Q: Considering how much power Cleopatra wielded, why is it that women were (and still are) often condemned as manipulators while men are praised as strategists for similar behavior? Cleopatra had plenty of illustrious female ancestors, though none who ruled alone, as she did. Possibly those freedoms resulted from the worship of Isis, an all-powerful distinctly female deity possibly those attitudes had something to do with the role that strong queens played in Egypt. It's difficult to separate cause and effect on this one. Their husbands supported them after divorce. They owned ships, ran vineyards, filed lawsuits, practiced medicine. SS: It's true: Women enjoyed rights in Egypt they would not again enjoy for more than 2,000 years. Q: We imagine that the Egyptian culture of that time was backward and unsophisticated, and yet women had more power then than they would again for centuries. But analogies ultimately fall down for the simple reason that no woman today wields the kind of unconditional authority that Cleopatra did over so vast a domain.

None has let men set the agenda or tell them who they are. What nearly all of them have in common with Cleopatra is the freedom, or conviction, to define themselves. SS: There are certainly glimpses of her in all of these women-for their eloquence, persistence, pluck, grace under pressure, single-minded ambition, uncommon capability. Who among modern women reminds you most of Cleopatra? Q: Readers will recognize characteristics of Cleopatra in everyone from Diane Sawyer to Sarah Palin to Benazir Bhutto to Hillary Clinton. In her provocative new biography, Cleopatra: A Life, Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff makes the case that the richest and most powerful woman of all time was less 'wanton temptress' than savvy politician. But it turns out we have seriously underestimated the last Egyptian queen. Or maybe Shakespeare's temptress fooling around with Julius Caesar and dying for love of Mark Antony. Mention Cleopatra and you probably think of Elizabeth Taylor batting her violet eyes at Richard Burton.

Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff