The Cleopatras
The Forgotten Queens of Egypt
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
The definitive story of the seven Cleopatras, the powerful goddess-queens of ancient Egypt
One of history’s most iconic figures, Cleopatra is rightly remembered as a clever and charismatic ruler. But few today realize that she was the last in a long line of Egyptian queens who bore that name.
In The Cleopatras, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the dramatic story of these seven incomparable women, vividly recapturing the lost world of Hellenistic Egypt and tracing the kingdom’s final centuries before its fall to Rome. The Cleopatras were Greek-speaking descendants of Ptolemy, the general who conquered Egypt alongside Alexander the Great. They were closely related as mothers, daughters, sisters, half-sisters, and nieces. Each wielded absolute power, easily overshadowing their husbands or sons, and all proved to be shrewd and capable leaders. Styling themselves as goddess-queens, the Cleopatras ruled through the canny deployment of arcane rituals, opulent spectacles, and unparalleled wealth. They navigated political turmoil and court intrigues, led armies into battle and commanded fleets of ships, and ruthlessly dispatched their dynastic rivals.
The Cleopatras is a fascinating and richly textured biography of seven extraordinary women, restoring these queens to their deserved place among history’s greatest rulers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The seven Cleopatras who ruled Egypt in the final two centuries before its first-century BCE conquest by Rome wielded "supreme power," according to this illuminating study. Historian Llewellyn-Jones (Persians) argues that, when taken out of the shadow of their last and most famous member and interpreted as a dynasty, the Cleopatras "set a new model for female power in antiquity," redefining current understandings of women's exercise of authority in the past. Most of them easily outmatched their many husbands (each Cleopatra was married multiple times, usually to different brothers or nephews), amassing power via intrigue and assassination, military command, and the canny development of religious rituals. Generally, the Cleopatras posed as dutiful wives and mothers—even when they plotted against their own kin—deploying femininity as yet another weapon in their arsenal. Cleopatra I Syra, a Syrian princess and wife to Ptolemy V, initiated the Cleopatra line. Over the following generations, many of the Cleopatras ruled alone or with precedence over male relatives. The royal line ended with Cleopatra VII, whose risky entanglement with Rome led to her defeat and suicide. Throughout, Llewellyn-Jones highlights the queens' ruthless determination, framing them as women with a developed sense of gender dynamics and of patriarchy's inequities, whose political project was often—and quite explicitly—to seize power from men. It's an innovative take on an ancient dynasty. Illus.
