The past few years have seen the ever-popular Queen Cleopatra VII, last of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, appear in her fair share of fiction and non-fiction titles alike. Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff authored the popular biography Cleopatra: A Life, while Her Ancient Majesty featured in ancient retellings across the world in everypossiblemedium. To be fair, though, Cleo and her love affairs have never been out of fashion since she first donned the Double Crown of the Two Lands two thousand years ago.


But when does Cleopatra take a back seat? What about the people around her, her friends, family, the ones who witnessed – and suffered from – her rise to power? In her novel Cleopatra’s Shadows (out October 6, 2015 from Little, Brown), debut author Emily Holleman takes on the monumental task of recreating the lives of two of the most important women in Cleopatra’s life – her two sisters, Berenice IV and Arsinoe IV, fellow children of Ptolemy XII Auletes. Just a note - once upon a time, a woman named Cleopatra Tryphaena was deemed to be the girls’ oldest sister, but now it’s understood she was probably their father’s wife (and mother to only Berenice, while the other kids were children of a concubine). Talk about potential for conflict!

All three women declared themselves to be rulers of Egypt, but history only remembers Cleopatra. Holleman investigates the kind of political and familial environment that produced such ambitious sisters, as well as the circumstances that produced Arsinoe and Berenice, in particular.

For most, the younger Ptolemies are Cleopatra’s Shadows, but, as Holleman shows, they are really so much more.

Sister, Sister

When the novel opens, Arsinoe defines herself by those around her. She’s the younger sister to her father’s favorite child, Cleopatra; much older sister to his two infant male heirs; and forgotten sibling to Berenice, who has just staged a coup against the king and declared herself queen. Ptolemy XII has fled with Cleopatra to seek foreign aid in reclaiming his throne, while Berenice is busy establishing her claim to the Double Crown. Even her mother has neglected Arsinoe, fleeing with her baby brothers, leaving her a forgotten relic in her father’s – now sister’s – great palace in Alexandria. Holleman aptly circumscribes this little girl in her protective little world, setting her up for a major transition in every way possible.

The author also does a masterful job portraying the differing circumstances in which Berenice and Arsinoe find themselves. As Berenice basks in her post-coronation glow and attempts to rectify the sloppy job her father has done ruling the kingdom, Arsinoe cowers beneath her bed, fearful of eating the slightest morsel for the change it might be poisoned. As their lives change and their political fortunes wax and wane, each young woman serves as a valuable counterpoint to her equally ambitious sister.

The reader cringes in sympathy as Arsinoe hardens from an open, naïve young girl into a teen, forced by her tutor-eunuch to maneuver politically deadly situations. As Arsinoe’s life comes under threat from one conspirator after another, she progresses in maturity, then backtracks at an alarming rate, but one perhaps realistic of an overwhelmed pre-teen. It’s her rather tedious visions and the author’s well-intentioned but heavy-handed insertions of classical texts into Arsinoe’s internal dialogue that serves to slow the pacing of her half of the narrative.

Girl Power!

Although Cleopatra’s Shadows advertises itself as primarily Arsinoe’s story, it’s Berenice who is arresting in her self-consciousness, ruthless and self-delusional in her efforts to bring the Ptolemaic dynasty from the brink of disaster at the hands of Rome, and heartbreaking in her efforts to avoid her hard-hearted mother’s painful fate. From the sheets of the royal bedroom to the packed dust of the battlefield, Berenice does her best to avoid being soft, as she puts it, and she shines as a well-meaning ruler set against the inevitable - the onslaught of the immovable force that was Rome. Holleman brings Berenice to such life that it’s hard to believe one can’t reach through the pages to give her shoulders a rough shake or wrap her in a much-needed embrace.

Perhaps Berenice’s story is such a success because the author has declared her desire to spin Arsinoe’s story off into multiple volumes, so she kept the queen’s tale concise and emotion-packed, rather than letting it lag. Still, readers will still be champing at the bit to follow the Ptolemaic princess into the next chapter, when she will inevitable confront the twin rising tides of Rome and Cleopatra.

More than anything else, though, Cleopatra’s Shadows helps establish the women of Ptolemaic Egypt as formidable figures, different from the “seductresses of the East” image foisted onto them in antiquity and today. Holleman artfully depicts real women of the ancient world, who used their own wits and wiles to maneuver among the most brilliant men of their age. Holleman delivers a triumphantly fresh tale for historians and casual fans alike. Let’s hear it for the girls!

Rating: 7/10