Read by Robin Miles

Her palace shimmered with onyx, garnets, and gold, but was richer still in political and
sexual intrigue. Above all else, Cleopatra was a shrewd strategist and an ingenious negotiator.

Though her life spanned fewer than 40 years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.

She was married twice, each time to a brother. She waged a brutal civil war against the first
when both were teenagers. She poisoned the second. Ultimately she dispensed with an ambitious
sister as well; incest and assassination were family specialties.

Cleopatra appears to have had sex with only two men. They happen, however, to have been Julius
Caesar and Mark Antony, among the most prominent Romans of the day. Both were married to other
women. Cleopatra had a child with Caesar and - after his murder - three more with his Antony.

Already she was the wealthiest ruler in the Mediterranean; the relationship with Antony
confirmed her status as the most influential woman of the age. The two would together attempt
to forge a new empire, in an alliance that spelled their ends. Cleopatra has lodged herself
in our imaginations ever since.

Famous long before she was notorious, Cleopatra has gone down in history for all the wrong
reasons. Shakespeare and Shaw put words in her mouth. Michelangelo, Tiepolo, and Elizabeth
Taylor put a face to her name. Along the way, Cleopatra's supple personality and the drama
of her circumstances have been lost.

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