Mark Gagnon

It's technically not the case that this is technically different.

Caesarian is spelled differently than Caesarian section.

And but it comes from the Latin word to cut, which, you know, makes sense.

You cut people out when you do a C-section.

Just a little side note.

Now, she claims that Caesar is the father, which now creates a massive storm in Roman politics.

Right.

Caesar already has political enemies in Rome who are suspicious of his relationships with this foreign queen.

And if he acknowledges Caesarion as his son, he's essentially admitting that he placed Egyptian interests ahead of Roman ones.

And if Caesarian is Caesar's true son, then Cleopatra has created her own heir who carries Roman power and divine Egyptian authority.

Which, again, for the Ptolemies, they haven't done in 300 years.

They've always kept it within the Ptolemaic bloodline.

But now she's just introduced this Roman dude, Caesar.

Now, Caesar never officially acknowledges being Caesarian's father, but he also doesn't deny it.

He brings Cleopatra to Rome and places her in a villa across the river where she basically lives openly kind of as his mistress.

And this is scandalous, even by Roman standards.

Roman wives were supposed to be modest and stay out of politics and just kind of raise the kids who were going to be future princes and kings.

And foreign queens were supposed to stay in their own country, so this crosses a bunch of lines.

But here was Cleopatra, hosting dinner parties for Roman senators and commissioning statues of herself as Isis and just basically behaving like she runs Rome.

Now, Roman writers describe her as arrogant and manipulative, but they also admit that she's incredibly intelligent and well-educated.