Killing Jesus: A History

Great, the omnipotent Macedonian conqueror he so admires. The confluence of his growing dynasty and Cleopatra’s is a powerful aphrodisiac. They speak to each other in Greek, although Cleopatra is said to be fluent in as many as nine tongues. Each is disciplined, sharp-witted, and charismatic. Their subjects consider them benevolent and just, and both can hypnotize a crowd with their oratorical skills. Cleopatra and Egypt need Caesar’s military might, while Caesar and Rome need Egypt’s natural resources, particularly her abundant grain crops. It could be said that Caesar and Cleopatra make the perfect couple, were it not for the fact that Julius Caesar is already married.

Cleopatra, paramour of Caesar and, later, Marc Antony
    Not that this has stopped Caesar in the past. He has had three wives, one of whom died in childbirth, another whom he divorced for being unfaithful, and now Calpurnia. He sleeps with the wives of friends, often thereby gleaning information about colleagues. The love of his life is Servilia Caepionis, mother of the treacherous Marcus Junius Brutus—whom many believe to be Caesar’s illegitimate son.
    But Caesar’s most notorious affair was not with a woman. It is widely rumored that, in his youth, he had a yearlong affair with King Nicomedes IV of Bithynia. 2 The sneering nickname “Queen of Bithynia” still follows Caesar.
    Lacking from Caesar’s many dalliances has been an heir. The number of his bastard offspring scattered throughout Gaul and Spain is legendary, but he had only one legitimate child, Julia—who, ironically, married Caesar’s rival Pompey—and she has long since died in childbirth. Calpurnia, Caesar’s current wife, has been unable to give him a child.
    Cleopatra gives birth to a son on June 23, 47 B.C. She names him Philopator Philometor Caesar—or Caesarion for short. A year later, Cleopatra travels to Rome, where she and the child live as a guest of Caesar and Calpurnia’s at Caesar’s Trastevere villa. When Caesar is forced to return to war, Cleopatra and the child remain behind with Calpurnia, who, not surprisingly, despises the Egyptian woman. But Caesar has ordered her to stay in Rome, even as rumors swirl throughout the city about her and Caesar possibly getting married one day. Caesar has not helped matters by having a statue of a naked Cleopatra erected in the Temple of Venus, portraying her as a goddess of love.
    For reasons known only to him, Caesar allows Caesarion to use his name but refuses to select him as heir. Instead, his will states that upon his death his nephew Octavian will become his adopted son and legal heir.
    Cleopatra is a shrewd and ruthless woman. She knows that she will lose her hold on Egypt should her relationship with Caesar end. She has quietly begun to plot a betrayal—an Egyptian overthrow of Rome. It all depends on Caesarion’s being named Julius Caesar’s rightful heir and successor—and that means somehow getting Caesar to change his will.
    Or maybe there is another way: should Caesar be named king of Rome, he will need a queen of royal birth to consummate a true royal marriage. So Cleopatra’s plan is simple: continue pushing Caesar to accept the crown of king of Rome. Then they will marry, and her son will rule as legal heir when Caesar dies.
    Everything seems to be going Cleopatra’s way. It’s clear that the Senate is about to name Caesar as king. This will all but ensure their marriage and the removal of Octavian as a threat to Caesarion’s eventual claim to the thrones of both Egypt and Rome.
    Caesar, the master statesman, is being outmaneuvered by a woman less than half his age, and with no army at her disposal. Thousands of men have died in Rome’s civil war, all in an attempt to control the Roman Republic. But Cleopatra is on the verge of accomplishing the same feat solely through seduction.
    It’s all so brilliant. So perfect. Then, of course, comes the Ides of March. Not only will there not be a Roman Republic by the time the battle for succession comes to an end, but there will no longer be a Caesarion, either.
    Nor, for that matter, will there be a Cleopatra.
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    The “friend” who has stepped forward to engage Julius Caesar in conversation as he climbs down from his litter and enters the Senate chamber is Popilius Laenas, a man descended from a centuries-long line of landowning Roman noblemen known for their cruelty and treachery. So, as the conspirators look on from a distance,