Johnathan Vail

If you like Roman history you should enjoy this book. I did. But I did find the title misleading a little. It really more of a military history of the 6th Legion and the story of Cleopatra is just a small part of the book.

The whole Alexandria siege was a lot more detailed and precarious for Caeser than previous accounts I have read.

Let me put my two complaints in this section. The first is the author puts too much speculative dialog in the book. Many instances of "the men probably would have said ``blah blah''". The performance is good although the pronunciation of several names are different than other sources. I don't know who is right or wrong or if it is American or British differences ("Soo-tony-us" or "Sway-tony-us" for example).

No, a little too much history for that.

It is enjoyable but encompasses a lot of detailed history and people and I couldn't keep up with all the different legions and where they were at different times. I didn't find it dull or distracting from enjoying the book.

This book does a great job of telling the story as described with enough details to be interesting but not dry enough to be dull.

I can't pick a moment but there are two things that stuck with me. The first was how seeing how Jefferson is even more conniving and two-faced than I had thought before (after reading Hamilton's biography). The other is about the sailors' captivity by the pirates is so similar to what Cervantes described for his own and for Don Quixote.

I shouldn't answer this one, I listen at 1.5x and the drama in the reading is lost at that speed.

Too long for one sitting but there were times I arrived at home or work and didn't want to get out of the car.

A good read and some very important American history that is glossed over or told as myth since the truth is not nearly as flattering for the country.