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Cleopatra

A Life

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Cleopatra

By: Stacy Schiff
Narrated by: Carole Boyd
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About this listen

Cleopatra’s palace shimmered with onyx and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Though her life spanned fewer then forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.

She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first and she poisoned the second. Incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, two of the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a son with Caesar and - after his murder, three more with his protégé.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way the supple personality has been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order a generation before the birth of Christ. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff’s is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

©2011 Stacy Schiff (P)2011 Random House Audio Go Ancient Egypt Historical Middle East Military & War Politicians Politics & Activism Royalty Women Africa Ancient History Middle Ages Ancient Greece Ancient Egypt War Military
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This is an interesting read mainly because there is a not a lot known about Cleopatra. The author admitted that she used two main sources, both of which had been published a century after Cleopatra's death. Both of these sources were Roman accounts written for propaganda h purposes and are not flattering accounts of Cleopatra. The author said that a lot of what is written is guesswork based on the times and some very unreliable sources that were highly biased against her.

I think what we can agree on is that Cleopatra was a very amazing woman and ruler. I think it's very sad that the Roman propaganda has reduced her to a woman who had an affair with two very powerful man and then die for love. I think that this is quite an inaccurate and that clear patch was much more than this.

Cleopatra was able to expand her empire to become bigger and powerful than it and had been in her entire dynasty, she manage to recapture lands and wealth that had been lost and essentially remade herself as a living goddess.

She was the loved by her people, she loved her children and while she was probably a very selfish woman she seemed to be quite a smart ruler.

Only reason I'm like this down as a three star is because I did start find myself eating off a little bit at the end. And I think because so much of guesswork that's understandable. If you're looking for a decent hysterical account of Cleopatra's life than this is probably a good one.

Such an amazing woman

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