Customer Reviews

Cleopatra: A Biography (Women in Antiquity)

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4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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I have just finished reading this biography on Cleopatra and I found it to be quite informative and educational. The book itself is pretty short, about 156 pages long with additional 30 pages or so of appendix information. One of the elements I haven't considered before was Cleopatra as a Roman citizen. This is more of a conjecture by the book but an interesting mind twister that reflects on the long relationship her family had with the Roman Republic. The book tries to cut down the romantic notion of Cleopatra and focus mainly on her abilities as a ruler and the trials and tribulations that went with it. From the book she appears to be a very cunning woman who uses her political wits, female wiles and just about every other weapons available to her to maintained her power and independence of her kingdom. She was obviously very intelligent, knowledgable and her ability to speak several languages clearly made a strong impression. But as it turned out, in the end, the tide of history was against her and she placed too much hope in Mark Antony who proves to be more of a lapdog then a lion at the end.

I thought the book was well written and its appears that the author did his research pretty well. It is nice that this book doesn't fall into the trap of political correctness by even bothering to discuss if Cleopatra was a black woman or not. The book clearly stated that she was of a Macedonian birth although her mother may have been of some Egyptian blood. (Egyptians back then, were not black but more Semitic.) This may have caused her to take a greater interest in her people and her masterly of their customs, way of life and language.

I do not understand the previous reviewer comments but for me, I found the book very easy to read. In reflection, actually a fast reading book due to its length.

You will experience the drama of that fascinating, ancient age in this fresh look at Cleopatra. This book should be picked up not only by courses in classical history, but by Women's Studies classes everywhere. This carefully researched and scholarly history makes clear that the Hollywood version is only partially accurate - Cleopatra chose to see to it she was educated as well as any man, and evidently had the charisma to hold her own with anybody in negotations on behalf of her beloved Egypt.

It's even a great beach house read, for the right kind of people.....!

Hooray for strong women everywhere, in all times!

Cleopatra is so well known, some 2,000 years after her death, that it makes for good reading to discover that many tales about her life are untrue. For instance, Cleopatra did not commit suicide by letting an asp bite her. (More likely, through needles to inject poison.) The story that Julius Caesar destroyed the Alexandria manuscript-library, the most important institution of its kind in those days, is probably an exaggeration. That Cleopatra was a Roman citizen and was involved in that City's politics. Probably most important, that fore and foremost, Cleopatra was a shrewd politician, not just a beautiful woman who seduced Caesar and Antonius. Everything she did was to protect Egypt and her throne.

The role of Rome as an emerging sole superpower is reminiscent of today's political affairs: Changing sides, scandals, political corruption, bribery, proxy wars, budget crises, and the list goes on and on. One difference should be noted: Solving problems of prominent leaders who would not tow the line or presented future difficulties, was expeditiously handled by murdering them. In Egypt itself, under the Ptolomies as under the pharaohs before them, there were endless dynastic barbarities. This was mostly due to the customary incestuous marriages between royal brothers and sisters, the pretenders to the throne.

Unfortunately, the author fails to explain how Cleopatra found the time to be the queen of Egypt, raise her children, and be an expert in medicine, master many foreign languages, and even be a competent navy commander. Readers would wish for some explanation how she managed to perform all these tasks. Puzzling are the number of references that, when everything was lost, Cleopatra contemplated escaping to India with her fortune to retire there. As far as I know, in those days one did not apply for a visa as a political refugee, living opulently in another country.

My two criticisms of the book: First, the readers are inundated with names. After two millennia, the name of every architect who worked for Cleopatra is of little significance. If the author felt these names needed to appear in the book for research purposes, they could have been mentioned in footnotes not in the text itself. The book lists innumerable geographic places. Yet there are only three maps, with scant information. (For instance: The island of Cyprus, mentioned many times throughout the book, appears on the map, but without its name.)

Overall, this scholarly book is easy to read and holds one's interest.

As a youngster, my ideas about Cleopatra were first shaped by the Liz Taylor movie. (She also surfaces as a ghoulish monster in an Anne Rice novel.) As I grew up and read more, I came to realize that her defeat at the hands of the Romans and the fact that she was a woman shaped all the myths we hold about her. Far from a scheming, sex-mad seductress, she had only two known relationships with men, and was a great intellectual scholar and able leader. This book taught me a lot more that I didn't know about a truly fascinating woman.

Has anyone read this one AND Stacy Schiff's new book ? Any observations ? I gave a rating only because I had to select one to get this inquiry to appear...

Perhaps it is the nature of the subject, but there are so many
people with almost the same names and such a review of multiple
leaders and their relationships, one after another, that my head
spins. Well researched,I guess. It is like trying to follow one
bird when a flight of pigeons takes off. I am a college-teaching
historian by profession. I put the book down about 10% of the way
through. Life is too short to plough through it.
Purchased on Kindle from Amazon