The Last of the Pharaohs (2 of 6)

By Pueros

Chapter II – Betrayals

(IIa – Betrayal of Boyhood)

(Nicomedia, Kingdom of Bithynia, northwest Asia Minor [modern-day Turkey], 52 years previously, 80 BC)

“Every man’s wife and every woman’s husband!”

- Curio the Elder (speaking derogatorily of Julius Caesar)

The young Julius Caesar had displeased the new dictator of Rome, Sulla, by refusing to divorce his new wife, Cornelia.

Cornelia was the daughter of one of Sulla’s main murdered rivals and Caesar was expected to marry into the dictator’s family if he wanted the man’s support for his ambitions. However, Caesar, who came from one of Rome’s most aristocratic families, the Julii, albeit one that lacked great wealth to support his lofty aims in life, declined.

In the relevant interview with Sulla, Caesar, who currently loved his wife but was also perhaps perceptively looking beyond the current dictator, additionally managed to upset the most powerful Roman through his appearance. At the time, the teenager was a tall, slender, very handsome, fair youth, with full face and keen black eyes.

Caesar wore a loose belt, which was considered eccentric, and his tunics possessed unusual decorative fringed sleeves extending to his wrists. The teenager also seemed to pay rather too careful attention to his looks, always having his fair mane meticulously arranged and removing superfluous body hair with pincers. The youth’s apparent effeminate habit of regularly adjusting his neat parting particularly annoyed the ferocious dictator.

Caesar’s family later spirited him far away from the scene and potential harm in Rome by securing him a post in northwest Asia Minor, where the now 20 year-old eventually began to enjoy the favours of Nicomedes IV, King of Bithynia. Their intimate relationship was blatantly homosexual but what really caused the younger man problems during the rest of his career was the ability of enemies to accuse him of being the passive partner. Being the subject of sodomy, especially by a foreigner, was supposed to be deeply disgraceful for a Roman of any standing, let alone one of noble lineage.

Later in life, Caesar gained a reputation as a notorious womaniser, with whom no wife or daughter was safe. However, like many men of his time, including his friend, Mark Antony, and heir, Octavian, he was actually bisexual, although his ever-improving political position increasingly encouraged him to play down the homosexual element of his nature for the benefit of his usually hypocritically prudish fellow citizens.

As Caesar rose from Nicomedes’ bed one morning to bathe away the dried spilt cum from his rear, which had entertained his royal host very well the previous night, he gave no consideration to what might be happening in the palace cellars far below. In fact, the 20 year-old was never to know that this particular day was to prove a defining moment in a young Greek’s life, nor that the boy concerned would later, as an adult, almost be responsible for the Roman’s demise.

The very pretty brown haired and eyed 10 year-old orphan had been captured and enslaved during a dispute between Nicomedes and another local king. The well-educated boy, of aristocratic background, had then been renamed ‘Ganymedes’, after Zeus’ beautiful young male cup-bearer and catamite, and chosen for intimate royal service because of his exceptional looks. However, as was common in most Hellenic courts of the period, such selection entailed the sacrifice of certain male attributes because subsequent duties might bring close contact with the females of the household.

There was a special windowless room in the palace cellars where the relevant deed had been carried out on the same old bloodstained table for centuries. The tools used for the operation were also rather ancient.

Ganymedes found himself naked, gagged and strapped immovably, in a spreadeagled, face-upward pose, on the sanguine table, with his pleasant genitalia tightly bound round the base. The terrified tearful boy then felt the ancient, but sharp, knife begin carefully to slice open the middle of his smooth scrotum. Meanwhile, the 10 year-old’s slender cock grew incongruously rigid, as the delicate cut was being made.

The beautiful, innocent Ganymedes had little opportunity to think about what was being perpetrated on him, as the efficient and experienced craftsman now gently exposed the boy’s left spermatic cord before quickly severing the connection. The man then withdrew, in his now slightly bloodied hand, the small white orb for which the link had been the lifeline to the 10 year-old’s gorgeous body.

Ganymedes did not subsequently feel the severance of his other cord, an action that turned him from being a normal, albeit exceptionally beautiful, boy into highly pulchritudinous young eunuch, one whom Nicomedes and Caesar would soon both enjoy in bed after the youngster’s stitched genital wound had healed. The 10 year-old’s sublime form was currently too busy to notice his conversion into a gelding, having instead experienced a dry orgasm for the first and last time.

After Nicomedes later tired of his new catamite, he gifted the young eunuch to King Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysus of Egypt, who shared his taste in gelded boys.

(IIb – Betrayal of Dynasty)

“The loser bears the burden of defeat.

The victor wins, but conquest is a crime.”

- Lucan (‘The Pharsalia’, VII, 144-5)

(Plain of Pharsalus, southern Thessaly, central Greece, 32 years later, June 48 BC)

Ptolemy XV Caesar, or Caesarion, owed his very existence to what happened in June 48 BC on the plain of Pharsalus in southern Thessaly, central Greece, far from his Egyptian homeland but close to the original domains of his maternal Macedonian ancestors. His Roman father-to-be had not only survived what had occurred in the locale but had also been stimulated fatefully into travelling to Egypt by subsequent events.

Julius Caesar surveyed the devastation, including many bodies, on the battlefield of Pharsalus and declared, according to the Roman historian Suetonius, “They would have it so. I, Gaius Caesar, should have been condemned despite all my achievements had I not appealed to my army for help!” A century after the battle, the poet Lucan considered the event so pivotal to history that he chose it for a poem of epic proportions, known as ‘The Pharsalia’.

Although many secondary battles remained to be fought, the destruction of the army of Julius Caesar’s rival in the bloody internecine civil conflict that had divided Rome since January of the previous year, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, essentially decided the vicious war. In fact many people, including the poet Lucan, believed that the Republic of Rome had died on Pharsalus plain, initiating instead the era of the Emperors.

The Civil War had caused battles to rage over much of the Roman Empire, including Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa and now Greece. Only weeks before, Caesar’s armies had suffered a serious defeat following a long but unsuccessful siege of Pompey’s legions in the town of Dyrrhachium on the northern Hellenic coast [modern-day Durres in Albania].

In breaking through the siege, Pompey might have completely destroyed Caesar if he had relentlessly pursued the routed forces. However, as the latter contemptuously remarked after the battle “Today the war would have been won by the enemy if they had a man who knew how to conquer.”

In the event, Caesar withdrew, without significant opposition, southeast to Thessaly where his army, severely hampered by inadequate supply during the months-long siege, hoped to find food and forage and much-needed reinforcements. Meanwhile, Pompey followed his rival to the plains surrounding a small trading town named Pharsalus, which was located at the crossroads of major trade routes.

Caesar had pitched camp outside the town, on the north bank of the River Enipeus, after a harsh seven-day march. Pompey, arriving later with a more relaxed and now very confident army of over 45,000, compared to his opponent’s demoralised 22,000 troops and 1,000 cavalry, occupied the heights above.

Nevertheless, Pompey delayed fighting. He had become an increasingly cautious commander during the war with Caesar. Given his superior numbers, he decided to fight a campaign of attrition, hoping that time would increase the supply problems and troop disaffection of the opposing army, whilst his own received unceasing flows of supplies and men from his many allies in the eastern Empire.

Pompey saw no advantage in risking open battle. However, he was eventually dissuaded from this policy, against his better judgement, by many of the over-confident senior Senators, some of almost equal standing, who had accompanied him into war and who could not resist the taunts of Caesar. For several successive days, the latter, fully aware of his precarious position, had arrayed his troops across the plain, deliberately inviting a decisive conflict.

As Appian noted: “Some of them [the Senators] lacked experience. Some were unreasonably elated by the successes at Dyrrhachium; some also by their superiority in numbers, and some were thoroughly tired of the war and keen to put an unduly rapid end to it. They all urged Pompeius to fight, constantly drawing his attention to Caesar, who kept on forming up his army and offering battle….”

Pompey’s forces were so sure of their victory that preparations for a great victory feast were set in motion in their fortified camp before the battle. However, his army included poor quality allies whilst Caesar’s, outnumbered two to one, comprised many experienced veterans of his Gallic Wars.

Pompey’s army contained 110 cohorts of legionaries and auxiliaries, supported by 3,000 archers, 1,200 slingers and about 7,000 cavalry made up of levies from at least ten nations, from Gaul and Germania to Cappadocia and Syria. Meanwhile, Caesar had elements of the VIII, IX, X, XI and XII Legions, in about 80 under-strength cohorts.

Pharsalus is one of those great battles of history where victory is achieved when one commander brilliantly foresees the tactics of his opponent. In this case, Caesar recognised that Pompey’s most significant advantage over him was his more numerous cavalry, which, under the overall command of Titus Labienus, he massed with his slingers and archers on the left wing.

Caesar guessed that the purpose of this disposition was to envelop his own right flank, and that his 1,000 cavalrymen on that side, facing nearly 7,000 mounted opponents, would be overwhelmed unless strongly supported. He therefore withdrew six cohorts of infantry from his rear line and posted them obliquely behind his horsemen, effectively disguising the presence of these foot soldiers.

Caesar then gave a rousing speech to these men, in which he told them that the whole battle depended on their courage to withstand the Pompeian cavalry. During the subsequent battle, whilst other units launched a frontal assault on the enemy, these six cohorts did indeed have the decisive influence on the outcome. They not only repelled the enemy horsemen but also routed them, leaving their opponents’ slingers and archers without support.

These slingers and archers fled or were trampled by their own fleeing cavalry, after which Caesar inexorably wheeled his troops and fell upon Pompey’s own now unprotected left. This meant that the enemy was being simultaneously attacked in the front and flank. Consequently, the opposing army broke and streamed rearwards to the shelter of their fortified camp.

Appian described what now happened: “When Pompeius’ left wing crumbled, even then the legionaries retreated step by step still locked in battle, while the [foreign] allies retreated headlong, making no resistance and shouting ‘We’ve lost!’….Caesar then made a particularly shrewd move to avoid another trial of strength and to ensure that the result decided not an isolated battle, but the whole campaign. He sent heralds into the ranks all over the battlefield, who ordered the victors not to harm their fellow countrymen, but attack only the allies….Caesar’s men, sweeping through them, began to kill the allies, who were unable to resist, and the most tremendous carnage ensued.”

Through this masterstroke, Caesar had reassured all remaining Romans in Pompey’s army that they had nothing to fear from his victory. They apparently therefore stood by, ready to surrender, while the balance of the allied forces crumbled, broke and ran.

Pompey, when he saw the rout, returned to his tent, which was ironically decorated with laurel in anticipation of his victory, and for a time brooded with depression. It was now roughly midday and very hot. Meanwhile, Caesar, rallying his men for the final effort, personally led his forces up to the fortifications of the enemy encampment.

Pompey roused himself and, urged by supporters, put on a disguise and fled with four companions for the port of Larissa. Caesar dined that night in his opponent’s tent, and he and his army shared the great feast that had been prepared for the enemy.

Caesar later wrote with dry irony of his entry into the enemy encampment: “In Pompey’s camp could be seen artificial arbours, a great weight of silver plate laid out, tents spread with fresh turf and….covered with ivy, and many other indications of extravagant indulgence and confidence in victory. So that it could readily be judged that they had no fears for the outcome of the day….”

The balance of the Pompeian forces surrendered to Caesar the next day. He estimated the fallen at 15,000, of whom 6,000 are said to have been Roman citizens. Many of the opposing Senators, including Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, an ancestor of the later Emperor Nero, had died in Pompey’s ranks.

This was perhaps justice because it had been Senatorial impatience that had prompted the disaster. Pompey’s original instincts were sound and, if he had maintained his determination not to commit himself to an unnecessary battle, he would probably have caused Caesar’s destruction. However, he had demonstrated the same lack of purpose earlier, when he had permitted his enemy to escape from Dyrrhachium to Pharsalus in the first place. In the end, such loss of resolution lost him the war, and eventually his own life.

(Mount Casius, Egypt-Judaea borderlands, 4 months later, October 48 BC)

After discouraging receptions in various Aegean ports, Pompey and his small band of supporters decided to sail for the nominally independent Egypt. This country had supported him in the Civil War. He also held the position of official guardian to the new young 13 year-old King, Ptolemy XIII Philopator, and his elder consort and half-sister, 21 year-old Queen Cleopatra VII Philopator, both of whom were the products of the customary dynastic incestuous relationships between their royal father and his sisters.

Pompey had gained his honorific guardianship through his acquaintance with this deceased father of the new joint sovereigns. He had once helped Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos, derogatorily nicknamed ‘Auletes’, or ‘the Piper’, when the latter had been in exile in Rome during troubles relating to his rule.

The current Egyptian royal house was that of the Lagidae, or Lagids, named after one of Alexander the Great’s foremost generals, Ptolemy, supposedly son of Lagos. About 300 years beforehand, on the violent break-up of Alexander’s vast Empire at his tragically early death, Ptolemy had grabbed control of Egypt, then and still three centuries later the richest country in the world because of the fertile largesse provided by the mighty River Nile. He also intercepted his dead leader’s body on its journey home to Macedonia, claiming it instead for his new realm.

Ptolemy first became Satrap of Egypt, the Persian title for governor of the country, before claiming kingship as Ptolemy I Soter, the latter meaning ‘Saviour’. He was responsible for the building of the Pharos lighthouse, one of the wonders of the ancient world, whereas his son and successor, Ptolemy II, commissioned the construction of the library that was to become the largest in the world, with over 50,000 works. The associated Mouseion, or ‘sanctuary of the muses’, was a great centre of learning and science

Ptolemy I was the first Pharaoh for about 200 years, the title having lapsed when the Persians had conquered Egypt and subsequently ruled through their Satraps. However, the new Macedonian Kings were quickly considered by their native subjects to be the heirs to the Pharaonic dynasties, and the monarchs rapidly came not only to revel and encourage such adulation but also to believe the flattery.

The Lagids additionally believed the handy rumour that Ptolemy I Soter was actually the illegitimate son of King Phillip II of Macedon. This would make Caesarion’s direct ancestor the older but illegitimate half-brother of the immortal Alexander, whose crystal sarcophagus was housed for eternity in the royal necropolis of the city he had founded and named after himself.

The Egyptian Lagids, despite the name of their house, were therefore happy to assume that they were direct descendants of the father of Alexander the Great, and thereby related to the supreme conqueror himself. This, along with their Greek culture and hold on the sacred Egyptian throne, whose antecedents went back thousands of years into the mists of time, made the family consider themselves far superior to anyone, including the upstart Romans. The latter were regarded as barbarians, albeit now ominously very powerful ones.

Ptolemy XII had died in 51 BC and willed his kingdom jointly to his elder eponymous son and Cleopatra, a name that meant ‘glory of her nation’. However, the pair of half-siblings, who had separate courts and advisers, had quickly fallen out and began to dispute sole proprietorship of the country. The result was a period of great disharmony, in which a series of coups and counter-coups took place.

Young Ptolemy XIII was supported by Egypt’s Regency Council, led by the eunuch Pothinus, probably because the members felt that they could influence the younger boy better than his strong-minded older half-sister. By the time of Pompey’s arrival, the King’s cause had gained the upper hand in the dispute and Cleopatra had been forced to flee Alexandria to take refuge in the eastern borderlands with Judaea.

The forces of Ptolemy XIII, led by the Greco-Roman general, Achillas, had camped on the lower slopes of Mount Casius, some thirty Roman miles inside Judaea when Pompey’s ship was spotted off the nearby coast. The young Egyptian King’s commander, along with two renegade Roman officers, went out in a boat to meet the royal guardian.

Pompey intended to use Egypt as a temporary refuge from where he could continue the war with Caesar, especially elsewhere in north Africa and in Spain, where he still had strong support. However, his Roman opponent was in hot pursuit.

(Alexandria, Egypt, 4 days later, October 48 BC)

Julius Caesar arrived in the known world’s second largest city four days later, with ten warships borrowed from his ally, the island city-state of Rhodes, and a small force of 3,200 infantry and 800 cavalry. He was greeted with the head of Pompey, the victim of Egyptian betrayal.

Ptolemy XIII’s regime now treacherously wanted desperately to be on the winning side, having earlier picked the wrong man to support. The King, or more pertinently his counsellors, also wanted to provide Caesar with no excuse to remain on Egyptian soil for long, as they feared for the country’s continued nominal independence. However, any hope that the great Roman might, as a result of the bloody gift, choose to move rapidly on elsewhere proved illusory.

Caesar needed a lot of money and quickly in order to pay and provision his widespread forces, now boosted by the captives at Pharsalus from Pompey’s Roman legions, and pursue the war until all pockets of resistance to his supremacy had been eliminated throughout the Empire. He intended to extort much of the enormous sum required from the richest country in the known world, namely Egypt. The country’s wealth ultimately derived from the Nile and the immense fertility the great waterway brought to the river valley, which enabled up to three harvests of agricultural produce, such as wheat, to be garnered every year.

Caesar made a false claim to supposed unpaid vast debts owed to Roman financiers by Ptolemy XII Auletes, who had needed the sum years previously to bribe the principal men in the Rome of the time to support his right to the Egyptian throne. The immense irony of the current demand was not lost on the claimant, as the original principal beneficiaries of the now late King’s copious and repaid largesse had been Pompey and himself, then uneasy political allies.

The result then had been the despatch to the east of an army to restore forcibly the deposed Ptolemy XII Auletes to his throne. Some of this force had subsequently remained behind under the command of one of Pompey’s henchmen, Gabinius, to protect, as a sort of ‘foreign legion’, the returned King. These men were to cause Caesar considerable trouble.

It was typical of Caesar to find and publicise more honourable reasons for his prolonged stay in Egypt than waiting for the extorted funds to be gathered. He recorded in his memoirs of the period, written in the third person: “He was unable to move because of the prevailing northwest winds, which at this time make it impossible to leave Alexandria. Meanwhile, he came to the conclusion that the quarrel between the two rulers of Egypt affected the Roman people and consequently himself as Consul. Indeed, he was himself particularly closely concerned with Egypt since it was during his long Consulship that the alliance had been made between Rome and the elder Ptolemy [XII], an alliance ratified both by law and by a decree of the Roman Senate. Caesar therefore made it known that he wished King Ptolemy [XIII] and his sister, Cleopatra, to disband their armies, to appear before him and to settle their dispute in a legal way rather than by force of arms.”

Caesar did not add in his memoirs that his associated decision to enter Alexandria with the full panoply of a Roman Consul, escorted by the customary twelve lictors carrying the bundles of rods with axe, or ‘fasces’ [which gave rise to the modern term ‘fascism’], symbolising his high office, caused several days of rioting in the city. A number of his legionaries were killed by the mobs, resentful of the insult to Egypt’s national sovereignty.

Nevertheless, Caesar occupied the royal palace and summoned young Ptolemy XIII, still situated on the Judaean border, to him. The 13 year-old boy arrived two weeks later, with his chief minister, the eunuch, Pothinus, who was determined to preserve Egypt’s independence.

Ptolemy XIII and his advisers correctly denied their indebtedness but to no avail and they soon concluded that they should pay to rid themselves of Caesar. However, they also secretly reserved for themselves an alternative option to resolve the problem. They proposed to murder their guest, as they had done Pompey, if the Roman threatened their current political supremacy in Egypt, taking the chance that the man’s allies would subsequently be too busy contending with each other for power to seek retribution.

Whilst the treasure was ostensibly being gathered, Pothinus ensured that Caesar remained aware that he was unwelcome in Egypt by being otherwise uncooperative, acting as an inhospitable host and suggesting that the Roman was impoverishing his country. The young King’s dinner table was served with poor food on decrepit earthenware and wood dishes, insinuating that all the decent fare and expensive plate had been awarded to the unwanted guest. Additionally, only the nastiest sort of grain was delivered to the foreign soldiers and sailors, with the eunuch declaring that, since they were not entitled to Egyptian supplies, they were very fortunate to be given anything at all to eat.

Meanwhile, not wanting any reconciliation between King and Queen, as the former currently had the upper hand in the tussle for power, Pothinus tried his best to prevent Cleopatra from obeying Caesar’s summons. The eunuch posted Egyptian soldiers at the borders and on Alexandria’s mighty walls, as well as many places in between, to try to intercept and probably kill her. However, Ptolemy XIII’s highly intelligent half-sister, the first of her royal house to be clever and bothered enough to learn the native Demotic language, was now to display her bravery and ingenuity by smuggling herself into the great Roman’s presence.

Cleopatra had already sent Caesar a letter, outlining her rights to the throne, but had decided that it was essential to meet the Roman personally, so that she could exploit her undoubted personal charms to secure what she wanted. Despite the dangers and taking only a few friends with her, she managed to avoid Pothinus’ naval patrols to land at dusk in a small boat near the seafront palace. Her loyal Sicilian slave, Apollodorus, then rolled his Queen full length in an expensive rug in order to smuggle his regal mistress into the royal residence.

According to Plutarch, “This little trick of Cleopatra’s, which showed her provocative impudence, is said to have been the first thing about her which captivated Caesar….” The subsequent process of captivation was also very rapid. Virtually immediately, the 52 year-old Roman Consul and 21 year-old Egyptian Queen embarked upon a public love affair in the palace.

As Plutarch also described: “Her beauty, as it is reported, was not so passing as to be unmatchable of other women, nor yet such as upon present view did enamour men with her; but so sweet was her company and conversation that a man could not possibly but be taken. And, besides her beauty, the good grace she had to talk and discourse, her courteous nature that tempered her words and deeds, was a spur that pricked to the quick. Furthermore, besides all these, her voice and words were marvellously pleasant, for her tongue was an instrument of music to divers sports and pastimes, the which she easily turned to any language that pleased her.” The Roman historian did not add that the clever, formidable, ruthlessly ambitious and scheming Queen only used these charms to the full when it suited her, to attract allies and loyalty amongst key servants.

Cleopatra’s supreme desire was a powerful independent Egypt under her exclusive leadership. She particularly wanted to revive the great empire her country had once possessed under the early Ptolemies.

People such as Pothinus, who were as patriotic as her, believed that Egypt could only regain such former glory by rigorous resistance to encroachments on national interests, planned and perpetrated by the likes of Caesar. However, Cleopatra took a contrary view, considering that her aims could be better achieved by being on good terms with Rome and mighty Romans.

Cleopatra meant to use Caesar for her own ends and so deliberately set out to seduce him, despite their age differential. He was, after all, the most brilliant and powerful man of his epoch, who should be able to deliver what she wanted.

On his part, Caesar had come to Egypt to finish Pompey and had stayed to secure money, not yet fully garnered. He now had two other reasons to remain in the country for a while, namely resolving the dispute between King and Queen, whilst enjoying the delights of his regal mistress.

Despite passing through a strong homosexual phase earlier in his life, and still maintaining a discreet bisexuality, Caesar was now an indefatigable womaniser, renowned for many affairs regardless of now being married to his third wife, Calpurnia. He was therefore very susceptible to Cleopatra’s exceptional charms.

Naturally, 13 year-old Ptolemy XIII, now with his court in the same royal palace, and his advisers were shocked to discover that Cleopatra had not only re-entered Egypt from Judaea but also now shared Caesar’s bed. In response, Pothinus prompted the Alexandrian populace to demonstrate against the new lovers. However, the dangerous incidents that ensued only encouraged the Roman to work seriously to reconcile King and Queen.

Caesar’s efforts appeared outwardly successful and the ostensible reconciliation between the young King and Queen was celebrated by lavish thanksgivings. Later, following Egyptian dynastic custom, young Ptolemy married his older half-sister, although the union was never consummated.

As a wedding present, Caesar returned the island of Cyprus to the Egyptian royal house, the Lagidae, and in particular to the joint rule of the youngest of the four surviving siblings, 11 year-old prince Ptolemy [XIV] Philopator Philadelphus and 17 year-old princess Arsinoe.

(Alexandria, Egypt, 1 month later, November 48 BC)

Unfortunately, the proclaimed new friendship between young King and Queen and their factions was entirely hollow. Caesar soon discovered that Pothinus, with the agreement of Ptolemy XIII, had secretly instructed the royal army on the eastern Judaean frontier to march on Alexandria, under the command of Achillas. A substantial proportion of this force comprised the ‘foreign legion’, left behind in the previous decade and led by Gabinius.

Caesar, outnumbered five to one, sent two eminent Egyptian envoys to negotiate with Achillas. However, the latter responded by beating up the emissaries, killing one of them in the process.

Caesar subsequently found himself and Cleopatra barricaded by land and sea in the palace, which was located on the Lochias promontory that formed part of the eastern side of Alexandria’s ‘Megas Limen’, or ‘Great Harbour’, the largest in the known world. Ptolemy XIII and Pothinus also remained in the royal residence, now under house arrest. However, princess Arsinoe, who had come to hate her older half-sister because of her sibling’s pro-Roman policies, escaped to Achillas with her own principal adviser and eunuch. The latter was an immensely loyal and capable 42 year-old, called Ganymedes.

Achillas brought 72 ships into the ‘Great Harbour’, double the number possessed by Caesar. However, the latter, by a combat masterstroke, succeeded in capturing these vessels and, since they could not be manned, had them burnt. The resultant flames spread to the quays and destroyed a large consignment of books stored there, giving rise to the later false and damaging accusation that the great Roman had torched the huge Alexandrian library, the largest in the world.

Simultaneously, Caesar captured the Pharos, the massive lighthouse, which was one of the wonders of the ancient world. This tall structure was located on an eponymous islet, linked to the mainland by a causeway, called the ‘Heptastadion’. Both mole and island provided the massive anchorage with respectively its westerly and much of its northerly protection from the vagaries of the Mediterranean Sea.

Achillas, with enthusiastic support from the nationalistic anti-Roman populace of Alexandria, proclaimed the arriving princess as the new Queen, Arsinoe IV. Meanwhile, Pothinus, monitoring the situation carefully from his palatial house arrest, sent secret messengers to the general assuring him of his support. However, the eunuch’s barber betrayed these furtive envoys and the gelded adviser was placed in more restricted confinement, before eventually being put to death.

Achillas’ reward for his efforts on behalf of Arsinoe was to be murdered shortly afterwards by Ganymedes, who strongly disliked, and was rightfully wary of the intentions of, the ambitious general. The perceptive eunuch had guessed correctly that the Greco-Roman was only using the princess for his own ends and would undoubtedly eventually betray and murder her in an attempt to secure the throne for himself. The loyal gelded adviser therefore decided to pre-empt such a move by killing the military commander first.

Nevertheless, hostilities did not end, as the gifted Ganymedes took over the executed Achillas’ command and continued the fight against Caesar with great efficiency and vigour, both on land and sea. The Roman never knew that his latest, highly competent and dangerous adversary had once been a boy whom he had bedded. However, the eunuch did secretly appreciate the full nature of their previous association, a recall that only further stimulated his fervour in trying to crush the enemy.

Amongst the attempts made by Ganymedes to dislodge Caesar and Cleopatra from their palatial citadel was an effort to pollute the palace water supplies by pumping seawater into the residence’s wells. However, this was thwarted when Roman soldiers dug through the night to sink new ones.

Two days later, a very welcome naval contingent appeared, bringing reinforcements urgently requested by Caesar, in the form of a Roman legion from Asia Minor.

Greatly encouraged by this development, Caesar attacked the islet of Pharos, adjacent to the already successfully occupied eponymous lighthouse. Having overrun this slip of land, he then launched an assault on the causeway, the ‘Heptastadion’, which linked it to the mainland. However, he then suffered a serious setback.

Ganymedes brilliantly landed Egyptian soldiers on the causeway to the rear of Caesar’s troops, who in panic rushed to their moored warships, some in any small boat that they could find or by swimming. Their leader, fearing being isolated, felt compelled to do the same by seeking refuge on his flagship, which was adjacent to the quay. However, so many men followed him that the vessel could not only not be pushed away from the mole but also began to sink.

Caesar himself now jumped overboard and, despite being encumbered by armour and being shot at from all around by spears and arrows, just managed to swim successfully towards a ship moored further out, leaving behind his purple cloak as an unintentional trophy for Ganymedes to enjoy. Meanwhile, the Roman flagship sank, drowning virtually everyone still remaining on board.

Overall, 400 Roman legionaries and over 200 marines and sailors died in the fight, which represented a rare defeat for Caesar, one that he would nevertheless soon avenge, albeit not against Ganymedes. He began to do so by remarkably but astutely freeing Ptolemy XIII.

Caesar’s intention was to encourage the young King to make his way to his royal army to undermine and hopefully supersede Arsinoe and the highly capable Ganymedes in command. His tactic was partially successful. Although the princess remained prominent, her efficient eunuch was dismissed at the instigation those counselling Ptolemy XIII.

These manoeuvrings for courtly power were now to have significant consequences for the larger conflict, as Caesar recognised that his clever move had removed his most able enemy from the fight. However, Ganymedes would not disappear entirely from the Egyptian scene, or from this story, because the eunuch still had an important role to play for the royal dynasty he served.

(Egypt, 2 months later, January 47 BC)

Something of an impasse descended upon Egypt for a couple of months, during which minor clashes took place but nothing conclusive to end the conflict. In fact, this time represented the best chance for young Ptolemy XIII and his army to achieve victory, if the fullest commitment had been afforded to ensuring that a decisive battle took place, given their superior numbers and nationalistic popular support. Everyone knew that Caesar was awaiting further substantial reinforcements that could instead decide matters in his favour.

If Ganymedes had still been in control of the royal forces, it is probable that he would have recognised the window of opportunity and forced issues. However, he was not and Ptolemy XIII’s cause was now to suffer greatly for the eunuch’s exclusion from royal command.

Caesar’s relieving army began to approach Egypt’s eastern frontier in January 47 BC. The commander was Mithridates of Pergamum, who was of mixed Greek and Persian blood, and his army comprised Asians, Syrians and Arabians.

In the little principality of Judaea, Mithridates’ forces were joined by a large Jewish contingent, led by the High Priest, Hyrcanus, and his chief minister, Antipater, who was the father of the later Herod the Great. Their presence was to win over Egypt’s many Jews to the Roman cause.

Mithridates and Hyrcanus had sided with Pompey in the Roman Civil War and were currently eager to rectify the mistake and gain the favour of Caesar. The latter, by virtue of a deception, now crucially managed to slip out of Alexandria by sea to join up with the relieving army. His resultant expert presence at the subsequent battle with Ptolemy XIII’s forces was to prove crucial because, despite still having superior numbers, the enemy were utterly routed.

The Gabinian ‘foreign legion’ was virtually wiped out. 13 year-old Ptolemy XIII was also drowned in the Nile, after falling from his boat, which was overloaded with fugitives after the battle. Caesar later made a triumphal re-entrance into Alexandria, parading the deceased boy King’s golden armour as he did so. The city’s population, previously fiercely antagonistic towards him, now came out to greet him as supplicants, carrying their sacred objects.

Passing through the barricades that had previously saved his life and that of Cleopatra, Caesar returned to the royal palace, and to the waiting arms of the young Queen. All Egypt, including the country’s female monarch, now belonged to the Roman.

Caesar, however, did not add Egypt as a province to the Roman Empire for two reasons. First, the richest country in the world could prove to be a dangerous power base for any governor, who might thereby be tempted to become a rival for supreme power. Second, the present 21 year-old Queen very persuasively encouraged her 52 year-old lover to leave her on the throne as an undoubted ally.

Convention, however, dictated that an Egyptian Queen should have a male consort from her own close family and so her surviving half-brother, the now 12 year-old Ptolemy [XIV] Philopator Philadelphus was elevated to be joint monarch, with Cyprus added to their kingdom. Meanwhile, their sibling, the now 18 year-old Arsinoe, was transported to Rome to be displayed in chains as part of Caesar’s later triumphal procession on his eventual return to the Imperial capital.

For their contribution to the victor’s cause, Egyptian Jews were rewarded with various privileges, which upset the nation’s markedly anti-Semitic Greek ruling class. In order to cope with any disturbances as a result of this or other reasons, Caesar decided to leave three Roman legions in the country to support Cleopatra, as well as to dissuade the Queen from ever becoming too independent and breaking her alliance with him.

Caesar then decided to embark upon a two-month sightseeing and flag-waving cruise with his much younger pulchritudinous lover. As Appian stated: “He went up the Nile with 400 ships, exploring the country in company with Cleopatra and generally enjoying himself with her.” By this time, the Queen was already pregnant with the Roman’s child.

(Alexandria, Egypt, 8 months later, September 47 BC)

After a belated, difficult and painful birth, Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt was presented in her palace with her firstborn, a healthy boy. She was to name the baby, like all males of her royal lineage, Ptolemy, with the suffix of Caesar, after his father. The latter was not present in Alexandria for the entry of his new son into the world. He had instead begun, in June of 47 BC, his long-delayed journey back to Rome, via such places as Syria and northern Asia Minor, where there were still battles to be fought and funds to be raised so that he could confirm his supremacy over the Roman Empire.

After one victory in Asia Minor, against Pharnaces of the Black Sea kingdom of Pontus, Caesar, describing the battle in a letter to a friend, borrowed a Greek epigram. “Veni, vidi, vici”, or “I came, I saw, I conquered”, he declared.

Most historians concur that the latest Ptolemy of Egypt, of the royal House of the Lagidae, and the 15th to bear the name, was born in 47 BC. Many attribute the date of birth to be the 23rd of June. However, this author believes this attribution to be mistaken, based upon a misinterpretation of a contemporary stele, an upright stone with sculptured inscription, held in the Louvre Museum, Paris. I consider instead that the boy’s most likely birthday was during September, which would make my young hero, popularly nicknamed ‘Caesarion’, still 16, almost 17, at the beginning of my story in chapter I.

Julius Caesar was enraptured by Cleopatra, because of not only her beauty, which was very pleasant but not exceptional, but also her bewitching, as far as he was concerned, personality. However, when the Queen’s belly had become too big and delicate, as a result of her pregnancy, for the great Roman to make passionate love to her, he decided that the time was right to make his temporary escape from her clutches. He now wanted to reassert himself in Rome and the wider Empire. He therefore left about three months before her expected confinement, having every intention of reacquainting himself with her body, company and child at the earliest opportunity in his own capital.

(Rome, 1 year later, September 46 BC)

During the last ten days of September 46 BC, Caesar staged four magnificent, hugely expensive Triumphs to celebrate his successes. As it was not decorum to commemorate victories over fellow Romans, the resplendent processions lauded his campaigns in Gaul, Africa, Pontus and, of course, Egypt.

Notable prisoners were displayed, including Vercingetorix, the great and dangerous Gallic leader finally defeated and captured by Caesar five years previously. He had been saved for the Triumph, after which he was executed. There was also the 4 year-old son of King Juba of Numidia [now eastern Algeria]. This pretty boy was spared death, living instead under Roman protection, and he is to have an important presence later in this story.

Arsinoe, half sister of Cleopatra, also duly appeared in golden chains in the Egyptian spectacle. However, the sad involvement of a beautiful young royal princess earned much compassion amongst the watching Roman populace. Caesar, ever careful to try to please the masses, therefore subsequently allowed her to live too, although her life only lasted a few more years. Her ruthless vengeful sibling, the Queen of Egypt, still bearing a grievance against her, later encouraged Mark Antony to have the princess assassinated in Rome.

Cleopatra herself arrived in Rome shortly after Caesar’s great Triumphs, in a splendid parade designed to impress the Romans with her own splendour and that of Egypt. She was accompanied by her half-brother, the now 14 year-old but powerless King Ptolemy XIV, and her own son, who had just celebrated his first birthday. The presence of the latter enabled the Queen to emphasise to the city’s populace the identity of the boy’s father.

The official reason for Cleopatra’s visit was to confirm a treaty of friendship and alliance between Egypt and Rome, which her father had arranged with Caesar 13 years previously. However, her real purpose was to resume her relationship with the man who was now the most powerful in the world, being Consul again and Dictator as well. She knew that her own autocratic regime depended upon his goodwill. The Queen had also disliked the rumour that, during their separation, her paramour’s eyes had wandered, towards the attractive form of a Mauretanian princess.

Cleopatra and her boy colleague and infant were lodged in splendid style in Rome in a great mansion belonging to Caesar, which was located on the right bank of the River Tiber. Here, the Queen maintained a spectacular court, where many of the most eminent Romans, taking the cue from their Dictator, flocked to see her, although many would later deny such obsequiousness.

Meanwhile, Caesar significantly erected a statue of Cleopatra in the temple he had built in Rome’s Forum for his supposed ancestor, the goddess Venus ‘Genetrix’, or ‘Progenitor’. This remarkable honour for a foreigner, which had not been bestowed on any of the Dictator’s three wives, indicated to all that the Egyptian Queen held a very special place in the man’s life, as well as confirming to many Caesarion’s paternity, which had been maliciously slandered by some.

Cleopatra and her regal entourage were to remain in Rome for almost 1½ years. During this period, some of her influence on Caesar was to prove unfortunate. She was an autocratic monarch and some of her attitudes rubbed off on the Dictator. This led to growing resentment amongst the Roman nobility. The city was still technically a republic and the upper classes greatly disliked any intrusions on their rights of freedom of speech and action.

Nevertheless, Cleopatra also had a beneficial sway as well, as plans now formulated to establish magnificent public libraries in the Imperial capital, on the lines of Egyptian models, undoubtedly emanated from her, as did proposals for a new local network of canals based on those of the Nile. However, her greatest gift for posterity was certainly her influence on calendar reform.

Julius Caesar’s new 12-month calendar, afterwards called the ‘Julian’, was actually designed by an eminent Alexandrian astronomer, Sosigenes, who had been recommended by Cleopatra. Much of the associated research had been performed in the Mouseion of the Egyptian capital.

(Rome, 1½ years later, Ides [15th] of March, 44 BC)

On the Ides of March 44 BC, the Republican Senate, temporarily re-housed in a hall attached to Pompey’s theatre because of refurbishment works in their own chamber, held a meeting. Caesar intended to leave Rome three days later to launch a war against the Parthians, who were the main rivals to the Romans in the east, controlling an empire that stretched from the Euphrates [in modern Iraq] to the Indus [in India].

The plot against Caesar, amongst the Roman elite who resented his dictatorship, which they thought was verging on kingship, was not a total secret. However, the intended victim did not read the warning note thrust into his hand when he entered the hall, leaving behind at the doorway Mark Antony, his principal lieutenant, who was of powerful physique and had been deliberately detained in conversation with one of the conspirators.

Another of the plotters, Tillius Cimber, then intercepted Caesar inside the hall, ostensibly to plead for the recall of his brother from exile. He then took hold with both hands of the Dictator’s unique purple toga, pulling and throwing the wearer off balance.

A Senator named Casca subsequently struck the first dagger blow, wounding Caesar in the neck. The Dictator then managed to seize the weapon but in vain.

As Plutarch explains: “So it began….those who had come prepared for murder all bared their daggers and hemmed Caesar in on every side. Whichever way he turned, he met the blows of daggers and saw the cold steel aimed at his face and eyes….for it had been agreed that they all must take part in this sacrifice, and all flesh themselves with his blood….He fell down against the pedestal on which the statue of Pompey stood, and the pedestal was drenched with his blood, so that it seemed that Pompey himself was presiding over this act of vengeance against his enemy, who lay there at his feet, struggling convulsively under so many wounds.”

Suetonius added a report that when Caesar noticed the onslaught of one of the leaders of the assassins, Marcus Brutus, for whom he had held so much affection, he cried out in Greek “You, too, my child?” The allegation confirmed to many that Brutus, whose mother had been close to the Dictator, was his illegitimate son.

Regardless of any familial relationship, Brutus and his chief co-conspirator, Cassius, were later responsible for the issue of a Roman coin, which displayed two daggers flanking the cap of Liberty and a reference, ‘EID.MAR’, to the Ides of March.

Meanwhile, Cleopatra quickly and successfully extricated herself, her half-brother and her now 2½ year-old son from Rome before the killers of her lover could also use their knives on them.

Displaying her own ruthlessness, Cleopatra subsequently had her now 16 year-old half-brother poisoned on their return to Alexandria, before he became too troublesome. Her infant son by Caesar, 3 year-old Caesarion, then replaced his murdered young uncle as King and consort.

(Philippi, Macedonia, northern Greece, 2½ years later, October 42 BC)

This time it was the 40 year-old Mark Antony and his 21 year-old ally, Octavian, Caesar’s great nephew and nominated heir, who inspected a devastated battlefield, on which carrion already picked at the many dead bodies. However, both men did so with satisfaction as the battle had brought the defeat and death of not only the main murderers of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, but also the effectual demise of their republican cause. Later, the two victors would split control of the Roman Empire between them.

Fatefully, Mark Antony took the wealthy east, taking up residence in Tarsus, capital of Cicilia in eastern Asia Minor, whilst Octavian presided over the west, including Rome.

(Tarsus, Cicilia, Asia Minor, some months later, early 41 BC)

In early 41 BC, Mark Antony summoned to Tarsus the now 28 year-old Cleopatra, whom he had previously met as a result of her association with Julius Caesar. He wanted to question the Queen about her apparent reluctant support for him and Octavian during the war against Caesar’s assassins and to try to secure funds from the richest country in the world, Egypt, to help to support his own lofty ambitions.

Cleopatra had actually rather enjoyed watching the Roman Empire once more seemingly try to tear itself asunder. The Queen hoped that Rome might thereby become weak and allow Egypt to regain its former glory. She therefore furtively confused issues by making secret efforts to support whatever side was apparently losing at a particular time in order to try to prolong the damaging conflict. Unfortunately for her aims and despite her interventions, this particular civil war did not last as long as she had hoped.

Cleopatra eventually sailed up the River Cydnus from the sea towards Tarsus in great style on a huge barge with purple sails, stern of golden gilt and silver oars, keeping time to the music of flutes, lutes and pipes. The illusion was presented that the resplendent boat was crewed principally by the Queen’s beautiful young handmaidens, who were sparingly attired as sea nymphs. The monarch herself reclined under a gold canopy, dressed as the goddess of love and fanned by gorgeous young boys in minuscule Cupid costumes. The latter were a deliberate adornment, because Mark Antony’s rampant bisexuality was well known. A wondrous perfumed scent pervaded the whole splendid scene. According to Plutarch, “….the word spread on all sides that Aphrodite had come to play with Dionysus for the happiness of Asia!”

As Cleopatra intended, Mark Antony, a large, robust but unsophisticated, pleasure-loving man, with strong carnal appetites, was mightily impressed by this blatant display of opulence and barely disguised sexual innuendo. The Queen then regally entertained him on her barge that night.

On the next day, Mark Antony invited Cleopatra to supper, hoping to outdo her in magnificence. He failed but joked about his failure in a good-natured, albeit vulgar, way. The Queen not only tolerated his evident tastelessness but also seemed to revel in his company, enthralling the powerful Roman in the process, just as she had done with Julius Caesar 7 years previously.

Having seduced one mighty Roman for what he could do for her and her country, the guileful female monarch was not shy of perpetrating the same with another for similar reasons. However, the relationship between Mark Antony and Cleopatra, much to the amazement of many, would eventually blossom into genuine reciprocated love.

Forgetting his responsibilities, Mark Antony later accompanied Cleopatra to Alexandria and spent the winter with her there, from which the Queen emerged pregnant with twins. Plutarch wrote of this time: “Plato admits four sorts of flattery, but she had a thousand. Were Antony serious or disposed to mirth, she had at any moment some new delight or charm to meet his wishes. At every turn she was upon him, and let him escape her neither by day nor by night. She played at dice with him, drank with him, hunted with him, and when he exercised in arms, she was there to see.”

Finally, “Rousing himself from sleep, and shaking off the fumes of wine,” Antony said goodbye to Cleopatra and returned to his duties as a ruler of the Roman Empire. Six months later, in 40 BC, the Queen gave birth to twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene.

The given surnames of the children had intentional mythical connotations. Helios, god of the sun, and Selene, goddess of the moon, deliberately advocated the hope that they would one day dominate the world, like their counterparts in the firmament. The boy’s forename of Alexander was also supposed to suggest future greatness. Nevertheless, despite such aspirations, it was now over 3 years before their mother saw their father again.

In 40 BC, in order to consolidate the alliance with Caesar’s heir, Octavian, Mark Antony, after divorcing his first wife, Fulvia, who had proved troublesome to the coalition, married his ally’s half-sister, Octavia. This marriage was to produce two daughters named Antonia, one of who was the mother of the later Emperor Claudius.

The alliance between Mark Antony and Octavian was supposed to be sealed by this marital union. However, many wise people knew that the peaceful sharing of power could not last. Sometime, there had to be a showdown between the pair for supreme Imperial mastery.

That final showdown would take another decade to arrive but Octavian used the period well, building up both his forces and his political support amongst the Roman elite. Meanwhile, Mark Antony wasted much time and effort, as well as a lot of money and lives, in 36 BC by making an unsuccessful attempt to claim glory by embarking upon Caesar’s unfulfilled campaign to subdue the Parthians.

In the previous year, on his way to Parthia, Mark Antony returned to Alexandria to enlist Cleopatra’s military and, more importantly, financial support for his war. However, he again fell under the Queen’s bewitching spell, this time permanently. Alexandria was thereafter his home, and Cleopatra his exclusive love, at least as far as his mind as opposed to his promiscuous groin was concerned. He married her in 36 BC, when she gave birth in August to another son, Ptolemy Philadelphus.

The marriage between Antony and Cleopatra was not only illegal in Rome as a result of the bigamy involved but also because no Roman was allowed to wed a foreigner. This law existed not so much as a consequence of xenophobia but as a result more of a desire not to let wealth, property and land fall into alien ownership.

Despite being acknowledged as the Roman Empire’s best military commander, at least until he met his match in the form of a certain Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Mark Antony failed miserably in his objective in Parthia. The enemy cleverly refused to concede a pitch battle, instead using highly effective guerrilla tactics against the invading forces.

(Alexandria, Egypt, autumn 34 BC)

Mark Antony was lucky to escape the Parthian debacle alive with the battered remnants of his legions. However, two years later, in 34 BC, he did succeed in conquering neighbouring Armenia, for which significantly he celebrated a Triumph not in Rome but in Alexandria, bringing the King of the defeated realm, Artavasdes I, with him in chains as a present for Cleopatra.

A few days later, a great ceremony took place in Alexandria’s grand main gymnasium. Two thrones of gold were placed on a silver dais, on which Mark Antony and Cleopatra were seated, whilst purporting to be the new god Dionysos and the new goddess Isis.

Other thrones were situated on lower tiers, one each for the now 13 year-old Caesarion, 6 year-old twins, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, and 2 year-old Ptolemy Philadelphus. The two younger very pretty boys were attired respectively as resplendent Medean and simpler Macedonian kings, the former with Persian-style tiara and the latter with boots and a short cloak.

In the ‘Declarations of Alexandria’, Mark Antony now provocatively proclaimed Alexander Helios the king of Media and Parthia, Cleopatra Selene the queen of Cyrenaica and Crete and Ptolemy Philadelphus the king of Phoenicia, Syria and Cilicia. All of the territories concerned being Roman possessions or aspirations for future conquest. Caesarion was additionally made the ‘King of Kings’ and Cleopatra the more senior ‘Queen of Kings’.

The intent of Mark Antony’s announcement had been to reinforce his claim to his powerful eastern economic and strategic base, which was currently backed up by his own legions. However, his policies only played into hands of Octavian, who felt confident to launch his bid for supreme Imperial power when his great rival made the unfortunate additional mistake of shaming Octavia.

Back in an outraged Rome, Octavia had remained loyal to her bigamous husband and arranged to meet him in Athens. However, Cleopatra was determined to prevent the reunion and, after a feigned display of distress at the prospect, involving much false histrionic crying, fainting and self-starvation, she achieved her aim. Mark Antony cancelled his trip and his legal Roman wife and mother of two daughters had to return humiliatingly home without seeing him.

The Roman people were now disgusted by Mark Antony’s new ways, especially his apparent preference for Egypt than Rome, his treatment of their territories in the eastern Empire as if they were his own personal property and his appalling disrespect for the popular Octavia. Their hostile attitude was reinforced by proficient propaganda circulated around the Imperial capital by Octavian, which subtly suggested that his rival had been seduced by the evil whore, Cleopatra, and her foreign oriental customs and megalomania for power, which could eventually see the eternal city subservient to Alexandria.

Octavian also took much trouble to deny the foreign Queen’s claims that she had borne his assassinated great uncle and adoptive father, Julius Caesar, a son. He instead, rather successfully, advocated the idea that the paternity of the baby of such a foreign harlot could be attributed to any man. However, in maintaining such a viewpoint he had been forced to persuade his fellow citizens to overlook several facts.

The Romans had to ignore the reality that many of them had now conveniently changed their minds about Caesarion’s paternity, from their original well-grounded viewpoint, to reflect the ostensible opinion of the new power in their capital. They also had to overlook the fact that, when he had resided in Rome, the boy had displayed a strong physical resemblance, in both appearance and mannerisms, to his alleged late father when the same age. They additionally had to disregard the significance of Julius Caesar’s obvious delight on meeting the child, and his later erection of a statue of Cleopatra in Rome’s temple of Venus Genetrix. Furthermore, dismissal as mischievous propaganda had to be afforded to Mark Antony’s subsequent claim that Caesar himself had acknowledged fatherhood, both verbally and in writing.

Julius Caesar had been unable to declare Caesarion his heir because the boy was the product of his affair with a foreigner. As previously mentioned, no Roman was allowed to marry a person of another nationality, nor have a beneficiary who was not of the true blood.

The Roman upper classes in particular, even those who believed that Caesarion was really the son of Julius Caesar, considered the boy to be a foreign bastard, who could never inherit his alleged father’s wealth or position. However, the late dictator had remained highly popular amongst the plebeian masses, in respect of whom he had always taken great care to nurture support by ensuring their free doles of wheat and entertainment, the latter in the form of regular, very spectacular and bloody games.

Plebeian Roman attitudes to the genuine son of Julius Caesar could not therefore be guaranteed always to follow the line upheld by the elite, who were constantly fearful that the masses might one day, in times of economic or political turmoil, rise against them. Consequently, Octavian, who had most to lose, regularly propounded the fervent view to all and sundry that Caesarion was not only a foreign bastard but also one in whose creation his great uncle and adoptive father had played no part.

Amidst his slander against Caesarion, Octavian made much of the boy’s blue eyes, which contrasted with the black and brown variety possessed respectively by Julius Caesar and Cleopatra. Only a few perceptive and not easily corrupted Romans appreciated that such ocular coloration was probably a reflection of the young King’s genuine Macedonian ancestry, perhaps inherited in the same way as Alexander the Great himself.

The act that really clinched Roman public opinion in favour of Octavian was his sneaky and illegal reading out of Mark Antony’s will in the Senate. The confidential document had been deposited for safekeeping, in line with custom, with the Vestal Virgins and its contents should only have been disclosed posthumously.

Nevertheless, as Octavian had cleverly anticipated, most of his fellow citizens forgot such sacrilegious breach of tradition when they heard what the will contained. As well as the now libellous, in many people’s eyes, acknowledgement of Caesarion as Julius Caesar’s son, the document made substantial provisions for the offspring Mark Antony had by Cleopatra, bequests that were illegal in Roman law because the children were illegitimate half-foreigners. It also scandalously expressed his desire to be buried next to the Egyptian Queen.

Armed with this and the other defaming propaganda, Octavian, finally believing that he was now strong enough to secure sole control of the Empire for himself, now easily convinced the Roman Senate and people to declare an ‘iustum bellum’, or ‘just war’. By astutely announcing hostilities against Egypt as opposed to Mark Antony, Julius Caesar’s heir also tried his best to avoid the impression that he was launching just another civil conflict.

(Actium, northwest Greece, September 31 BC)

In 31 BC, after a series of prolonged but ineffectual operations in Greece, the excellent general, Mark Antony, had somehow allowed his army to become surrounded by that of the even more military masterful Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Octavian’s close friend and main commander.

The land forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra were now camped on the swampy lowlands surrounding the Sinus Ambracius, a gulf in northwest Greece in which their fleet of triremes was also trapped by the enemy navy. The bay was connected to the Mare Ionium [Ionian Sea] by a narrow strait, on the southern shore of which was the promontory of Actium.

Many of the soldiers and sailors of Mark Antony and Cleopatra had been depleted by malaria, which severely reduced the contingent of available naval oarsmen. The severed supply lines further weakened morale and support, leading to desertions.

Faced with such a bleak situation that worsened every day, Mark Antony decided to retreat by sea, for which he would need to break through Agrippa’s naval blockade. However, he first burned those ships he could no longer man effectively before attempting to withdraw with Cleopatra southward from the gulf, with as much of their surviving forces as possible.

On the morning of the 2nd of September, Mark Antony led 230 warships, including 60 of the Egyptian navy in the rear, through the straits toward the open sea, where Agrippa awaited him with his own larger fleet.

Outnumbered by almost two to one, and under-manned, Mark Antony had no choice but to keep his triremes tightly clustered in order to combat the enemy. He hoped to use his bigger ships, with their powerful prows, designed for ramming, to drive back Agrippa’s lighter but faster and more manoeuvrable vessels. However, the latter at first carefully kept out of range whilst they cleverly waited for the opposing crews to tire themselves through their fruitless efforts to force combat.

Only when he considered that the moment was right did the wily Agrippa finally authorise engagement with the enemy. The sea-air was then torn by a huge array of catapult missiles, arrows and slingshot, whilst the men on each side prepared to either ram or board their opponents’ ships.

Eventually, Agrippa’s numerical advantage began to take its toll, as more and more of the enemy vessels were surrounded and put out of action. However, Cleopatra’s own admiral managed to lead the rearguard Egyptian squadron of 60 triremes through the centre of the melee into the open sea, where they hoisted sail to flee south. Unfortunately, Mark Antony’s remaining fleet was unable to disengage from their opponents.

To his eternal shame, little excused because the act was stimulated by love not cowardice, Mark Antony transferred his flag to a small vessel and successfully slipped through Agrippa’s line in order to follow Cleopatra. However, the remainder of his fleet was not so fortunate and he abandoned it to an enemy intent upon its destruction, now through burning projectiles. The sea was soon choked with smouldering wreckage, with the waves flecked with gold, purple and other ornate colours, as well as much blood and many bodies.

Afterwards, having caught up with Cleopatra’s fleet, Mark Antony, as psychologically devastated as his navy had physically been, sat alone on the prow of the Queen’s luxurious flagship, refusing to see or speak to her. They then returned to Egypt, where he lived alone for a time, brooding. However, the lovers were eventually reconciled and, seemingly resigned to their ultimate fates, they began to party away their final days.

Cleopatra also began experimenting with poisons to learn which would cause the most painless death, whilst overseeing the completion of her mausoleum, which, following usual Egyptian custom, was being built during the intended occupant’s lifetime. The tomb, to which she transferred for safekeeping much of her gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory and other treasure, was not located in the normal royal necropolis, an enclosed park close to the centre of Alexandria, where her Macedonian ancestors were resting for eternity.

Cleopatra instead built her ornate mausoleum next to Alexandria’s main temple of Isis because she intended to rest forever alongside Mark Anthony, who, not only not being of her regal house but also a Roman barbarian, was not allowed to be entombed in the royal necropolis. Such action, even at the divine Queen’s insistence, would be considered sacrilege.

(Alexandra, Egypt, almost 1 year later, August 30 BC)

It took almost a year, after Actium, for Octavian eventually to reach Alexandria. On the way, he, or rather Agrippa, had spent much of the interim period mopping up, mainly through meek surrender, most of the basically leaderless remnants of Mark Antony’s forces outside Egypt.

Mark Antony, now 52 years old, marched the remainder of his army out of Alexandria to meet the enemy. He stopped on high ground to watch what he expected would be an initial naval battle between his essentially Egyptian fleet and that of Octavian.

Unfortunately, Mark Antony instead watched in horror as his splendid triremes saluted Octavian’s ships with their oars before changing sides. On observing this betrayal, his cavalry also now deserted him, leaving his infantry to be quickly defeated.

Mark Antony returned to Alexandria, declaring loudly that Cleopatra had betrayed him. The Queen, terrified that, as a result of such false belief, her lover would harm her, fled to her mausoleum and barricaded herself inside, ordering her servants to advise her paramour that she was dead.

Believing this advice, he cried out “Now, Antony, why delay longer? Fate has snatched away your only reason for living!” He went to his own quarters in the royal palace, opened his cloak and exclaimed that he would soon be with the Queen. He then withdrew his sword from its scabbard and ordered a loyal servant, Eros, to despatch him. However, the man preferred to kill himself instead.

“Well done, Eros,” Mark Antony now announced, “you show your master how to do what you didn’t have the heart to do yourself!” He then placed the hilt of his weapon onto the marbled floor, pressed the sharp blade’s now unguarded tip into his unprotected stomach and fell onto his sword. However, this thrust was not immediately fatal and, after pulling the lethal metal out of his belly, he staggered to and then passed out on a nearby couch. When he woke up, he begged his remaining servants to put him out of his misery but they ran away rather than obey. Finally, Cleopatra’s secretary came and told him that the Queen was still alive and wanted to see him.

Overjoyed to hear that Cleopatra still lived, Mark Antony had himself carried to her mausoleum, where the Queen was too afraid to open the doors because of the approach of Octavian’s army. However, she and two of her closest handmaidens, Charmion, and Iras, let down ropes from a window and pulled him up.

According to Plutarch, a deeply distraught Cleopatra now “….tore her clothes in grief over him, beat her breast with her hands and raked it with her nails. She smeared some of his blood on her face, and called him her master, husband and emperor.” Mark Antony in reply told her not to pity him but to remember his past happiness with her. He then died.

Cleopatra, now 39 years old, did not immediately commit suicide after Mark Antony’s death and the enemy had captured her capital. She had earlier sent her eldest son into hiding before embarking on his mission, which was, unknown to the boy, actually designed not really to save Egypt, because she secretly thought such an outcome highly unlikely, but rather to ensure the salvation of her senior offspring.

Cleopatra knew that Octavian could not let such a potentially personally dangerous legacy of his great uncle to live, especially as Caesarion was also co-sovereign of Egypt. However, she herself remained alive to try to negotiate the welfare of her other children, sired by Mark Antony.

Cleopatra undertook her negotiations in her mausoleum. However, Octavian, ignoring the almost naked Queen’s desperate pleas, and undoubted attempts to seduce him too, quickly made known that he would spare the three children involved only if she surrendered her person to appear in his triumphal procession on his return to Rome. The female monarch presumed that she would be paraded in chains, like her younger sister, Arsinoe, had suffered 16 years previously.

Octavian was therefore to be thwarted in his ambition, because Cleopatra had no intention of suffering such shame. The Queen preferred to commit suicide in response and call the bluff of the new ruler of the known world, believing that the victor would not dishonour himself by murdering her youngest children, despite an appalling precedent.

Mark Antony’s eldest offspring, Antyllus, son of his first wife, Fulvia, had been dragged from the foot of the gilded bronze statue of the divine Julius, in Alexandria’s imposing Ionian-style temple of Caesar, to be beheaded on the external steps. However, the 18 year-old had been classified as a man and the Queen judged that Octavian would be too honourable to perpetrate a similar atrocity on her twins and youngest son, who were still minors.

Cleopatra dressed herself in her most regal outfit and had a sacred asp smuggled to her amongst some figs. This type of particularly deadly cobra was an ancient emblem of the Egyptian Pharaohs, a sign of Isis that did not suggest death but rather eternal life through rebirth and renewal. Her suicide was therefore to be full of national royal religious symbolism.

Cleopatra introduced the snake to her curvaceous breast and the resultant bite quickly led to her painless demise. Her loyal handmaidens, Charmion and Iras, lay dying similarly at her feet. However, before they could follow their royal mistress, the alerted Octavian, rushing to the scene, asked of the former “Was this well done of your lady?” The girl replied, whilst adjusting her Queen’s crown and with her own last breath, “Extremely well, as became the descendant of so many kings!”

Afterwards, Octavian allowed Cleopatra to rest alongside Antony in their mausoleum, whilst he contemplated the fate of their three young children. However, the Queen had been correct about her eldest son’s proposed fate.

The 16 year-old Caesarion, as son not of the discredited Mark Antony but of the divine Julius Caesar, was too dangerous a potential rival to Octavian to be allowed to live. The new sole ruler of the Roman Empire therefore commissioned his very loyal and capable Agrippa to track down and kill the last of the Pharaohs.

(IIc – Betrayal of Persons)

(Alexandria, Egypt, a few days later, mid August 30 BC)

‘I have learned to hate all traitors and there is no disease than I spit on more than treachery.’

- Aeschylus

Caesarion, the popular nickname by which Ptolemy XV Caesar preferred to be called by his closest relatives and friends, arrived tearfully at the park at dusk. The distraught lachrymose boy had earlier ventured into the wide Soma Street, Alexandria’s main north to south thoroughfare. The royal necropolis was located just to the northeast of this magnificent avenue’s central junction with the much longer principal east to west road, called the Canopic Way.

Alexandria’s two main, broad, paved thoroughfares were both divided into two by a line of central decorative ponds and fountains, useful for the refreshment of people and animals or simply to sit idly by. There were also many shops, fronted by colonnaded porticoes, on either side of the roads.

In normal times, the shops would be open in the mornings and evenings, whilst closing during the often unbearably hot afternoons. Many street hawkers, who congregated at most corners, represented some of the retail competition.

Apart from being the location of the royal necropolis and other parks, the central district of Alexandria, a city so big that it was termed a ‘megalopolis’ as opposed to ‘metropolis’ by the Greeks, was dominated by large town houses. Plebeian terraces were primarily confined to unfashionable suburbs, where the frequently unpleasant unhygienic environment was normally augmented by the dangers posed by often desperate robbers.

Nevertheless, it had been to such an unpleasant metropolitan quarter where Cleopatra had spirited her eldest son, for him to await his planned flight from Egypt. At this unsettled time, a number of upper class Greeks, most known to be the Queen’s most ardent nationalist supporters, were being displaced from their homes and otherwise deprived of their riches. Accordingly, the presence in temporary tenement accommodation of a very well dressed and spoken young Hellenic gentleman with only one slave was not unusual, although the presence of greater opulence, including additional servants, might have attracted unwelcome attention.

Many of Alexandria’s 200 or so temples and other major public buildings were located nearer to the Mediterranean and the colourful complex that comprised the royal palace, situated on the Lochias promontory. The great city was actually positioned on a long strip of land, whose main dimensions ran from east to west. The locale was bounded on the north by the sea and on the south and west by the large brackish Lake Mareotis, which was strewn with reeds, teemed with birds and fish and was linked to the mighty Nile by the easterly Canopic Canal. The latter was lined by the resplendent summerhouses of the Greek metropolitan elite, most possessing large ornate gardens, full of exotic trees and bushes and expensive statuary. Some also sported aviaries and menageries, with immense crocodiles chained by one leg to immovable posts being the most common of the invariably African creatures on display.

The blue Lake Maeotis itself was lined with vineyards with associated villas. The local climate and irrigation made the area ideal for the growth of huge crops of grapes and thereby the production of vast amounts of wine, aided by using much bigger presses than were normally utilised elsewhere.

Like the best Greek vintages, Mareotic wine was usually aged and only drunk after several years. Its production also caused one of the biggest local industries to be the manufacture of amphorae.

Because of the canal link to the Nile, Lake Mareotis possessed its own docks, which supplemented the immense northerly harbour. The latter would be used mainly for sea-going traffic, with internal imports and exports between Lower and Upper Egypt on the one hand and Alexandria on the other using the southerly port facilities.

As Caesarion proceeded along the quiet, darkening streets, he had seen the large hand-written proclamations, posted in many prominent spots so that the populace could be made aware that their new ruler, Octavian, or more properly Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, had turned Egypt into a Roman province. No longer was the country proudly independent, with its own divine leaders. The nation instead had descended meekly into subservience to Rome, although a sop had been declared to lessen the national humiliation.

Clemency had been offered to all royalists who laid down their arms and accepted the inevitable. Most would also be able to retain their previous positions in society, as long as they took an oath of loyalty to the new regime. This policy was in line with the usual Roman custom of sparing most defeated enemies, primarily because the conquerors found it easier to overcome resistance and thereafter control their new territory peaceably by extending such mercy. After all, their main purpose was to take advantage of their conquests to enrich Rome, something that could only be achieved if there were subdued and ordered people to exploit.

Observation of the posters made Caesarion even more determined to carry out the mission commanded by his late mother, the supposed eventual aim of which was to save Egypt from such ignominy. The undoubtedly brave boy had originally been disgusted at having been ordered to flee the royal palace in order to embark upon the project, instead of being allowed to remain to fight the Romans to the death. However, he had also not been surprised, as the Queen, in whose honour Ay had recently severely but neatly trimmed the 16 year-old’s splendid mane of lengthy, silky, royal fair hair in appropriate mourning, had always previously frustratingly kept him away from danger.

Caesarion had so much wanted to join the ‘Ephebeia’, the corps in which young Greek gentlemen would develop their military skills, but Cleopatra had only belatedly granted his wish. The Queen had also refused to allow her eldest son to go on military campaign and he had felt deeply humiliated when his mother and her lover, Mark Antony, had left Egypt to fight Octavian for supremacy of the Roman Empire.

Caesarion believed that his presence would certainly not have affected the disastrous result of the campaign of the previous year, which had culminated in the defeat at Actium. After all, he would undoubtedly not have been given any form of active role. The boy would instead probably have been allocated to the staff of some senior commander to watch and learn. However, such benign participation would have been far more preferable to the shame of being left behind in the safety of the royal palace in Alexandria with his three younger half-siblings.

The situation was particularly galling because Mark Antony had taken his own eldest son from his first marriage to Fulvia, Antyllus, who was only slightly older than Caesarion. The latter’s distress was compounded by the fact that his mother, in line with incestuous dynastic custom, had made the boy her consort when he had been only 3 years old. As joint sovereign, the young King’s place should have been with his army and navy. However, the Queen’s disregard for this other royal tradition was indicative of the fact that her eldest offspring had been granted a supreme position, but no power or influence whatsoever.

Cleopatra had no intention of delegating any of her absolute powers over Egypt to her son whilst she breathed, even if he was well into manhood by the time she died. This was no reflection on the boy’s abilities, which she recognised as being already substantial, but rather a result of her megalomania for power, which had already caused the demise of her own younger brothers and sister. She was also astutely aware that her policies might clash with those of Caesarion.

Cleopatra had ensured that Caesarion was educated well by a host of Egypt’s best tutors. However, the Greco-Roman boy’s more inward looking and caring attitude towards his subjects had been exemplified by his insistence that these included teachers of not only the usual Greek and now Latin topics but also of Egyptian subjects, including the relevant language. The latter activity would be dismissed as being beneath them by most of the nationals of his two bloodlines.

As a result of his insistence, the highly intelligent boy King became the second of his dynasty, after his mother, to be conversant with Demotic, the local native tongue. Caesarion also became much more fluent than Cleopatra, as well as more familiar with associated literature and mythology. However, his accent in all languages was highly cultured and would therefore be considered very posh by an ordinary person, clearly marking the now 16 year-old as someone from the very highest echelons of society. The gorgeous boy’s equally beautiful long-vowelled Attic Greek would especially betray his background.

Cleopatra’s clear ambitious ruthlessness, along with an ignorant disregard for the needs of her ordinary people, were amongst the reasons why Ay disliked his Queen.

Caesarion, although loving his mother, had nevertheless shared some of Ay’s frustrations and reservations about her and, without being unduly boastful, beliefs about his own ability, if given the chance, to be a better ruler. However, such an opportunity was apparently to be denied to him, at least for now, because of Cleopatra’s mistakes and unwillingness to share power. The boy had therefore experienced a strange mixture of emotions when he had learnt from his wonderful, loyal servant about the Queen’s suicide.

Caesarion grieved for his mother but not for the lost Queen. The beautiful, considerate, brave boy had also worried deeply about his younger suddenly orphaned half-siblings, whom he determined to try his best to save.

Ay had always believed that Cleopatra should have contented herself with her rule of an independent Egypt instead of making allegiances, achieved partly by her undoubted sexual allures, with powerful Romans in order to try to secure for herself and her country greater influence in the eastern Mediterranean. However, the perceptive young slave also realised that the Queen had been too haughty and proud to accept timid subordination to the new power in the world and preferred death in a bid for glory than succumbing to meagre client status in respect of the mighty Rome.

Ay had recently often wished that his female sovereign would indeed die so that her male consort, her son Caesarion, could succeed and restore sanity to international relations. The young slave knew that his younger master possessed, despite his tender years, a mature understanding of Egypt’s true place in the current world, as well as the country’s real present needs.

Conveniently ignoring the problem for Octavian of the boy’s male parentage, Ay dreamed that the new young King would surely have been able to negotiate peace, probably by sacrificing the bold but loud and swaggering Mark Anthony, who had lost most of his armies and had therefore become weak. The 15th Ptolemy on the Egyptian throne could then have quietly concentrated on the wants of his people, including the Egyptian peasants, to whom the Nile was everything, the source of all life and succour.

The boy King would have abolished the ruinous war taxes and repaired the irrigation systems along the world’s greatest river, sadly and dangerously, for the country’s wellbeing, neglected by the recent Lagids. He would also have addressed the inequalities that existed between the Greek upper class and the Egyptian peasantry, whom the former not only smugly socially ostracised as inferior beings but also exploited through heavy unfair taxation, from which the Hellenes were largely exempt.

King Ptolemy XV Caesar would have brought peace, stability, prosperity and social fairness to Egypt. Ay had truly believed this because he was privy to the boy’s innermost thoughts and dreams, often confided after they had made love.

No Pharaoh could be subject to the disgraceful indignity of anal penetration, as such a deed would be a sacrilegious diminution of his divine status. Despite being the older partner in the sexual relationship, the lovely Ay was therefore the one who frequently accommodated a rampant young cock in his rear orifice. However, the royal servant did not mind for it was no indignity for a slave to be so treated, especially as the seed he was accepting in his innards was divine.

The divinity of Caesarion’s sperm was evident to Ay from the fact that he too inevitably orgasmed and ejaculated whenever he felt the sacred elixir spurt into him. The royal servant also invariably subsequently felt that he had been granted an almighty infusion of godlike energy, which for hours afterwards enabled him to believe that he could do anything until the sadly always temporary feeling dissipated with time as the impregnate lost its powers. However, the young slave had appreciated that he could usually look forward to a further donation of passionate, hallowed vigour soon.

Whilst Ay had lain on the torturer’s table, he recognised that such delights in this world would soon be no more. However, the sacred seed with which he had been lovingly infused just before he had left his master for the last time on the previous evening was still endowing him with immense resolute fortitude. As the young slave subsequently died slowly on the cross, he thankfully realised that the divine substance had aided him to protect his great cause and secret despite everything he had endured.

Ay also managed successfully to suffer his agonising, lingering death with immense courage because, before he breathed his last, he managed to recall many of the copious delightful highlights of his all too short life with the living god, including their first meeting and sexual encounter.

Ay, dressed only in the usual pleated white skirt of royal slaves, had dropped some silver dishes in the huge kitchens of the palace. The supervisor had been nearby and, appreciating what was coming, the then 10 year-old had closed his large sensuous brown eyes and wrapped his very pretty face in his arms in a protective gesture. He performed the latter action even though he knew that it would be his slim young bare back that would bear the brunt of the man’s whip.

Several painful blows had already rained down on Ay’s slender, vulnerable body when a very young but highly cultured and authoritative voice had commanded in Greek “Stop!” The supervisor was then asked “What do you think you’re doing?” The words were recognised because all of the Egyptian palace slaves could speak the Hellenic language, albeit often very poorly and with strong local accents, because their Macedonian royal masters would not normally stoop to converse with them in their local tongue.

The whipping immediately stopped and, without actually seeing because his hands still sheltered his head, Ay felt the kitchen supervisor disappear. The anguished and frightened but also now curious 10 year-old therefore lowered his upper limbs from their protective duties and opened his eyes.

The first spectacle Ay now saw was the sight of the kitchen supervisor lying face down on the paved floor, whilst beginning to mumble an explanation for his actions. The 10 year-old then noticed the subject of the man’s apparent abject subservience. It was a resplendent vision that the young slave had never forgotten, and was now, on the cross, taking to the afterlife with him.

Dressed in a light, sleeveless and short but pristine and rich summer tunic, made of the most expensive material and edged with gold braid, sparkling in the strong sunlight steaming in from nearby windows, was the most heavenly boy Ay had ever seen. The unparalleled sight was made even more angelic by the facts that the then 9 year-old’s long, silky, straight fair hair, and his gorgeous light blue eyes, glistened majestically, whilst his whole form was framed by rays from the overhead sun god.

Ay had occasionally seen the magnificent boy from a distance before but never this close. The stunned young slave had therefore never previously fully appreciated the 9 year-old’s truly regal splendour. However, such transfixed appreciation had caused the 10 year-old to forget his manners until he suddenly realised that all of the many other servants in the kitchens had joined the supervisor, lying face down on the floor.

Ay was about to join his colleagues in performing the prostration when he was addressed by the splendid boy, who was currently embarked on an unauthorised lone tour of parts of the palace that members of his family normally never frequented. The expedition was nevertheless entirely in keeping with the clever youngster’s inherent curiosity and interest in people from all walks of life.

“Don’t follow their example,” the regal 9 year-old had instructed Ay, “but follow me instead.” The young slave needed no second invitation and was soon being led by the younger boy to his new life.

Ay never forgot the startled look on the supervisor’s face, presumably a mix of amazement and disappointment, as the 10 year-old left the kitchen. The young slave was never to return except on errands, when he would invariably be fawningly treated with great respect, as if he too was a royal personage.

Ay was himself subsequently amazed at how easy it had been for the then 9 year-old Caesarion to acquire a new personal slave. “You have your handmaidens, mother,” the boy had told Cleopatra, “and I think that it’s about time that I appointed myself at least one handboy!” The Queen was not the type to deny her son such a trifle, especially as the young King seemed to dislike the similarly aged but obsequious young Greek nobles whom she had nominated to be his official ‘Friends’. She was also to be unconcerned when, a few years later, she was made aware that her eldest offspring’s relationship with his closest servant had become sexual.

Cleopatra, steeped in Greek tradition, appreciated that homosexuality was a normal phase for healthy male adolescents to pass through, if not retain a taste for, as sexual variety, in later life. The Queen was fully aware of the bisexuality of both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, as had been exemplified by her display of pretty boyish cupids on her ostentatious arrival in Tarsus. She also occasionally encouraged such activities by her lovers whenever she was not around to share their beds. She knew that they would have to satisfy their ravenous lusts somehow but preferred to be the exclusive female form they enjoyed. Such an attitude had arisen not only as a consequence of common womanly jealousy but also because she did not want too many dynastic complications arising from the creation of bastard children.

A combination of similar considerations made the Queen treat the love affair between the King, her son, and his ‘handboy’ with equanimity. If Cleopatra’s attitude had been otherwise, she would probably have ended the relationship by the simple expediency of having Ay poisoned.

As he slowly died on the cross, Ay recalled with delight the day his very close relationship with Caesarion became even more intimate. The young King, ignoring all court etiquette, had always in private treated him as his best friend rather than personal servant, although both respected proper decorum in public because they knew that the dignity of the royal house, as well as that of the Queen, would expect such a show.

The young slave’s regal, in all senses, younger master had even insisted that they conducted their conversations mostly in the local Demotic tongue, with Caesarion explaining that he wanted to practise the skill. There was probably some truth in this explanation, as the boy quickly became fluent in the language. However, Ay always believed that the young King’s main motive had been to show respect for his companion’s culture, exemplified by the fact that much talk centred around his enquiries regarding the lives of the ordinary native peasantry.

On this particular day, however, conversation had turned to war, both in debate and practice. The chat had led, as was now common, to a wrestling contest between the two beautiful boys, performed in the customary Greek style, namely naked. Both young King and personal slave had been trained in the art by the best coach money could buy in Alexandria.

Although slightly older and therefore stronger, the now 14 year-old Ay never had to feign defeat in such bouts because Caesarion, one year younger, not only accepted defeat with good grace but also regularly and quite genuinely won. The young King did so on this occasion and not just by cheerfully bringing his laughing opponent crashing to the carpeted ground.

Caesarion had followed up by resting his lustrous curvaceous bottom on Ay’s slim belly and pinning his defeated opponent’s arms to the floor with his hands. The King’s twinkling light blue eyes subsequently glared at the brown version possessed by his friend. However, the initial proud look denoting victory in combat then glazed over to be replaced by another indicating something entirely different.

By now, Ay had loved Caesarion for four years and his ascent through puberty had recently caused his deep devotion to become more than simple infatuation with the boy’s splendid character. These physical and mental developments had increasingly caused the young slave secretly to masturbate in the privacy of his own bed, within his own now palatial quarters, whilst dreaming of his royal master’s sublime body. The 14 year-old would often climax and cum with the thought in his mind of the young King’s gorgeous face smiling at him, crowned by the silky fair hair and adorned by the sensuous light blue eyes and rosy lips of the owner. He had often so wanted to kiss not only that wondrous visage but also everywhere underneath. However, he had never dared to try to make his dream become reality, until now.

To his amazement, as Ay was pinned to the carpet by the boy of his dreams, he recognised the new look above him in Caesarion’s light blue eyes, as well as the associated expression on the divine face. The young slave was observing clear lust, with his observation apparently verified when he glanced downwards to see the young King’s smooth slender uncut cock pointing rigidly upwards towards his startled visage.

Ay had noticed Caesarion’s lovely erection previously, usually during his lengthy daily bathing process, with associated massages, but had invariably dismissed the phenomenon as merely being the common reaction of bodily manhandling. However, the young slave had never previously considered the young King and god to be a normal boy, who was passing through puberty and was infused by the needs all males encounter during the process. The 14 year-old now instantly and joyously knew different.

Ay then blushed in acute embarrassment but not at his sudden recognition of Caesarion’s sexual state. The young slave was shamed that his own smooth slender cock had also now risen to full erection, on appreciation of both what he had just realised and the immense excited beauty lying on him. The 14 year-old’s unruly penis, trying to elevate itself to point back towards his cute navel, was instead bobbing against the 13 year-old’s lustrous buttocks, clearly advising the recipient of such attention of its urgent need.

Ay, face still scarlet, was about to apologise to the glazed blue eyes above him but was stopped in his tracks when they began to come closer. The young slave then started to believe that he was truly dreaming when he felt rosy lips encroach against his own similar variety.

Ay knew that his misery on the cross would soon be over and so he decided to open his eyes to see the world of the living for the last time before moving on to the domain of the dead. The surrounding square was now almost deserted, apart from his fellow sufferers on nearby crucifixes and a few, basically disinterested guarding Romans. However, there was one boy staring directly up at him, with an expression of pure horror.

Despite the broad-rimmed hat, or ‘petasos’, Ay would have recognised the tearful light blue eyes that gazed at him, and the exquisite face they adorned, anywhere. The young whipped, tortured, nullified and crucified slave could not now prevent himself from smiling, despite his bodily excruciation. His god, cause and secret had come to say farewell for now, but only until they met again for eternity in the heavens later.

By means of an incongruously happy furtive nod, Ay bade his god goodbye and then contentedly closed his lovely brown eyes for the last time, whilst his lungs expelled the last air he would ever breathe.

The tearful Caesarion recalled this recent dreadful event, as he sat in the royal necropolis, which was full of the spirits of his ancestors, all resting for eternity, apart from his mother, in their various mausoleums within the park now surrounding him. However, he had often come here privately to sit on one of the wooden benches to contemplate or debate his problems with some of his deceased predecessors and was therefore unafraid of his present environment, even at this late hour, just as the sun god was beginning to disappear.

The ornate but generally moderately sized mausoleums were set amongst manicured lawns, interspersed for shade by many ornate colonnades and date palm trees, for decoration by exotic flowering bushes and fish-filled ponds, many of the latter overgrown by papyrus, and for cool refreshment by a number of splendid fountains. The park, enclosed by a high wall, was discreetly guarded so that plebeian Egyptians, who might be intent on trying to rob or desecrate the tombs, would not be granted entry through the tall resplendent wrought-iron gates. However, a young aristocrat such as him, dressed in the rich Greek garb of an Hellenic gentleman, was allowed to pass through without any bother or attempt to see the face obscured under the hat, despite the lateness of the hour. Naturally, this current garb contrasted sharply with the likes of the red serpent crown and bejewelled golden robe of Lower Egypt that he had frequently worn beforehand.

Many of the Greek upper classes, who owed their positions to the latest and apparently last royal dynasty of Egypt, liked to pay their respects to their immediate past rulers at the end of the day. The Roman curfew extended from one hour after dusk to the same period before dawn and so Caesarion still had time to conduct his business lawfully before having to shelter somewhere indoors. However, the boy King had nowhere to go until his rendezvous with the man who should help him was achieved.

Nearby to where Caesarion was sitting was the domed mausoleum of the 5th Ptolemy, ‘Epiphanes’ or ‘God Manifest’, whose wife had been the first Cleopatra. There were also the tombs of the first Lagid King, the ‘Saviour’, and his Queen, Berenice. Caesarion recalled his own mother having an elder sister of the latter name, but she had died during his grandfather’s reign.

As the quietly sobbing Caesarion occasionally looked further around, he could spy through his lachrymose light blue eyes, on the north side of the necropolis, at least some parts of other eternal ancestral homes amidst the trees, bushes, ponds and fountains. Amongst them, he recognised that of the 7th Ptolemy, the ‘Benefactor’, whose nickname he had so much wanted to mimic if he had ever been granted power.

As the deeply melancholic Caesarion sat on his bench in the quiet seclusion before his grandfather’s splendid mausoleum, he began to wipe some tears from his hairless chin. This caused the boy to wonder whether, given his highly dangerous predicament, he would ever practise the use of a razor on his still constantly smooth face before he joined his ancestors in this present setting.

Caesarion’s distraught mind then thought again of Ay, who had obviously suffered betrayal at someone’s bloody hands. However, the regal boy could not understand why his beloved servant had been killed in such a publicly horrific way, with the scene concerned usually reserved only for criminals and major traitors, and the 17 year-old was neither, as even the Romans could surely realise.

As Caesarion pondered these questions, he noticed an older Greek gentleman enter the royal necropolis and slowly approach him. The pervading gloom prevented the boy from immediately identifying the approaching man until he was quite close. The 16 year-old then saw that the bearded figure was that of one of his tutors, Rhodon.

Normally, the formal Rhodon would have prostrated himself in front of Caesarion at the commencement of all meetings. However, presumably because it was too dangerous to do so, the tutor instead ignored such court custom and sat next to his young pupil on the wooden bench, much to the relief of the boy, who had always hated such exhibitions of reverence.

Unfortunately, before either pupil or tutor now uttered a word to each other, a small contingent of armed Roman soldiers also entered the park. They were led by a centurion, who was proudly dressed in a long mail shirt with polished upper armour, sparkling in the dying sunlight, and tall helmet, crested with red horsehair. This officer then immediately guided his men towards the sitting pair.

“Betrayal?” a deeply worried Caesarion asked in a whisper.

“Betrayal!” Rhodon answered more loudly.

(To be continued in chapter III – ‘Heroes’)