Affairs to remember

Whatever the jibes of his enemies, Caesar seduced a lot of people

Caesar was implicated in a string of adulterous affairs at the highest level: they included Postumia, wife of Sulpicius; Lollia, wife of Aulus Gabinius, Tertulla, wife of Marcus Crassus; Mucia, Pompey’s wife. Servilia Caepionis, though was different – the woman he loved, according to Suetonius, and mother of Marcus Brutus. He lavished a six million sesterces pearl on her and sold off some properties to her on the cheap; the price, according to a madly punning Cicero, was discounted by one third because Servilia was allegedly prostituting Tertia, her daughter, to Caesar. The armies, too, were up to speed on his adultery in Gaul: ‘Men of Rome, watch your wives; we’re bringing home the bald-headed adulterer. In Gaul you f**ked your way through a fortune, which you borrowed here in Rome’. Foreign queens were amongst his conquests; they included Eunoe of Mauretania and, of course, Cleopatra VII of Egypt.