The Nature of Things

It is said that history is written by the victors and thus it is extremely difficult to get a true picture of the vanquished. They are almost always demonized and denigrated. There is probably no more cogent example of this than Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. Her first biographies were written by Romans, eager to please her implacable enemy, Octavian, soon to be Caesar Augustus. Octavian was the victor; Cleopatra and Mark Antony were the vanquished. They could expect nothing good to be written or remembered of them. The early biographies and histories that were written of Cleopatra were biased and politically motivated. The writing was altogether xenophobic and sensationalistic. Even in these accounts though, something of the strong will and personality of the woman came through to inspire later poets and writers. For more than 2,000 years she has fascinated us and still does. She has been written about time and again, and in her book, Cleopatra: A Life, the excellent historian S...