Cleopatra Flaunted Her Affluence For Marc Anthony By Drinking A Cocktail Of hydrogen Pearls.

The story goes that in 41 B.C., Cleopatra drank a drink with pearls in it to show her lover, the Roman leader Marc Antony, how rich and powerful she was.

Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist and philosopher who lived from 23 to 79 AD, wrote about the event in depth in his book Natural History. People have said it was one of the most famous banquets in literature. Here's what happened.

Pliny the Elder wrote, "There were once two pearls that were the biggest ever seen in the whole world. They belonged to Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt, because they were passed down from the kings of the East."

Cleopatra, who was 28 at the time, was Egypt's best hostess. When Anthony, who was 83 at the time, came to visit, she didn't spare any expense to impress him. The Roman politician and general said out loud that the food she served was so fancy that he didn't know if it was even possible to make the banquets more beautiful.

Cleopatra said that she could spend 10 million sesterces on a single dinner. (Scholars think that the value in today's money would be at least $25 million.)

Pliny the Elder said, "Antony was very interested in finding out how that could be done, but he thought it was impossible. This led to a bet."

The next day, Cleopatra held another spectacular banquet. Her face was lit up by her priceless pearl earrings, but it wasn't better than what Antony had seen before.

When the second course was brought out, Anthony watched with interest as a single cup of vinegar was put in front of the queen.

Plany the Elder said the liquid was sharp and strong enough to break up pearls.

"At that moment, she had in her ears the best, rarest, and most unique things that nature had to offer," he wrote. "While Antony was waiting to see what she would do, she took one of them out of her ear, threw it into the vinegar, and as soon as it melted, she swallowed it."

The person in charge of the bet, Lucius Plancus, put his hand on the other pearl just as Cleopatra was getting ready to dissolve it in the same way and said that Antony had lost the bet.

Scientists and gemologists have thought about whether or not it is possible to melt a pearl in vinegar after reading Pliny the Elder's account of the story.

YouTubers have tried to do the same thing, and researchers have written about it in academic journals. In the end, pearls can be broken up with vinegar, but they don't break up instantly like Pliny said they would.

Calcium carbonate makes up pearls. Acetic acid is what vinegar is. When the two things are put together, they start a chemical reaction that breaks the pearl down into calcium acetate, water, and carbon dioxide.

In the YouTube experiments, pearls lose their shape after a few days of being in vinegar and turn into a gel-like substance.

Tip: Pearls shouldn't be exposed to vinegar or any other harsh chemicals, like chlorine bleach, hydrogen peroxide, ammonia, hairspray, perfume, cosmetics, or chlorine bleach.

It seems likely that Cleopatra crushed the pearl, put it in vinegar, and then ate it. In many recent accounts of the Cleopatra-Antony banquet bet, the pearl is described as crushed or pulverized to correct the scientific mistakes Pliny the Elder made.

Credit: Painting by Andrea Casali (1705-1784).?Andrea Casali, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.