Cleopatra and Julius Caesar
Lover, Conqueror, Murder Victim
In Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, Joyce Tyldesley writes: In 60 Pompey, Crassus and Julius Caesar united to form the first triumvirate. Seizing his moment, Auletes (Cleopatra’s father) offered Pompey and Caesar 6,000 sliver talents, an almost unimaginable sum, the equivalent of half of Egypt’s entire annual revenue, in exchange for recognition as Egypt’s true king. As a result, Auletes sacrificed his dignity, saved his crown, and bought Egypt a few more years of independence.
When in 51, Auletes died an apparently natural death, the throne passed as he had planned to the eighteen-year-old Cleopatra and her eldest brother the ten-year-old Ptolemy XIII. They inherited an insecure land suffering from high inflation and unreliable Nile floods, and their father’s extensive debts.
Tyldesley surmises: Husband or brother, Ptolemy, as king, should have been the dominant partner in the relationship. But he was a minor, and for the first year and a half of their joint reign, Cleopatra becomes the effective monarch, while her brother was pushed into the background.
But that only lasted a few years. A brewing civil war between the two leaders, their factions, and their armies threatened to tear Egypt apart. Rome had a vested interest in Egypt, and let them maintain self-autonomy on the condition that its ample harvests kept the empire fed.
The prospect of civil war put that in jeopardy so Ceasar was sent to decide on whom to appoint to the throne. The loser would presumably be assassinated, exiled, or commit suicide. Ptolemy XIII had allowed Ceasar’s rival, Pompey, to be murdered on his shores so Ceasar did owe him a debt. But it did not prove to be enough.
Her brother’s forces managed to surround the castle to keep Cleopatra from meeting with Caesar, but she snuck into the castle by boat, through the docks, and surprised him in his room. She was dressed regally in flowing robes, perfect make-up, and, as always full of charm and wit.
Tyldesley highlights the man Cleopatra met: Caesar was the supreme celebrity of his age, known by reputation throughout the civilized world. Cleopatra would have understood that she was facing a man of exceptional drive and ambition. An excellent politician, orator, and author, a superb horseman, and an extremely successful, though by no means, infallible general. Caesar was known to be both good-humored and amusing. And he had a reputation for sexual excess that his legionaries repeated with awe and pride: he was “every woman’s man and every man’s woman.”
She goes on to write: Caesar was older and more experienced in all aspects of life than Cleopatra, but the two nevertheless had much in common. Both were ruthlessly ambitious and both were prepared to take prodigious risks to achieve their ambitions. Both had a knack for persuading ordinary people to love them, yet both were to a certain extent lonely and insecure. Caesar had lost his only daughter and suffered from terrible nightmares; Cleopatra, estranged from her younger siblings, had lost her mother, two sisters, and the father who had taught her politics. Caesar needed Egypt’s wealth, while Cleopatra needed Rome’s protection. So who seduced whom?
Regardless, Caesar declared both Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra, at 22, as joint rulers, but that didn’t quite work out. Ptolemy’s forces surrounded the Alexandrian palace and kept them under siege for more than a year until Roman forces arrived and drove them from the city. The rebellious forces were routed in a battle along the banks of the Nile and her brother drowned trying to escape.
Never one to rule alone, her youngest brother Ptolemy XIV, age 12, was appointed co-ruler. In reality, though Ceaser lived with Cleopatra, and she soon bore him a son, Caesarion. These years were stable in Egypt while Caesar’s power grew in Rome.
In 46 B.C. Caesar, Cleopatra, and Ptolemy XIV went to Rome in a combination victory parade, diplomatic mission, and trade voyage. It was important for the entire Middle East and Southern Europe to see stability in the region’s most wealthy nation. And Caesar was returning to claim his power.
But his dreams of sole leadership were ended on the Ides of March. As history has detailed, instead of the royal diadem, Caesar received multiple, fatal stab wounds as he presided over the Senate chambers.
In Cleopatra A Life, author Stacy Shiff writes: With the possible exception of Calpurnia, to whom the mutilated corpse was delivered, it is unlikely that the news affected anyone as profoundly as Cleopatra. No matter how it registered on a personal level, Caesar’s death represented a catastrophic political blow. She had lost her champion.
