Fifty years before the birth of Christ, in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, there reigned a young queen renowned for her beauty, guile and charm: Cleopatra. Politically astute and talented, she sought to protect her nation against the threat of Rome through her love affairs - first with the Roman ruler Julius Caesar and then with the rebel general Mark Antony, until the day in 30 BC when the Roman legions of Octavion stood at the gates of the city. Antony committed suicide; Cleopatra died by her own hand; Egypt fell to Rome. This work explores the history and the myth of this legendary woman who has magnetically captured the imagination of writers and artists from Plutarch to Shakespeare and Cecil B. DeMille.