“The world was no in the hands of two men who got on as well as any with diametrically opposed interests and radically different dispositions, one of them ruthless, calculating, patient, the other sentimental, simple, impulsive, which is to say that civil war would rage for the rest of Cleopatra's lifetime. Had it not, we are unlikely ever to have heard of the last queen of Egypt, who stepped into a role that - in part thanks to Cicero - seemed scripted for her in advance.”