#the less romantic part of me is gesturing at spartacus and crixus and yelling 'YOU'RE SKIPPING A THEMATIC PARALLEL PAL'

[brother-emperors]

Do you think there s any parallels to Brutus and Cleopatra, after they each have to bury Cassius and Mark Anthony?

oh for sure! I've written a little about the narrative comparisons between the two pairs with regards to HBO Rome.

I have less thoughts about antony and cleopatra in a historical kind of way, but it is interesting that they're like. a decayed narrative parallel to brutus and cassius in the greater theater of history (ends of an era). cassius and antony (gladiators, baby!) both commit suicide, but antony's suicide gets real fucked up: he's straight up denied a clean end to his own life. on the other hand, cleopatra and brutus are such hard opposites to each other, both in politic and reception, that it's difficult to find themes that work for them both the way that antony and cassius have, without discussing much broader subjects like transitional time periods.

but in a way. cleopatra and antony also fulfill the statesman-gladiator pairing. so. there might be something there.

#i have less thoughts about antony and cleopatra historically bc i find the focus on their doomed romance tragedy arc tedious at best #there is. a historical pair that i think brutus and cassius have a strong parallel to and i wrote it down somewhere. SOMEWHERE #when i find it i'll update this with that. or make a comparatives post about it #eh maybe theres a parallel between antony being denied a clean suicide and brutus not giving cassius a funeral bc he didnt want to #bring down morale. like okay buddy but one of you is going to be a ghost that's going to keep caligula awake at night. #the romantic in me says brutus did it to keep octavian from doing corpse desecration #the less romantic part of me is gesturing at spartacus and crixus and yelling 'YOU'RE SKIPPING A THEMATIC PARALLEL PAL' #no wonder you couldn't win without cassius smh. you should've done gladiatorial games with octavian's captured soldiers #but that would require you. to do. a funeral. biting him for that. #ask tag