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Cleopatra Podcast Series: Day 2

Cleopatra’s sexual liaisons have made her for famous being the femme fatale of classical antiquity and a heroine in the greatest love affair of all time. In Cleopatra: A Biography historian, archaeologist, and classical scholar Duane Roller aims to clear up the infamous queen’s identity—from the propaganda in the Roman Republic all the way to her representations in film today. And what, according to Roller, do the cold hard facts reveal? A pragmatic leader trying to save her kingdom as the reality of a full blown empire loomed ahead.

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Book thumbnail image

Cleopatra Podcast Series: Day 1

Cleopatra’s sexual liaisons have made her for being the femme fatale of classical antiquity and a heroine in the greatest love affair of all time. In Cleopatra: A Biography historian, archaeologist, and classical scholar Duane Roller aims to clear up the infamous queen’s identity—from the propaganda in the Roman Republic all the way to her representations in film today. And what, according to Roller, do the cold hard facts reveal? A pragmatic leader trying to save her kingdom as the reality of a full blown empire loomed ahead.

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In Memory: Lena Horne

I would never pretend to be an expert on Lena Horne, but my research prompts me to make a few observations on her career as a singer of popular songs. Perhaps the most striking thing about her stellar career is that Lena Horne, alone among the great singers of her era, never introduced a hit song. The songs she is associated with are the “standards” of what’s been termed The Great American Song Book. In the television obituaries, for example, she was heard singing the classic songs of Cole Porter, Ira and George Gershwin, and Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers. Even her signature song, “Stormy Weather,” was originally written by Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen for Ethel Waters in the 1933 Cotton Club Revue. (Waters, supposedly, always resented the fact that Lena Horne had co-opted “her” song).

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Ten things you might not know about Cleopatra

By Anne Zaccardelli

Most of my knowledge on ancient Greece and Rome comes from watching the TV show ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. Xena not only encounters Julius Caesar, Pompeius, and Octavian in her quests, but Marc Antony and Cleopatra as well. I was thus eager to learn more of the historical, ‘real-life’ Cleopatra.

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Adams on Washington: “Charming” and “Noble”

In honor of Presidents Day, we present the following excerpt from John Adams: A Live, in which John Ferling details John Adams’ first impressions of George Washington, and what ultimately led to Washington’s nomination for Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.

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