Mark Gagnon

Which, I mean, she's running the show, dude.

That's also gotta be a metaphor for something, right?

He has all these plans and he's running the Eastern Roman Empire and all of a sudden he's like, oh, Alexandria seems nice, you know, let's just go, let's just do that.

But now, once again, this isn't just romance, okay?

Don't get caught up in that angle.

It is a strategic alliance because once again, Cleopatra needs Roman protection to keep her in power and Antony needs Egypt's wealth to compete with Octavian for control of the entirety of Rome.

So once again, they're building a new power structure.

You got Roman soldiers, Egyptian money, plus like this Greek mystical god tradition thing that they're both kind of LARPing as.

So for the next decade, Cleopatra and Mark Antony build what amounts to like an alternative Roman empire based in Alexandria.

But one of the craziest things that they create was something that they called the inimitable empire.

Dude, that word is hard, bro.

Inimitable livers.

Now, this is basically like a drinking club centered around the Dionysian ideas of chaos while kind of also like mocking like the Roman Republic.

And according to the stories, there are some wild parties.

According to one legend, Cleopatra once dissolved a pearl, literally like a pearl, worth millions of dollars in vinegar and then drank it.

just basically win a bet about who could throw like the most expensive dinner party.

So if she's just like bar dropping pearls and drinking them, she's like, yeah, this was a mill.

Like this cocktail was easily like, like that's a, that's a Lambo.

How much is a Lambo?

250K, something.