Cleopatra

1972, 2003 Phoenix edition
Michael Grant
Cleopatra
Original price $19.95, purchase price $3.00
Slightly worn paperback
B-

While a vast improvement over Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, this still doesn't quite capture the Egyptian queen.  Grant's tone is a little too dry at first, although he can dish dirt, as when he talks about the propaganda battle waged by Octavian.  I would've liked to have seen more about both Cleopatra's personality and her domestic politics.  (There's plenty on her foreign policy.)  Also, you can't just say of your biographical subject that she had "no moral feeling" without supporting it.  Yes, she had members of her own family killed, but people seldom say Henry VIII had no moral feeling.  What made Cleopatra worse than other ruthless rulers? 

The maps and family trees are reasonably clear, and Grant does his best to distinguish between all the similarly named people.  (For instance, Cleopatra's older sister was Cleopatra VI.)  The artwork, from contemporary coins to centuries-later paintings, shows the way images of Cleopatra VII changed over time.  She was actually rather plain-looking with a hooked nose, but artists of the Renaissance and later liked to portray her as a lovely, semi-nude brunette, usually with the fatal snake.  Tiepolo's very 18th-century presentation of Antony meeting (clothed) Cleopatra is priceless in its anachronisms.