Cleopatra (Penguin Classic Biography)

Cleopatra was an intellectual, an astute politician, and a powerful Queen of Egypt, but most people remember her primarily as a seductress. In this illuminating biography, Ernle Bradford suggests that Cleopatra's prurient reputation was likely manufactured by the conquering Romans to discredit her name after her death. Cleopatra's whole life was devoted to Egypt. Even though she was probably Greek, not Egyptian, by birth, she was the first of her dynasty to learn the language of the country over which she ruled. Only seventeen years old when she came to the throne in 51 B.C., she watched the savage struggle then raging between Caesar and Pompey and hoped that Rome would destroy itself in the process. Bradford's detailed exploration of the powers of this legendary queen is captivating and illuminating.