Review by Choice Review
Two thousand years after she lived, historical fascination with Egypt's last reigning queen is as strong as ever. This contribution to the crowded shelf of Cleopatra studies bypasses the romantic mythologizing of later generations in order to focus on contemporary literary accounts and the historical environment of the first century BCE. Egyptian, Greek, and Latin documents preserve contrasting views of this wealthy east Mediterranean kingdom and of Cleopatra's efforts to negotiate its independence in the face of Rome's steady advance. The author's emphasis on narrative presents few surprises but provides a fresh context for understanding the bureaucratic structure and operation of the late Egyptian state. Useful appendixes include a time line of Cleopatra's life, genealogy, ancient descriptions, iconography, and debates on her Roman citizenship and mother's identity. While readers interested in wider issues of gender roles, cultural competition, and postclassical reception will also want to read books like Joyce Tyldesley's Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (CH, Aug'09, 46-6966), this new political biography provides an exceptionally thorough, balanced survey of the historical foundations on which later accounts are based. Cleopatra emerges as far more accomplished than the lens of Roman history willingly admits. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. S. Langdon University of Missouri--Columbia
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
The real Cleopatra was a formidable scholar, diplomat and naval commander. THE name Cleopatra calls up cheap flashes of Hollywood glitz, a diva in jewels, not a regal eminence invested with the power to drive armies. Those who think they know anything about her at all can do little more than recall some nebulous fame as a beautiful, cunning seductress of mighty men in togas. She's more the stuff of fable for us than a real person who inhabited her own square of time and space. But inhabit one she did, and with a good deal more intelligence, élan and tact than exercised by most of her male allies and enemies in the Roman world. It is that real woman, Cleopatra VII of Egypt (69-30 B.C.), who is explored in Duane W. Roller's biography. And while Cleopatra's role in the grand drama of the fall of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Empire might not have been utterly central, history couldn't have rolled out quite as it did without her. In Cleopatra's case, the word 'biography' strikes a strange modern note, suggesting the existence of more historical information about her than we in fact have to draw from. But as a historian, classical scholar and archaeologist, Roller brings the full apparatus of what we do know to bear - a tricky task given how Cleopatra's reputation was officially propagandized into oblivion after her defeat and death. The result is an authoritative, amply footnoted yet brisk account not only of her life but also of its rich backdrop, featuring a cast extending backward through almost three centuries of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII, though harried by civil turmoil, worked to reinvigorate fading intellectual life in the great scholarly city of Alexandria, a cause which his daughter, uncommonly well educated even for a woman from a royal household, carried on when she ascended the throne in 51 B.C. for what could have been an enlightened reign. (Roller emphasizes Cleopatra's achievements as a scholar, linguist, diplomat, and even naval commander - a welcome corrective to the popular conception of her as merely a schemer of royal blood with alluring advantages.) Strife broke out with a faction supporting her brother over sovereignty, though, and it wasn't until Julius Caesar arrived in 48 and applied his leverage that she took undisputed power. Then, too, began the chain of events that molded her legend - the murder of Pompey by her brother and her ingratiating alliance with Caesar; the son she claimed was his; her presence in Rome when he was assassinated; her intricate intrigues, private and otherwise, with Marcus Antonius and the twins she bore him; her joint defeat with Antonius at the hands of Octavian in the Battle of Actium; her suicide. Little wonder she was taken up by poets, painters and Elizabeth Taylor. Roller tells his tale smoothly and accessibly. Scholarly digressions are consigned to helpful appendixes that Roller uses as small seminars for airing points of dispute, as a good many remain. What, for example, were the origins of Cleopatra's mother? Was Cleopatra - the quintessentially vile foreigner according to Octavian's propaganda - a Roman citizen? (Roller believes she was.) And he offers a digest of classical literary descriptions of the queen and a discussion of her iconography (including coin portraits, which are the only certain likenesses) to pinpoint those elements of her modern identity that only evidence from the period can prove or support. The resulting portrait is that of a complex, many-sided figure, a potent Hellenistic ruler who could move the tillers of power as skillfully as any man, and one far and nobly removed from the "constructed icon" of popular imagination. Tracy Lee Simmons is the author of "Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin." He teaches journalism and writing at Hillsdale College.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 4, 2010]
Review by Booklist Review
Since Cleopatra remains one of the most fascinating females in the annals of history, one more full-length biography couldn't hurt. Roller begins with the premise that Cleopatra has been generally misunderstood by centuries of biographers and historians. This misinterpretation has led to the emergence of Cleopatra as a popular-culture icon rather than a politically savvy and calculating leader. Basing this chronicle exclusively on primary sources culled from classical antiquity, the author painstakingly separates myth from reality, discounting her undeserved reputation as a seductress and concentrating on her impressive but often overlooked or minimized political, military, and administrative achievements. This revisionist portrait of one of the most powerful women in the ancient world adds substance and heft to her exotic legacy.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In the first volume of Oxford's series Women in Antiquity, historian and archeologist Roller (Through the Pillars of Herakles), professor emeritus at Ohio State University, debunks the myth of Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.E.), offering a straightforward, reader-friendly biography of this intriguing and powerful ruler. Drawing on ancient sources, he portrays not a seductress who used her charm to blind men to their better judgment but a powerful naval commander during the Battle of Actium and a savvy royal administrator, "who skillfully managed her kingdom in the face of a deteriorating political situation" and Rome's increasingly intrusive presence. Roller also reveals her for the first time as an author-of Cosmetics, a medical and pharmacological treatise for such conditions as hair loss and dandruff. Tracing her life from her birth and her extensive education as a young girl to her ascension to the throne in 51 B.C.E., her consolidation of the Egyptian empire, and her strategic alliances with Rome, Roller provides a definitive account of a queen of remarkable strength (she compared herself to Alexander) who was a leader of her people. 18 b&w illus. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
The end of the Roman Republic has inspired a lot of good recent biographies, but did we really need another scholarly life of Cleopatra after Joyce Tyldesley's Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt (2008)? Surprisingly, the answer is yes. While Tyldesley probed deeply into Ptolemy family history and iconography, classicist Roller (Greek & Latin, emeritus, Ohio St. Univ.) focuses on Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.E.) as a ruthless and learned queen in a time when female rulers were practically unknown. The first of the Ptolemys to speak Egyptian (the family was Greek in origin), Cleopatra used her many languages to help her achieve her goals of holding on to her throne and restoring to Egypt territory lost by her ancestors. Her shrewd liaisons and childbearing with Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius supported her on her throne for 20 years as Roman dominance of the Mediterranean world grew. But there were limits to what a proud queen would do to survive. "I will not be led in triumph," she told her conqueror Augustus Caesar. Then she killed herself. VERDICT Cleopatra reclaims her stature as a significant monarch of her era in this unsentimental corrective to the romantic legend. Recommended for all who study her era.-Stewart Desmond, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Choice Review
Review by New York Times Review
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
