Cleopatra: A Life

Biography author and Pulitzer Prize laureate Stacy Schiff has created a vivid portrait of the most controversial woman in world history—Cleopatra, the last ruler of Egypt. Her palace glittered with jewels and gold and was famous for political games. Cleopatra had close ties with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, yet her personality turned out to be heavily veiled in romantic glamour. The Egyptian queen was not in the shadow of those illustrious Romans of her time—she ruled almost the entire Eastern Mediterranean, the last of Egypt’s great kingdoms in history. She was a powerful ruler who could build her own fleet, suppress a rebellion, hold the money supply steady, and feed the hungry. She spoke fluently in nine languages and was a perceptive strategist and skilled negotiator. Her image was recreated by William Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw, Michelangelo Buonarroti and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, while many of our contemporaries judge her appearance and character by her cinematic “double”—the brilliant Elizabeth Taylor.

But far from all the details of Cleopatra’s dramatic life, not all facets of her complex character, can be reflected through artistic means, and besides, much information was lost or mythologized. Working professionally with classical sources, Stacy Schiff masterfully separates fact from fiction to bring the real Cleopatra to the world. Rich in information and epic in scope, this book—translated into 30 languages—offers a deep and carefully crafted reconstruction of the life of this remarkable figure, and a color illustration insert (in the print edition) makes her image even more vivid.

Biography and memoir. History of the Ancient World.

“To restore Cleopatra’s identity means to handle with care the few facts that have come down to us… Recent research sheds completely new light on the history of women of Antiquity and Hellenistic Egypt.”

(Stacy Schiff)