Discoveries: Cleopatra

Book excerpt: Fifty years before the birth of Christ, in the splendid Egyptian city of Alexandria, there reigned a young queen: Cleopatra. Astute and talented, she was educated in the Greek and Egyptian traditions and bred to politics. Through her love affairs first with the Roman ruler Julius Caesar and then with the rebel general Mark Antony, she sought to protect her nation against the threat of Rome, until the day in 30 B.C. when the Roman legions stood at the gates of the city. Antony committed suicide; Cleopatra was found dead; Egypt fell to Rome. Threading her way between history and myth, Edith Flamarion retraces the life of one of the most celebrated women of all time.