Marc Antony... Insane?

[Joseon194]

Was wondering about this ever since Rome II got me back into watching the HBO Rome series (Great show, very historically INACCURATE, but great show nonetheless) and how they portray Marc Antony always had me wondering if his portrayal in the show was or wasn't that far off on how he was in real life. Everyone knows a little about Marcus Antonius: soldier and confidante to our beloved Caesar, a triumvir of the second triumvirate, and lover of Cleopatra. In Rome, he is portrayed as a sort of vengeful drunkard who, in our day, would be classified as probably insane. In the show we see he is shown to be increasingly more, erratic, angry, and generally just crazy. Was he actually like this in real life? Was he honestly the drunkard we see in the show who looks as if he has a few screws loose?

[Korburss]

Can't comment on that as I don't posses any real knowledge on that subject but I will say, more than a few Roman leaders would be counted as insane. It wasn't all that uncommon throughout history.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

If you have ever seen the 1963 Cleopatra, that is probably a far more accurate portrayal of the man. In real life Marcus Antonius was not really vengeful at all, I mean he let off Brutus to leave Rome and he spared Octavian on multiple occasions. That's really his biggest mistake, after Octavian betrayed him the first 2 times he should have offed him, instead Antony let him off the hook and let him back stab him again.
Drunk? Yeah Antony was probably a drunk, he could get violent too but not on the level of say Alexander killing Parmenio or any of that.

[Joseon194]

wasn't the one that Alexander killed in a drunken stupor one of his Companions? I think his name was Cleitus? I believe he saved Alexander many times in battle such as Granicus and Guagamela. Also, I never really knew marc antony as being... uh... forgiving? I mean i don't know if he was try to be like Caesar and forgive his enemies, which he had done many times during the Pompeyan Civil War, but huh? you'd think you know a guy xD So he was not as vengeful as many shows and movies portray him. I also like to believe that it was for the reason that Antony lost the civil war with Octavian. He wasn't really a strategist but more of a warrior. The man was definitely a fighter but not that bright in terms of generalship.... or i so believe lol I mean i haven't read too much into the mind of Antony considering theres not many historical books or biographies about that man since hes overshadowed by the two Caesars.

[Octavius Vatco]

There is a book Antony and Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy. It is very comprehensive and practical. Antony lived in the same context with Caesar, Octavian and the others but he lacked the talents especially of the two mentioned. He could not be as great a commander and soldier as Caesar and as brilliant a politician as Octavian. He was a drunkard especially when he lost battles and wars, every time his self-esteem was low. He was not a total inept though and was ambitious but he was no genius either nor even brilliant. In Colleen McChullough's novel The October Horse it goes far to even suggesting that he even had a hand in Caesar's assassination that was why initially he was willing to spare Brutus and the others. I think this could be feasible.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I honestly doubt that Marc Anthony had any part in Caesar's death, other than perhaps negligence. As an administrator you can't really say that he was incompetent at all, but he couldn't play the game of Roman politics and couldn't govern IN Rome. I would argue that at least on the tactical level (ie battles) he was a genius, strategically he was also quite sound and although not on the level as Caesar he was also not incompetent like Augustus wants to tell us. In fact most of Mark Antony's policies were designed to keep the Eastern provinces in the hands of Rome, the Donations of Alexandria? Why the hell not? If you have both Roman and Ptolemaic administrators with Roman garrisons but theoretically under Egyptian control. This of course puts the resources in the hand of the Egyptians, giving Antony control and also giving Egypt the resources to build a massive fleet, also under Antony's control.

[Octavius Vatco]

Well I did not say that he was incompetent. The fact that he got the better hand in the power vacuum immediately after Caesar's death. The difference was in character. He was the same as the usual Roman products but he was less talented compared to Caesar and Octavian especially in will power. His self-esteem relied too much on views of others.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I never said that you were somehow implying Antony's incompetence. But Octavian and Cicero did.

[chris10]

I dunno why popele talk about Ceasar as if he was acutally sane ...contemporary research and psychological evaluation comes to the conclusion that he had an antisocial personality disorder with comorbid conditions such as narcistic personality disorder....a sociopath at best but more probably a psychopath.

[Octavius Vatco]

I dunno why popele talk about Ceasar as if he was acutally sane ...contemporary research and psychological evaluation comes to the conclusion that he had an antisocial personality disorder with comorbid conditions such as narcistic personality disorder....a sociopath at best but more probably a psychopath.

This is where science turns insane with such insane concepts..... I prefer Caesar to just have a great deal of self-confidence than being insane.... If one reads about what is commonly practical about his entire life one cannot find anything that is that insane about him. In short having a high level of self-confidence and sense of dignity is not insane IMO.

[chris10]

This is where science turns insane with such insane concepts..... I prefer Caesar to just have a great deal of self-confidence than being insane.... If one reads about what is commonly practical about his entire life one cannot find anything that is that insane about him. In short having a high level of self-confidence and sense of dignity is not insane IMO.

Thats the usual and very common apologist way of regular poeple when they look back at these leaders. Thats when the psychopath has succeeded..as I said above...his trick is to make poeple believe all the evil comes from elsewhere and not from him and if you are ever in doubt about psychopathy and how not insane psychopaths are then you go an rewatch American Psycho or you read the book. A prime example of psyochath by the book...he gets erratic towards the end but nobody really notice...big leaders have it even easier to hide their erratic episodes and nobody dares to investigates them or they prevent investigation with their influence and always have poeple for their cover ups.

Again, one cannot judge another from a far different context than his own. To make it more clear, if Caesar is to be judged because he killed millions in war, it cannot be because our concept of humanity today was far different from two thousand years ago.

thats utter nosense and more apologist talk..there was no war it was a campaign of plunder and slaughter of civilians for personal gain...the concepts of humanity were little different from today and many writings of greek and roman philosophs,thinkers and statesmen > Marcus Aurelius to only name one < are confirming this.

As for the matter of him being either term. It is not only possible but reasonable for most leaders of history to become sociopaths due to the horrible actions they would regularly commit and improper ways to deal with them in healthy ways. However it is unlikely for him or any other leader to be a psychopath due to there "flaky" and erratic nature.

no...they not becoming sociopaths but are sociopaths before their rise and they only rise cause the are sociopaths...and psychopaths are not necessarily so erratic that it becomes obvious but can suffer psychotic and erratic episodes when the stress level is high enough...thats when Alexander killed Cleitus for example...in any way these people can be extremely successful in hiding their flaky nature...and again...sociopaths and borderline personalitys have psychotic episodes too...in Ceasars case he was flaky as fack cause he had run up an enormous debt which in the end was paid by somebody else for him...that fits perfectly.

Anyway, I understand that most regular people do not really understand what sociopath or borderline or narcisitic personality disorder really is and for what these concepts really stand for in a persons behavior but rely on wiki and stuff and then comment into the blue without ever having observed such a person over a longer period of time. All the mentioned disorders can exist on their own or as a comorbid condition or a trait or tendency...there is so many combinations

And indeed people are quick to jump on the "bandwagon" that everything must be a mental condition. As it is he did horrible things but if he or any human truly believes what they are doing is right, even genocide becomes easy to excuse and justify. doubly so when your entire culture belittles the target group as lesser or sub-human.

These things are all mental conditions but people dont wanna know about it as it would destroy their believes and admirations and this is just another typical reaction of regular people. They belittle these things. This is one of the reasons sociopaths can rise to positions of power...even nowadays as most people prefer to live in denial...another very human reaction of a regular and sane person.
The genocides..well... those who carry out the genocide are not the psychopaths but those who order it. The helpers are those I mentioned who live in denial and belittle the mental condition issue...they are all fooled by the psychopath(or call him sociopath or whatever) and again it comes down to the basic principle that the trick of the psychopath is to make all others believe that the evil comes from elesewhere > those to be exterminated to keep your example.

Julius Caesar - Goal driven killer, sociopathic and narcistic tendencys, irresponsibility and insatiable sexual domination and appetite which could point to borderline syndrome as well
Hannibal - Goal driven killer, psyopathic tendencys, psychotic episodes
Nero - Goal driven killer, psychopathic tendencys,oedipus complex, psychotic episodes
Attila the Hun - Psychopath
Alexander the Great - Goal driven killer, sociopath, megalomaniac, psychotic episodes
Gengis Khan - Goal driven killer,psychotic tendencys, religious megalomania, insatiable sexual domination and appetite > borderline ?
Caligula - full blown cold stone psychopath
Cleopatra - Goal driven killer, psychopathic tendencys, psychotic episodes

there is many examples of more modern leaders Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot
any many many others

even nowadays in our so called western democracys there is a ton of poeple in high positions of influence
with clear sociopathic or other troubling tendencys and mental issues.
Nixon had paranoid personality disorder to name just one but there is a ton of these guys...these are people who can make WWIII
and there is no whatsoever check on their mental condition ?..You gotta be kidding me

there should be an exhaustive anonymous psychological evaluation from a team of experts of every person before they can be apppointed to
1. Chancellor,President,Primer Minister
2. Member of Cabinet...Ministers
3. High Command, General Staff
Thats relatively few people so its perfectly feasible.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Why is he a psychopath, I can understand anti-social but narcissistic and psychotic? Doesn't really sound like we are talking about the same guy. Was Pompey narcissistic? Sure. Was Alexander? Of course. But I really can't see Caesar as narcissistic or psychotic. Care to enlighten us?

[chris10]

In reality there is no such diagnosis as psychopath but it is a widely accepted term to describe a grave form of antisocial personality disorder and doesnt mean that the psychpath is necessarily psychotic all the time...quite the contrary but he will have psychotic episodes in moments of stress and pressure (delusional or in some other sense markedly out of touch with reality) but these are temporal and sometimes hard to detect for poeple around...by the time he started his gaul campaing it is estimated that there were 8 million inhabitants...when he concluded the campaign 2 million gauls were dead and most of them were not warriors...this gives a little impression of how much of a butcher he really was...he had to be a psychopath to be able to do this..only somebody without any remorse or empathy can carry out such things and go home to sell it as something positive... regarding the narcistic personality disorder: Its normally a comorbid condition of antisocial personality and other disorders but can also exist as a sole disorder or a character trait but with borderline personality or antisocial personality disorder it is almost always part of the disorder.
For people interested in these things I can warmly recommend Otto Kernberg: Borderline-Conditions and Pathologic Narcissism
http://www.amazon.de/Borderline-Cond...cal+Narcissism

The trick of the psychopath is to give others the impression that all the evil comes from elsewhere.

[Korburss]

In reality there is no such diagnosis as psychopath but it is a widely accepted term to describe a grave form of antisocial personality disorder and doesnt mean that the psychpath is necessarily psychotic all the time...quite the contrary but he will have psychotic episodes in moments of stress and pressure (delusional or in some other sense markedly out of touch with reality) but these are temporal and sometimes hard to detect for poeple around...by the time he started his gaul campaing it is estimated that there were 8 million inhabitants...when he concluded the campaign 2 million gauls were dead and most of them were not warriors...this gives a little impression of how much of a butcher he really was...he had to be a psychopath to be able to do this..only somebody without any remorse or empathy can carry out such things and go home to sell it as something positive... regarding the narcistic personality disorder: Its normally a comorbid condition of antisocial personality and other disorders but can also exist as a sole disorder or a character trait but with borderline personality or antisocial personality disorder it is almost always part of the disorder.
For people interested in these things I can warmly recommend Otto Kernberg: Borderline-Conditions and Pathologic Narcissism
http://www.amazon.de/Borderline-Cond...cal+Narcissism

The trick of the psychopath is to give others the impression that all the evil comes from elsewhere.

Well, sociopath and psychopathy were in the DSM at one point but they are currently rolled in with ASPD as of version five. But thats just the American psychology, French and other systems tend to think differently of it.

The difference is Sociopathy is caused after birth, either by brain injury or as a "learned" trait and is as such usually less complete in the fact a person can still feel empathy and remorse but blunted. Psychopathy is a "born" defect of the region of the brain associated with certain emotions and often leaves the person unable to feel either empathy or remorse. In addition a multitude of lesser side effects such as lack of control over impulses, lack of responsibility, and often little drive to complete difficult task.

Psychotic has nothing to do with it, beyond the fact that psychopathy can cause lack of impulse control and thus make it easier for a person to be enraged to the point of becoming psychotically violent.

As for the matter of him being either term. It is not only possible but reasonable for most leaders of history to become sociopaths due to the horrible actions they would regularly commit and improper ways to deal with them in healthy ways. However it is unlikely for him or any other leader to be a psychopath due to there "flaky" and erratic nature.

This is where science turns insane with such insane concepts..... I prefer Caesar to just have a great deal of self-confidence than being insane.... If one reads about what is commonly practical about his entire life one cannot find anything that is that insane about him. In short having a high level of self-confidence and sense of dignity is not insane IMO.

And indeed people are quick to jump on the "bandwagon" that everything must be a mental condition. As it is he did horrible things but if he or any human truly believes what they are doing is right, even genocide becomes easy to excuse and justify. doubly so when your entire culture belittles the target group as lesser or sub-human.

Its also often forgotten that the world was much more brutal at the time and you "had" to be just as brutal to survive.

[Castel]

Erf, that's what happened when people watch "historical" tv shows and movies...

No, he wasn't insane and if to drink is enough to call someone mad then you can pretty much put 60% of the world population in a asylum.

As the famous myth of crazy emperors, that's . The only one who seemed to have had real mental problems was Caligula. Something the other Romans must have noticed too cause the poor bastard was killed just 4 years after he became ruler.

How stupid do you think Romans were ? What kind of people would be fine with a crazy leader ?

[Octavius Vatco]

We cannot judge anybody from a far different context than our own. That is why philosophy now is separate from the sciences because, when psychology, medicine etc discovers or conceptualized, they then presumed to judge everything. Philosophy acknowledges the different contexts in world history. Again, one cannot judge another from a far different context than his own. To make it more clear, if Caesar is to be judged because he killed millions in war, it cannot be because our concept of humanity today was far different from two thousand years ago.

Common sense, can an insane person win battles? spectacularly even?

[Durnaug]

if Caesar is to be judged because he killed millions in war, it cannot be because our concept of humanity today was far different from two thousand years ago.

I don't think human psychology has changed in the last 2000 years? I am also certain there are ancient Roman writers who condemned the excesses of Roman military campaigns. Ancient Romans would be just as shocked as us at mass slaughter; yet just as willing to indulge in genocide given appropriate propaganda ("they are barbarians!") and lies. There are Roman leaders who refused to become bloody dictators; there are those who killed 100,000s to protect their own hides but justified it by hiding behind "personal honour". Or perhaps they truly believed that all those deaths were ordained by the gods; just as modern totalitarians truly believed that the killing of millions was the first step towards nirvana.

Ambitious, ruthless, perhaps even sociopathic individuals will destroy entire nations in order to obtain power and control others. Relativism has its limits - yes culture will magnify or constrain human weaknesses but we are all the same. Caesar was a butcher in my opinion. Brilliant general; canny politician; molded by a precarious and violent childhood (just like Genghis) but don't pretend he wasn't genocidal.

[Octavius Vatco]

No wonder you justify. you're a Spaniard... ok... I can make way for your argument, since seems your the kind of Spaniard were like insane imbecilic tyrant ancestors during the colonial age.

You mentioned those philosophers, if you are to be right then why did they allow slavery? One cannot judge a context far different than today's. Rizal was right that Spaniards in the colonial age were imbeciles, I supposed it is still true in some today.

[JaM]

chris10 : you cannot judge them by today's morale.. plus, a lot of casualties reports were exaggerated in those times to look better... extermination was common in those times... Carthage used babies for sacrifices, slaves were commonly brutally killed by their masters whenever they wanted (even though, they didnt do it all day, why would they destroy their property...)

[chris10]

JaM
More apologist talk,guys ?
No surprise for me...Its ok
But try to read something about morale and humanity from the old greek philosophs thinkers and other statesmen from the ancient world
maybe you find that there was no big difference with today.
The figures I mentioned were the result of contemporary research and population calculation models.
Do your own research (better not on wiki) and get in contact with historic research faculties.

Octavius Vatco

Last time I checked I was not spanish...