Cleopatra: A Life

* At the same time it is interesting that the general who continues Caesar’s narrative takes such care to emphasize—on his first page and curiously out of context—that the city was fireproof. His assertion contradicts the other early sources, which claim that fire spread from the ships to the docks to the great library. It fails to acknowledge too the masterfully manipulated roofs and beams or the timber barricades of Caesar’s account. We are left with a gratuitous apology, and without an offense.