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The Partners in Death, as Plutarch tells it

c. 31–30 BCE, Alexandria. Plutarch, describing him, over a century later.

Where and when

c. 31–30 BCEAlexandria

about 2,056 years ago

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Mark Antony

, AlexandriaPlutarch, describing him, over a century later

In plain words, ours

They closed their party club and started a new one, just as lavish, called Partners in Death. Their friends joined as people who would die together.

Cleopatra and Antony now dissolved their famous society of Inimitable Livers, and founded another, not at all inferior to that in daintiness and luxury and extravagant outlay, which they called the society of Partners in Death. For their friends enrolled themselves as those who would die together, and passed the time delightfully in a round of suppers.

Plutarch, Life of Antony 71.3Translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1920)Read the full passage (Plutarch, Life of Antony 71.3, opens scaife.perseus.org)

What was going on, our summary

After their defeat at Actium, Antony and Cleopatra are back in Alexandria, filling the city with feasts and revels. Plutarch, writing over a century later, describes their last months before both took their own lives.

Checked claim by claim against: Octavian's fleet beats Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, Antony and Cleopatra take their own lives, the passage around the quote.

Why it matters

About the event it belongs to: Octavian's fleet beats Antony and Cleopatra at Actium

The victory let Octavian consolidate his power over Rome and its lands. Historians generally see that consolidation and his new titles as the end of the Republic and the beginning of the Empire.

Based on Wikipedia: Battle of Actium

Octavian's victory enabled him to consolidate his power over Rome and its dominions.

historians generally view his consolidation of power and the adoption of these honorifics as the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire

Wikipedia, Battle of Actium (opens en.wikipedia.org), as of 2026-10-03. Text CC BY-SA 4.0. Our line is checked against these sentences only.

Related moments

In time order, with this one in its place. Each says why it is here.

  1. 31 BCEAbout the same year Octavian's fleet beats Antony and Cleopatra at Actium The event behind it
  2. c. 31–30 BCEThis momentThe Partners in Death, as Plutarch tells it
  3. 31 BCEAbout the same year Antony after Actium, as Plutarch tells it More from Mark Antony
  4. 30 BCE1 year later Antony and Cleopatra take their own lives The event behind itAlso in AlexandriaAlso about death
  5. 30 BCE1 year later Antony's last words, as Plutarch tells it More from Mark Antony
  6. 30 BCE1 year later Antony on his courage, per Plutarch Same passageMore from Mark Antony
  7. 30 BCE1 year later Cleopatra at Antony's tomb, in Plutarch Also in AlexandriaAlso about death
  8. by 30 BCE1 year later Plutarch on Cleopatra's many languages Same years
  9. 30 BCE1 year later Cleopatra and the asp, as Plutarch tells it Also in Alexandria

Just before and after

The text around the quote, word for word from the same translation.

Show the passageHide the passage

However, none of these things greatly disturbed him, but, as if he gladly laid aside his hopes, that so he might lay aside his anxieties also, he forsook that dwelling of his in the sea, which he called Timoneum, and after he had been received into the palace by Cleopatra, turned the city to the enjoyment of suppers and drinking-bouts and distributions of gifts, inscribing in the list of ephebi the son of Cleopatra and Caesar, and bestowing upon Antyllus the son of Fulvia the toga virilis without purple hem, in celebration of which, for many days, banquets and revels and feastings occupied Alexandria.

The quote: Cleopatra and Antony now dissolved their famous society of Inimitable Livers, and founded another, not at all inferior to that in daintiness and luxury and extravagant outlay, which they called the society of Partners in Death. For their friends enrolled themselves as those who would die together, and passed the time delightfully in a round of suppers.

Moreover, Cleopatra was getting together collections of all sorts of deadly poisons, and she tested the painless working of each of them by giving them to prisoners under sentence of death. But when she saw that the speedy poisons enhanced the sharpness of death by the pain they caused, while the milder poisons were not quick, she made trial of venomous animals, watching with her own eyes as they were set one upon another.

Plutarch, Life of Antony 71.2–4Translated by Bernadotte Perrin (1920)Read the full passage (opens scaife.perseus.org)

When, and whose words

Date
c. 31–30 BCE. The months in Alexandria between Actium (31 BCE) and their deaths (30 BCE); Plutarch wrote c. 100–120 CE.
Whose words
Plutarch, describing him, over a century later.
How this post was checked
  • The plain-words line was read against the quote alone by a second, independent pass, which found it adds no claim the quote does not make (2026-10-03).
  • Each claim in the summary was checked by an independent pass against only the material it cites.
  • The quote itself is checked by the build: word for word, once, at the cited section of the stored translation.

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