To me this was pretty boring. There were bits that were good and interesting but a lot of it was overly described and tedious. Before reading, I didn’t know that the stories of Cleopatra was so flawed and mythic rather than factual. Some of the myth I knew (the myth that she was beautiful but was probably less beautiful than rich). I knew that she’d had kids from married men, Romans, but it seems she did it more for political leverage than love or lust. Just how bad she was treated by history was remarkable. It is hard to read a biography in which so little is based on fact but rather the opinion columns of history and myth.

What is known and/or generally accepted that she did accomplish for her country was pretty amazing.