CLEOPATRA

A fresh look at the famed Egyptian queen.

In a succinct biography, part of Yale’s Ancient Lives series, Prose examines how Cleopatra (69 B.C.E.-30 B.C.E.) has been represented for over 2,000 years in myths, legends, literary works, histories, paintings, and films. Many chroniclers, Prose notes, believed she was a liar; some were apologists for Roman imperial expansion; others refused to allow that a woman could be a leader. The most prevalent image of Cleopatra has been that of a “witchy, seductive Egyptian,” notable for her love affairs with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony rather than for her considerable prowess as a “city planner, military strategist, diplomat, linguist,” and leader. A Macedonian Greek, daughter of Ptolemy XII, by the age of 18, Cleopatra ruled Egypt along with her 10-year-old brother—and husband—Ptolemy XIII. The time was rife with “strangling, poisoning, and dismembering,” even among family members. The shared leadership of Cleopatra and Ptolemy incited a bloody civil war, ending with Ptolemy’s murder, after which Cleopatra married Ptolemy XIV; the marriage was short-lived—Ptolemy died in 44 B.C.E. Prose mines classical sources, including Plutarch’s chronicles, to trace the course of Cleopatra’s affair with Caesar, which resulted in the birth of a son; and with Antony, with whom she had twins and another son. As for her suicide, it is unlikely, Prose argues, that she could have smuggled an asp into her quarters and just as unlikely that its venom could have killed her instantly. The author also explores Cleopatra’s afterlife in literature. Dante and Boccaccio damned her as a “libertine and a seductress,” and Shakespeare saw her as Antony’s “serious mistake.” In movies, Theda Bara, Claudette Colbert, Vivien Leigh, and Elizabeth Taylor all underscored the lascivious seductiveness of the doomed queen. In contrast, Prose imagines her as a wily strategist determined, above all, to protect her children.

A thoughtful, sympathetic portrait of a legendary historical figure.