The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.Įveryone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). Tyldesley also includes a welcome guide to the individual characters that Cleopatra encountered during the Ptolemaic period.Ī satisfying blend of historical fact and strong, informed opinion about one of history’s most captivating figures. The most absorbing passages concern her relationship with Antony and her subsequent demise, which are interspersed with (sometimes conflicting) quotations from fellow historians. The various stories about Cleopatra’s relationship with Antony are thoroughly dissected, and Tyldesley supplements these with a neat examination of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. However, the author doesn’t shy away from discussing the many apocryphal tales that swirl around the Ptolemaic ruler: the queen smuggling herself in a roll of linen sheets (or, in more common myth, a carpet) in an attempt to reach Caesar the presentation of Pompey’s severed and pickled head to Caesar as a gift, etc. Many biographers focus too much on Cleopatra’s reputation as a temptress, but Tyldesley gamely analyzes her politically astute nature at work against the backdrop of the bloody, brutal times in which she operated.

Tyldesley examines many of the burning questions that continue to puzzle historians-Was she black? Did she marry her brother? Was she beautiful or ugly?-and that have helped create such a beguiling picture of the queen. In chronological fashion, the author covers the major historical issues surrounding Cleopatra, but she wisely avoids lingering too long on well-traveled ground. A new biography of the Macedonian ruler attempts to debunk many myths surrounding her legacy.Įgyptologist Tyldesley ( Egypt: How a Lost Civilization Was Rediscovered, 2006, etc.) digs deeply into Cleopatra’s life, piecing together a unique portrait of her successes and failures.

Cleopatra joyce tyldesley