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

I have read most of Diana Preston's books and this one ranks right up among her best. And who would have guessed it given the subject matter? Not her American publisher who either did not offer this in hardback or had so few copies it was no where to be found. Preston says she put Cleopatra's name first in the title because Cleopatra often gets send billing to Caesar and Mark Antony. But in fact the book is mostly about Roman Politics, culture, war making and hypocrisy and how Cleopatra leveraged personal power to save her country from being just another Roman colony. I am not a student of Roman history and found Preston's narrative to be both entertaining and enlightening. She comes up with so much detail and yet has a writing style that is minimalist and to the point in telling the story and explaining why the story is important to the history of the various participants. I found this to be mostly Rome's history with an emphasis on Egypt's impact on the Rome during the interesting times of these two major icons of the ages, Mark Antony and Cleopatra. If you're at all interested in the subject I highly recommend this book to you.

Diana Preston's Cleopatra and Antony: Power, Love, and Politics in the Ancient World is a well-told history of this infamous couple. The best parts of the book are the rich descriptions of the luxuries of Cleopatra's court. The days of feasting and debauchery are mind-boggling, even by the standards of today's college students. In one scene, Cleopatra bets that she can throw a meal worth 10 million sesterces, and then achieves this by throwing one of her diamond earrings into the vinegar! I wouldn't say there's anything particularly new or different about this book. In fact, it is really geared toward "popular" audiences (the first page even has a footnote that all dates are BC). If you're unfamiliar with the ancient world, this is a good book to start with. Preston gives a long and thorough "back history" of the Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Egypt. However, if you're a history buff, it might seem like there's too much general history, not enough detail about Antony and Cleopatra. For the latter audience, I suspect Adrian Goldsworthy's new Antony and Cleopatra would be a better bet.

I have read several books on this couple, some of them more fanciful than perhaps realistic and I thought Colleen McCullough had covered these people fairly well, but this book truly sets the politics, morals and interests of that era. Ms. Preston did extensive research which she documents very well in the Notes and Sources and probably has done the best arranging of the idiosyncrasies and personalities of the most influential movers and shakers of Rome during the last century A.D. Through her, Antony became a much more capable military man and politician than what he is usually portrayed, but also his appetite as a womanizer and heavy drinker and Cleopatra was more thoroughly shown to be the powerful head of state that she was. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it was a page turner for me and read as interestingly as non-fiction adventures. Although the reference to "Antony and Cleopatra" usually immediately reflects a tempestuous and passionate romance, Ms. Preston uses these two people as only a means to an end to set forth history in an honest and colorful narrative.

Toga drama galore in "Cleopatra and Antony" by noted Oxford educated history Diana Preston. In 300 pages the author separates the two famous lovers from myth and gives us a portrait of two powerful personalities. Cleopatra was quite a dame! She was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Greeks who had ruled Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great. She spoke seven languages, was well schooled and a good queen of Egypt for almost twenty years. Cleopatra was also a crafty political operative who quashed her younger brother's bid for power and was not adverse to killing opponents. Cleopatra bore a child by Julius Caesar. The boy named Caesaron would be murdered by Octavian's soldiers. Following Caesar's assassination in 44 BC she fled to Egypt. It was in Tarsus she first met by Mark Antony. Antony was a Caesar supporter who helped in the elimination of his assassins including Brutus and Cassius. Antony was a notorious womanizer, drinker and doughty warrior whose courage was real. He comes across as an earthy man who truly loved Cleopatra despite affairs with other women. He had three children by Cleopatra. His rival for Roman dictatorship was Octavian the grandnephew and adopted son of Julius Caesar. Octavian became the first Emperor of Rome following his defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the decisive sea battle of Actium in 31 BC. Antony and Cleopatra chose suicide rather than capture and execution by the victorious Octavian. Antony died with a sword thrust; Cleopatra may have been bitten to death by an asp or cobra but her mode of death is unclear. Preston's book not only details in clear and understandable prose the political affairs of the volatile first century but also opens the door to Egyptian and Roman customs from sexual practices to religious beliefs. Diana Preston is not a specialist in the ancient world but writes for the educated general reader. Her book will both entertain and instruct the reader. An added bonus is the fascinating reconstruction of a bust showing what experts believed was Cleopatra's real life appearance. She was probably plump, hawk-nosed with an olive complexion. She died at only 39 years of age.

Marc Antony and Cleopatra are probably the most famous romantically linked couple in the Western tradition. They have captured the imagainations of millions down to the present day due to the sheer drama of their situations, the tremendously high stakes that they played for with their lives, the power of their mutual passion for one another, and the exoticism of mysterious, ancient Egypt. The Roman general and the Egyptian queen have inspired a tragedy by Shakespeare and overblown, hammy films featuring Claudette Colbert, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton. One unfortuante result of this attention, however, is that the mythical Antony and Cleopatra have largely supplanted the actual historical figures. In the modern mind, Cleopatra is usually seen as a sensual, promiscuous creature, given over to debauchery and shameless pagan rites, while Antony is depicted as a degenerate sot entirely in thrall to the seductive, emasculating Cleopatra. The fact that these inaccurate and misleading characterizations still largely prevail is in large part due to the extremely effective propaganda campaign that was carried out against Antony and Cleopatra by their most deadly rival, Julius Caesar's nephew and adopted son, Octavian, later Augustus, first emperor of Rome. Mr. Preston's book is therefore welcome in that it largely debunks these myths and does a straightforward job of presenting Cleopatra and Antony as they really were (that is, as best as that can be determined in reliance on the existing historical record). Rather than a wanton, heathen slattern, Cleopatra is shown as a highly educated, extremely intelligent and capable woman in an age when women were supposed to have no role at all other than as childbearers and domestic helpmeets. Similarly, a rounded portrait is given of Antony who, despite his gross appetites and vanity, was a gifted and esteemed Roman politician and military leader, the architect of victory at the Battle of Philippi where Caesar's murderers were defeated. In addition to providing us with accurate portraits of the book's subjects, the author also pithily describes the many ins and outs of both Roman domestic politics and international relations during this period of antiquity. There is also some interesting, informed speculation on such questions as what the course of history might have been if Antony and Cleopatra had prevailed rather than Octavian (whose victory was not at all preordained) and what Cleopatra actually looked like (not the irresistible sylph of myth or the hook-nosed harpy that some scholars have argued for based on the evidence of a few coins). Unlike other authors on subjects of this type, Diane Preston does not appear to strictly deal with the classics and Antiquity. She instead is what was once known as a "popularizer," doing research and writing books on a number of topics from the Boxer Rebellion in China, to the sinking of the Lusitania in WWI, to other diverse subjects. Her clear prose an