Cleopatra: A Life

* It takes a hard heart to argue that Antony resisted the irresistible Egyptian queen but it has been done. The great Ronald Syme makes of Cleopatra just another notch on the bedpost, assigning her to a list of more or less interchangeable client queens. In his opinion there was no infatuation at all; Antony “succumbed with good will but did not surrender.” And in Syme’s view, after the Alexandrian winter of 41 Antony felt for her nothing but indifference.