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Cleopatra stacy schiff review5/18/2023 ![]() No matter whose army she backed, the risks were substantial. Still she lived, as Schiff says, “…at one of the most dangerous intersections in history: that of women and power.” Therefore, she was very much damned if she did, and damned if she didn’t. ![]() As much as one third of Ptolemaic Egypt may have been in female hands.”Īnd of course, Cleopatra had privilege that other women did not. “As wives, widows, or divorcées, they owned vineyards, wineries, papyrus marshes, ships, perfume businesses, milling equipment, slaves, homes, camels. For example, Egyptians were relatively feminist about their attitude towards women. So here Schiff has material to work with. On the other hand, we know a fair amount about Alexandria and Egypt in Cleopatra’s time. But it’s hard to feel absorbed in a female figure’s life when most of the information is about the men around her. I commend an author who can eke out 300 pages in this manner. So what Schiff does is build pillars of the men’s lives and then string a few lights between them, which represent what little we know, guess, or assume about Cleopatra. This isn’t entirely the author’s fault, since the primary sources with the queen’s history have been mostly destroyed. In order to tell Cleopatra’s life, Schiff really tells the stories of Caesar and Mark Antony. ![]() ![]() And, believe me, those details hide among gobs of information about the men she loved. Stacy Schiff looks for hidden details about the world’s most famous female monarch in Cleopatra: A Life. ![]()
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