Ptolemy XV Caesar, usually called Caesarion, was the son of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and was publicly presented by his mother as the son of Julius Caesar. Born in 47 BCE, he became Cleopatra’s co-ruler in 44 BCE and was incorporated into the elaborate dynastic programme through which she asserted the legitimacy and future of the Ptolemaic monarchy. Roman political opponents disputed or ignored his claimed Caesarian paternity, which cannot now be proved independently.
After Mark Antony’s defeat by Octavian, Cleopatra appears to have tried to send Caesarion away from Egypt, but he was captured or induced to return. Octavian had him executed in 30 BCE, removing a potential dynastic rival whose identity as ‘Caesar’s son’ could conflict with Octavian’s own position as Caesar’s adopted heir. Caesarion’s death ended the male Ptolemaic royal line and came as Egypt was absorbed into the Roman imperial system.
Colleen McCullough’s Antony and Cleopatra and Margaret George’s The Memoirs of Cleopatra place Caesarion within Cleopatra’s attempts to secure her dynasty. Gillian Bradshaw’s Cleopatra’s Heir imaginatively explores an alternative fate after Octavian’s conquest, while Alex Gough’s Caesar’s Nemesis and Michael Livingston’s The Ark and the Empire use him within the political struggle over Caesar’s legacy.
