Note 198 — Chapter II · ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA, A HISTORY, TRAGEDY, AND LOVE POEM; AS SHOWN BY ITS RELATIONS WITH PLUTARCH
Reading edition
The irony of the proposal, which Plutarch indicates but does not stress, is entirely lost in Shakespeare. We have already been told that Hipparchus “was the first of all his (i.e. Antony’s) infranchised bondmen that revolted from him and yelded unto Caesar”; so Caesar is invited to retaliate on one of his own adherents.