Caesar’s Women

Rome, 67 BCE. Julius Caesar returns from provincial service determined to overcome debt, aristocratic hostility and the limits of his family’s recent influence. His mother Aurelia, his daughter Julia and his wives form the private foundation of a public career, while his relationship with Servilia connects desire to the rivalries of the Senate. Caesar cultivates the crowd, courts Pompey and Crassus, and turns religious and judicial offices into stages for political advancement.

The Catilinarian conspiracy tests Cicero’s consulship and divides Rome over emergency power, execution and the meaning of republican liberty. Caesar survives suspicion and scandal, including the Bona Dea affair, then constructs an alliance with Pompey and Crassus that bypasses normal senatorial obstruction. Julia’s marriage to Pompey and Caesar’s own marriage to Calpurnia make family bonds part of the political settlement that sends him to command in Gaul.