Review: Duane Roller's Cleopatra Biography

Just when you thought everything that could possibly be written about the Queen of the Nile already had been, Duane Roller brings us a fresh new take. This scholarly work reads with the ease of a novel and even veteran students of Cleopatra will learn something new about history's most fascinating woman.

Cutting through the Augustan propaganda that has largely defined our contemporary view of Cleopatra as the wanton seductress and plaything of Roman generals, the book examines her skills as a linguist, diplomat, author, and naval commander. Roller does not portray her as a superwoman--after all, the Egyptian queen's plans did ultimately fail. But neither does he minimize her talents and accomplishments.

What emerges from the impeccably researched pages is a complex portrait of a woman who very nearly ruled the world. But lest we think she was all ambition, the book explains in detail that her first concern was always Egypt. Indeed, Professor Roller observes, "a failure to understand her essential needs was a constant misjudgment by the Romans."

In this book, we learn about Cleopatra in the context of the revolutionary times in which she lived as well as in the context of the legacy she inherited from her ancestors. But amongst the most enlightening revelations is a reference to Cleopatra's possible Egyptian blood and her relation to the priestly family of the god Ptah. It's become fashionable to dismiss Cleopatra's self-styled title of Philopatris and her learning of the Egyptian language as some sort of Egyptomania peculiar in a Greek queen. But if Roller's hypothesis is correct, then Cleopatra represented in her very person the merger of the Macedonian ruling class of Ptolemaic Egypt with the native people they ruled.

Research versus the Demands of the Publishing Market

Confession time. It took me almost five years to finish my first historical novel. Now, I'll admit to being a slow writer, but most of that time was spent researching the life of Cleopatra's daughter. Oh, sure, I'd seen the famous movie about Cleopatra--the one starring Liz Taylor. I'd read many excellent books about the Late Republic and Early Empire. But it took a long time to understand both the Ptolemaic Egyptian culture into which my heroine was born as well as the Roman world in which she was raised. But when I sold LILY OF THE NILE to Berkley, I knew all of that work and effort was worth it.

What I didn't know was that everything was about to change for me as a writer. When my agent asked me how long it would take me to write the sequel, I hesitated so long that she said something like, "Be realistic, but the right answer is not longer than a year."

I agreed because, let's face it, what was the alternative? There are authors who can get away with publishing on their own schedule. Their readers will wait for them no matter how long it takes. But that's not how it works for most authors. Besides, I thought, how hard could it be? The sequel is about the same woman I'd already been writing about. I had a jump-start on the research.

As it turns out, this was only partially true. I'd done enough research on Cleopatra Selene to know that I had much more to learn, because historical fiction and even historical fantasy doesn't just revolve around the life of one person. It's a snapshot in time, and a good author will capture those details and even their contradictions. I have realized that for every fact I've learned about the ancient world between the years of 30BC-14AD there are ten more unexplored paths I could take. I'm fairly confident I'll never know everything there is to know about those years, but that doesn't stop me from trying.

Recently, I spent three working days researching the mucus of sea snails to understand how my heroine made herself rich making royal purple dye. Before I had a publishing contract, I might have spent weeks researching this, but now I have a deadline, so there's a limit. I have to stop myself and just write the book, knowing that as a fiction author, the story has to come first.

Still, I'm curious. How do you balance the research demands of historical novels against the demands of publishing today?