[Deepwaters]

Originally Posted by INDUSTRIAL

I disagree. She slept with not only Caesar, but with other men such as Anthony.

All the evidence we have is that she was a virgin until Caesar, was faithful to Caesar until he was murdered, and had sex only with Antonius after Caesar died. The rest is Augustus' propaganda. Augustus' original power base came from being Caesar's adopted son. Caesarion, being Caesar's actual son, was a potential threat to his power, not in Rome (where no son of a non-Roman woman could hold power), but in the East. So his slanders against Cleopatra were at root designed to suggest that Caesarion wasn't really Caesar's son. There was no truth to them at all.

Also, she is recorded as one of the most beautiful.

Here we have no doubt, because we have coins with her likeness on them and statuary. She was by no means beautiful. She was skinny as a rail and had a nose like you wouldn't believe. But for a man like Caesar, there's a kind of beauty that any really intelligent woman has, it shines from the eyes, and animates her whole face. She didn't need to be beautiful. Which was a good thing, because she wasn't.

She did not need divine blood, since she already had born son of Caesar. Caesar is considered to be a progeny of Gods. Caesar's son has much more divine blood than son of Anthony. Cleopatra intended Caesar's son to be the Emperor and Pharaoh. There was no need for more divine blood. She was just being a flirt and falling in love.

As I explained, she needed another child, a girl, so that Caesarion could be married to his sister and the line could continue. Caesarion by himself wasn't enough. Caesar was dead. She needed either a Ptolemy or a Julian to father more children. Antony was a Julian. I don't know if she and Antonius were in love, but even if they were, there was another, completely calculating reason behind her involvement with him, and the love came later.

Also, Cleopatra was only 21 when she met Caesar, still very young in that era where people matured slower than now. She perfectly matches the Lolita image.

Whether people matured slower than now or not, it was customary for women to marry as early as 16, or earlier. Cleopatra was a full-fledged adult and had been ruling Egypt for several years already. Lolita in the sense of Nabokov's novel needs to be about 12-14; Lolita in the sense of Alizée's song can be a little older, but no 20-somethings need apply.

You're expressing a lot of the popular misconceptions about Cleopatra. I can understand why you believe these things, lots of people do. I've studied that period of history extensively, though. Trust me on this, they're not true.