For some, surrender is worse than death. Two thousand years earlier, in 30 BC, the queen of Egypt barricaded herself inside a tomb as her archnemesis, the first future emperor of Rome, closed ranks with his mighty army. But Cleopatra wasn’t alone. In her arms, she held her lover, Mark Antony. Soon, they’d both be dead from self-inflicted wounds. Antony and Cleopatra’s love story began more than a decade earlier, as if the gods themselves conspired to bring them together. He was a broad-shouldered, strapping soldier, said to be descended from Hercules—the Greek hero and son of Zeus, famed for his superhuman strength. She was the radiant, alluring, reputed daughter of Ra—the Egyptian sun god—and richer than most everyone in the Mediterranean. Before Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, Cleopatra had been his (much younger) mistress, giving him a son, Caesarion. Antony, though a distant cousin of Caesar’s, was one of his closest allies. After Caesar’s murder, Cleopatra returned to Ptolemy XIV, her husband, coruler, and brother, in Egypt while Rome plunged into civil …