- Cleopatra: How DARE you and the rest of your barbarians set fire to my library! Play conqueror all you want, Mighty Caesar! Rape, murder, pillage thousands, even millions of human beings! But neither you nor any other barbarian has the right to destroy one human thought!
- Cleopatra: You come before me as a suppliant.
- Antony: If you choose to regard me as such.
- Cleopatra: I do. You will therefore assume the position of a suppliant before this throne. You will kneel.
- Antony: I will *what*?
- Cleopatra: On-your-knees!
- Antony: You dare ask the Proconsul of the Roman Empire?
- Cleopatra: I *asked* it of Julius Caesar. I *demand* it of you!
- Julius Caesar: You all look so impressive. Any one of you could be king.
- Pothinus: His Majesty King Ptolemy, kindred of Horus and Ra, beloved of Thoth...
- Julius Caesar: Et cetera, et cetera; you welcome me. And I, Gaius Julius Caesar, Consul of the Roman Senate, Pontifex Maximus, et cetera, et cetera, thank you.
- Octavian: Is that how one says it? As simply as that. "Mark Antony is dead. Lord Antony is dead." "The soup is hot; the soup is cold." "Antony is living; Antony is dead." Shake with terror when such words pass your lips, for fear they be untrue and Antony'd cut out your tongue for the lie! And if true, for your lifetime boast that you were honored to speak his name even in death. The dying of such a man, must be shouted, screamed! It must echo back from the corners of the universe. "Antony is dead! Mark Antony of Rome lives no more!"
- [Seducing Caesar]
- Cleopatra: A woman too must make the barren land fruitful. She must make life grow where there was no life. Just as the Mother Nile feeds and replenishes the Earth, I am the Nile. I will bear many sons. Isis has told me. My breasts are full of love and life. My hips are rounded and well apart. Such women, they say, have sons.
- Agrippa: Well versed in the natural sciences and mathematics. She speaks seven languages proficiently. Were she not a woman one would consider her to be an intellectual.
- Marc Antony: Your tongue is old, but sharp, Cicero. Be careful how you waggle it. One day it will cut off your head.
- Julius Caesar: [speaking of the Grand Eunuch] ... a position not acquired without some, shall we say, sacrifices?
- Julius Caesar: Two hours until dawn. We will hold where we are.
- Agrippa: And what happens at dawn?
- Julius Caesar: I thought you knew. The sun comes up.
- Antony: What has angered you? That I dealt with Octavian however I could, or that I married his sister to do it? Jealousy or politics, which?
- Cleopatra: Both! And damn you for not understanding either!
- Antony: It would not occur to me to look to you for instruction.
- Cleopatra: Which is why you have come back chained to Octavian like a slave. And with such an exquisite set of chains. So softly spoken, so virtuous! She sleeps, I hear, fully-clothed!
- Julius Caesar: [to Cleopatra] You, a descendant of generations of inbred, incestuous, mental defectives!
- Germanicus: [in the Senate of Rome] Antony! Stay not too long in Alexandria!
- [general laughter from the rest of the Senate]
- Caesar Augustus: Germanicus, stay not too long in Rome.
- [the Senate laughs even louder as Germanicus leaves]
- Julius Caesar: Ah, yes. I seem to recall some mention of an obsession you have about your divinity... Isis, is it not?
- Cleopatra: I shall have to insist that you mind what you say. I AM Isis. I am worshipped by millions who believe it. You are not to confuse what I am with the so-called divine origin which every Roman general seems to acquire together with his shield. It was, uh, Venus you chose to be descended from, wasn't it?
- Marc Antony: Why are you not dead? Why do you live? How do you live? Why do you not lie at the deepest hole of the sea, bloodless, and bloated, and at peace with honorable death?
- Julius Caesar: Germanicus! A guard to escort Queen Cleopatra to her apartments.
- Germanicus: Guard!
- Cleopatra: The corridors are dark gentlemen, but you mustn't be afraid. I am with you.
- Julius Caesar: [after the execution of Pothinus] Return Apollodorus's dagger to him, but clean it first. It has Pothinus all over it.
- Marc Antony: This son of Caesar, does it upset you?
- Caesar Augustus: No.
- Marc Antony: You were so shut at the mouth just now one would think your words were are precious to you as your gold.
- Caesar Augustus: Like my gold, I used them where they are worth most.
- Marc Antony: Ah! And your virtue?
- [Leans over to him]
- Marc Antony: My friend has a friend.
- Caesar Augustus: That too.
- [to Octavian]
- Antony: You know it's possible Octavian that when you die... You will die without ever having been alive.
- Cleopatra: Catullus doesn't approve of you. Why haven't you had him killed?
- Julius Caesar: Because *I* approve of *him.*
- Rufio: We must find the gold to pay them, the wheat to feed them, supplies, ships, armor.
- Antony: Where do you suggest we look for all these?
- Rufio: I thought perhaps further to the east.
- Antony: Syria.
- Rufio: Perhaps more to the south.
- Antony: Ethiopia.
- Rufio: To the north of Ethiopia.
- Antony: I forbid you to mention it!
- Rufio: I didn't.
- Antony: I will not crawl to her, hand held out like a beggar. Why has she not offered her assistance.
- [as they begin eating on Cleopatra's barge]
- Marc Antony: Fabulous feast.
- Cleopatra: One is so limited when one travels by ship.
- Cleopatra: We've gotten off to a bad start. I've done noting but rub you the wrong way.
- Julius Caesar: I'm not sure I want to be rubbed by you at all.
- [Last lines. Following Cleopatra's suicide]
- Agrippa: Was this well done of your lady?
- High Priestess: Extremely well. As befitting the last of so many noble rulers.
- Narrator: [Repeating the previous lines] And the Roman asked, "Was this well done of your lady?" And the servant answered, "Extremely well. As befitting the last of so many noble rulers."
- Antony: Show me a city and I'll tell you how to take it. Let me face an army, I'll smell out it's weak points and hit them hard where they are. Make me to sit down, talk in whispers of this and that with an emphasis here and a shrug there, and I'm soon confounded and defeated.
- Cicero: It is for the good of Rome that Caesar has stayed so long in Egypt. In his absence, the people have come to worship him as a god. Why should he return, to show himself as mortal as the rest?
- Julius Caesar: When can you start?
- Canidius: Whenever you say.
- Julius Caesar: Then at once. And in Rome, Marc Antony is to speak for Caesar. There is to be no question about his authority to act in my name.
- Canidius: His word will be yours. And as always, Caesar's word will be law.
- Julius Caesar: Of course. And remind him to keep his legions intact. They make the law legal.
- Julius Caesar: I find I can tell more about the quality of merchandise by examining the back side first.
- Julius Caesar: Isis herself would surrender her place in heaven to be as beautiful as you.
- Cleopatra: You're not supposed to look at me. No one is.
- Julius Caesar: Well if they aren't looking, how can they know that I am.
- Cleopatra: [to Mark Antony after protesting her request to kneel] I asked it of Caesar, I demand it of you!
- [first lines]
- Narrator: And so it fell out that at Pharsalia, the great might and manhood of Rome met in bloody civil war, and Caesar's legions destroyed those of the great Pompey... So, that now only Caesar stood at the head of Rome. But, there was no joy for Caesar as in his other triumphs... for the dead which his legions counted and buried and burned were their own countrymen.
- Julius Caesar: [to Cleopatra] Daughter of an idiotic flute-playing drunkard who bribed his way to the throne of Egypt. I've had my fill with the smug condescension of you worn-out pretenders, parading on the ruins of your past glories.
- Cimber: I remember something odd. At one point, Caesar asked of each of us... what manner of death we would choose. And Caesar, when it came to him, looked straight at me and said: "Sudden?"
- Agrippa: Nothing bores me so much as an intellectual!
- Julius Caesar: Makes a better admiral of you, Agrippa.
- Cleopatra: You can do what you want with your time.
- Julius Caesar: Everything but make it stand still.
- Apollodorus: All hail Cleopatra, kindred of Horus and Ra... beloved of the moon and sun, daughter to Isis... and of Upper and Lower Egypt, queen.
- Rufio: "In obtaining her objectives, she has been known to use torture, poison... and even her own sexual talents, which are said to be considerable. Her lovers, I am told, are listed more easily by number than by name. It is said that she chooses in the manner of a man... rather than wait to be chosen after womanly fashion." Well, there's more reason than we thought... for not wanting to leave you two alone, eh, sir'?
- Julius Caesar: I'm sorry, Rufio, I wasn't listening.
- Julius Caesar: Trust? Not for a minute. "Trust." The word has always made me apprehensive. Like wine, whenever I've tried it, the aftereffects have not been good.
- Julius Caesar: [to Cleopatra] Have you broken out of your nursery, young lady, to come irritate the adults?
- Cleopatra's Servant: I taste your food, daughter of Isis... and if there be harm in it, let the harm fall upon me.