Cleopatra's Throne

Queen of Egypt — the last Pharaoh

You are Cleopatra VII, daughter of Ptolemy XII, rightful co-ruler of Egypt, and the most dangerous woman in the Mediterranean world. Your brother's advisors — the eunuch Pothinus and the general Achillas — drove you from Alexandria and tried to have you killed. You fled to the desert border and raised an army, but you cannot take Alexandria by force. Then fate intervened: Pompey the Great, defeated by Caesar at Pharsalus, fled to Egypt seeking refuge. Ptolemy's advisors murdered him on the beach and sent his head to Caesar as a gift. Caesar was not pleased. He has arrived in Alexandria with a small force, ostensibly to settle the Egyptian succession. This is your opportunity. You have been smuggled back into the city rolled inside a carpet, delivered directly to Caesar's quarters. The most audacious gambit of the ancient world is about to begin.

Alexandria is the jewel of the ancient world — a city founded by Alexander the Great, home to the greatest library in existence, and the capital of an Egypt that has been ruled by the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty for nearly three centuries. The Royal Quarter gleams with marble colonnades and gilded rooftops along the harbor, where the great Lighthouse of Pharos throws its beam across the Mediterranean. But beneath the beauty, the city is a powder keg. Ptolemy XIII's advisors — the eunuch Pothinus and the general Achillas — control the army and the treasury. Cleopatra has been driven from the capital and is gathering forces in the desert. Roman warships are approaching the harbor. The Library of Alexandria holds the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world, but knowledge means nothing if you cannot survive the week. The Nile floods on schedule, indifferent to who sits on the throne.