Cleopatra and Antony Power, Love, and Politics in the Ancient World

by Preston, Diana

• ISBN13: 9780802717382
• ISBN10: 0802717381
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-03-31
• Publisher: Walker Books

Summary

The story of the world's best-remembered celebrity couple, set against the political backdrop of their time.On a stiflingly hot day in August 30 b.c., the thirty-nine-year-old queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, took her own life rather than be paraded in chains through Rome by her conqueror, Octavianthe future first emperor, Augustus. A few days earlier, her lover of eleven years, Mark Antony, had himself committed suicide and died in her arms. Oceans of mythology have grown up around them, all of which Diana Preston explores in her stirring history of the lives and times of a couple whose namesmore than two millennia laterstill invoke passion, curiosity, and intrigue.Preston views the drama and romance of Cleopatra and Antony's personal lives as an integral part of the great military, political, and ideological struggle that culminated in the full-fledged rise of the Roman Empire, joined east and west. Perhaps not until Joanna in fourteenth-century Naples or Elizabeth I of England would another woman show such political shrewdness and staying power as did Cleopatra during her years atop the throne of Egypt. Her lengthy affair with Julius Caesar linked the might of Egypt with that of Rome; in the aftermath of the civil war that erupted following Caesar's murder, her alliance with Antony, and his subsequent split with Octavian, set the stage for the end of the Republic.With the keen eye for detail, abundant insight, and storytelling skill that have won awards for her previous books, Diana Preston sheds new light on a vitally important period in Western history. Indeed, had Cleopatra and Antony managed to win the battle of Actium, the centuries that followed, which included the life of Jesus himself, could well have played out differently.

Author Biography

Diana Preston is an Oxford-trained historian and author of Before the Fallout: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima, which won the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and T echnology, Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy, The Boxer Rebellion, A First Rate Tragedy, and The Road to Culloden Moor. With her husband, Michael Preston, she has coauthored A Pirate of Exquisite Mind and Taj Mahal.

Table of Contents

Map	p. x
Prologue	p. 1
Dynasty of Eagles	p. 9
Keeping It in the Family	p. 11
Siblings and Sibylline Prophecies	p. 20
Romulus' Cesspit	p. 31
The Race for Glory	p. 33
"Odi et Amo"	p. 44
Crossing the Rubicon	p. 55
Queen of Egypt, Mistress of Rome	p. 63
Like a Virgin	p. 65
The Alexandrian War	p. 80
"Veni, Vidi, Vici"	p. 92
"Slave of the Times"	p. 101
The Ides of March	p. 110
Isis Alone	p. 119
"Flight of the Queen"	p. 121
Ruler of the East	p. 139
Taming Heracles	p. 155
Mighty Aphrodite	p. 157
"Give It to Fulvia"	p. 166
Single Mother	p. 180
"The Awful Calamity"	p. 189
Gods of the East	p. 201
Sun and Moon	p. 203
"Theatrical, Overdone and Anti-Roman"	p. 216
"A Woman of Egypt"	p. 229
The Battle of Actium	p. 243
After Actium	p. 256
Death on the Nile	p. 267
"Too Many Caesars Is Not a Good Thing"	p. 278
Postscript: "This Pair So Famous"	p. 288
Acknowledgments	p. 295
Appendix: Putting a Face to a Famous Name	p. 297
Notes and Sources	p. 301
Bibliography	p. 315
Picture Credits	p. 319
Who Was Who in the First Century BC	p. 321
Index	p. 325
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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