This book examines the making of the popular Cleopatra, part myth part history, through a detailed analysis of the way that artists and authors have portrayed the queen from her own day down to the present day. What is most remarkable is the inconsistency of such depictions, and Mary Hamer argues that this is the result of Cleopatra forming a western foundation myth onto which successive generations have projected their own conceptions of the place of women. She discusses various angles to the ways in which Cleopatra has been portayed, looking at issues of sexuality, at Cleopatra as a mother, at the ways in which artists have grappled with Cleopatra as a woman with real political power, and finally in a new section for the second edition, at the debate over Cleopatra's race and how this has affected contemporary depictions.