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Cleopatra: A Life on Ipad & Kindle | Stacy Schiff

Her ancestry is,"an ungainly shrub of a family tree," full of incest. Cleopatra's great-grandmother was both wife and niece of Ptolemy VIII. Cleopatra's own husband was also her brother and a mere boy at the start of their marriage, ten years old to her eighteen years. Of the fifteen family marriages, ten were full brother-sister unions. Two other Ptolemies married nieces or cousins. Schiff has done an admirable job of taking the reputable historians accounts, chopped away at the absurd and pandering or those filled with a particular hatred and whittled Cleopatra's life down to a fascinating and believable historical account. What of that story wherein Cleopatra arrives in the palace of Caesar wrapped in a hemp rug to curry favor for her reign over that of her husband/brother? Did she really seduce Caesar and thereby bear his son? Or was it Caesar who seduced her? Stacy Schiff herself admits, "there is not universal agreement on most of even the basic details of Cleopatra's life. So much of this history is simply not known." Childhood was simply not a subject worthy of papyrus and further, papyrus did not survive the ravages of time. So even Schiff is often left with, "may have's," "may well have's," and must have's" in an attempt to piece together the life of an alluring woman that began in 69 BC. Schiff's conclusions are fair and well researched making this a historical account of great significance, however, there is so little absolute verifiable information about Cleopatra that Schiff and all other historians are left to make an educated guess at best about actual details of her life. If you are looking for a light read about this fascinating woman the cover art might fool you into believing this is the book for you. It is not, if however, you are looking for an historical account full of minutiae and conjecture this will delight you.

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