 32 BC

so in the middle of this he was married to Octavia the younger and she seems nice they had some kids but he wants to

marry Cleopatra and they get divorced and in 32 BC he does marry Cleopatra so

she's his like fifth wife he's already been like married a bunch of times but they're they finally do get married and

then we're almost to the end and there's so much more that happens during this but so the second Tri for it is Mark

Anthony a man named lepidus and Octavian Octavian sounds like Octavia you may

have noticed is the brother of Octavia who Mark Anthony was married to and he's pissed because he's like you were very

clearly having another family with Cleopatra in like this wasn't normal this isn't like how they just do things

yeah like like was like kind of normal everybody knew but like also Octavian was like [ __ ] you for doing this to my

sister you know and got was like there other things but he was like really mad and so this turns into another civil war

between people and Cleopatra and Mark Anthony are on one side and Octavian is on the other side and there's a big

battle called The Battle of axium so many people die because of these people's personal problems but yeah but

Cleopatra Mark anony they lose they lose the battle they flee to Egypt Anthony knows that they're defeated as a rumor

this feels maybe a little too romantic to be true but that he hears that Cleopatra is already dead so he stabs

himself and then he finds out that she's not dead and they bring him to her and he dies in her arms which is like Romeo

and Juliet and also there is a work anony and Cleopatra Shakespeare play that I have not seen or read but it

sounds a little too good to be true but he dies first he dies by Suicide STS himself from the stomach oh so that is

so that is what happened yeah wait so why do you say you don't believe it well know I don't believe necessarily that he

killed himself because he thought that she was already dead you know I see I see so he might have had suicidal

ideations on his own yeah bition yeah yeah because they knew that they were like going to be in trouble because they

just lost this big battle and they've lost control of Rome and Egypt so she

does get to organize his funeral she knows that he has has died and the sort

of next step for for Cleopatra is there is a thing that they Jew in Rome when

you return from Battle is get to have a Triumph and a Triumph is like a big parade so one thing that Caesar did a

long time ago was he had his own triumph which you're technically not allowed to do has to be like approved by the Senate

and people were really mad but it's like a huge parade where you're like I am victorious I came back and you you prade through Rome with you know your Spoils

of War and one of The Spoils of Octavius winning this battle was going to be Cleopatra he was going to come back and

kind of like parade her through Rome and be like look what I did I like you know won the war and and now this this

Pharaoh is mine so she doesn't want that to happen she doesn't want to be a part of of that at all so she dies by Suicide

as well possibly by ASP and that's the thing that maybe she had a snake bite

her or like a cobra or like some kind of cool snake that killed her it also could have been that she kept poison in like a

hair pin to kill her to to to kill herself with but either way so

apparently yeah like that's an asp is just like the old timey w to say any venomous snake but it sounds like it is

probably a reference to a very specific Egyptian cobra how scary is that if that

was like what a horrible horrible Choice yeah like what do you do you like put

your hand near it or do you like let it near you until it strikes or do you like try to scare it like it's just so scary to be like I purposely want this thing

to bite me even without knowing that without the dying part you know like

trying having to get that close to us snake so scary because like I think the way that the Venom of um Cobra works is

that it causes coagulation in the blood that's in your body so it's not like a

chill death it's like you're turning kind of to Stone from the inside out

like it's a horri just throw yourself off a roof or something like that sounds so much better it does sound so much better so that sounds terrible hopefully

it was quick but now they are they are both dead and the kids they three

children do go back to Rome with Octavian Octavian is um actually his he get renamed as Augustus so he is the

first emperor of Rome and we talked about this in one of our first episodes because the fifth emperor of Rome is

Nero so we're a little bit before Nero who we talked about before but Augustus formerly Octavian is the um first

emperor of of Rome and that now Rome is an Empire is going to do a whole bunch

of stuff all in in this ancient time um and then I guess the last thing that I wanted to say is which I thought was interesting is that their kids the three

kids that um that Mark Anthony and Cleopatra had so cesarian dies in a in

one of these battles so she has those three kids left and they go back to Rome and they're raised by Octavia who is the

sister of the emperor and the ex-wife of their dad and she raises all of the kids

together and they live for a while longer hey wasn't Nero's mom named

Octavius she was of an a okay agina then wasn't he married to someone named

Octavius I'm sure there was maybe it's a common name it is no it's not it's it's

a it's common as in like yep we're definitely in this is the beginning of that family line okay you know yeah yeah

yeah that makes sense yeah because he is going to be you know yeah one of his spouses was Claudia Octavia um so she

was one of the empresses and she is yeah it's like like they all know each other

and all they're all really ated and all of that stuff that we know so she's part of the Julio Cloud cloudian house um

which is what Nero is and yeah so sort of do you remember during that episode how you said he went somewhere and was

in like a thousand singing competitions and you were like how many you think he won and I literally sat there was like H

let's see you the percentage number like no he won them all cuz he was obviously rigged like like sitting there try to

actually do the math like what do what do you think the percentage number would be of that like yeah fun times and that's all that's the same thing like

you're doing this when people are starving like what are you doing you know this guy total dis these you guys

have no idea how much bananas cost yeah oh no idea absolutely not yeah so I'm I

am you know I will definitely watch the gadoo movie The CLE Pat movie whenever it comes out in a few years because it's

I'm sure it's going to be beautiful but um I don't know how I don't know what is true and what isn't true but I what what

I know is true is that that um Cleopatra was you know the most powerful woman in ancient Egypt and it was because she was

able to you know partner up with two of the most powerful men in Rome um okay

I'm gonna I'm gonna put you on the spot okay who is the right casting for

Cleopatra oh that's a good question kind of want to say maybe Lady

Gaga that is so good because I thought of Lady Gaga as you were while you were

talking about how she like unfr herself from a carpet my first thought was Lady Gaga should totally do that at one of

her concerts and then when you brought up that she met Mark Anthony and like had this whole you know festivity around

her coming out but I was like I'm positive I've seen Le Gaga do that so you yeah wait to go it's allting yeah

that's because she's like she's pretty but in a weird way she's got a Roman

nose she's definitely got a Roman nose y yeah yeah and now that you said that and I'm looking back at that picture of her

yeah she looks like Lady Gaga like she doesn't look as good as Lady Gaga I would argue but yeah no that's fair

maybe yeah closer to Lady Gaga than Elizabeth Taylor and gadoo for sure yeah

exactly and it would be Mark Anthony um you know who the person who and so I was

listening to a um and the and the rest is history podcast and it's by author

Tom Holland who Dan Carlin like reads and talks about so is an author named Tom Holland he's like a British

historian um but in that thing in that episode they were laughing saying that Tom Holland the actor should playark

into me that he be that would not be good

casting yeah I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna push back on that one I think I'd be good at Mark Anthony you know I think I

could probably I could make it work yeah I got the nose right you totally do yeah

there you go you I'm ambiguous you don't know what I am I could be Greek I could be Egyptian you have to cut your hair though have that like Roman senate

haircut which just like short hair Sor definitely not doing that I'm sicking with my suck my finger a light so no

know who you were yeah I know I know that's my identity at this point um awesome that was very that was

very cool uh so we are that's our second well so this was Egypt and Rome kind of

together um so yeah we we got two Roman stories now I think under our belt and

there's probably so many more stories well so he yes okay one thing I was

going to say first is like so also our second Egyptian story and how like Egypt Egypt was so like it with the the dad

who who killed his daughters and how like that was like honor killing that was a huge thing about it which I think is interesting remember that and then

but secondly yeah that's part of my historical existential dread is that like there's so many stories that like I

that will never hear and that I want to know about and when I hear things about like like there was a Native American

City in the middle of the United States that had you know 50,000 people live there and they just found like the ruins

of it and you're like what happened there you know like there's so many things that happened there and then like

I also feel like then um with like that you know that that city in Turkey that

underground city in Turkey do you know what I'm talking about no it is what is

it called it's called Daren kuyu so it's literally a farmer in Turkey was like

clearing some land and found a hole and went into the hole and it's a city that could have housed like 100,000 people

underground is this recent um it was it was like in the past 20 years but now they've been like Excavating it and

there's like rooms and markets and stairs and it was dark all underground

and like what happened in there isn't that crazy it's wild one Joe Rogan plug

I guess that I have to say is another awesome show on Netflix is ancient apocalypse which is like talking about

about you know mostly it's like this idea like what were these cities like and like when their civilization ended

you know what did we lose you know um but Joe Rogan is in it as like the

expert why is he an expert in this we were like five episodes in and then all you're like okay the guy who is like the

the main guy is definitely kind of crazy and you definitely can get the feeling that historians like are not his friends

they're not stoked on him but he and then like episode five he's like here's my friend Joe Rogan and we were like oh

no like what is this show we're watching but it's fun to it's fun to think about

existentially to be like these cities and these places we have like stones left like what did we lose we lost all

the paper we lost all the fabric we lost all the stories like where what happened in the world before we remember it yeah

yeah and I mean with Alexandria you mentioned Alexandria too like the burning of the library of Alexandri isn't that like the source of like all

knowledge the world had it was like the Wikipedia of the world and then it was just gone yes but also heard recently

that maybe that's not true I'm like God damn it you never know so yeah you never

know what's so many different variables there like so many different ways to like interpret all that stuff and

apparently now it's not true so there you go I know so it's like I don't that's true yeah there's no truth but

like it's it's fun to think about like did that happen like how cool is that for you know to think about like you

know sneaking in and like getting your enemy's head on a platter and then being like I don't know what's going on and then like some girl comes into your room

in like a sack and or carpet and she's like let's let's rule together and then you're like okay and then you go home

and all your friends stab you to death that's a wild story it definitely

sounds Shakespearean which it was yeah and it also kind of sounds like a Burning Man story but maybe that's just

me cool well Taylor yeah absolutely thanks for that and we'll transition

over to I'm going to call it a layup of the week because this story has got a ton of play so I usually try and find

things a little bit more obscure but

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