Cleopatra: Beyond the Myth

Hoping to rescue the Egyptian queen from ""clich s that have been spread by... [a] complaisant literature,"" not to mention by Elizabeth Taylor vehicles, French Egyptologist Michel Chauveau (Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra) offers Cleopatra: Beyond the Myth. In this concise biography based on the few surviving Greek, Latin and Egyptian texts that mention her, Chauveau, former member of the Institut Fran ais d'Arch ologie Orientale and current director of studies at L' cole Practique des Hautes tudes in Paris, shows how the lack of sources (as well as Cleopatra's own attempts to mythologize her reign) has allowed romantic legends to flourish. He disputes the claims of other biographers on such subjects as the trajectory of her affair with Mark Antony, and points out biases in the accounts of Plutarch and other Roman historians. (Trans. from the French by David Lorton. Cornell Univ., $22.50 128p ISBN 0-8014-3867-5)