Antony at once despatched one of his favorites to Cleopatra to request her to sup with him that same night. Cleopatra, availing herself doubtless of her title of goddess rather than of that of queen—a queen of Egypt was nobody in comparison with a triumvir—made response that it was she who invited Antony to supper, and the Roman did not decline the invitation. He went at the hour appointed to the palace, which several days previously Cleopatra had had secretly prepared with gorgeous magnificence. The banquet-hall, sumptuously adorned, shone with the brilliancy of chandeliers, candelabra, and a multitude of golden sconces arranged symmetrically in circles, lozenges, etc. The feast, worthy of its decorations, abounded in nectarean wines served in vases of solid gold, and in rare and artistic viands prepared by a master hand. Antony was a great gastronomist, and three months before this had given his cook a house for a dish that pleased him. He would have given a whole town to the cook of Cleopatra. As for the beautiful Egyptian, the triumvir was already willing to give her the whole world. The next day Antony gave a supper to the queen. He hoped to surpass, by means of money, the magnificence of his reception, but he was the first to recognize his inability to rival her as an Amphitryon, and, clever man that he was,[3] he jested gaily in Cleopatra’s presence at his meanness and coarse taste. Probably in these two entertainments there was no mention of the grievances, real or pretended, with which Rome charged Cleopatra. Antony had no longer any thought of summoning her before his tribunal as a suppliant—the suppliant would have been Antony himself if Cleopatra had rejected his advances. Henceforth it was the queen that commanded; the all-powerful triumvir had become the “slave of the Egyptian woman,” as Dion Cassius indignantly exclaims.