Mark Antony harnessed lions to his chariot to flaunt descent from Heracles
Mark Antony claimed Heracles as an ancestor, stamped lions on his coins and drove a lion-drawn chariot. Once Julius Caesar's right-hand man, he split the Roman world with Octavian, fell for Cleopatra and lost everything at Actium, clearing Octavian's path to becoming Rome's first emperor.
Born in Rome on 14 January 83 BC into the plebeian Antonii, Antony came from a troubled family. His grandfather, a celebrated orator, was killed in the purges of Marius; his father, dismissed by Cicero as corrupt and incompetent, died in Crete in 71 BC after failing to clear the Mediterranean of pirates. His mother Julia, a distant cousin of Caesar, remarried Lentulus Sura, a debt-ridden aristocrat whom Cicero had executed in 63 BC for his role in the Catilinarian conspiracy. The grudge between Antony and Cicero ran deep.
Plutarch describes a youth of gambling, drinking and scandal, and Antony ran with the street gang of Publius Clodius Pulcher. His military career began in 57 BC as cavalry commander under Aulus Gabinius, governor of Syria. He won his first distinctions in Judea, and Plutarch credits him with persuading Gabinius to restore Ptolemy XII to the Egyptian throne, an intervention the senate had not authorised and the exiled king had paid for with a bribe of 10,000 talents.
Under Caesar he fought in Gaul and the civil war and governed Italy while Caesar hunted rivals abroad. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC he formed the Second Triumvirate with Lepidus and Octavian; together they defeated the assassins at Philippi in 42 BC. Antony took the eastern provinces, including Cleopatra's Egypt, and the war against Parthia.
A marriage to Octavian's sister Octavia in 40 BC postponed conflict, but his affair with Cleopatra, who bore him three children, soured things. Lepidus was pushed out in 36 BC. In 31 BC Octavian had Rome declare war on Cleopatra and brand Antony a traitor, then beat him at Actium. After a second defeat at Alexandria, Antony and Cleopatra took their own lives. In 27 BC Octavian became Augustus.
Source: Mark Antony
