Luxury and corpulence signified status. (In an age when most Egyptians got only enough food to get by, her heavy-set son Ptolemy VIII was “an aspirational role model.”) It helped that her ...

Famed for her intelligence, charisma and political skills, Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt with her brother Ptolemy XIII. She defeated Ptolemy with the help of Julius Caesar and became Caesar's mistress.

AT the meeting on Monday of the Royal Geographical Society, Dr. H. Schlichter read a paper on “Ptolemy's Geography of Eastern Equatorial Africa.” Ptolemy, as a geographer, has received very ...