Comparison With The Historical Cleopatra
Historically, Cleopatra did not come to Rome after Caesar's death; she was actually living in Rome when he was assassinated in 44 BC and immediately left upon his murder, never to return. Cleopatra met Mark Antony in Tarsus in 41 BC.
The historical timeline has also been manipulated in the series. Cleopatra and Antony had their twin son and daughter, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, in 40 BC before he married Octavia Minor. When he later left Rome, he settled in Athens, Greece with Octavia, and they had two daughters. He ultimately left his wife in Greece and reunited with Cleopatra in Egypt; he and Cleopatra subsequently had their third child, Ptolemy Philadelphus (whose existence is not acknowledged in the series).
The scenes where Cleopatra schemes to give birth to "Caesar"'s child by seducing Vorenus or Pullo, gives color to the historical debate about who Caesarion's true father was. After he was born, Cleopatra openly declared that he was Caesar's child, while several of her political enemies, including Octavian, sought to prove otherwise. According to historian Michael Grant, there is at least one potent argument in favor of each side:
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- On the one hand, the portrayal of Cleopatra as promiscuous or sexually voracious is an invention of later propaganda (much of it from Octavian), and there is no hard evidence that she had relations with any man other than Caesar or Mark Antony.
- On the other hand, there is speculation that Caesar was infertile - a theory reinforced by the fact that, in the course of three marriages and numerous liaisons with other women, he had produced only one child, his daughter Julia - and thus could not have fathered Caesarion.
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