MAECENAS                            This in the public eye?

CAESAR          I’th’ common showplace, where they exercise.

His sons he there proclaimed the kings of kings;

Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia

He gave to Alexander. To Ptolemy he assigned

Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia. She

In th’habiliments of the goddess Isis

That day appeared, and oft before gave audience,

As ’tis reported, so.               (3.6.11-19)

Maecenas (at least initially) seems shocked less by what Cleopatra and Antony did than that they did it in public, where anyone could see: this in the public eye? There’s almost a sexual quality to his disapproval, as if Antony and Cleopatra had been acting out a fantasy that might be acceptable—just—between consenting adults in private, but wholly unacceptable when played out in the eyes of commoners. Caesar confirms (and shares the outrage): this was in the common showplace, where they exercise, the parade ground, perhaps, or in an arena. Common is the key here, central to Caesar and Maecenas’s displeasure and distaste: ordinary people, the lower classes, the workers, could see, could watch it all! There are further details, and Caesar still can’t bring himself to speak the name of Antony, his brother-in-law: his sons he there proclaimed the kings of kings, supreme rulers rather than petty, client kings. He gave Great Media, Parthia, and Armenia to Alexander, and Syria, Cilicia, and Phoenicia to Ptolemy. These are enormous territories, given here to children. She—named earlier in the scene, at least—Cleopatra, that day appeared in th’habiliments of the goddess Isis, all dressed up as a deity, the supreme mother goddess of Egypt; she’d been making a habit of doing that, apparently, and oft before gave audience, as ’tis reported, so. It’s as if Caesar can’t decide what is most outrageous: the distribution of imperial territories to the children of the adulterous union between his brother-in-law, the existence of those children in the first place, the blatant admission (and pursuit and performance) of that adulterous union at all, the fact that all this was going on IN PUBLIC, Antony’s going completely rogue, politically, or Cleopatra’s Egyptian goddess cosplay. All of it.