Book Review: Cleopatra, A Life by Stacy Schiff
I couldn’t put this book down. The writing is gorgeous: lyrical, immersive, richly textured and slyly skeptical of the historical record. Did you know Cleopatra spoke nine languages and was a master of finance and political strategy? At the height of her power, she controlled the entire eastern Mediterranean coast, while keeping those enslaving, conquest-obsessed, sexist Romans at bay.
Her reign was a golden age for women—perhaps the golden age— for they chose their husbands, controlled their own money, and made up half the work force in all domains, including commerce, agriculture, academia, governance, and the priesthood. She was the last of a centuries-long line of powerful female rulers. But even by that high standard, she stood out. The immense complexity of her time, and its antiquity, awes.
The actual historical record is “extraordinarily spotty,” the author says. “No papyri from Alexandria survive…. There is very nearly a conspiracy of silence. How is it possible we do not have an authoritative bust of Cleopatra from an age of accomplished, realistic portraiture?
…(T)o restore Cleopatra is as much to salvage the few facts as to peel away the encrusted myth and hoary propaganda. She was a Greek woman whose history fell to men whose futures lay with Rome, the majority of them officials of the empire…. There is no agreement on the basic details of her life…. I have not attempted to fill in the blanks though on occasion I have corralled the possibilities. Mostly, I have restored the context.”
The result is fascinating, and subversive. I will read this book again—it’s that thought provoking.
In fact, I already have! When I went to shelve it in my library, I found another copy already there. I bought this amazing book twice and read it twice, as if I’d never encountered it before. I love that. (Yes, this is not the first time.) Has that happened to you?
