Cleopatra's Daughter

Set in the first century BC during the collapse of Ptolemaic Egypt and the rise of imperial Rome, the novel follows Kleopatra Selene, the ten-year-old daughter of Queen Kleopatra VII and the Roman general Marc Antony. Selene narrates her transformation from Egyptian princess to Roman captive, tracing her journey from the fall of Alexandria in 30 BC through nearly five years on the Palatine Hill, Rome's elite hilltop district where Octavian's family resides.

The story opens as Selene plays dice with her twin brother Alexander and six-year-old brother Ptolemy in Alexandria's royal palace. When a soldier reports that the Egyptian navy has surrendered to Octavian, Antony's political rival, Kleopatra orders her children to the family mausoleum. She sends Antony a false message that she is dead, hoping he will flee, but Antony drives his own sword into his body and dies in Kleopatra's arms. Roman soldiers breach the mausoleum, led by Marcus Agrippa, Octavian's military commander, and Juba, a young Numidian prince raised in Rome after the defeat of his father's kingdom. Octavian reveals that Kleopatra's eldest son Caesarion and Antyllus, Antony's son by a previous wife, have both been executed. Kleopatra sends her surviving children away, then commits suicide by cobra bite. Octavian assesses the children's futures: Selene will be married off, and the boys will be kept alive only as long as doing so appears merciful.

Eleven months later, the children depart aboard their mother's grand ship. Ptolemy develops a fever and dies at sea. Grief-stricken, Selene contemplates throwing herself overboard, but Juba intervenes, ensuring she remains alive for Octavian's planned Triumph, a public victory parade through Rome.

At the Italian port of Brundisium, the twins meet Marcellus, Octavian's charming young nephew and the son of his sister Octavia. Rome disappoints Selene: Its cramped brick buildings and chaotic streets contrast sharply with Alexandria's marble splendor. Octavian orders the rebels in a slave uprising killed upon entry and also murders a young soldier whose name surfaced as a possible successor, demonstrating his ruthless elimination of perceived threats.

At Octavia's villa, Selene and Alexander join the imperial household. Octavia is kind despite the fact that Antony abandoned her for their mother. Livia, Octavian's wife, is immediately hostile. Julia, Octavian's daughter, is spirited but deeply lonely, separated from her mother Scribonia, whom Octavian divorced and banished. Gallia, Octavia's enslaved attendant and the daughter of the defeated Gallic king Vercingetorix, helps prepare Selene for Roman life.

At a welcoming feast, a soldier interrupts with an actum, a publicly posted message bearing the symbol of a red eagle. The anonymous rebel known as the Red Eagle advocates for the end of slavery. During the Triumph, Selene and Alexander are chained on a float beside a wax figure of their dead mother. Inside the Temple of Jupiter, a priest of Isis slips Selene a note promising to help the twins return to Egypt. That evening, Selene sneaks toward the Temple of Isis but is attacked by a drunken man. Juba finds her and warns that the High Priest wanted only her jewels. When the priest later tries to take Selene's pearl necklace by force, Marcellus intervenes. Selene reluctantly accepts her captivity.

School begins under Magister Verrius, a renowned freedman teacher, and Selene proves herself the strongest student alongside Livia's son Tiberius. She grows increasingly horrified by Roman slavery, from the public column where unwanted infants are abandoned to the mass execution of 200 enslaved people convicted collectively after one murdered their master. Selene sketches plans for a foundling house where abandoned children could be sheltered, and Marcellus promises to build it if he becomes Rome's future ruler.

At the theater, a masked bowman fires an arrow at Octavian. Selene spots the archer and screams a warning; Juba tackles Octavian to safety. As punishment, Octavian suspends the grain dole for ten days, causing widespread starvation. A kitchen boy is accused as the would-be assassin and crucified, though Selene doubts his guilt. The Red Eagle continues posting acta denouncing Octavian's rule, and Selene suspects that Gallia and Verrius may be connected to the rebel.

Octavia persuades the architect Vitruvius, her lover, to take Selene as an apprentice. Selene contributes designs for Octavian's mausoleum and other projects. Gallia advises her to make herself indispensable so she might one day return to Egypt, pointing to Juba, who serves Octavian faithfully in the hope of ruling his father's former kingdom. At the wedding of Agrippa and Octavia's daughter Claudia, Livia sends Gallia to escort a drunken senator home. Selene and Juba arrive too late, finding Gallia beaten and violated. Juba kills the senator. Selene gives Juba her mother's pearl necklace, Kleopatra's last gift, to purchase Gallia's freedom without revealing the donor. Octavia frees Gallia, who moves in with Verrius, whom she has secretly married.

Octavian resigns his offices in a theatrical display, but the Senate refuses and instead grants him the title "Augustus" along with control over key provinces. Augustus departs for war, taking Marcellus, Tiberius, Juba, and Livia. During Marcellus's absence, the Red Eagle posts acta across Rome, proving Marcellus cannot be the rebel. Selene's architectural career advances: Vitruvius uses her mosaic design in the Temple of Apollo and gives her primary responsibility for the Theater of Marcellus.

When Marcellus returns, he and Julia marry. Selene provides the red silk for Julia's veil from cloth she wore at her mother's final feast, masking her heartbreak as she helps Julia prepare. Alexander confesses to Selene that he loves Lucius, Vitruvius's son, and Selene accepts this, knowing Augustus will force them both into arranged marriages.

On the morning after the twins' 15th birthday, Alexander is found murdered in Lucius's room, his throat slashed. Selene reads Augustus's birthday letter and finds encoded proof that he intended Alexander's death: He referred to only one future marriage and invoked the myth of the Gemini twins, in which the mortal Castor dies while immortal Pollux survives alone.

Selene retreats into months of isolation, working on Alexander's mausoleum. She discovers a statue inside commissioned by Juba, and guards assigned by Augustus reveal that Juba has been secretly depositing gold into the twins' account at the Temple of Saturn for years. Selene is overcome with guilt for having accused Juba of her brother's murder.

When Augustus returns from Iberia with 50,000 Alpine prisoners, masked operatives free thousands of Gallic captives during the Triumph. Selene follows the wounded rebel leader into a shop and discovers he is Juba. She bandages his wound and leads him to safety. Juba reveals he is the Red Eagle, aided by Gallia and Verrius. Rome had believed the Red Eagle dead after an apparent killing at the Temple of Apollo, but the blood was from a bull and the guards who staged the scene were Juba's own men.

Augustus, gravely ill, summons Selene and offers her a dowry of 5,000 denarii, Roman silver coins, and the throne of Mauretania, a client kingdom in North Africa, as Juba's queen. Juba asks Selene to come rebuild Alexandria in his kingdom and be his wife. She accepts.