A dramatic political, cultural and social historical narrative of the period 60-40 BCE in Egypt and Rome, and the three sister queens each seeking power for themselves during this time: Cleopatra, Berenike (executed by their father) and Arsinoe (murdered at sister Cleopatra's request).



Fatal Monsters approaches the three sister queens equally, rather than simply privileging Cleopatra, and examines them in the correct historical and archaeological context, not just through Roman eyes but also Greek and Egyptian ones. This story, the story of three sister queens and the sibling rivalry that brought down a 300-year-old dynasty, has yet to be told.



Jane Draycott is a historian and archaeologist, and the author of Fulvia and Cleopatra's Daughter. She is currently Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Glasgow and co-director of the University of Glasgow's Games and Gaming Lab.



Light and thorough, wide-reaching and focused, entertaining but not sensationalist



Makes a persuasive case that, in the Roman Republic, any woman who dared do things differently was virtually certain of going down in history as an evil femme fatale