In the 2000 years since Cleopatra's death she has been recreated over and over again, each time in a form that fits the prejudices and fantasies of the age that produced it. To Chaucer she was the model of a good wife, while to Cecil B.De Mille she was "the wickedest woman in all history"; to the Arabic historian Al-Masudi she was a scholar and a sage; to George Bernard Shaw an emotionally retarded sex-kitten. These fantastic Cleopatras can be read as mirror-images of the culture that produced them. This book is about them, and also about politics - sexual, racial and constitutional - and about morality, neurosis and desire. The author is a journalist and critic who won the 1980 Catherine Pakenham Award as a feature writer with "Vogue".