And the When we left off last episode, after her father died in 51 B.C. E. Cleopatra had

made some rookie mistakes during the first three years of a reign and these mistakes were

exploited and taken advantage of by Ptolemy the 13th who is Cleopatra's younger

brother and co-ruler and Pothanists the young Pharaoh's regent and advisor.

As a result of these mistakes, Cleopatra was out-manewered politically by Ptolemy the 13th and

Pothinus and was now on the run having fled Egypt for her life.

Ptolemy the 13th was now the sole ruler of Egypt with Pothinus as his puppet master. But as we said, Cleopatra was not

one to take a punch and go down for the count. While in exile, somewhere east of Egypt Egypt Cleopatra watched and waited looking for the

right opportunity to make her move for the chance to act boldly and swiftly in an effort to take back her throne from her younger brother and

Pothanus. And in 48 BC with the arrival of Julius Caesar in Egypt, the opportunity Cleopatra had been waiting for finally presented itself.

So before we pick back up the narrative of what happened next with Cleopatra.

We need to give some background on and provide some context for Julius Caesar himself

as understanding his life, but more importantly how he came to ultimately arrive in Egypt at this time, is critical to fully understanding Cleopatra's story.

And so I'll use this episode to do just that.

And this exploration of Caesar will be somewhat brief and high level,

as I have big plans at some point for a full series on Julius Caesar and I don't want to dilute that

effort. But as I said background on Caesar is critical to understanding Cleopatra's

story especially given the significance of Caesar's impact on her life and the history

of Egypt as a whole.

And we're also going to touch on Pompey the Great as he plays his own part in this story.

Gaius Julius Caesar was born in 100 B.C.

into a family that had some decent political ties given his father was a Roman

...