“I will not be triumphed over.” Cleopatra

Cleopatra: A Life, Stacy Schiff
I am woefully ignorant about the ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.  If I had to do it all over again, I might study the classics in college.  In the mean time, I was able to fill in some gaps in my knowledge with this book, which was fascinating - sex, murder, incest, war, etc.  I knew almost nothing about Cleopatra and was rewarded with an exhaustively researched biography.  In between smuggling herself into the palace and seducing Julius Ceasar when she was only 21, to her long affair with Mark Antony and eventual suicide, there is political intrigue, fratricide, and all sorts of debauchery.  Extremely well educated (she spoke nine languages!) and charismatic, she charmed everyone who came into contact with her.  Even more remarkable given all the incest in the Ptolemy family - hard to believe she wasn’t some drooling, inbred mutant!  In addition to a keen intellect, she had tremendous wealth and power.  She was quite formidable.  Unfortunately, history is written by the victors, so she's gotten a bad rap.  Only 2 sexual partners in your whole life and you're labeled a whore for eternity!  So unfair.

It was interesting to learn about the contrast between Eqypt and Rome at the time, with Eqypt being far more advanced culturally, technologically, and in the area of women’s rights.  And of course, I learned more about Julius Ceasar and Mark Antony.

I’ve read some of the on-line reviews of this book on a couple of sites.  Quite a few people find it boring and can’t get into it.  Nonsense.  I found it immensely readable, but it is not light reading.  It is chock full of information and has lots of big vocabulary words!  (Seriously.  I was reading it on a Kindle, which thankfully  has that feature where you can highlight a word and get the dictionary definition.  I did this quite often during the course of the book.  If I had to take the SAT right now I’d totally crush the verbal section.)

I enjoyed Stacy Schiff’s writing style so I’m looking forward to reading Vera: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov.  But before I attempt that I have to re-read Lolita (for the 3rd time) and Pale Fire, and then Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, which my neighbor recommended.  So it might be a while.