Alexandria - The Last Nights of Cleopatra

263 Pages·2013·2.69 MB·English

by  Peter Stothard

Copyright
This edition first published in hardcover in the United States in 2013 by
The Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
www.overlookpress.com
For bulk and special sales, please contact [email protected], or write us at
the above address.
First published in Great Britain by Granta Books, 2013
Copyright © AspWords, 2013
Image on pages 1, 255 and 379: Georg Scholz, Weiblicher Akt mit Gipskopf
(Seated Nude with plaster Bust) 1927 © Vereinigung der Freunde der Staatlichen
Kunsthalle Karlsruhe e. V. Image on pages 87 and 381: Elizabeth Taylor’s
profile on DVD cover of Cleopatra © 20th Century Fox/Everett/Rex Features.
Image on page 275: Bust of Lucius Munatius Plancus © The Art Archive Musée
de la Civilisation Gallo-Romaine Lyon Gianni Dagli Orti. Image on pages 315
and 322: Jan de Bray (c.1627–97), Banquet of Mark Antony and Cleopatra,
1652. Oil on canvas. Supplied by Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen
Elizabeth II 2012.
Map on pp. x–xi copyright © Leslie Robinson and Vera Brice, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be
invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer
who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for
inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
ISBN: 978-1-4683-1039-9
i.m.
RJMG (1951–2010)
In the new year of 2011, on the eve of the Arab Spring, I was in Alexandria to
complete a book about Cleopatra. With me were the remains of seven previous
attempts. This time there had to be an end.
CONTENTS
Copyright
Map
31.12.10
Arrival in Alexandria | a yellow room at Le Metropole | Maurice and the Red
Tents | how Cleopatra made it happen
1.1.11
Cleopatra the First | Mahmoud and Socratis | New Year bombing | the Dead
Fountain cafe | Essex clay | I look myself up
2.1.11
Slightly poisoned | Muslims and Copts | Monty’s bar | Jesus, the missing years
3.1.11
Cleopatra the Second | the rough-book | E.M. Forster and the Ptolemies | boxes
of tragedies | death by needles and beaks
4.1.11
Partial eclipse | Sir Anthony Browne’s foundation | Mr G and Mr W | She Who
Must Be Obeyed | blood from his nose | an arms salesman
5.1.11
V, the schoolgirl | teenage years | sodomy in Greek | burning books | a boy called
Frog | Paul Simon and Jimi Hendricks (sic)
6.1.11
Cleopatra the Third | Miss Taylor | signs of a beard | Pompey’s Pillar | a bomber
and a carpet
7.1.11
Cleopatra the Fourth | in Oxford | a kiss from V | Julius Caesar’s little war | a
cruise down the Nile
8.1.11
Maurice gets Marowitzed | Lighthouse island | Mahmoud and the church bomb |
Ides of March
9.1.11
A lesson from Holladay | Continuators | watch the office men | what classicists
do | a night at The Frogs 10.1.11
Cleopatra the Fifth | an actress at St Mark’s | sex with Crissie | Maurice’s Nubian
night | Socratis on Caesar | Aulus Hirtius, V and me
11.1.11
The Metropole red-and-green Ball | tied down in the tents | Frog and the
Mermaids
12.1.11
Secret seventies | the Latin for hangover | Alexandrian rules | Southern Bug |
somewhere on Love’s Island | alphabets in the sky
13.1.11
The middle of the story | Mark Antony waits at Tarsus | perfumed sails |
successors to Caesar | a queen cannot choose her pimp
14.1.11
Cleopatra the Sixth | grey days at Big Oil | bureaucracy student | a different
Antony Brown
15.1.11
Cleopatra the Seventh | space barons | V in the Red Tents | Calthorpe Arms | the
Thatcher who must be obeyed | F for Farouk | Duke’s rout
16.1.11
The purpose of parties | Mark Antony’s wars | generous happenings for a general
| the new Caesars
17.1.11
Queens by night and day | dreams of dogs | Romans and Alexandrians in the
newsroom | leading articles | the Scargill gaffe
18.1.11
Last nights of an editor | farewell to Calthorpe and other Arms | lost notes | what
happened at Actium
19.1.11
Mahmoud and the troops | death of Antony | Socratis’s mother sings | coincident
cancers
20.1.11
Maurice and Cleopatra reunited | how to die without pain | E.M. Forster on the
North Sea
21.1.11
V comes to Cheltenham | how to read a Latin poem | the afterlife of Romans |
drink and move on
22.1.11
Last night, last words | farewell to Le Metropole | noises from the border | the
right choice of driver
Epilogue
Elizabeth Taylor and the Arab Spring
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About Alexandria

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