THE REAL STORY
Handel’s opera features two of the most famous characters in history: the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, and Roman General, Julius Caesar. The story of their lives have been retold and adapted numerous times in opera, theatre, literature, film, and visual art. Handel and Haym portrayed them in Giulio Cesare as citizens of the 18th century, when ancient Roman and Egyptian history was critical knowledge for educated young men, and the history of the Roman Empire was often used as a frame of reference for contemporary political debates. Though their anachronistic lens affected how the characters were crafted, Handel and Haym more or less stayed true to history.
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The Great Roman Civil War lasted from 4945 B.C. Before becoming an empire, Rome was a Republic, the Roman government albeit mismanaged by nobles and political influencers. Three men, Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, formed the First Triumvirate to combat the mismanaged government. However, when Crassus was killed, Pompey retracted his allegiance to this rebellion. Caesar—with armies at his disposal, having just conquered Gaul—crossed the Rubicon River separating his province, Gaul, from Rome. Marching on Rome, the war between Caesar and Pompey began and sparked political struggles across the Roman Empire, which included in modern day Italy, Africa, Greece, and Spain. Prior to the events told in Giulio Cesare, Pompey was defeated at the Battle of Pharsalus in Greece and fled to Egypt, unaware that King Ptolmey was in the midst of his own struggle for power with his sister, Queen Cleopatra.
continuing the war on his land, King Ptolmey has Pompey killed. The battle of Alexandria and The Battle of the Nile unfold, which secures Caesar and Cleopatra’s infamy as rulers of great ancient civilizations. Caesar apparently was at first a proponent of Cleopatra sharing her rule with her brother, that is until the risk of his life became so great it required him to obtain a foothold in Egypt. And, though Cornelia’s son Sextus gets his revenge in the opera; historically, King Ptolmey dies by drowning in the Nile, not by assassination.
From here the events of the opera unfold: to exert dominance and to avoid Pompey and Caesar
Handel and Haym took liberties while adapting the story to maximize conflict, and thus, the
THE REAL STORY
Painting, Caesar and Cleopatra, Jean Leon Gerome, 1866.
