"Cleopatra finally gets top billing in this engrossing dual biography of the famous lovers. Historian Preston gives Cleo, a strong female ruler of an economic powerhouse, her due as one-half of the true and equal partnership that rocked the Ancient World. Separately, Antony and Cleopatra were charismatic forces to be reckoned with, but together they proved to be almost—but not quite—invincible. Passionate lovers, the two were also emotionally and romantically attached to an extent quite uncommon in the patrician circles of their time. Their personal intimacy spilled over into the political, as they hatched an innovative plot to mold Egypt into Rome’s equal in the east. Defying the traditional mythology that paints them as doomed star-crossed lovers, Preston places this amazing power couple firmly into the historical, political, and military contexts that shaped them and were, in turn, shaped by them."—Booklist

"Book Prize–winner Preston (Before the Fallout) vividly puts their lives in the larger political context of their times. Preston explodes the legends, saying Cleopatra was less a seductress than a politically shrewd ruler, and Antony was not a hotheaded megalomaniac. Preston chronicles Cleopatra’s life from her royal upbringing to her marriage to the new Roman emperor Julius Caesar, motivated, says Preston, by political ambition. After Caesar’s murder, according to Preston, Cleopatra was wise to join political and sexual forces with Antony, who won favor in her eyes for rebelling against Octavian. For his part, Antony remained loyal to Cleopatra, viewing her as a partner with whom he could rule the Roman Empire. Although the tales Preston rehearses are familiar ones, she provides a rich context and speculates that if Antony and Cleopatra had defeated Octavian, then Cleopatra might have ruled in Judea more benignly than Herod. Her reception of Jesus of Nazareth might have been very different than Herod’s, and history itself might have been altered."—Publishers Weekly

"Before discussing the pivotal first encounter between young Cleopatra and the newly victorious Julius Caesar in Alexandria in 48 BC, the author wades through a dense bloody history involving the Ptolemy dynasty of Egypt and the civil wars in Rome. Once the highly educated, politically astute, alluring Egyptian queen takes center stage, she commands complete attention. Preston describes her at length, even enlisting a specialist in "archaeosteology" to reconstruct her face. The author notes that Cleopatra was "probably not conventionally beautiful"; her appeal lay in her artfulness, charm, daring and shrewdness, qualities that warlike Caesar and later Antony greatly admired, and rarely saw in women. While Caesar served as her early protector, giving her a "divine heir" in the son Caesarion, Antony helped consolidate the power she needed to stabilize her reign. The two played at being godlike-Cleopatra was Isis incarnate, Antony the "new Dionysus"—and both were sensualists and fond of pomp and spectacle. Their passion for each other was driven by their shared "hunger for life," Preston asserts. Cleopatra skillfully coaxed from Antony territory concessions that nearly restored the empire of the early Ptolemies, and she proved a valuable political ally in the face of threats by Parthia and Octavian. Although Antony was criticized for losing his self-control and dignity by remaining with Cleopatra, Preston emphasizes how each fulfilled the other’s "wider strategy." Had they prevailed, they might have co-ruled a vast empire. Preston closes with an analysis of how later mythmaking was particularly unkind to Cleopatra. Preston ably conveys her admiration for the Egyptian queen."—Kirkus Reviews