In the 2,000 years since her death, Cleopatra has been recreated over and over again by poets, artists and filmmakers, each time in a form that fits the prejudices, anxieties and yearnings of the age that produced it. To Chaucer she was the model of a good wife, while to Cecil B. DeMille she was ‘the wickedest woman in history’. In this revised edition of Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s award-winning cultural history, the real Cleopatra – one of the most powerful women in the ancient world – is skilfully revealed alongside a legion of imaginary counterparts and the sexual, racial and political messages they carry.