Caesar had, in the mean
Caesar had, in the mean time, incurred great censure at Rome, and
throughout the whole Roman world, for having thus turned aside from his
own proper duties as the Roman consul, and the commander-in-chief of the
armies of the empire, to embroil himself in the quarrels of a remote and
secluded kingdom with which the interests of the Roman commonwealth were
so little connected. His friends and the authorities at Rome were
continually urging him to return. They were especially indignant at his
protracted neglect of his own proper duties, from knowing that he was
held in Egypt by a guilty attachment to the queen,--thus not only
violating his obligations to the state, but likewise inflicting upon his
wife Calpurnia, and his family at Rome, an intolerable wrong. But Caesar
was so fascinated by Cleopatra's charms, and by the mysterious and
unaccountable influence which she exercised over him, that he paid no
heed to any of these remonstrances. Even after the war was ended he
remained some months in Egypt to enjoy his favorite's society. He would
spend whole nights in her company, in feasting and revelry. He made a
splendid royal progress with her through Egypt after the war was over,
attended by a numerous train of Roman guards. He formed a plan for
taking her to Rome, and marrying her there; and he took measures for
having the laws of the city altered so as to enable him to do so, though
he was already married.
All these things produced great discontent and disaffection among
Caesar's friends and throughout the Roman army. The Egyptians, too,
strongly censured the conduct of Cleopatra. A son was born to her about
this time, whom the Alexandrians named, from his father, Caesarion.
Cleopatra was regarded in the new relation of mother, which she now
sustained, not with interest and sympathy, but with feelings of reproach
and condemnation.
