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Plate 9 Cleopatra. Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor) is crowned Queen of Egypt, as Julius
Caesar (Rex Harrison) looks on approvingly. Courtesy of 20th Century Fox/
The Kobal Collection.
where Cleopatra tries to rouse Caesar to take up the great warrior’s vision
of world unity: “Make his dream yours, Caesar.” She tells him the child
she now carries will be a symbol of the new unified world. The childless
Caesar is overjoyed at the prospect of being a father and delays his return
to Rome. An Egyptian priestess predicts the child will be a son, clad in
“cloth of gold.”
Rumors have reached Rome that Caesar has married the Egyptian queen
who is expecting his child. Mark Antony visits Caesar’s barren wife,
Calpurnia, to allay her fears, but he cannot deny the truth of the stories. In
Alexandria, Cleopatra’s son is born. When her maid sets the child at
Caesar’s feet as instructed by the queen, Caesar picks him up, thereby
acknowledging him as his own according to Roman law. He gives the child,
Caesarion, the necklace with Pompey’s ring. Back at Rome, the senators
discuss what this new royal son might mean for Caesar’s ambitions. An
anxious Cicero thinks Caesar plans to seize imperial power. Brutus claims
124 CLEOPATRA (1963)