Caesar put to death the councillor, Pothinos, and kept with him in the fortress his new love, the beautiful Cleopatra, and the two boys, the young king and his brother. The Princess Arsinoe, probably also beautiful and attractive, and, young as she was, realizing perhaps the character and ambition of her elder sister, fled to the Egyptian camp, thus refusing to put herself under the protection of the conquering Roman, though it was to him she owed her position as ruler of Cyprus; but distrust was natural and perhaps not unfounded. The Egyptians then demanded the young king, and Caesar, though virtually master, was not yet in a sufficiently strong position to refuse, so, knowing that this mere boy could do him no harm, he released him. It was, however, but the poor youth’s death warrant, for in the subsequent attack upon the Egyptians they were driven into the river, and the royal boy came to his end by drowning, saved by this possibly from even a worse fate.
The Egyptians, disheartened, now gave up the contest. Caesar treated them with comparative leniency, set Cleopatra with the youngest Ptolemy as her nominal husband over them and carried the poor Princess Arsinoe to Rome, where, led in chains, she was among the captives to grace the triumph. She did not prove to have the power of her sister’s fascinations to melt his hard heart. Caesar may have considered that she was in debt to him and had proved ungrateful and treacherous, but this was an act unworthy of his character and is attributed to the evil influence of Cleopatra. There is no direct proof of this, though his subsequent treatment of her sister gives color to the idea.
After Caesar’s departure a child was born to Cleopatra, whom she stated to be his son, gave him the name of Caesarion, or some say the name was given by the Alexandrians, and always upheld his royal prerogative even as against later children of the more beloved Antony. These irregularities and evil doings seem to have been calmly accepted by the people, and in inscriptions the boy is entitled, “Ptolemy, also Caesar, the god Philopator Philometor.” He is to be numbered among the young princes who came to an untimely end; a brief life and a sad one, yet it is possible, even probable, that it had its periods of the pleasure and joy natural to his age, if no prolonged happiness.
Some time between 48 and 44 B. C. Cleopatra left Egypt with her brother and joined Caesar in Rome. Probably he summoned her to come to him, more probably it was of her own motion, fearing that out of sight was out of mind, or might prove so, and that her presence was necessary to retain over him the influence she had gained. It was a shameful connection, as Caesar already had a wife, Caepurnia, and caused much scandal, even in scandalous Rome. She is mentioned by Cicero and others, but it is not her beauty and her grace that he dwells upon, but her haughtiness. Knowing full well probably how she was regarded, she returned the latent contempt which she divined in her visitor, even if he did not make it apparent, with a proud and supercilious demeanor. She had nothing to gain from him and she did not seek to charm and conciliate as she had done with Caesar. She is, however, said to have promised him books from the Alexandrian library, which seems to suggest that there was some part of it yet remaining even if it had suffered damage by fire, but failed to perform her promise.
Many of Caesar’s actions are credited to her influence, and it is even believed that she desired him to establish an empire with Alexandria rather than Rome for its capital. The ostensible cause of her visit to Rome was to negotiate a treaty between the former and the country over which she nominally ruled. She dwelt in Caesar’s palace across the Tiber and held court, at which not only Caesar’s adherents, but his opponents, appeared, and it is said that statues of her, beautiful probably as the Venus of Pauline Bonaparte, were erected in the temple of the goddess of Love and Beauty.
Yet this was no position of true dignity for the nominal queen of a foreign land, and when in 44 B. C. Caesar’s murder took from her his support and protection she sailed for Egypt, no broken-hearted mourner, but a woman still ambitious and grasping all the possibilities of life. The next year she disposed of her last incumbrance and is held responsible for the murder of her youngest and only surviving brother, the nominal king. Four years each is the period assigned to her joint rule with her two brothers. She had no love to spare for her own kin, and too evidently was glad to be rid of them, even if the suspicion of her having poisoned the last of her family, who appears to have died in the same year as Caesar, may chance to be unfounded.
Now for a time Cleopatra bided at home, waiting and watching for further opportunities of conquests in love or dominion. Life with her was devoted to self-seeking and pleasure, yet it must have had some serious moments, some space for display of maternal feeling, some days and hours devoted to actual study; though it is hard and unfamiliar to think of her in this aspect else could she not have been mistress of so many languages as are attributed to her. She, nominally at least, governed the kingdom, cautiously kept out of Roman entanglements and pleaded her inability to assist the contestants with subsidies, which, it is said, Cassius demanded from her on the score of poverty. And indeed Egypt was in no condition to be either a principal or an ally in warfare at this time. The people suffered, the queen probably still lived in luxury and abundance.