The most expensive dinner in history

When Cleopatra met Mark Antony at Tarsus in 41 BC, she arrived on a barge with a golden stern, purple sails and silver oars. The banquets that followed were designed to show that Egypt’s wealth had no limit.

According to Pliny the Elder, Antony once boasted about the luxury of his own feasts. Cleopatra bet that she could spend ten million sesterces on one dinner. Antony accepted, sure it was impossible.

The next day the meal seemed ordinary. Then Cleopatra took off one of her pearl earrings, among the largest in the world, dropped it into a cup of vinegar, waited for it to dissolve and drank it. The judge, Lucius Plancus, stopped her before she could dissolve the second and declared Antony beaten.

Chemists point out that ordinary vinegar would take a long time to dissolve a large pearl, so she may have crushed it first, or the story may be exaggerated. But the point landed. Cleopatra was not just a queen bargaining with Rome. She understood spectacle as a form of power.