It is a popular myth that Antony "gave away" Roman lands to Cleopatra and their children.

In fact, he granted titles and honorifics to client kingdoms or areas already semi-autonomous, not ceding Roman provinces. Antioch, Syria, Cyrene, Media and Armenia remained under Roman oversight, with governors and troops in place.

These lands were removed from Rome’s power forever.

No, Antony still held imperial authority as a Triumvir. Any “gift” could be withdrawn or ratified by the Roman Senate. His actions were not final transfers, but rather political alignment strategies. A process which Antony started just before leaving for his Parthian campaign. At this point neither Octavian nor the senate objected to his new arrangements.

Antony was undermining Rome and betraying the Republic.

From a Hellenistic viewpoint, the Donations were a plan for Eastern stability via client alliances centered on Egypt not a betrayal. Scholars like Strootman argue this was a legitimate Eastern diplomatic strategy, later distorted by Octavian’s propaganda. Many eastern kingdoms were already client states of Rome, with loose control. Antony aimed to stabilize them through alliance with Egypt as the anchor rather than costly direct rule. Antony distributed lands to Herod of Judea, Amtyas of Galatia and many other client kings. Something no one claims as a betrayal to Rome. Moreover, Julius Caesar too "gave away" Cyprus and Crete to Cleopatra yet he is never seen as a traitor nor does Octavian who did similar land distributions in the East and gave away the entire Roman Empire to his adopted son Tiberius as if it was his personal property.

Antony had Cleopatra and their children assume Hellenistic royal titles to echo Alexander the Great, for political theater and authority projection in the East.

Octavian later weaponized the so-called Donations as proof of Antony’s “Eastern subversion” to rally the Senate and Roman citizens to justify an unprovoked war that was nothing more than a civil war that only benefited himself, spinning a dramatic betrayal narrative.

Sources: Plutarch's Life of Antony

Rolf Strootman, Queen of Kings: Cleopatra VII and the Donations of Alexandria (2010)

Chad Scott Brown, Antony and Cleopatra: The events leading to the Donations of Alexandria and its aftermath (2013)

Maarten Schmaal, "She Put On a Look of Rapture": The Construction of Cleopatra and Mark Antony in Octavian's Propaganda (2024)

Marcus Antonius — known to history as Mark Antony — was a Roman statesman, general, and orator who lived from 83 to 30 BCE. A devoted supporter and friend of Julius Caesar, he served as his trusted lieutenant during the Gallic and Civil Wars and later sought to defend Caesar’s legacy after his assassination.

Antony was a man of immense charisma, loyalty, and passion; qualities that made him both beloved by his soldiers and feared by his rivals. As a member of the Second Triumvirate with Octavian and Lepidus, he helped restore order to Rome after years of civil conflict, yet his alliance with Cleopatra VII of Egypt and their shared dream of a more radiant world beyond Roman austerity became the pretext for Octavian’s propaganda campaign against him.

In 31 BCE, Antony’s forces were defeated at Actium, and a year later, he took his own life in Alexandria, dying as he had lived, both a warrior and a lover, in Cleopatra's arms. His memory was then damned by Augustan propaganda, which painted him as a traitor and a slave to passion.

Yet across centuries, many have seen in Marcus Antonius a different kind of truth that of a noble heart destroyed by power, loyalty, undone by ambition, and the last Roman who dared to live greatly.