Which Roman author tells the famous story of Cleopatra dissolving a pearl in vinegar?

Pliny the Elder tells the famous story of Cleopatra dissolving a pearl in vinegar.

The episode appears in Pliny’s *Natural History*, Book IX, written in the first century AD. Pliny says Cleopatra wagered with Mark Antony that she could serve the most expensive banquet. After Antony presented an elaborate feast, Cleopatra ordered vinegar brought to the table, dropped one of her enormous pearl earrings into it, and swallowed the liquid after the pearl dissolved. Lucius Munatius Plancus judged the wager.

The story is often presented as literal history, but it is an ancient literary anecdote rather than independently verified evidence. Pliny wrote roughly a century after Cleopatra’s death and was compiling material from earlier sources. Strong acid can react with a pearl’s calcium carbonate, although ordinary vinegar would dissolve it slowly and incompletely.

A common mix-up is Plutarch, whose *Life of Antony* also recounts a similar banquet episode. Plutarch was a Greek author; Pliny is the Roman author named in this question and the traditional source most closely associated with the tale.