- Hardcover: 550 pages
- Publisher: Constable; 1st Edition edition (25 Jan 1971)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0094570000
- ISBN-13: 978-0094570009
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,997,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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3 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
I liked it!
15 Jun 2000
Format:Hardcover
I was pretty surprised to see that the other review of this book was so negative. Jack Lindsay's book "Cleopatra" was one of the first I read in my study of ancient history, and I found it wonderful. It is vry readable, although to the non-expert, it might be an idea to read Cicero's "Phillipics" and Plutarch's "Lives" before tackling this. It is enjoyable, interesting, insightful and thoughtful. Lindsay is something of a leinient historian however, which I personally think is in his favour though the harsher reader may not agree with me! Read, enjoy, and review, giving Lindsay back his good name!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
More a Social History Than a Biography
27 Sep 2010
Format:Hardcover
I read The Folio Society edition of this book several years ago and found it to be less a biography of Cleopatra than a Marxist social history of the conflict between, on the one hand, the Patrician Class of the late Roman Republic and its empire as represented by such figures as Brutus, Octavian, Cicero and Cato the Younger (although in the latter case, I may be conflating my memories of this book with those of the entertaining HBO series, "Rome"), and on the other, the conquered Eastern provinces of the Empire, the lower classes of those provinces and Rome itself, and their representatives, Caesar, Mark Antony and Cleopatra. At that level, Lindsay's book is fascinating, especially in its description of the plebeian yearning throughout ancient history for a pre-historical "Golden Age" of freedom and plenty absent class-domination and oppression. Lindsay also offers a welcome corrective to the traditional view of Brutus as "the noblest Roman of them all," noting, if memory serves, that he was the biggest moneylender in the Empire, and that his agents in Cyprus, for example, charged interest at the rate of 40% or higher.
As for Cleopatra herself, Lindsay covers her leadership of the East in rebellion against Rome and her alliances with Caesar and Antony well, but I never got much of a sense of her as a personality. Lindsay's Cleopatra is a diplomat, a political and war leader, and she and Antony, in particular, are popular spiritual and temporal figures, but she is not a full-blooded person. For that, I imagine there are far better books, but for a discussion of the international implications of class conflict, ancient Apollonian "liberation theology" (Antony and Jesus as variations on an Apollo as Liberator) and colonial unrest in the Roman civil wars, Lindsay has a lot to offer.
As for Cleopatra herself, Lindsay covers her leadership of the East in rebellion against Rome and her alliances with Caesar and Antony well, but I never got much of a sense of her as a personality. Lindsay's Cleopatra is a diplomat, a political and war leader, and she and Antony, in particular, are popular spiritual and temporal figures, but she is not a full-blooded person. For that, I imagine there are far better books, but for a discussion of the international implications of class conflict, ancient Apollonian "liberation theology" (Antony and Jesus as variations on an Apollo as Liberator) and colonial unrest in the Roman civil wars, Lindsay has a lot to offer.
1 of 15 people found the following review helpful
I would give it zero, but that is not an opption!
15 Oct 1999
Format:Hardcover
This book should have been called "Men During Cleopatras Time" It just goes on and on and on about these roman men that noboby cares about and hardly says a thing about Cleopatra. Take my edvice and spend your money on a Fictional book that also has facts in it, because you will go in to a coma if you read THIS book.
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