Cleopatra VII, now known simply as Cleopatra, lived a life so monumental, stood at or near the center of so many Earth-changing events, that her name, her deeds and her legend have survived 2,000 years of turbulent history. Why is she so famous? What was her life like? Was she as alluring as she's been portrayed? Ms. Schiff's wonderful and readable biography of a most exceptional person answers these questions and, in doing so, pulls back the curtain on a life to which we can only barely relate.
Born in 69 BCE, Cleopatra was destined to have a challenging life. Since Ptolemy I, the Alexandrian general who hurried to claim the kingdom after the death of Alexander the Great and the balkanization of his empire, Egypt had been uneasily ruled by his descendants. The kingdom was, in Cleopatra's time, suffering from a fusion of Greek thought and Egyptian custom which Ptolemy had stirred together before layering it with an invented religion designed to turn skeptical Egyptians into faithful defenders of his dynasty. As such, Cleopatra grew up Greek in a kingdom of Egyptians, deified by them but also kept apart from them for most of her life. What childhood she may have had was overshadowed by the practicalities of Egypt's royals. Co-ruler with her father, then married to her brother who shared the throne with her according to Egyptian custom. But relations between the siblings were never solid. In fact, by the time the Roman civil War spilled over into Egypt, a teenaged Cleopatra was in exile, having been successfully booted from power by her brother's powerful advisors. At her lowest ebb politically, a death price on her head and unable to raise a substantive enough rebellion to resurrect her political fortunes, her life must have seemed at an end. But Cleopatra would go onto live 20 more years, courting and bearing children for two of Rome's most powerful rulers, all this without sacrificing to them her crown or her freedom, commanding the loyalty of her own country with an iron hand and living unchallenged internally until her now famous suicide after the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE.
The means by which Cleopatra managed this remarkable feat occupy the bulk of Ms. Schiff's chronicle. From the disastrous execution of Pompey the Great, to the hasty removal of her brother, to the alliance with Julius Caesar, and then the love with Antony, Ms. Schiff has provided not only a coherent record of startling events, but context for the many twists and turns in a dizzying period which not only saw Egypt's power on the wane, but also witnessed the fall of the Roman republic and the establishment of its empire, with Egypt a jewel in its imperial crown. From the strange customs to the ruinous decisions, Ms. Schiff has encircled a life drenched in mythology and attacked it until the truth spilled free. This biography had me at its first, outstanding page. (4/5 Stars)
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