Book of the week: Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff

Schiff’s enthralling new biography uncovers some startling facts about the Queen of the Nile. 

(Little Brown, 368 pages, $29.99)

We have underestimated Cleopatra for too long, said Kathryn Harrison in The New York Times. Stacy Schiff’s enthralling new biography reveals to those of us misled by literature and film that the 20-year reign of this legendary queen of Egypt was far more than a “sustained striptease.” Yes, Cleopatra seduced both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. But Schiff’s empress is not merely a decadent hedonist. Born in 69 B.C., and granted Egypt’s throne at age 18, she made strategic use of her “megawatt charisma and formidable intelligence” to prolong Alexandria’s relevance at a time when that great center of wealth and learning was being eclipsed by ambitious Rome and its army. If she often staged “jaw-droppingly over-the-top” spectacles and put herself at their center, that was mostly because her subjects needed to believe that their ruler was in part divine.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us