Antony and Cleopatra

Chances are this book won't give you what you're looking for. And that is a very good thing.

There is a bad tendency of biographers of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, going back all the way to William Shakespeare (indeed, going all the way back to Roman times) to sensationalize or romanticize: To give us Cleopatra the femme fatale or the two of them as besotted lovers. There has also been a certain tendency, in recent years, to hold up Cleopatra as a feminist icon because she was an early queen who truly ruled.

It's mostly bunk. Popular bunk, good for sales, but it's not true. Mark Antony was a moderately talented man who first got lucky because Julius Caesar liked him, and then got unlucky because he wasn't nearly as smart as that punk show more kid Octavian, and he never figured that out. Cleopatra, by all available evidence, was a very intelligent, very efficient woman -- who, however, loved power and was ruthless in her use of it. She may have been a good lover, but that doesn't mean you'd want her for your ruler. And this book lets us see that: We see Antony in his spendthrift ways, his drinking, his womanizing, his inability to read a situation. And we see Cleopatra in her endless scheming.

We also have pointed out to us all the things we don't know, ranging from what Cleopatra looked like (was she exceptionally beautiful, or was she the woman with the hooked nose on her coins?) to the ancestry of a whole bunch of people, to the various treaties, agreements, and negotiations that we simply are not privy to. At times it gets a little monotonous to simply be told that we don't know -- but that's far better than thinking we know something we don't!

And, on top of all that, it's a good read.

I wouldn't call it a perfect book. For those who don't know much Roman history, it's a bit weak on Roman officialdom (quaestor, aedile, praetor, consul, tribune) and their authority (imperium, and its extension once out of office; also, the relationship between office and military service, and the management of legions). I would have put in more about the later Ptolemies (Ptolemy VI and his brother Ptolemy VIII and their sister-wife Cleopatra II and their daughter-wife Cleopatra III) and how their relationships put Egypt in the weak situation it ended up in in the time of Cleopatra VII. The coverage of the Pharsalus campaign, which ultimately resulted in Julius Caesar meeting Cleopatra, struck me as a little thin, too. And I would have liked to see more about Antony's and Octavian's senior followers -- especially on Antony's side: Why did Canidius join him and stick with him? But those are small things -- if the questions intrigue you, you can try other sources. On the whole, this is an excellent piece of work that will benefit anyone interested in the fall of the Roman Republic. show less

This isn't a bad book, but it is one where the author tells you so often that we don't really know what either Antony or Cleopatra were thinking or what they actually did that one wonders why the book was written. I think we all expect that records of things that happened over 2000 years ago are going to be spotty, so mention it once (perhaps in the introduction) and lets move on.

This book is pretty good, read a previous book on cleopatra so I already knew most of the stuff but the stuff about mark Anthony was wonderful

This book is pretty good, read a previous book on cleopatra so I already knew most of the stuff but the stuff about mark Anthony was wonderful

Book was well written and informative but strayed from the topic too often. It told about general political situation in Rome and stuff. I don't know much about Rome and all the names just got me confused.

As Slate points out, it's been overshadowed by Schiff's book, but it's Goldsworthy so I'm sure it's good. Maybe a good companion piece.