Caesarion and the Future of Egypt

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In today's installment, we're going to be exploring the shifting sands that Cleopatra had to navigate to reach power, from mighty overseas leaders to bloody family politics. Islam, thank you so much for being back with us to discuss the life and times of Cleopatra. In this episode, we're going to be focusing on her rise to power and some of the challenges that she faced. When we left her at the end of the previous episode. Her father had just announced her co-regency in 52 BC. Before we get on to what happened next, I'd like to rewind just a bit to explore some of the wider context. Can you tell us about the relationship between Rome and Egypt and how the story of a man called Ptolemy the Tenth is important. Well, we're back with lots of Ptolemies. So many Ptolemies. Yes. And just to put it into context, Ptolemy the Twelfth is her father, so we're talking about Ptolemy X . I guess Egypt at this stage is a kind of breadbasket for Rome. Rome has got a huge population that needs bread, and Egypt is is able to provide that. At the same time, there's an increased Roman influence on Egypt. There's some danger as well to the Ptolemaic dynasty from from the East. So the Romans are sort of de facto protecting Egypt as well. When it comes to Ptolemy the 10th, there's a sort of context that we probably should should think about. The Romans, as they're protecting Egypt, have made it clear that they don't want a woman to be in charge alone. So that's that's a an interesting development because Cleopatra, as we'll see, is going to want to defy that idea of a woman ruling alone. So Cleopatra III at the time is forced, so to speak, to pick a co-reg ent. And she she has two sons to pick from: Ptolemy the Ninth and Ptolemy the Tenth. And she picks the ninth and exiles the tenth to Cyprus or gives him Cyprus to rule. Ptolemy X is not happy. So he seeks further support from Rome. And he wants military support, he wants financial support. But in return, and this is really key, he has in his will that should Egypt not have a legitimate heir, then it gets bequeathed to Rome. Now I we can only speculate as to why he'd make such an odd promise to Rome. My sense is that the collateral was just so large that he had to do something of the sort. And actually those loans are what give Rome the inclination that they can really control Egypt going forward. They don't act on that will immediately. But it's certainly something that we know Julius Caesar was aware of and we'll come on to Julius C aesar, no doubt. So even though they don't act on that will, it gives them the legitimacy, let's say, to intervene in Egypt. So there's Ptolemy X does something else because this sibling marriage that the Ptolemies have was intended to cement their power. And one thing that he does is that he introduces non-royal blood into the family. So despite these massive attempts to keep the power within the the family, he introduces illegitimate children into the mix, and so does Ptolemy the Ninth, and one of those is Cleopatra's father, who is known throughout his dynasty as Ptolemy the illegitim ate. So there's a few developments there. The fact that Rome is intervening, the fact that they have a right to Egypt if it's if it's without a legitimate heir, Ptolemy the twelfth will be an illegitimate heir. The fact they don't want a woman to rule alone, there's lots happening here. And it's really interesting the ways in which this interfamily dynamic is playing out across this massive sweep of hist ory and geography, and I'm sure we'll explore some of those repercussions as we go. Coming back to our story of our Cleopatra, if you like, she became co-regent with her brother Ptolemy the Thirteenth in, fifty one BC. Can you talk a bit about their relationship? Do we know, for instance, if they married? So they very likely did marry, but we have to bear in mind that he was still a kid, so it's very much sort of on paper that he's co-ruling. Do we know how old they are at this point in the story? So Cleopatra is co-regent at 17, she's about eighteen at this stage, her brother will be ten, eleven , not yet a teenager. The documents, actually, the official documents from the time, only have Cleopatra's name on them, as sole ruler. So so I don't think she was taking her brother seriously at that time. What's interesting is her father dies in March fifty one BC. The Roman Senate only finds out about this several months later. So to me that's a suggestion that she doesn't want Rome to be in control. She's not bound to Rome immediately. She's trying to rule on her own terms because she knows that Rome will want her to be a co-ruler with her brother. So she probably doesn't give them that information as quickly as she ought to do. So she's doing it for external reasons and the relationship broke down between the siblings almost immediately. Do we get a sense of what, given their massively young age, the dynamic was like between I think Cleopatra was ahead of her age. I think she was making decisions and I think she knew what her ambitions were. Her father had already taken her under his wing. As for her brother, Ptolemy the thirteenth, I think it's very much about what his tutors are telling him. So his tutors, his advisers, they think that they can wield some power from the situation. So I I wouldn't imagine that her brother is actually the one causing the issues at this stage, but rather the people around him. But that's just my sense of the situation. So it's a bit of a red herring, you think, to focus on their relationship when actually there's other people who've got vested interests controlling Certainly the Little Brothers tutors and certainly, as we've said, this really influential republic, the Roman Republic. It's fascinating how interrelated this story is. And as we sort of alluded to, the relationship between these brother and sister breaks down almost entirely and Cleopatra is forced to flee to Syria. Can you tell us a bit about what happened then and I suppose what forced her to make that decision? Yeah, again, the the sense is that her brother's tutors start to have some real power. That they are perhaps negotiating with Romans, they' cerretainly negotiating with the Egyptian priests who still have some influence over the Egyptian population, and that eventually her brother is announced ruler. And at that stage she is forced to flee. The family now has a history, doesn't it, of of killing one another. So I I think she does f flee for her life in a way, but also to try to create an army that can come back and take control. So she goes to Syria where her younger sister resides and she spends some time there where she she she rallies troops and she returns with those troops and her brother's army is waiting. I know I said just then that these are massively young people, but Cleopatra already at this point sounds like someone who's making really smart and really big decisions. Do you think that says something about her personality? And does it tell us about the time that she was forced into making these really big audacious moves. I get the sense that Cleopatra was trained from a young age by her father to take control of the dynasty at a time when he was struggling. And also that there's some personal elements there, like her personality, the fact like that she learnt Egyptian, the fact that she learnt the language of her ancestors, the Macedonian, her intelligence and ambition that are clear from the earlier years of her life. So yes, she's young, but I think she's ahead of her age. And I also believe that she really is an ambitious individual. Some people are just wired differently, let's say. I I I I believe she was And it's really refreshing, and we'll return to this idea later in the series, it's really refreshing to focus on her intellect and her skills at managing a really complex and difficult political situation. Do you think we ought to give her more credit for these sorts of decisions? I believe it's really important to look beyond the headlines and to look at the psychology and just try to get into the character. And hopefully that's something we're doing in this series. Because we've heard the Cleopatra story over and over again. Just thinking about her from a slightly different perspective, trying to understand what's in her head, trying to piece things together from the city in which she was raised, from the dynasty, from her parents, from her character, so that we can build a slightly more accurate picture of this individual who's obviously had such such a lasting legacy. Given the vastly long time ago in which these events were playing out, is it difficult to do that? Are there challenges that you need to overcome in order to try to get into her psyche? I mean, when I was writing a history of Alexandria, I really tried to get into the psyche of the key figures like Cleopatra and some of her ancestors. And in a way, I was disappointed when I returned to the present. That's that's how much I was really trying to get into their into their psyches. And I think it's like a puzzle. It's not easy, but it's doable because we have all these different aspects. Yes, we have the sources, the archival sources we have, the papyri , some interesting slabs. And then we also have the things we can piece together from the environment in which she was raised and the culture of the time. So you've got to do some proper detective work of piecing these things together. Are there any particular sources or things that you drew on that you thought oh this is amazing? Well, there was a surprising source, which is the medieval Arabic writers who present her very differently to how the Romans presented her. And they don't really unless Odie's an example, there's absolutely no mention of how she looked, and a lot of mention about how she was an intellectual, which I found refreshing and different. And actually those medieval Arabic sources are very much omitted from Western Egyptology, let's say. And the other interesting source was a kind of popular cultural source , but not the popular culture necessarily of the West, but the popular culture of the city in which she was raised, the city in which she ruled and died. So just being around Alexandria, yes, I went to the archives and did all that kind of research, but I did another kind of research that I call like atmospheric research, which is basically sitting in cafes and talking to people, but just getting a sense of her presence in the city as a as a kind of popular cultural icon and the way in which that can help me understand who she is. That is so interesting. And we'll return to that idea in our fourth episode. For now, there's another character emerging who you've already alluded to, and that's Julius Caesar, and we should try to get into his psyche. It's unlikely that anyone watching this or listening to this has not heard of him, but for the sake of just introducing him onto the stage at this point in the story, can you tell us about what was happening with Julius Caesar? I think we're talking about forty-eight BC here. What was the political background that he was experiencing and how did that force him into making quite a big move? Well, Pompey is is a figure that keeps coming up. Can you remind us who Pompey so Pompey is an influential figure in Rome who by this stage is on the wrong side of Caesar, and they have slightly different opinions about how to progress the Roman Republic. But Pompey had hosted Cleopatra's father in Rome for the three years that Cleopatra spent there in her childhood, just as she was turning teenager. Now Pompey decides to seek refuge with Ptolemy the Thirteenth. In other words, Cleopatra's brother, because he thinks, well, Cleopatra's brother will know that I was friends with his father. And so when he arrives in Alexandria, actually Ptolemy the Thirteenth's advisers decide to kill him because they think that that will make Julius Caesar happy. Biographers say that Julius Caesar wasn't happy. You never know what he wants. But Caesar's essentially following Pompey to Alexandria. He also knows that Rome has a right to Egypt, so to speak, or allegedly, let's say, if there's no legitimate ruler, and he thinks that that's already happened with Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy the illegitimate. So he arrives in Alexandria with an army, Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar at this stage is a massive celebrity, hugely respected and feared. He arrives in Alexandria and I'd say he probably wanted the money that was owed to him by the Ptolemies, and he arrives with an army but immediately makes himself at home in the royal palace, and suddenly both Cleopatra and her brother are no longer in the palace. What sort of reception did he get, do we know? Well uh it's never a good idea to arrive with an army. And and the Alexandrians were known to quickly mobilize, protest, have mobs. There's all sorts of stories among the Alexandrians at the time about Julius Caesar being a disrespectful leader, about how he doesn't respect the library of Alexandria. There's a story about how he jumps off a ship because he's so cowardly. So I don't think he's very popular in Egypt. The Romans generally not very popular. In fact, in Alexandria today, when you look at some of the Ptolemaic tombs from that kind of period, we see that they have lots of Egyptian motifs. So a way of countering the Roman influence was by really emphasizing that the Greco-Egyptian cultures were combining. And I think that's fascinating to know that there was a kind of anti-Roman sentiment through saying, no, Greeks and Egyptians love each other, you know, we we have a shared god in Serapis, this is our Alexandrian culture. So so Caesar's not not amazingly popular. There are there are interesting stories as well about how some pirates capture him, and apparently he gets really annoyed about how little they ask for ransom because he thinks they should be asking for more. Um there's also the sense that he actually loves Alexander the Great and he goes to his mausoleum and that he wants to be like him. There's a s there's a story that he weeps at the mausoleum of Alexander the Great because he can't believe how much more Alexander the Great achieved compared to him. We get a real sense of his personality from all of this. Yeah, and and he also has an autobiography, you know, which is written in third person. Caesar did this and Caesar did that. So if I ever write a memoir, I might try that out . Incredible. And do we know how Cleopatra and her family responded to this move by Julius Caesar? What happened next? Well, I've mentioned the powerful population of Alexandria, that mob, as they were called, and Ptolemy the thirteenth resorted to them very quickly. That they're they're a powerful tool at his disposal, and so he tries to I guess to get a sort of a riot underway . But before they can really do so, Caesar has Ptolemy the thirteenth arrested. So her brother is arrested. Alexandria's become so influenced by Rome that it now has like an assembly. So Caesar puts Cleopatra and her brother to that assembly and tells them that their father's wish was for them to be co rulers. And so, you know, you two get along, be co rulers, but in reality de facto rulers. And and he also gives their other siblings, so Ptolemy the fourteenth and Arsine , he gives them Cyprus. So that's that's quite unsatisfactory for those two siblings, because remember there's four of them. And I think it's entirely unsatisfactory for Cleopatra because she doesn't want to co -rule with any of her siblings. So nobody's that happy, really. Maybe Caesar is. That's true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I I don't think it's as straightforward as he'd have liked it to be. So maybe nobody, yeah. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at bloomberg.com . The internet is coaching our kids. When boys hear that on re peat, it shapes how they see themselves. We can't leave it to those voices. We have to be louder. Together with E E, we need to coach them, guide them, back them. Building our boys up every chance we get. Be yourself. Back your mates. Confidence comes from within. As proud partner of the England teams, EE has support and guidance to help build all our boys up on and off the pitch. Search EE Yes Boys . Can you talk us then through the events that led to Ptolemy the Thirteenth's death and to Cleopatra marrying another one of her brothers? So at this stage, we said nobody's really that satisfied. So Ptolemy the Thirteenth actually teams up with the other sister, Arsinoe the Fourth. Caesars arrived with about four thousand troops, which isn't a lot actually. They think that their twenty thousand also can defeat him. So they go for this decision that they they they want to fight, and they think that Cleopatra's actually been favoured by this decision to co-rule and and so on. So they besiege the Roman army at the harbour. They think they're doing well, they surround the palace, they try to attack the palace. And what's interesting now is that the palace doesn't only have Julius Caesar inside, it also has Cleopatra. And she's made her way in. She 's made this decision, unbeknownst to them, that she's going to side with Caesar. A very interesting decision. And she's in there in the palace with him for months. So Cleopatra and Caesar are blocked, both on land and by sea. They're in there for months, and it's seemingly not going their way. But in early 47 BC, so we're talking a good year and a half after this siege begins, Caesar's Roman reinforcements arrive to Alexandria and they force the Alexandrian army, so to speak. And it's it's it's odd at this stage to say the Alexandrian army, because Cleopatra is like this Alexandrian symbol, and yet she's not on the Alexandrian army's side. And a similar kind of thing comes to mind when the library goes up in flames shortly after this, during these battles, that I don't know how she must have been feeling when when the library of her city and ancestors is being damaged. Anyway, they chase that army to the Nile. It's there as they try to escape that her brother Ptolemy the thirteenth is drowned. At this stage she's defeated her brother, so to speak, and Julius Caesar decides that because she's a woman, she has to co-rule with her one remaining brother, Ptolemy the Fourteenth. Just to go back on something you mentioned there about her feeling massively conflicted about the events that were unfolding here, does that speak to her having multiple identities in this story. I think she's adapting. That's that's the way I'd put it. She's recognised that Rome will either way be victorious. Eventually. But this stage they're too powerful, too determined. Egypt owes them too much money. And it's a decision really that has to be made about which side to be on. My sense is that she's thinking this could be the end of the Ptolemaic dynasty unless I side with Julius Caesar. So it's not just this could be the end of my own ambitions, but it could be the end of this dynasty that was founded by by her forefathers. So it's an adaptive pro.cess So she's making a pragmatic decision to ensure the future at the expense of sacrificing some of her past, I suppose, almost. Yeah, and to some extent at the expense of the locals . Because at this stage I would assume that they're supporting the Alexandrian army, not the Roman army. She's kind of gone into hiding and is letting them fight it out, but in reality she's on Caesar's side by this stage. You gave us quite a nice sense just now of Julius Caesar's personality in a way that I'd not always thought of it in those terms. Can you tell us a little bit about your take on his relationship with Cleopatra? What's the sense that we get of what their dynamic would have been like? I think there's something pragmatic about it. As as I've mentioned, Cleopatra wants to keep the dynasty going. She wants to fulfill her ambitions as well for power. At this stage, Cleopatra's still very young. She's much younger than Caesar by decades. And Caesar is this massive celebrity, this really influential, powerful person. So I think he's intrigued by her when she appears to him. I don't think she necessarily appears to him, you know, rolling out of a Persian rug, but she appears to him, and he can, I would guess, sense her ambition, sense that she's a bit different in the way that she's thinking. She's also young and we know that Caesar was very sort of sexually active. So it makes sense for him to be attracted to this interesting young woman. From her perspective, she's ambitious, but she must have licked up to Caesar in some way and realized the potential of being an ally with Caesar and changing that dynamic so it's no longer Egypt that's seeking Rome, but there's a mutual benefit in some way. Just to pick up there on something you mentioned, there is this common story that's told that Cleopatra arrived to Julius Caesar wrapped up in a carpet. Is your take on this that that's not what happened? The main source is Plutarch. Plutarch is relatively problematic because A he's a century later, but B it's anti Cleopatra, more pro Roman propaganda. My memory of Plutarch is that she is in a bedcloth, something of the sort, so it's it's not even a carpet or a rug at that stage. And it sort of transforms into that rug with translations of Plutarch, with later art pieces and so on. It's got a kind of sexiness and a kind of orientalism about it. So I can sort of understand why that's happened. I don't think that Cleopatra needed to sneak into the palace. I think she could have talked her way in if we're told that she's charismatic by Plutarch as well and that she's diplomatic. I think she could have talked her way in, bribed her way in, unless she wanted this sort of sexy entrance in order to get Caesar thinking in that way because of her end goal of of of having a child with him. Potentially something like that could have happened. But yeah, I think it's a it's a story that's been exaggerated over the years. Mm-hmm. And that idea of stories about her being told by other people and being used for propaganda is a theme we'll return to in the fourth episode. Yeah, and and and it's important I think to think of her as a in being to try and understand things about her psyche and then to think about why the legacy of this famous woman, famous queen is the way it is. I'm always excited to think about the truth behind Cleopatra. You mentioned the possibility of Cleopatra having a child with Julius Caesar. Can you tell us a bit more about that? As far as genius plans go, if she can get on Caesar's side and have a child with him, then you've got a superchild. You've you've got the child of Caesar and Cleopatra. You've got the child of the two great civilizations . I would think that that was on her mind as well. And then so sometime in forty-seven BC she did become pregnant with this superchild. What happened and what were the implications of this? Well first of all, he's Caesarean, little Caesar. And that immediately tells you something. I like to think that she named him but we'll never know. But that that's the first indication that that he's got this power, that she's trying to link this Ptolemaic child with Caesar and with Rome. Egyptians refer to him as little Caesar, but we see in the inscriptions that he's called Pharaoh Caesar even as a baby, so immediately she's building him as a pharaoh. She's also this mother figure, like Isis, who has Horus in the Egyptian mythology and theology. What happens as well though is that Caesar denies fathering him. So so that that's a complication maybe she hadn't anticipated. But I think it's complicated for Caesar to say, this is my child , because of course he has a Roman wife. She's seen as a foreigner. Alexandria is seen as a place of excess. What was he doing in Alexandria? You know, he was supposed to be doing serious things, not procreating. So that's a complication that takes place. And while he's not very keen on the child, Cleopatra is very keen. She's making no secret of who Caesarean's father is. She's telling everybody that this is Caesar's child and she begins building a grand temple. The grand temple for the baby. And we will return to this idea in our next episode when we're gonna be exploring what Cleopatra was like as a leader , and I suppose exploring more of these really smart decisions she was making. But for now, thank you so much again. Thank you . To go beyond the podcast, you can visit the History Extra app, where I've curated a list of wider content that explores the life and afterlife of this fascinating figure. You can find a link to that in the episode description.