He hath given his empire
Caesar:
"He hath given his empire
Up to a whore."
Octavius Caesar angrily tells his sister, Octavia, wife of Mark Antony, that Antony has chosen Egypt over Rome, Cleopatra over her. This marks the point at which Caesar will turn his arms against Egypt, where Mark Antony has crowned Cleopatra and himself as the rulers of the Roman Empire of the East in this historic-tragedy. The marriage of Mark Antony to Caesar's sister was a political one, designed to ease the tension between the two powerful Romans. But Antony is lured back into the more luscious sensuality of the East, where passion supplants the colder point of view of the Roman world. This passionate voluptuousness is represented in the person of Cleopatra herself, whom Caesar views as a whore and enchantress.