{"product_id":"cleopatra-and-antony-power-love-and-politics-in-the-ancient-world-9780802710598","title":"Cleopatra and Antony: Power  Love  and Politics in the Ancient World","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn a stiflingly hot day in August  30 B.C.  the thirty-nine-year-old Queen of Egypt  Cleopatra  took her own life  rather than be paraded in chains through Rome by her conqueror  Octavian  the future emperor Augustus. A few days earlier  her lover of eleven years  Mark Antony  had died in her arms following his own botched suicide attempt. Oceans of mythology have grown up around them  all of which Diana Preston puts to rest in her stirring history of the lives and times of a couple whose namesmore than two millennia laterstill invoke passion  curiosity  and intrigue. This book sets the romance and tragedy of Antony and Cleopatras personal lives within the context of their political times. There are many contemporary resonances: the relationship between East and West and the nature of empire  the concealment of personal ambition beneath the watchword of liberty  documents forged  edited or disposed of  special relationships established  constitutional forms and legal niceties invoked when it suited. Indeed their lives and deaths had deep political ramifications  and they offer a revealing perspective on a tipping point in Roman politics and on the consolidation of the Roman Empire. Three hundred years would pass before the east would  with the rise of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire  once again take a share of political power in the Mediterranean. In an intriguing postscript  Preston speculates on what might have happened had Antony and Cleopatra defeated Octavian at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67600670982197,"sku":"ByrdShop_080271059X","price":44.15,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780802710598.jpg?v=1790977781","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/cleopatra-and-antony-power-love-and-politics-in-the-ancient-world-9780802710598","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}