Copy Book Archive

Mark Antony Catches a Kipper The surprisingly sensitive Roman commander was hoping to impress a girl with his angling skills.
44 BC
Music: John Field

© Fortysix Vie, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0. Source

About this picture …

Herring in a smokehouse in the Netherlands. In Britain, salted and dried herrings, or kippers, were something of a national dish until the Second World War, and several places still take pride in locally-produced kippers, including the Northumberland village of Craster.

Mark Antony Catches a Kipper
After Julius Caesar was murdered in 44 BC, his nephew Octavian joined forces with Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) to avenge him at the Battle of Philippi. Rome’s possessions were divided among the three victors, and Mark Antony was granted Egypt, at that time ruled by Cleopatra VII Philopator.

HE [Mark Antony] was fishing once, and had bad luck, and was vexed at it because Cleopatra was there to see. He therefore ordered his fishermen to dive down and secretly fasten to his hook some fish that had been previously caught, and pulled up two or three of them.

But the Egyptian saw through the trick, and pretending to admire her lover’s skill, told her friends about it, and invited them to be spectators of it the following day. So great numbers of them got into the fishing boats, and when Antony had let down his line, she ordered one of her own attendants to get the start of him by swimming onto his hook and fastening on it a salted Pontic herring.*

Antony thought he had caught something, and pulled it up, whereupon there was great laughter, as was natural, and Cleopatra said: “Imperator,* hand over thy fishing-rod to the fishermen of Pharos and Canopus;* thy sport is the hunting of cities, realms, and continents.”

Pontus was the Roman name for a region of Asia Minor (now Turkey) on the southern coast of the Black Sea. The Pontic Empire was conquered by the Romans in 63 BC.

‘Imperator’ is the source of our word Emperor, but at this time meant simply Commander.

The Pharos was the lighthouse of Alexandria, built in the 3rd century BC and in its heyday one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but a series of earthquakes from the 10th to the 14th centuries ruined it; Canopus was a port at the Nile Delta, some 16 miles to the east of Alexandria.

Source

From ‘Life of Antony’, by Plutarch (?46-120), translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1920).

Suggested Music

A John Field Suite for orchestra (arr. Hamilton Harty)

Polka

John Field (1782-1837)

Performed by the English Sinfonia conducted by Neville Dilkes.

Media not showing? Let me know!

How To Use This Passage

You can use this passage to help improve your command of English.

IRead it aloud, twice or more. IISummarise it in one sentence of up to 30 words. IIISummarise it in one paragraph of 40-80 words. IVMake notes on the passage, and reconstruct the original from them later on. VJot down any unfamiliar words, and make your own sentences with them later. VIMake a note of any words that surprise or impress you, and ask yourself what meaning they add to the words you would have expected to see. VIITurn any old-fashioned English into modern English. VIIITurn prose into verse, and verse into prose. IXAsk yourself what the author is trying to get you to feel or think. XHow would an artist or a photographer capture the scene? XIHow would a movie director shoot it, or a composer write incidental music for it?

For these and more ideas, see How to Use The Copy Book.

Related Posts

for Mark Antony Catches a Kipper

Classical History

Speech Therapy

Demosthenes was about sixteen when he decided he wanted to be a lawyer, but he was the most unpromising advocate imaginable.

Aulus Cornelius Gellius

Androcles and the Lion

Gaius Caesar is disappointed with the quality of the entertainment on offer in Rome’s Circus Maximus.

Plutarch

A Pyrrhic Victory

The ancient Greek King knew victory had cost his army more than it could afford to lose.

Classical History

‘Stand out of my Sunshine!’

Alexander the Great dropped a hint to his sycophantic entourage.

Classical History (57)
All Stories (1522)
Worksheets (14)
Word Games (5)