Madam President

This is a satire that contains nudity. It examines an old historical event without identifying the actors. The Banquet of Cleopatra is the title of several workpieces showing the culmination of a wager between Cleopatra and Mark Antony as to which one could provide the most expensive feast. As recounted in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History Cleopatra wins the wager: after Mark Antony’s feast, Cleopatra drops a rare and precious pearl from her earring into a cup of vinegar and drinks it once the pearl has dissolved.[1] The third person at the table is Lucius Munatius Plancus, at the time Antony’s ally, who was to decide the winner of the wager