As to his _liaisons_ with women, the handsome, brilliant Caesar, surrounded by a halo of military glory, must have been a Paladin of romance to any woman who had a capacity of admiration in her. His own distaste for gluttony and hard drinking, and for the savage amusements in which the male Romans so much delighted, may have made the society of cultivated ladies more agreeable to him than that of men, and if he showed any such preference the coarsest interpretation would be inevitably placed upon it. These relations, perhaps, in so loose an age assumed occasionally a more intimate form; but it is to be observed that the first public act recorded of Caesar was his refusal to divorce his wife at Sylla's bidding; that he was passionately attached to his sister; that his mother, Aurelia, lived with him till she died, and that this mother was a Roman matron of the strictest and severest type. Many names were mentioned in connection with him, yet there is no record of any natural child save Brutus, and one other whose claims were denied and disproved. Two intrigues, it may be said, are beyond dispute. His connection with the mother of Brutus was notorious. Cleopatra, in spite of Oppius, was living with him in his house at the time of his murder. That it was so believed a hundred years after his death is, of course, indisputable; but in both these cases the story is entangled with legends which show how busily imagination had been at work. Brutus was said to be Caesar's son, though Caesar was but fifteen when he was born; and Brutus, though he had the temper of an Orestes, was devotedly attached to his mother in spite of the supposed adultery, and professed to have loved Caesar when he offered him as a sacrifice to his country's liberty. Cleopatra is said to have joined Caesar at Rome after his return from Spain, and to have resided openly with him as his mistress. Supposing that she did come to Rome, it is still certain that Calpurnia was in Caesar's house when he was killed. Cleopatra must have been Calpurnia's guest as well as her husband's; and her presence, however commented upon in society, could not possibly have borne the avowed complexion which tradition assigned to it. On the other hand, it is quite intelligible that the young Queen of Egypt, who owed her position to Caesar, might have come, as other princes came, on a visit of courtesy, and that Caesar after their acquaintance at Alexandria should have invited her to stay with him. But was Cleopatra at Rome at all? The only real evidence for her presence there is to be found in a few words of Cicero: "Reginae fuga mihi non molesta."--"I am not sorry to hear of the flight of the queen." [2] There is nothing to show that the "queen" was the Egyptian queen. Granting that the word Egyptian is to be understood, Cicero may have referred to Arsinoë, who was called Queen as well as her sister, and had been sent to Rome to be shown at Caesar's triumph.