Virility and Licentiousness in Rome’s Mark Antony (2005–7)

Abstract

From the moment of his suicide in Alexandria in August of 30 B.C., the culturally reimagined body of Marcus Antonius has been available, essentially without challenge, as a site for the interrogation and negotiation of issues of masculinity and gender performativity. This is a cultural function afforded to it first by virtue of the semantics of Roman political propaganda and second because the ideological bent of historiography is dictated by the outcome of struggle, and Antonius lost.