"Joann Fletcher has the good grace and specialist knowledge to do away with Roman romances. This book's bedrock is Egyptology. . . . Cleopatra was, indeed, not just a 'baleful beauty;' she was great." --History Today 

World-renowned Egyptologist Joann Fletcher offers an extraordinary look at one of Egypt's most intriguing leaders--the legendary Cleopatra. In the tradition of biographies by Stacy Shiff, Duane Roller, and Adrian Goldsworthy, and drawing on astonishing new evidence about Cleopatra's life--including tax records, personal correspondence, and the discovery of her palace quarters beneath the Mediterranean Sea--Fletcher presents Cleopatra's life in glorious detail, revealing the woman behind the myths.