Page 28 - History of War - Issue 05-14

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JULIUS CAESAR
Caesar’s RELATIONSHIP WITH CLEOPATRA

In 48BC, when Caesar arrived in Egypt in pursuit of rescue them. Enraged, Caesar decided to lead an army had built in their honour. She remained by his side, an
Pompey the Great at the height of the civil war, he quickly against Ptolemy’s forces, defeating them at the Battle of the instinctive and brilliant supporter to the end. Indeed, so
discovered that the Pharaoh’s advisers – believing it would Nile in 46BC. The 15-year-old Ptolemy was drowned in the concerned was she about the rumours of a plot to kill him
win Caesar’s favour – had murdered his rival. The opposite Nile under the weight of his own armour, and Cleopatra’s that, on 14 March 44BC – the day before Caesar’s murder
was true, and it hardened Caesar’s feelings towards Egypt’s throne was secured. – she awoke from a terrible dream in which she claimed
teenage King, Ptolemy XIII, to such a degree that he made By now pregnant with Caesar’s child, the canny Cleopatra to have foreseen his assassination. She warned him to stay
a pact with Ptolemy’s older sister, Cleopatra, to get her remained loyal to the older man, restoring Egyptian territories in the safety of the palace but, of course, Caesar declined
reinstated as the co-ruler of Egypt, as agreed in her father’s in Rhodes and Cyprus and, in the process, gaining Caesar’s and, within 24 hours, his bloodied corpse was lying in the
will. Caesar, now 52 – an old man by the standards of (and, by proxy, Rome’s) patronage. She gave birth to his only curia beneath a statue of Pompey the Great, the man he’d
antiquity but still an insatiable womaniser – entered into son, Caesarion, within nine months of their first meeting. battled against for the control of Rome.
an affair with Cleopatra, who was 30 years his junior. Their union was never recognised in Rome, however, and Though she would only live for another 14 years, before
The players in Ptolemy’s camp were infuriated by Caesar’s stepson, Octavian, became his heir after his death. dying heartbroken by her own hand aged just 39, Cleopatra
Caesar’s meddling, and besieged Caesar and Cleopatra Nevertheless, after Caesarion’s birth, Cleopatra brought remains one of history’s true pioneers – not least because
in Alexandria until Caesar’s reinforcements arrived to the child to Rome, where they stayed in the palace Caesar she succeeded as a female in the most macho of worlds.

Getty Images painting by Giovanni
Caesar Meeting
Cleopatra, a 1747
Domenico Tiepolo
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