- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (Jun 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0312271190
- ISBN-13: 978-0312271190
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.5 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,560,386 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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1 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Julius Caesar, who fancied himself a direct descendant of Venus, the goddess of love, was, his soldiers sang, "every woman's husband and every man's husband." His well documented bisexuality affected his judgment as he vacillated between the two sibling contenders to the Egyptian throne, fifteen year-old Ptolemy and twenty-one year-old Cleopatra, his sister-wife, who were worshipped by some but not all Egyptians as the living embodiments of the divine Isis and Osiris. As if this motif is not sufficiently dark, the author-narrator overlays an elaborate apologia for homosexuality in general and for pederasty in particular that is inarguably subcultural (pages 151-2). Relieving these somber aspects is a universality of theme and plot so applicable to our terror-prone times as to constitute a parable, just as Biblical accounts of conflicts between Syrians and Jews remind us of current events in the mideast. A few quotations employing Shakespearean chiasmus and Orwellian new-speak will suffice to demonstrate these parallels. "I come not to threaten Egypt, but to embrace her." (Compare Antony's ironic assurance to the Roman mob: "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.") "The whole world shall be unified under Rome, and Rome shall be unified under Caesar, but, for that to happen, Egypt [read Iraq] must be pacified and brought under Caesar's sway." "Cleopatra has promised to give Caesar a son [who will] found a dynasty to rule the whole world forever," and when she becomes pregnant Caesar "has no doubt that it is his," ignoring her various trysts with others. But, the narrator's son, Meto, wonders, "What if the life of anyone - even an enslaved captive - mattered as much as anyone else's, even Caesar's?" (Remember the post-9/11 military overflights above Washington, D.C., which continued long after those over New York ceased?) When Caesar is in danger of being defeated by Ptolemy's forces, the narrator salutarily observes that "the death of the so-called great [men, especially those whose hubris encourages sycophants to declare in their approving presence that they were divinely chosen to lead] is often more squalid and terrifying [Mussolini comes to mind] than the deaths of their more humble subjects."
0 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Julius Caesar, who fancied himself a direct descendant of Venus, the goddess of love, was, his soldiers sang, "every woman's husband and every man's husband." His well documented bisexuality affected his judgment as he vacillated between the two sibling contenders to the Egyptian throne, fifteen year-old Ptolemy and twenty-one year-old Cleopatra, his sister-wife, who were worshipped by some but not all Egyptians as the living embodiments of the divine Isis and Osiris. As if this motif is not sufficiently dark, the author-narrator overlays an elaborate apologia for homosexuality in general and for pederasty in particular that is inarguably subcultural (pages 151-2). Relieving these somber aspects is a universality of theme and plot so applicable to our terror-prone times as to constitute a parable, just as Biblical accounts of conflicts between Syrians and Jews remind us of current events in the mideast. A few quotations employing Shakespearean chiasmus and Orwellian new-speak will suffice to demonstrate these parallels. "I come not to threaten Egypt, but to embrace her." (Compare Antony's ironic assurance to the Roman mob: "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.") "The whole world shall be unified under Rome, and Rome shall be unified under Caesar, but, for that to happen, Egypt [read Iraq] must be pacified and brought under Caesar's sway." "Cleopatra has promised to give Caesar a son [who will] found a dynasty to rule the whole world forever," and when she becomes pregnant Caesar "has no doubt that it is his," ignoring her various trysts with others. But, the narrator's son, Meto, wonders, "What if the life of anyone - even an enslaved captive - mattered as much as anyone else's, even Caesar's?" (Remember the post-9/11 military overflights above Washington, D.C., which continued long after those over New York ceased?) When Caesar is in danger of being defeated by Ptolemy's forces, the narrator salutarily observes that "the death of the so-called great [men, especially those whose hubris encourages sycophants to declare in their approving presence that they were divinely chosen to lead] is often more squalid and terrifying [Mussolini comes to mind] than the deaths of their more humble subjects."
2 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Julius Caesar, who fancied himself a direct descendant of Venus, the goddess of love, was, his soldiers sang, "every woman's husband and every man's husband." His well documented bisexuality affected his judgment as he vacillated between the two sibling contenders to the Egyptian throne, fifteen year-old Ptolemy and twenty-one year-old Cleopatra, his sister-wife, who were worshipped by some but not all Egyptians as the living embodiments of the divine Isis and Osiris. As if this motif is not sufficiently dark, the author-narrator overlays an elaborate apologia for homosexuality in general and for pederasty in particular that is inarguably subcultural (pages 151-2). Relieving these somber aspects is a universality of theme and plot so applicable to our terror-prone times as to constitute a parable, just as Biblical accounts of conflicts between Syrians and Jews remind us of current events in the mideast. A few quotations employing Shakespearean chiasmus and Orwellian new-speak will suffice to demonstrate these parallels. "I come not to threaten Egypt, but to embrace her." (Compare Antony's ironic assurance to the Roman mob: "I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.") "The whole world shall be unified under Rome, and Rome shall be unified under Caesar, but, for that to happen, Egypt [read Iraq] must be pacified and brought under Caesar's sway." "Cleopatra has promised to give Caesar a son [who will] found a dynasty to rule the whole world forever," and when she becomes pregnant Caesar "has no doubt that it is his," ignoring her various trysts with others. But, the narrator's son, Meto, wonders, "What if the life of anyone - even an enslaved captive - mattered as much as anyone else's, even Caesar's?" (Remember the post-9/11 military overflights above Washington, D.C., which continued long after those over New York ceased?) When Caesar is in danger of being defeated by Ptolemy's forces, the narrator salutarily observes that "the death of the so-called great [men, especially those whose hubris encourages sycophants to declare in their approving presence that they were divinely chosen to lead] is often more squalid and terrifying [Mussolini comes to mind] than the deaths of their more humble subjects."
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