Preston novel reexamines the lives of the world’s two most famous lovers and asks where would we be today if they’d succeeded in winning the Roman Empire
Rating: 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
“I’m interested in people who despite overwhelming obstacles achieve extraordinary things and also in people to whom history has been unfair,” says Cleopatra and Antony author Diana Preston. “Cleopatra had a traumatic childhood and adolescence. One of her sisters was executed by her father, probably in front of her. As a young queen her half-brother ejected her from her throne and forced her to flee. She got back her throne by seducing Julius Caesar and kept it for the rest of her life until her suicide at thirty-nine.”
Know as history’s greatest lovers, Cleopatra and Antony are more than that. Their lives were very political with intrigue in both Egypt and Rome.
“She was the most powerful female ruler of the ancient world with a vision of a new world order,” says Preston. “If she and her Roman lover Mark Antony had succeeded in introducing that new order our own world might have been very different. I wanted to capture the importance of their story as well as its drama.”
“Also the picture of Cleopatra that has descended through history thanks to Roman propaganda, is not of a powerful, politically-astute, independent-minded woman but of some sort of sexy siren,” says Preston. “I wanted to set the record straight.”
“I spent a long time in Egypt, especially in Alexandria, Cleopatras’ capital,” says Preston.
“It was intriguing to examine artifacts like stone sphinxes retrieved from beneath the harbor where marine archaeologists believe they have located the remains of her palace.”
Cleopatra knew she needed a man to win and she understood the political ramifications behind her choices. Antony was loyal and viewed Cleopatra as an equal that they could rule the Roman Empire.
Preston provides a more realistic portrait of Cleopatra and Antony. The facts Preston reveals have been heard before, yet she finds other compelling reasons why they did what they did. The descriptions of Roman and Egyptian life and politics are fascinating. Lovers of history will relish her portrait of life in Rome and Egypt.
Preston raises the question of what if? What if Cleopatra and Antony had won? How would that have changed history?
Preston was born in London and still lives there. Preston won the L.A. Times Book Prize for Before the Fall Out: From Marie Curie to Hiroshima. She’s currently working on a quintet of historical novels about the Moghuls of India with her husband under the pseudonym Alex Rutherford. The first book, about the founder of the Moghul dynasty, was recently released in the U.S. It’s called Raiders from the North.
Cleopatra and Antony: Power, Love, and Politics in the Ancient World by Diana Preston. Paperback, 352 pages, Publisher: Walker & Company; 1 edition (March 30, 2010), Language: English, ISBN: 9780802710598 $16.00
