10-25-2005, 01:50 PM
Caesar was infertile in the only sense important to Romans (or to almost any other culture prior to modern times): he had no living son. Daughters didn't count for much, and after at least three marriages we know about, he must have looked like pretty much a hopeless case to his contemporaries. Knowing (or at least thinking) that he had a son by Cleopatra must have boosted his morale, but he knew that the Romans would never accept the son of a foreign queen as consular material, and he adopted Octavian in his will, which as far as I know never mentioned Caesarion. That didn't save him, though. Octavian knew better than to leave alive any rival who might claim Caesar's mantle (as he had).
Pecunia non olet