The Cleopatras

The definitive story of the seven Cleopatras, the powerful goddess-queens of ancient Egypt One of history’s most iconic figures, Cleopatra is rightly remembered as a clever and charismatic ruler. But few today realize that she was the last in a long line of Egyptian queens who bore that name. In The Cleopatras, historian Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones tells the dramatic story of these seven incomparable women, vividly recapturing the lost world of Hellenistic Egypt and tracing the kingdom’s final centuries before its fall to Rome. The Cleopatras were Greek-speaking descendants of Ptolemy, the general who conquered Egypt alongside Alexander the Great. They were closely related as mothers, daughters, sisters, half-sisters, and nieces. Each wielded absolute power, easily overshadowing their husbands or sons, and all proved to be shrewd and capable leaders. Styling themselves as goddess-queens, the Cleopatras ruled through the canny deployment of arcane rituals, opulent spectacles, and unparalleled wealth. They navigated political turmoil and court intrigues, led armies into battle and commanded fleets of ships, and ruthlessly dispatched their dynastic rivals. The Cleopatras is a fascinating and richly textured biography of seven extraordinary women, restoring these queens to their deserved place among history’s greatest rulers.

Advocating a revised history of the eighteenth-century novel, Novel Cleopatras showcases the novel's origins in ancient mythology, its relation to epic narrative, and its connection to neoclassical print culture. Novel Cleopatras also rewrites the essential role of women writers in history who were typically underestimated as active participants of neoclassical culture, often excluded from the same schools that taught their brothers Greek and Latin. However, as author Nicole Horejsi reveals, a number of exceptional middle-class women were actually serious students of the classics. In order to dismiss the idea that women were completely marginalized as neoclassical writers, Horejsi takes up the character of Dido from ancient Greek mythology and her real-life counterpart Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. Together, the legendary Dido and historical Cleopatra serve as figures for the conflation of myth and history. Horejsi contends that turning to the doomed queens who haunted the Roman imagination enabled eighteenth-century novelists to seize the productive overlap among the categories of history, romance, the novel, and even the epic.

She was the last ruler of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries. Highly educated (she was the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak ancient Egyptian as well as the court Greek) and very clever (her famous liaisons with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were as much to do with politics as the heart), she steered her kingdom through impossibly taxing internal problems and railed against greedy Roman imperialism. Stripping away preconceptions as old as her Roman enemies, Joyce Tyldesley uses all her skills as an Egyptologist to give us this magnificent biography.

Although there are many books written about the most famous Cleopatra, this is the only study in English devoted to her less well-known but equally illustrious namesakes. Cleopatras traces the turbulent lives and careers of these historically important women, examining in particular the earlier Macedonian and Ptolemaic Cleopatras, and the impact of their dynastic marriages on the history of the Hellenistic world. John Whitehorne also evaluates current views of Cleopatra VII's dramatic suicide, and considers the evolving political significance of royal women in the last three centuries BC. Clearly and engagingly written, Cleopatras reveals the true significance to the ruling dynasties of the 34 known Cleopatras who were not Cleopatra the Great, and illuminates some fascinating but little-known aspects of ancient Greek and Egyptian history along the way.

Are you ready to change the conversation about money and finances? Most people view the money conversation as negative, full of confusion, uncertainty, guilt or even shame. And these hidden negative emotions can lead to avoidance. This book is going to change everything! You're going to want to talk about money - and even more importantly, you're going to feel good about joining the conversation! Where does the change come from? It starts with focusing on helping the essential person: you. Your feelings and beliefs on money were formed through your money story that started with the riches of your origins, which is why we base our conversation in the setting of mine - Ancient Egypt. In this book, you're given the tools to constructively work though past emotions and effectively release the negativity that's holding you back from achieving the financial success that you want, in the way you want. Through a customized combination of self-development techniques with tangible financial advice, you will discover what true financial empowerment means. Taking real control of your money story is rooted in your emotional connection to the conversation. Change the feeling, change the belief, change the result.

Three sisters. One throne. An epic battle begins. Abandoned by her beloved older sister Cleopatra and an indifferent father, Arsinoe, a young Egyptian princess, must fight for survival in the bloodthirsty royal court after her half-sister Berenice seizes power. But despite using her quick-wits to win Berenice's favour, Arsinoe struggles to establish herself in a uncertain new world, one that carries her from the conspiratorial dangers of the palace, to the streets of war-torn Alexandria. Meanwhile, her other sister, the usurper Berenice, has her own demons to confront - her cruel, flagging mother, a pair of fickle husbands, and the ever-present threat that her father will return from exile-as she fights to hold the throne as the first queen of Egypt in a thousand years. Perfect for historical fiction fans who loved discovering The Other Boleyn Girl, Cleopatra's Shadows reimagines Cleopatra's rise to power through the eyes of her forgotten younger sister, Arsinoe.