Talk:Mark Antony

Inconsistent authors

@Editoronthewiki: Hello there. In your recent edits, you added two references to – presumably? – the same book but credited two different authors, one Barry Strauss and one Ian Davidson. Could you clarify in the article as to which is which?

Also, if you're interested in further additions to the article, I'd highly recommend finding if possible a copy of CAH² 9 (1994), which provides a detailed narrative of this period in chapters 11–12. Morstein-Marx's Julius Caesar and the Roman people (2021) I think gives the best recent analysis of whether Caesar really wanted to be king and includes including the diadem incident and the differences between the five sources: Dio, Appian, Suetonius, Plutarch (wrong as usual), and Nicholaus. Ifly6 (talk) 00:54, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

• @Ifly6: Ah, I'm sorry about that! fixed. Thank you for the recommendations as well. Editoronthewiki (talk) 01:07, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Dubious

There's a number of dubious claims that I've reworked rather quickly.

• In the lede, the senate doesn't declare war: the people (in the centuries) do.
• The First Triumvirate isn't some kind of backroom coup. The allies were unpopular, knew it, and any domination was shortlived. See eg Gruen LGRR (1995) or our own article on the First Triumvirate.
• Legate is not a rank. It is a position.
• The death of Julia in 54 had little to do with the falling out between Pompey and Caesar; again see Gruen LGRR (1995).
• Milo is not a Pompeian ally; he gets thrown under the bus immediately. Nor is he an "optimate". The "optimates" don't exist... Milo's activities are just as self-serving as Clodius'.
• The pontifex maximus is not the head of the [sic] Roman religion. The pontifices, augurs, and quindecemviri are all separate priests; there is no "head".
• Antony took over Curio's place in the tribunes; the idea of "both Pompey and Caesar lay down their commands" did not emerge from Antony. The idea that Caesar was afraid of prosecution is dubious. See Morstein-Marx Caesar (2021) App'x 4; also Caesar's civil war and Julius Caesar.
• Antony was not expelled from Rome; Antony left after the senate said his safety could not be guaranteed.
• Caesar wasn't declared a traitor, just hostis.
• A propraetor need not previously be a praetor. Cato in 58 BC is pro quaestore pro praetore. Similarly, proconsuls many times by this point had been appointed without holding the consulship.
• Lots of "Antony is Caesar's top general" fluff. WP:PEACOCK.
• Caesar was made dictator in absentia in 48 after Pharsalus. The 11-day dictatorship was in 49, when Caesar in Italy. These should not be confused. Caesar did not sail to Italy then hop back to Greece to pursue Pompey. He pursued him directly through Asia minor.
• Meier Caesar (1995), Badian in OCD⁴, etc agree that Caesar had no knowable constitutional programme.
• Octavian never called himself Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus.
• Lepidus was elected pontifex maximus, albeit irregularly.
• Octavian was elected consul in August 43, albeit irregularly.
• There's no reason to set up the proscriptions then not talk about Antony's role in getting Cicero killed and then talk about Cicero minor getting to announce Antony's death.
• When someone starves you to interdicting shipment, you don't shift your sympathies towards that person: The lack of food in Rome caused the public to blame the Triumvirate and shift its sympathies towards Pompey.
• This is nonsense and I lack the time to figure it out:

To secure the peace, Octavian betrothed his three-year-old nephew and Antony's stepson Marcus Claudius Marcellus to Sextus' daughter Pompeia. (Appian, The Civil Wars, Book 5, 73.)

Obviously two boys cannot both marry the same girl. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mark_Antony&diff=prev&oldid=1213209226. Fixed. Ifly6 (talk) 18:02, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

• "Going native" as a casus belli should be cited directly with a quote since it's a rather extraordinary claim. WP:EXTRAORDINARY.

Further work on this article is needed. The sourcing in many portions is just a paraphrase of Plutarch and Appian. It isn't as if there are not good sources on Antony and his times. CAH² vols 9–10 might be a good start at least for the events. It's strange also that this article is much more a recounting of the events generally than specifically Antony's part in them. The perspective of the article definitely needs shifting. Ifly6 (talk) 04:26, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Sources

There are modern sources:

• Tatum, W Jeffrey (December 2023). A noble ruin: Mark Antony, civil war, and the collapse of the Roman republic. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-769490-9.
• Welch, Kathryn (19 Apr 2023). "Antonius, Marcus (2), Roman consul and triumvir, 83–30 BCE". Oxford Classical Dictionary online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.547. ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5.

Note also re some of the older sources, in Welch's 2023 OCD Online article—

Modern scholars frequently characterize Antonius as a victim, first of Cicero’s rhetoric and then of young Caesar’s attacks on his character and ability. Even more problematic is the tendency of modern biographers to accept Plutarch’s moral agenda uncritically.

The note given at the end of uncritically is—

E.g. Eleanor Goltz Huzar, Mark Antony: A Biography (London: Croom Helm, 1978); Adrian Goldsworthy, Antony and Cleopatra (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010); and Pat Southern, Mark Antony: A Life (Stroud, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2010).

If someone is wanting to take a stab on this article, I would definitely get Tatum (2023). Some interpretation and conclusions may differ from the more traditional biographies. Ifly6 (talk) 08:12, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The BMCR review was very positive. https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2024/2024.11.51/. Ifly6 (talk) 02:25, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Mythology

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 January 2024 and 10 May 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wgronwald6 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Wgronwald6 (talk) 04:45, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 30 March 2025

Mark Antony → Marcus Antonius – It seems to be that the common referral to the general is by his non-Anglicized name, Marcus Antonius. The page on WP:COMMONNAME cites Mark Antony as the more commonly used of the two, yet he is mostly referred to in historical contexts, where he is called Marcus Antonius. He is not an enduring figure in popular culture, like Caesar or Cleopatra, and the only people who know who he is are mostly historians. There seems to be inconsistency with many major websites, with some calling him Marcus Antonius and some calling him Mark Antony. Another reason to change the title is that the English corruption of his name is significantly different from his Latin name, and seems to be a sore thumb amongst the pages of other important Roman characters who have had their names Anglicized to a much smaller degree. Semmalnk (talk) 19:12, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

This Google ngram indicates that Mark Antony remains by far the more common name. He is very much an enduring figure in English-speaking culture along with his boss Caesar and their mutual inamorata Cleopatra, a major figure in not one but two of Shakespeare's plays, Julius Caesar – getting great lines such as "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them ..." – and of course eponymously in Antony and Cleopatra. Such anglicisation of the names of outstanding Romans is common and we title Wikipedia articles accordingly. Off the top of my head, I can give you Virgil, Pompey, Livy, Sallust, Juvenal, Terence and Ovid, and I'm sure there are many more hiding in plain sight. NebY (talk) 19:50, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. Beyond the common name arguments that NebY gives above, he's also called Mark Antony often in the high quality reliable sources. Eg Tatum's very recent biography, the first scholarly one in a decent while, is entitled A noble ruin: Mark Antony, civil war, and the collapse of the Roman republic (Oxford 2024) and uses "Antony" throughout. Ifly6 (talk) 20:32, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Strong oppose. Reliable sources use Antony more often of the two names. O.N.R. ^(talk) 20:36, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Comment: I would support this if it had a serious chance of passing, but I think the consensus is clearly against it. However, you can certainly use "Marcus Antonius" in the text of articles you're writing, since it's technically correct and won't surprise anyone. P Aculeius (talk) 20:59, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose for reasons given by others. I studied history and classics in college and grad school and I can tell you that we all referred to him as "Mark Antony" when speaking in English with each other. It's not "logical" but it's very common and that's what the Wikipedia standard is. --Jfruh (talk) 21:16, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Of the secondary sources currently listed in the article's bibliography, by my count eight use an anglicised form of the name ("Antony", "Marc Antony", or "Mark Antony") and only one English-language source uses the Latin "Antonius". This agrees with my personal experience that in English Antony is one of those Romans whose name is still conventionally anglicised, and my quick Google Scholar search which shows more results for "Mark Antony" than "Marcus Antonius". Unless there's some pretty compelling evidence that in English his name is now most commonly given in the Latin form I would think this should be kept at Mark Antony. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:25, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose' "Marcus Antonius" is not COMMONNAME in English.★Trekker (talk) 20:46, 31 March 2025 (UTC)