The Life And Times Of Cleopatra

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator. Though her life spanned fewer than forty years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world. She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties. Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and -- after his murder -- three more with his protégé. Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself in our imaginations ever since. Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama of her circumstances have been lost. In a masterly return to the classical sources, Stacy Schiff here boldly separates fact from fiction to rescue the magnetic queen whose death ushered in a new world order. Rich in detail, epic in scope, Schiff 's is a luminous, deeply original reconstruction of a dazzling life.

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Cleopatra VII (69-30 BC) is the most famous woman from classical antiquity. Yet her modern reputation is based largely on her post-antique representation in drama, art, and other media. The current study is the first to examine the queen solely from the source material from the Greco-Roman period: literary sources, Egyptian documents including those of the queen herself, her own writings, and her representations in art.

Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, was also a scholar, murderer, lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony and one of the most remarkable women in history. The distinguished historian and classicist Michael Grant confirms that her reputation as a temptress was well-founded. However, by unravelling the sources behind the tangle of myth, gossip and invention he shows that the popular image of a wayward woman opting for a life of sensuous luxury and neglecting her affairs of state is far from the truth. A brilliant linguist and the first of her Greek-speaking dynasty who learned Egyptian, she was reputed to be the author of treatises on agriculture, make-up and alchemy. Her love affairs were carefully calculated to further her plans to restore her empire to its former greatness and she was a ruthless foe to all who stood in her way. But dead on her golden couch in the palace at Alexandria her life seemed to have ended in failure; her dreams of empire shattered; her lover Mark Antony a suicide himself and she a prisoner of her conqueror Octavian. An unforgettable portrait of an extraordinary queen and her stormy life.

Cleopatra faced countless problems during its filming and production: passionate casting disputes, broken contracts, a costly re-location from London to Rome, an emergency tracheotomy for its star, Elizabeth Taylor, scandal-ridden gossip surrounding relationships on set, and a budget of $2 million that ballooned to final costs of $44 million. Legendary producer Walter Wanger recalls the drama that occurred both on and off the set, including the incredible obstacles he had to overcome and the exhilaration of producing a cinematic triumph. A revealing story about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s tempestuous romance and an insightful filmmaker’s journal, now back in print for the 50th anniversary of Cleopatra’s release, My Life with Cleopatra shares the true story of the relationship and film that enthralled the world. “I have been told by responsible journalists that there was more world interest in Cleopatra, which I produced, and in its stars—Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison—than in any event of 1962.” —Walter Wanger

Cleopatra the Great tells the story of a turbulent time and the extraordinary woman at its centre. She was Greek by descent – the last, and greatest, Egyptian pharaoh. But our understanding of her has been obscured by Roman propaganda, Shakespearean tragedy and Hollywood, with little attempt to tell her true story – until now. In the first biography for over thirty years, Joann Fletcher draws on a wealth of overlooked detail and the latest research to reveal Cleopatra as she truly was, from her first meeting with Julius Caesar to her legendary death by snakebite. Bringing the ancient world to life, Cleopatra the Great is full of tantalising details about the Pharaoh’s infamous banquets, her massive library, her goddess outfits, beauty regimes and hairstyles. Joann Fletcher discovers the real woman behind the myth.

She was the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries. Highly educated (she was the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak ancient Egyptian as well as the court Greek) and very clever (her famous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were as much to do with politics as the heart), she steered her kingdom through impossibly taxing internal problems and railed against greedy Roman imperialism. Stripping away preconceptions as old as her Roman enemies, Joyce Tyldesley uses all her skills as an Egyptologist to give us this magnificent biography.

Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, nominally survived as pharaoh by her son Caesarion. She was also a diplomat, naval commander, polyglot, and medical author. As a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder, Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great. Inside you’ll read about • Rome comes to Egypt • Sibling rivalry • Caesar and Cleopatra • Assassination • Antony and Cleopatra • An Alexandrian idyll • Dusk approaches And much more! Julius Caesar maintained a private affair with Cleopatra that produced a son, Caesarion (Ptolemy XV). When Caesar was assassinated Cleopatra attempted to have Caesarion named as his heir, but this fell instead to Caesar’s grandnephew Octavian. In the Liberators’ civil war Cleopatra sided with the Roman Second Triumvirate formed by Octavian, Mark Antony, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. Cleopatra had an affair with Antony that would eventually produce three children: Alexander Helios, Cleopatra Selene II, and Ptolemy Philadelphus. Octavian’s forces invaded Egypt and defeated those of Antony, leading to his suicide. When Cleopatra learned that Octavian planned to bring her to Rome for his triumphal procession, she committed suicide by poisoning, the popular belief being that she was bitten by an asp.