Caesarion (Rome)
| "Caesarion" | |
|---|---|
| Rome episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 8 |
| Directed by | Steve Shill |
| Written by | William J. MacDonald |
| Original air date | October 16, 2005 (HBO) December 14, 2005 (BBC) |
| Setting | Ptolemaic Egypt and Rome |
| Time frame | Fall 48 BC through June 47 BC |
"Caesarion" is the eighth episode of the first season of the television series Rome.
In Rome, Marcus Junius Brutus arrives home, and is somewhat put out to receive only a welcome from his mother, Servilia, after his long absence.
Caesar and his Legion arrives in Alexandria in pursuit of Pompey, who unbeknown to him has already been betrayed and murdered while seeking refuge there. Caesar is greeted by the ministers of the young King Ptolemy XIII, led by Ptolemy's regent, the eunuch Pothinus, and his tutor Theodotus. They are dismissive of the dispute over the throne between Ptolemy and his sister/wife, Cleopatra, assuring Caesar there will be no disruption to the Roman grain supply. In private, Posca informs Caesar that the Egyptians are lying, and that the situation is very unstable. Caesar is also clearly irked by the petulant young king.
Hoping to win Caesar's support in their dynastic dispute, Ptolemy presents him with Pompey's head, but Caesar is outraged that a consul of Rome has been "quartered like some low thief". As recompense for this insult, he demands that Pompey's killer be turned over to him, and the debt owed to Rome by the King's late father be repaid in full, although the Egyptians state that the "seventeen thousand thousand drachma" owed will be impossible to pay.
Caesar decides to remain in Egypt to arbitrate between the various factions, ordering Mark Antony to return to Rome, despite Antony's and Posca's warnings that he will be left with dangerously few men in Egypt, surrounded by hostile factions that could make him into a common enemy, and that Cato the Younger and Scipio are still at large and likely gathering fresh forces.
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