We can see the statues, the buildings, the flowers of Alexandria, hear the groaning lumber of her magnificent flotilla, smell the incense burning in the temples to Isis and Dionysus. Although she is quick to admit some of what she writes is conjecture, Schiff weaves a portrait not only of Cleopatra but her entire world that is intoxicating and above all, feels like the truth. The amount of work Schiff put into researching this volume must have been tremendous. And while the story of the downfall of Caesar and Mark Antony is nothing new, Schiff is more concerned with removing the legacy of lies that has surrounded Cleopatra’s life, especially since her immediate chroniclers were her enemies. She casts ancient Alexandria as a city of wonder, a bustling place resurrected from two thousand years ago. Schiff paints Cleopatra, Caesar and Antony as red-blooded humans with passions, fears and foibles. While her book definitely belongs to Cleopatra, Schiff also gives us a thorough history of Rome as it passed from the hands of Julius Caesar to Octavian (Caesar Augustus), as its own history is so intertwined with that of the Egyptian queen.įilled with as many twists, double-crossings, assassinations and lascivious affairs as HBO’s mini-series “Rome,” Cleopatra: A Life is not your stodgy history lesson. Drawing her facts from famous sources such as Cicero, Dio and Appian, Schiff also mines the writings of lesser known historians who chronicled the lives of Cleopatra, Antony, Caesar and Octavian. In Schiff’s slim volume, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author does her damnedest to strip away all preconceived notions of Egypt’s last pharaoh and replace these misconceptions with a full portrait of Cleopatra. No, we best remember Cleopatra as a seductress, an insatiable succubus who used her sexuality to hypnotize both Caesar and Antony. However, we do not remember Cleopatra as a shrewd stateswoman, one who used her wiles to not only take the throne from her brother, but ruled Egypt on her own for 22 years. She is also the last great ruler of Egypt who maneuvered between two powerful men (Julius Caesar and Mark Antony), keeping her country autonomous in a period when the Romans dreamed of Alexander the Great and looked to annex the East. I bet most of you envisioned Elizabeth Taylor.īut Cleopatra should be remembered as a brilliant strategist, Schiff argues, one who inherited a dying empire and brought it back to greatness before losing it all again. Hell, we’re not even entirely sure what she looked like.

The Egyptian queen has “one of the busiest afterlives in history,” says Schiff whether she’s shilling cigarettes, appearing in Neil Young songs or lending her name to an asteroid. Cleopatra has been mythologized, demonized and immortalized but for all the wrong reasons, according to Stacy Schiff in her exhaustive biography Cleopatra: A Life.

Cleopatra stacy schiff review