Ptolemy XV Caesarion

Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, known by the diminutive Caesarion, was the son of Cleopatra VII and, by her declaration, of Julius Caesar. He was born in 47 BC, in the period following Caesar's intervention in the Alexandrian dynastic war. Caesar never formally acknowledged the boy in his will, and Roman opinion on the paternity was divided; Antony later asserted before the Senate that Caesar had recognised the child, while Octavian's partisans denied the connection.

Caesarion's public role began early. After the death of Cleopatra's brother and co-ruler Ptolemy XIV in 44 BC, the queen elevated her infant son as co-regent, making him the nominal king of Egypt alongside her. The arrangement continued the Ptolemaic custom of joint rule within the family while ensuring that real authority remained with Cleopatra. His position acquired wider significance at the Donations of Alexandria in 34 BC, when Marcus Antonius proclaimed him King of Kings and, according to Roman sources, affirmed him as Caesar's true son, an implicit challenge to Octavian, whose claim to power rested on his status as Caesar's adopted heir.

That challenge sealed the boy's fate. After the defeat at Actium in 31 BC and the fall of Alexandria in 30 BC, Cleopatra sent the teenage Caesarion south with his tutor, reportedly intending that he should escape by way of the Red Sea coast toward India. Following his mother's death, he was lured back, and Octavian ordered his execution. Plutarch attributes to the philosopher Arius Didymus the remark that it was not good to have too many Caesars, advice said to have confirmed Octavian's decision.

Caesarion was about seventeen when he died. With him ended the male line of the Ptolemies and the dynasty itself, two hundred and seventy-five years after Ptolemy I took the royal title. His half-siblings, Cleopatra's children by Antony, were spared and raised in Rome in the household of Octavia. Though he never ruled in fact, Caesarion's existence had carried real political weight: a living son of Caesar on the throne of Egypt was a possibility that the first Roman emperor declined to leave in the world.