Book Review: Cleopatra and Rome

Strategy Page

Cleopatra and Rome, by Diana E. E. Kleiner

Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard Belknap, 2005. Pp. vi, 340. Illus, diagr., notes, biblio., index. $29.95 paper. ISBN:0674032365.

Cleopatra and Rome is essentially a "life and times" of the last Ptolemid ruler of Egypt, inter-woven with an exploration of her long-term influence on the art, politics, and culture of her times and the ages that followed, with a look at the Cleopatra of tradition, legend, and literature.

The author, a professor of Classics at Yale, argues that the Egyptian queen's conqueror, Octavian, and the Romans of his times consciously copied many political, cultural, and social practices that had characterized her reign, putting an "indelible mark" on imperial Rome.