In Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, readers are constantly thrown into the middle of a battle between Roman and Egyptian values. Antony, a noble warrior for the Romans, is the character who seems to have the most difficulty in this dichotomy. He is constantly caught between reason (Rome) and passion (Egypt) and has difficulty making transitions. Cleopatra is the character who stays truest to her roots, but begins to adopt the values ​​of the other side towards the end of the story. She makes a smoother transition than Antonio, which can be attributed to her self-confidence and open-minded spirit. Antony is a constant source of commotion while Cleopatra appears to possess Egyptian qualities until the end of the book, when the reader's eyes are opened to her new Roman ways. Shakespeare presents Antony as someone who was once very noble and respected. in the Roman Empire, but then as someone who was blinded by love and lost his sense of identity to an Egyptian queen. The Romans believed Antony to be a military hero, but he appears to have happily abandoned reason to pursue his passion (Cleopatra) in Act 1. Antony vacillates between Western and Eastern ways, feeling influenced both by his duty to the Empire Roman than from the Eastern one. his strong desire to please. Readers see another example of Antony going back and forth in Act 2, when Antony dismisses Caesar's messenger and returns to Rome to lead his country. Yet another example of Antony's wavering feelings is when he marries Octavia as a way to mend ties to his Roman roots and association with Caesar, but still desires to be with Cleopatra and ultimately returns to her. In one of the final scenes of the book, when Antonio commits suicide, readers are truly... middle of paper... a whore. Cleopatra could have decided not to kill herself and hoped that she could rely on her sexual appearance and favors to advance higher than Caesar or to gain control of Caesar. This would have been an emotion-based decision. Instead, he allowed Roman reason and pride to prevail over his emotions and ended his life in a way to escape the inevitable and join his more noble Antony in the afterlife. While both Antony and Cleopatra represented Roman and Egyptian values, Cleopatra made the transitions a little better than Antony. The amount of ambivalence felt by Antony and the blindness felt by his love for Cleopatra may have meant that his terrible battle between Roman and Egyptian values ​​symbolized a pendulum out of control. Cleopatra, on the other hand, used her self-confidence and security to smooth the transition from Egyptian to Roman values..