Although the relationship between Caesar and Cleopatra has been enshrined in Western literature there is relatively little that we actually know about their interactions with each other, let alone their relationship or feelings towards each other.

To begin with it is important to understand the background of their meeting. Her father Ptolemy Auletes had a pro-Roman policy during his reign, forming an alliance with the First Triumvirate but in particular with Pompey the Great whom he gave not only monetary bribes, but gifts, supplies and cavalry to carry out his campaigns in Judaea. Caesar and Crassus were more passive members of this arrangement as they took his financial "gifts" but did not offer much else besides their tacit support, however Ptolemy Auletes still got what he needed as they named him an ally of the Roman Republic which brought Egypt into the Roman fold. The relationship between Rome and Egypt was hardly warm during her lifetime as popular resentment towards the bribes being paid out to Roman politicians and the extreme taxation that warranted led to riots and revolts, Cyprus another Ptolemaic possession ruled by her uncle was annexed at the behest of the Roman tribune Clodius Pulcher who held a vendetta against the Cypriot king and wanted to take advantage of its agricultural output, her father failed to prevent the killing of a Roman ambassador by an Alexandrian mob after he inadvertently committed sacrilege, and a Roman military intervention by Aulus Gabinius to restore Ptolemy Auletes to the throne. By the time she took the throne at the age of 17-18 there was already harsh feelings and rivalries between political factions in both states. The Gabiniani (Roman mercenaries left over by Gabinius) only compounded the issue as they got into altercations with the Alexandrian locals and attempted to take part in the dynastic politics of Egypt.

In 50 BCE the Gabiniani murdered the sons of Pompey the Great's supporter Bibulus who were sent to call upon the Gabiniani in the civil war against Julius Caesar, when Cleopatra learned of these events she had the lieutenants responsible imprisoned and delivered to Bibulus. In 49 BCE when Gnaeus Pompeius Minor, the son of Pompey the Great, asked her to send him supplies and reinforcements to support his father in his war against Caesar she was initially hesitant to drag Egypt into a Roman civil war but she did eventually agree to send him 500 Gabinian cavalry and 60 ships with supplies. These actions directly led to her usurpation and exile as they alienated the Gabiniani and key Alexandrian military commanders who sided with the courtiers interested in removing Cleopatra and ruling through her young brother, and Pompey's forces would be vanquished at the battle of Pharsalus. At the same time it is hard to blame her for her actions as not only had Pompey been a long-time ally of her father, but he had the support of the Roman Senate (making him the more legitimate player in the war) and the other client-kings like Juba I of Numidia and Pharanaces II of Pontus (actually a very distant relative of Cleopatra) had sided with Pompey the Great and there was not much reason to assume that Caesar would win.

Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt in pursuit of his fleeing rival Pompey only to find him murdered on the orders of Cleopatra's brother and his advisors, the same individuals who had previously exiled her and whom she had gathered an army to vie with. When Caesar chose to remain in Alexandria with his relatively small force of 2,500 men he quickly came to be loathed not only by Ptolemy XIII's court but by the Alexandrians for his imperiousness and his demands for the money that Ptolemy and Cleopatra's father owed him, which ultimately led to hostilities between Egyptian and Roman forces in the city.

When he invited Cleopatra to a personal audience with him in Alexandria he might have wanted to arbitrate the succession and see Ptolemy XII's will carried out as he was in a position to legally accomplish this, he might have wanted to replace Ptolemy with a more pro-Roman ruler who could and would be more likely to pay off their debt to him, or he might have wanted to ensure that Egypt was not in the midst of civil war while there were so many other fires to put out.

For Cleopatra's part she had little choice in allies and was currently an exile, although she had been able to gather some armed forces thanks to her supporters in Syria she was realistically unable to carry on a war with her brother's supporters at the time. Although her decision to smuggle herself into Alexandria was a gamble but from her perspective a necessary one. The circumstances of their meeting are shrouded in rumor and speculation but are most detailed source on the matter, the Roman historian Plutarch, describes how she took a small boat into the Alexandrian harbour with a freedman known as Apollodoros the Sicilian, and was wrapped into a carpet, bedsheet or bag for carrying carpets or bedsheets and delivered to Caesar's quarters by Apollodoros and was able to win him over through charm

It was by this device of Cleopatra's, it is said, that Caesar was first captivated, for she showed herself to be a bold coquette, and succumbing to the charm of further intercourse with her, he reconciled her to her brother on the basis of a joint share with him in the royal power.

Now this arrangement did not go over well with Ptolemy's advisors, one of whom allegedly conspired against Caesar who had him killed. Civil war within the city itself soon broke out and Caesar found himself fighting a much larger force which at many points had the upper hand. It was after all a perilous war, the two were besieged by the forces Ptolemy and then Arsinöe IV and at one point were cut off from cut-off from freshwater by having their water supply poisoned with saltwater.

Plutarch gives numerous possible motives for Caesar's involvement but even he refrains from making a judgement one way or the other

As for the war in Egypt, some say that it was not necessary, but due to Caesar's passion for Cleopatra, and that it was inglorious and full of peril for him. But others blame the king's party for it, and especially the eunuch Potheinus, who had most influence at court, and had recently killed Pompey; he had also driven Cleopatra from the country, and was now secretly plotting against Caesar.

Roman sources repeatedly stress that Cleopatra's interest in a relationship with Caesar was motivated by necessity and there is no reason to discount this given the circumstances. Having already been exiled and with little hope of regaining the throne without the aid of Caesar it appears that she felt she had little to lose besides her life, else why risk even that to enter Alexandria where she could easily be killed on the orders of her brother? Despite the atmosphere of serendipity that most films and literature likes to place around their meeting it is unlikely that she fell in love with a man she had never met, who was more than 30 years her senior, and who had been less than friend (though not an enemy) to her father, in the perhaps handful of hours that she knew him before they became lovers. It may not be romantic but there is no reason why we should naïvely assume that she fell in love with him when no ancient author even suggests as much. For Caesar it was not out of character for him to have had an affair with Cleopatra as he had numerous affairs with aristocratic women. Whether he was necessarily in love with her is debatable, after all during the extended period that they were involved on and off between the spring of 47 BCE and his death in 44 BCE he had no difficulty engaging in multiple other affairs or maintaining a loving relationship with his wife Calpurnia. The Roman historian Suetonius in his Live of the Twelve Caesars mentions the attentions and gifts he paid to Cleopatra but this is in the same paragraphs where he describes Caesar treating other mistresses of his in a similar fashion

It is admitted by all that he was much addicted to women, as well as very expensive in his intrigues with them, and that he debauched many ladies of the highest quality; among whom were Posthumia, the wife of Servius Sulpicius; Lollia, the wife of Aulus Gabinius; Tertulla, the wife of Marcus Crassus; and Mucia, the wife of Cneius Pompey. For it is certain that the Curios, both father and son, and many others, made it a reproach to Pompey, “That to gratify his ambition, he married the daughter of a man, upon whose account he had divorced his wife, after having had three children by her; and whom he used, with a deep sigh, to call Aegisthus.” But the mistress he most loved, was Servilia, the mother of Marcus Brutus, for whom he purchased, in his first consulship after the commencement of their intrigue, a pearl which cost him six millions of sesterces; and in the civil war, besides other presents, assigned to her, for a trifling consideration, some valuable farms when they were exposed to public auction. Many persons expressing their surprise at the lowness of the price, Cicero wittily remarked, “To let you know the real value of the purchase, between ourselves, Tertia was deducted:” for Servilia was supposed to have prostituted her daughter Tertia to Caesar..

..In the number of his mistresses were also some queens; such as Eunoe, a Moor, the wife of Bogudes, to whom and her husband he made, as Naso reports, many large presents. But his greatest favourite was Cleopatra, with whom he often revelled all night until the dawn of day, and would have gone with her through Egypt in dalliance, as far as Aethiopia, in her luxurious yacht, had not the army refused to follow him. He afterwards invited her to Rome, whence he sent her back loaded with honours and presents, and gave her permission to call by his name a son, who, according to the testimony of some Greek historians, resembled Caesar both in person and gait.

[Cont.]