Ptolemy XV Caesarion

The son who threatened Octavian's claim

Caesarion was proclaimed co-ruler alongside his mother Cleopatra VII in 44 BCE, and Cleopatra spent the following years promoting him publicly as Julius Caesar's true son and heir, a claim that directly challenged the position of Caesar's adopted heir, Octavian. When Octavian's forces defeated Cleopatra and Mark Antony and closed in on Alexandria in 30 BCE, Caesarion's existence as a rival with a blood claim to Caesar's legacy made him a serious political problem rather than merely a defeated teenage king.

An escape route to India, cut short

As Alexandria fell, Cleopatra sent Caesarion, then about seventeen, toward Ptolemaic territory in Nubia with access to Red Sea ports used for trade with Arabia and India, apparently hoping he could disappear beyond Rome's reach and survive her own defeat. He was persuaded to turn back, reportedly with false promises that Octavian would let him rule Egypt as a client king, and was intercepted and killed on Octavian's orders instead. Ancient sources credit the philosopher Arius Didymus with supplying the justification for the killing, paraphrasing a line from Homer to argue that having two Caesars in the world, meaning Octavian and Caesarion both, was one Caesar too many, and with Caesarion's death the age of pharaonic rule in Egypt ended for good.