While Rome was made to wait, Caesar indulged his carnal desires and enjoyed a relaxing, five-star holiday. So rather than take the next steps in consolidating his power, he opted instead for a month-long Nile cruise, in the company of his mistress, Cleopatra, who was by then heavily pregnant with his child, Caesarion. But he needed a vacation-and was hopelessly in love. What is more, a thousand miles away from the Nile delta in Rome itself, Caesar’s control was still provisional at best. Indeed, Pompey’s son would not finally be defeated until 35 BCE, almost a decade after Caesar’s own assassination. The loss of the leader did not necessarily mean the loss of the cause.

True, many of Pompey’s supporters were still under arms. Caesar himself had safely escaped from the palace in Alexandria where he had been besieged by Ptolemy’s forces.

The internecine fighting in Egypt, which was in effect another civil war between the young queen Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy, had been crushed. His main rival and erstwhile ally, Pompey the Great, had been decapitated-and Caesar had even managed to produce some tears when the head was brought to him. The civil wars that would make him sole ruler of Rome were drawing to a close. The scholar will find much to admire in this book, but, better still, the newcomer to ancient Rome will turn its pages with excitement, enlightenment - and sheer narrative suspense.In the spring of 47 BCE, Julius Caesar took a Nile cruise. takes the reader through every dizzying thrill and spill. This book will captivate listeners discovering Caesar and ancient Rome for the first time as well as those who have a deep interest in the classical world. In this splendid biography, Freeman presents Julius Caesar in all his dimensions and contradictions. Eventually he was murdered in one of the most famous assassinations in history. He was a spokesman for the ordinary people of Rome, who rallied around him time and again, but he profited enormously from his conquests and lived opulently. He made alliances with his rivals and then discarded them when it suited him. Born into a noble family that had long been in decline, he advanced his career cunningly, beginning as a priest and eventually becoming Rome's leading general. He possessed great courage, ambition, honor, and vanity. Julius Caesar was a complex man, both hero and villain. But, as Philip Freeman describes in this fascinating new biography, Caesar was also a brilliant orator, an accomplished writer, a skilled politician, and much more. He is best known as the general who defeated the Gauls and doubled the size of Rome's territories.

He shaped Rome for generations, and his name became a synonym for 'emperor'-not only in Rome but as far away as Germany and Russia. More than two thousand years after his death, Julius Caesar remains one of the great figures of history.

Julius caesar by philip freeman