This Nobel Prize Award-winning book takes a look at the incredible life of an incredible woman. Cleopatra inherited with her younger brother Ptolemy XIII the kingdom of Egypt to rule with the understanding that she would be the true ruler from her father when he died in 50 BCE. She would begin the first of killing off her siblings with him but he would start it by beginning a war with her. At this time Pompey and Julius Caesar were at war with each other and Egypt had pledged itself with Pompey, which put itself in a bad position because Caesar was winning and Pompey wanted a place to hide out in. Egypt refused him, but they had given him support early on.
Cleopatra was in Syria and decided to approach Caesar by placing herself in a bag wearing her regal dress and impressing him with her intelligence and her charm. She succeeded and he agreed to help her dispatch with her brother who drowned in the sea. There was a chemistry between Caesar and Cleopatra and the two became lovers with Cleopatra delivering him his only child Caesarion whom Cleopatra named the co-regent or pharaoh of Egypt. She and Caesar had a loving relationship, though they did take what they could from it. Caesar--Egypt's riches--Cleopatra--land and recognition of her child. But Caesar wanted to conquer Parthia just like Cleopatra's direct relative Alexander the Great instead of taking care of things at home. And that led to him getting killed by the Senate, on March 15 44 BCE.
Octavian, Julius's grand nephew was awarded the role of Caesar by Julius's will. This ticked off Mark Antony who had expected to get the job since he had spent so much time with him. The two of them were a pair in search of a fight and they found it with the succession of Caesar. But they would join together to fight off Cassius and Brutus and the Pompey brothers. Cleopatra would have to pick a side and she picked Dulabella who it turned out had denounced Caesar without her knowledge. And her representative on Cyprus had sent ships to Cassius which she had forbidden. She tried to command ships to get to Antony and Octavian but was blocked by Cassius and Brutus and had fallen ill and had to turn back.
When Antony's man had arrived to demand why she hadn't helped he saw her and knew that Antony would appreciate her and therefore told her she needed to go to Antony. She arrived in Tarsus where Antony was on a ship with a purple sail and silver oars pouring incense off the side of the ship so the people on the shore could smell it. She was laying on a couch dressed as Venus with cupids fanning her and sea nymphs working the ship. She sent the note saying "Venus was come to feast with Bachus for the common good of Asia." They immediately became lovers. She soon gave birth to twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene. Pretty soon Octavian and Antony are fighting over Cleopatra's influence in Antony's life. In truth, Cleopatra had no influence over Antony. He did what he thought was right and giving his children land made sense. This would lead to a war between the two of them.
Cleopatra's reign never had a revolt. Her people adored her and worshiped her as Iris the goddess they worshiped. She took care of her people. Also, this was a golden age of women and had been for as long as her family's dynasty had ruled. Men were subservient to their wives. Women received education and had a say and could own property. She wasn't beautiful, but her intellect was stunning and she was quite charming. Someone tabulated the richest people in history and Cleopatra fell at number twenty-second with $95.8 billion behind John D. Rockafeller and Tsar Nicholas II, but ahead of Napoleon and J. P. Morgan and Queen Elizabeth II. It was that wealth that the Romans sought. She built the Lighthouse at Alexandria and manufactured gold. "She convinced her people that a twilight was a sawn--and with all her might--struggled to make it so." There's a reason we still talk about her--she was one of a kind--and the last of her kind. She brought the end of the Hellenistic Period to a close and changed Rome forever. She was a complex woman whom people try to simplify into a sexpot or a femme fatale. She was neither. Instead, she was a brilliant woman who lost a kingdom and her life. This book was truly excellently written. I give it five out of five stars.
Quotes
It is not difficult to understand why Caesar became
history, Cleopatra legend.
-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 5)
And in the absence
of facts, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history.
-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 6)
It’s a godsend, really lucky, when one has so few
relations.
-Menander
And as was observed later in connection with Cleopatra, “Some
women are younger at seventy than most women at seventeen.”
-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 32)
One royal friend is worth ten thousand relatives.
-Euripides
Servant: What excuses shall I make if I am away from the
house for a long time?
Andromache: You will find no shortage of pretexts. After all,
you are a woman.
-Euripides
No one dances while sober unless he happens to be a
lunatic.
-Cicero
Politics have been defined as the systematic organization
of hatreds.
-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 148)
As Dio observed later, democracy sounded very well and
good, “but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy
on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a most practical form of government
to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man than many of
them.
-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 154)
Yet what difference does it make whether the women rule or
the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same.
-Aristole
For talk is evil: IT is light to raise up quite easily,
but it is difficult to bear, and hard to put down. No talk is ever entirely gotten rid of, once
many people talk it up: It too is some god.
-Hesiod
As one of Caesar’s murders has noted, “How much more
attention people pay to their fears than
to their memories!”
-Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra p 298)
A man who teaches a woman to write should recognize that
he is providing poison to an asp.
-Menander
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