Book Summary and Reviews of Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff

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Cathryn_Conroy

A Real History Book That Reads as Such, but It's a Fascinating Tale of Sex, Power, and Death
There are no primary sources. Everything we know about Cleopatra, who died a generation before Christ was born, is the stuff of legend, gossip, and mythology. So what is a serious biographer to do?

Relying heavily on the Greek biographer and philosopher Plutarch, who wrote 100-plus years after Cleopatra's death, as well as the Roman historian Lucius Cassius Dio, who wrote some 200 years after the queen's death, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff has valiantly separated the legend of Cleopatra from her history to offer what is likely the most accurate historical account we will ever have.

Tip: Get William Shakespeare and Elizabeth Taylor out of your brain!

Cleopatra is arguably among the most famous and the most powerful women to have ever lived, ruling Egypt for 22 years. To get to the throne, she had her four siblings summarily murdered—and she was married in succession to two of her brothers. She fell in love with Julius Caesar, with whom she had a son, and after his murder at the hands of his most trusted advisors, she fell in love with Mark Antony. This storied romance resulted in three children and the eventual demise of Egypt as it became a Roman province. The two lovers died by suicide.

Some insist she ruled by her sexual prowess and feminine wiles, but the story is more complicated. Cleopatra was brilliant—smart, savvy, and politically shrewd. She was also extremely wealthy and arguably far more powerful than most (all?) of the male heads of state in her time. Indeed, much of her life really was dramatic and spectacular, and far later in the future it lent itself to the stage and movies. But there was more to it than that, and this is where Schiff's research and writing skills particularly shine.

This is a real history book and reads as such, so some parts of it are a bit dense. But the story of Cleopatra's life is fascinating, and Schiff is a master at not reducing her to the sum of her sex life, as has so often been done before. Cleopatra accomplished so much more as Egypt's proficient ruler than her erotic personal life seems to allow in all the retellings.

It's an intriguing tale of sex, power, and death.

Advice: Do read the footnotes! They aren't bibliographic citations, but rather extra pieces of the story that range from insightful to hilarious to salacious.

Joann

Details, details, details.
I thought the first half of the book was a bit of a slog: exhaustive details, but the second half was a blazing prairie fire! Liz Taylor's Cleopatra has been erased from my mind forever!