He was alone in the large room of his residence, surrounded by chaos that seemed impossible to contain. To his right, Cleopatra Selene II and Alexander Helios fought over a small figure carved in ivory. The delicate piece flew from one hand to the other, getting closer and closer to breaking. In front of him, Ptolemy Philadelphus was crying at the top of his lungs, demanding attention that Mark Antony did not know how to give.

While trying to calm him down, Julo Antonio, the eldest, crossed his arms and cast reproachful glances, reminding him how much he had neglected his responsibilities as a father. The reproaches were not necessary; Antonio was already feeling the weight of his own inexperience and clumsiness on the subject. There was no military tactic that would work here, nor strategy capable of containing a group of children with incessant demands.

Antonia the Elder and Antonia the Minor took refuge in a corner, whispering to each other and giving him looks that managed to make him feel completely out of place. It was as if they were questioning his authority, an authority that he himself was not sure he possessed at that moment.

"Enough! Enough everyone!" he tried to raise his voice, as he would with his soldiers, but he only managed to make Ptolemy cry even more and make Cleopatra Selene and Alexander stop fighting only to look at him with more annoyance. It was clear that the authority that functioned on the battlefield was of no use within those walls.

In the end, he felt that the weight of responsibility burned him like iron, and for the first time he understood. He, the great Mark Antony, winner of so many wars, was on the verge of being defeated in a much more intimate and human battle.