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Cleopatra and Rome Paperback – May 31, 2009

by Diana E. E. Kleiner (Author)

3.8 9 ratings

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With the full panorama of her life forever lost, Cleopatra touches us in a series of sensational images: floating through a perfumed mist down the Nile; dressed as Venus for a tryst at Tarsus; unfurled from a roll of linens before Caesar; couchant, the deadly asp clasped to her breast. Through such images, each immortalizing the Egyptian queen's encounters with legendary Romans--Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian Augustus--we might also chart her rendezvous with the destiny of Rome. So Diana Kleiner shows us in this provocative book, which opens an entirely new perspective on one of the most intriguing women who ever lived. Cleopatra and Rome reveals how these iconic episodes, absorbed into a larger historical and political narrative, document a momentous cultural shift from the Hellenistic world to the Roman Empire. In this story, Cleopatra's death was not an end but a beginning--a starting point for a wide variety of appropriations by Augustus and his contemporaries that established a paradigm for cultural conversion.

In this beautifully illustrated book, we experience the synthesis of Cleopatra's and Rome's defining moments through surviving works of art and other remnants of what was once an opulent material culture: religious and official architecture, cult statuary, honorary portraiture, villa paintings, tombstones, and coinage, but also the theatrical display of clothing, perfume, and hair styled to perfection for such ephemeral occasions as triumphal processions or barge cruises. It is this visual culture that best chronicles Cleopatra's legend and suggests her subtle but indelible mark on the art of imperial Rome at the critical moment of its inception.

Print length

352 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press
Publication date

May 31, 2009
Dimensions

6.12 x 1 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

0674032365
ISBN-13

978-0674032361
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“In Cleopatra and Rome, Diana Kleiner describes the unique convergence of individuals and events that shaped the period. She brings the world of the Ptolemies and ancient Rome vividly to life and offers candid sketches of the people involved in Cleopatra's complex story...Whether or not 'one inimitable person can change the world,' she certainly makes for a good story.”―Christina Riggs, Times Higher Education Supplement

“Diana E. E. Kleiner presents Cleopatra's story as only an art historian could tell it. Beautifully illustrated and engagingly written, Cleopatra and Rome unveils Egypt's most famous queen through her portraits, monuments, and spectacles...Some of the book's most fascinating material involves Kleiner's study of imperial women. Focusing in particular on Octavia, Livia, and Augustus's daughter Julia, Kleiner demonstrates the impact Cleopatra had on these elite women's roles in both family and public life. Differences in the ways Augustus and Antony represent women associated with them on coins ingeniously provide indirect evidence of the influence Cleopatra as a female sovereign had on Antony's concept of female power...Cleopatra and Rome will be of interest and value to specialists and non-specialists alike, thanks to its fresh look at a number of well-known monuments and the clarity with which the material is presented.”―Prudence Jones, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

“In Cleopatra and Rome, Diana EE Kleiner--a professor of classics and art history at Yale--explains how the image and legend of Egypt's superstar queen lingered in the minds, and shaped the deeds, of Roman rulers...For Kleiner, Cleopatra enjoyed a long, illustrious afterlife in Roman art and culture. Women aped her style; patrons built in the Egyptian manner; poets buffed up her legendary persona. As for the real queen, she depicts not the minx of myth but a serial monogamist, politically astute, intellectually able--and far more loyal to her Roman lovers-turned-allies than they ever were to her.”―Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

“Sovereign, siren, and spectacle during her brief lifetime (69-30 B.C.), Cleopatra's relationships to Roman leaders and to Rome itself are seductively and intelligently examined in Diana E. E. Kleiner's beautifully illustrated book...Cleopatra and Rome provides an innovative and fresh perspective on Cleopatra, both as a long-lived myth and as a world force...Kleiner's engaging presentation offers much food for thought, providing ample material for a re-evaluation of the political, social, artistic, and cultural impact of Cleopatra on her protagonists, both male and female, and on Rome.”―Helena Fracchia, Canadian Journal of History

“[Kleiner's] Cleopatra and Rome is engaging and provocative. It is beautifully illustrated and is accompanied by an extremely useful bibliography including sections on Cleopatra films and Cleopatra on the internet.”―Michael Dixon, Classical Bulletin

“This beautiful work is generously illustrated, with high-quality color throughout.”―H. J. Kirchhoff, Globe and Mail

About the Author

Diana E. E. Kleiner is Dunham Professor of the History of Art and Classics at Yale University.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press (May 31, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674032365
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674032361
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.55 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.12 x 1 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,058,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,842 in Ancient Egyptians History
- #3,459 in Ancient Roman History (Books)
- #8,200 in Arts & Photography Criticism

Customer Reviews:
3.8 9 ratings

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Sophia

Great!

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2011

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Diana Kleiner is a wonderful story teller of history. She brings her excitement and construal of history to life in an interesting and captivating way. The author explains how Cleopatra's story must be gleaned and deduced from indirect evidence because concrete information was destroyed by the victors of history. The common conception of Cleopatra doesn't capture this amazing woman as well as she needs to be remembered. This book captures and draws together many threads of disparate evidence to help understand Cleopatra better - her architecture, her talents as described tangentially by outside sources, her education, her compatriots, her "peers", her lovers, the Egyptian influence in "pop" culture of the times, and the Egyptian influence on history (how Rome gets the credit for many of Cleopatra's/Egypt's influence). A brave, strong and brilliant woman whose beauty came from her character and the experience of her, which was obviously intoxicating and totally enthralling. A great book - interesting, insightful and fun. Thanks.

3 people found this helpful

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William R. Baird

A Great Book

Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2014

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A superb book - based on excellent research, and well-written - beautifully printed and illustrated - arrived in good time and in like-new condition.

One person found this helpful

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sammick

I wuz robbed

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2016

Verified Purchase

A good book but there are no illustrations and that should be stated when you buy it--there are loads of statements noting that if you want to see them you should have a paper copy of the book, that is not what I was purchasing. I was buying a book on Kindle and expected to have the entire book

2 people found this helpful

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E. Sylvia Simpson

Lots of pictures, Excellently Researched book by Scholar

Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2014

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These days, it seems like everyone is claiming to be an expert and writing books. This book is by an actual University professor from whom I took an online course through Coursera and Yale University. Unlike many University texts, this book is actually interesting and written in a way that explains all the major and minor characters in the story almost like a novel. Lots of pictures, including historic and archaeological photographs, as well as artwork throughout the ages that depicted famous events.

Highly recommended, entertaining and excellently researched by a true scholar.

3 people found this helpful

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Diva Augusta "Kim"

A very different book on Cleo..

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2005

If your looking for a book that examines the precarious relationship between Cleopatra VII and her eternal enemies in Rome; well then, this is the book for you.

Kleiner breaks down Cleo's influnce over Roman art and archiecture after her defeat and ultimate suicide in 30BC. She also presents facinating evidence of Augustus use of Cleopatra's cultural image for the images of himself and his wife, daughter, and sister. This is the first book I know of that finds an implicit connection between Octavian, Cleopatra, Antony, Octavia, and Livia.

It is well researched and well written, and perfect for a student of the Classics or Art history.

9 people found this helpful

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Rob Hardy

The Life, and the After-Life Influence

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2006

If you can name one famous woman of the ancient world, it is likely the name will be Cleopatra. "That Cleopatra was the most powerful woman in the ancient world's first century B.C. cannot be contested," writes Diana E. E. Kleiner in _Cleopatra and Rome_ (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). Her power was not only political, but as everyone knows, sexual. She also had an enormous intellectual grasp, and she had a flair for style and self-promotion in art, architecture, and fashion that was to be influential to the Rome that had ostensibly conquered Egypt. The influence continued long after her dramatic death and even into our own times. Kleiner is qualified to tackle the Cleopatra story, since she is a professor of art history and classics at Yale. The first half of this erudite but amusing volume is a biography of the queen; the second half chronicles her surprisingly strong postmortem power.

Cleopatra has a reputation as a vamp, but Kleiner says there is no evidence she had affairs with anyone except Caesar, and after his death, Antony. In both cases, the men were smitten by her knowledge, and in Caesar's case, he was inspired by her building projects to make some of his own. Also in both cases, Cleopatra was performing a balancing act to protect the independence of her own nation while supporting the superpower of Rome. Antony's affair with her infuriated Rome, or at least Augustus in Rome was able to manufacture public infuriation, and went to war with Antony and Cleopatra. During the invasion Cleopatra killed herself by means of the famous asp. She probably did so to avoid being a captive in Augustus's Rome. Antony also killed himself, one story saying that he did so upon hearing of Cleopatra's suicide. "Cleopatra's death by asp, reenacted in Augustus's triumph in Rome, was instrumental in elevating her to superstar status," writes Kleiner. Augustus was never Cleopatra's lover, but he was smitten by her. Like Caesar before him, he took up urban renewal, changing the city from one of brick to one of marble. It became fashionable for the moneyed set to commission buildings and paintings in the Egyptian style. One of the most surprising battles which Cleopatra posthumously fought was that of hairstyles. She herself had a style known as the "melon", with waved sections looking more-or-less like the outside of a melon. She often wore over her forehead the _uraeus_, the rearing cobra. From this developed the classical Roman style for women, the _nodus_, a roll of hair over the forehead in pompadour-style. The hairstyle, seen repeatedly in sculptures and paintings of the time, was championed by Octavia, the older sister of Augustus and the wife Antony had abandoned for Cleopatra. Kleiner tells the story of the women and their joint efforts with their hairdressers in a chapter wittily titled "Princesses and Power Hair."

Augustus included Cleopatra in monuments, and allowed himself in depictions in such monuments to be robed in the outfits of the Pharaohs. He was merely taking up Cleopatra's image because of its inherent power. Kleiner calls upon statues, friezes, coins, temples, embossed tableware and more to show how the power game was played in the arts of the time. As befits an art historian's book on such a subject, _Cleopatra and Rome_ is beautifully illustrated with ancient art from the times, as well as interpretations of the events in Cleopatra's life by later artists, and even an obligatory still starring Elizabeth Taylor.

11 people found this helpful

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