Alexandria: a sprawling metropolis, once the cultural capital of the Western world. It was ruled by the Ptolemies, whose queens—the Cleopatras—produced the unforgettable queen we know from Shakespeare and Plutarch. Yet their history was eclipsed by that of the Roman Empire and has lost much of its glamor in the public imagination. Spencer sits down with Hoover Institution senior fellow Barry Strauss to dust off the fascinating stories of these Macedonian queens of Egypt. Extravagant, cunning, and powerful, with a flair for the dramatic, they embedded themselves into native Egyptian cultural and religious tradition, played politics as bloodsport, and left the world stage as they first entered—with a bang.

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