WI: Lost Daughter of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra

[Velasco]

In May 44 Cicero wrote to a friend indicating that Cleopatra (then in Rome) was pregnant with Caesar's child:

I am grieved to hear of Tertia's loss of an expected child...(but) I should be glad of such a loss in the case of the queen (Cleopatra) and that [expected] scion of the breed of Caesar.​

There is also a coin of Cleopatra's which shows her suckling a child, usually interpreted to be Caesarion, and marked 'Kupr' (Cyprus). It seems to be that Cleopatra only acquired control of Cyprus c.43BC, at which time Caesarion (born in 47BC) would be too old to be a suckling infant.

Fast forward a few years and Augustus arranges the marriage of Cleopatra Selene (daughter of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra) with King Juba of Mauretania. At around the same time he gives an Italian slave girl called Thermusa (Thea Musa) or Thea Urania to King Phraates IV of Parthia, a far more important ruler than Juba.

Thea Musa/Urania became Phraates IV's chief queen, eventually murdering him and replacing him with their son Phraataces. She married her son and ruled with him for about six years (2BC-4AD), until they got deposed. Parthian texts list Phraates' wives as Olieniere, Bistheibanaps, Baseirta and Cleopatra.

A generation later King Ptolemy of Mauretania (born in 1AD) married a princess called Julia Urania. He was raised in Rome and was there until 22AD, after which he returned to Africa. We can therefore assume Julia Urania was in Rome. Their daughter Drusilla was born c.38AD.

A few points to consider:

1. If Cleopatra had a daughter with Julius Caesar, why was she ignored during the Donations of Alexandria?

2. If Thea Musa Urania was an Italian slave girl, why did Augustus consider her the best gift possible to King Phraates? What are the chances of a whore/slave being considered a worthy consort of the Parthian King of Kings? And would Phraates have put aside his royal wives - traditionally his own sisters - to marry a foreign slave?

3. If Thea Musa Urania was an Italian slave girl, why does she have the names of Greek royalty? The Ptolemaic queens were devoted to Aphrodite Urania ("Heavenly Urania"), who was also the ancestral goddess of Julius Caesar (as Venus Genetrix). Cleopatra identified herself both as Isis (Queen of Heaven) and Aphrodite; in the Dendera temple reliefs she appears as Isis-Aphrodite holding her son Horus-Eros (Caesarion). If we identify her with the otherwise random wife of Phraates called Cleopatra, Cleopatra Thea Musa/Urania (Cleopatra the Heavenly Goddess?) makes for a perfect fit for a Ptolemaic royal name - see her mother's name of Cleopatra Tryphaena Thea Neotera (Tryphaena the Younger Godess), and siblings Alexander Helios (Alexander "Sun") and Cleopatra Selene (Cleopatra "Moon").

4. If Thea Musa Urania was an Italian slave girl, would she have had the audacity to murder her royal husband and marry her own son? Perhaps years in power made her bold, but such incest was completely abhorrent to Romans of any class. Likewise female rule was completely unknown in Italy. On the other hand, such incest was completely acceptable - even preferred - by the Ptolemaic line, as was the sharing of power between incestous royal couples. Cleopatra and Caesarion were associated on the throne as ceremonial consorts, she as the senior ruler he as the junior. If Thea Musa Urania was Cleopatra's daughter, her descent from Alexander The Great/the Seleucids would have more than validated her as a worthy consort for King Phraates and later on as Queen of Asia in her own right.

5. If Julia Urania was a daughter of Thea Musa Urania, she is the obvious bride for King Ptolemy. The last remaining scions of the "pure" Ptolemaic line desperately wanting to perpetuate their divine lineage. The Roman name Julia relates to women of the gens Julia, perhaps a reference to her grandfather Julius Caesar? (Around this time naming rules for women became more lax and names from mothers and grandmothers started to be added to names taken from father). If she was a princess from Emessa as has sometimes been conjectured, 'Heavenly Julia' would not a) have any reason to be in Rome b) have any reason to be preferred bride for Ptolemy. Surely his mother would have encouraged him to marry to one of the eastern royal houses who did have Ptolemaic blood, albeit a bit more distantly?​

Any thoughts, ideas, speculation welcome.

Bust of Thea Musa Urania

Bust of Queen Cleopatra - look at that nose

 

[High Plains Drifter]

Really interesting stuff. Great conjecture. Would make for a good story explaining how an offspring of Caesar's got 'lost' in Rome, but not so lost that Augustus couldn't use her as a diplomatic chit years later.

 

[Velasco]

Really interesting stuff. Great conjecture. Would make for a good story explaining how an offspring of Caesar's got 'lost' in Rome, but not so lost that Augustus couldn't use her as a diplomatic chit years later.

It would...it'd be even better if it was found to be true . Not exactly solid evidence but the fact the noses on the busts look so much alike is making me wonder if there's any truth to this at all...also trying to find out if there's any precedent for slaves having such lofty names (in Greek!) like Heavenly Goddess and so on.

 

[ralphellis]

Really interesting stuff.

Yes indeed, quite interesting - and all exactly the same as the arguments I made in my book 'Cleopatra to Christ', published back in 2006.

But my arguments went much further than this, and showed many similarities between this story and the biblical style accounts.

This has been followed by the latest book 'Jesus, King of Edessa', which again demonstrates that the biblical family was descended from Queen Thea Muse Ourania (Thermusa). However, this book demonstrates that after their eviction from Parthia in AD 4, they set up a new city state in Edessa, Syria. A son of this royal line was Jesus, and there is a great deal of evidence to prove that speculation.


Ralph

 

[Magnum]

Yes indeed, quite interesting - and all exactly the same as the arguments I made in my book 'Cleopatra to Christ', published back in 2006.

But my arguments went much further than this, and showed many similarities between this story and the biblical style accounts.

This has been followed by the latest book 'Jesus, King of Edessa', which again demonstrates that the biblical family was descended from Queen Thea Muse Ourania (Thermusa). However, this book demonstrates that after their eviction from Parthia in AD 4, they set up a new city state in Edessa, Syria. A son of this royal line was Jesus, and there is a great deal of evidence to prove that speculation.


Ralph

you serious dude ?

 

[Jammy]

He isn't joking, i just found it on amazon

 

[ralphellis]

He isn't joking, i just found it on amazon

Indeed, quite serious.

The biblical story is about a royal family (Jesus was King of the Jews) who were on a journey in Syrio-Judaea, in a state of some poverty, in AD 4, who were visited by the Persian Magi (the Persian priests and king-makers). Clearly, Jesus must have had Persian blood for the Magi to have had an interest.

In the historical record, we find the same situation. Queen Thea Muse Ourania,
who was just discussed was a daughter of Cleopatra, was thrown out of Parthia in AD 4 and travelled to Syria with an assortment of courtiers and soldiers. Thus we have the same story. Thea Muse was a royal, on a journey, in a state of some poverty, in AD 4, whose child or grandchild would have been of great interest to the Persian Magi (since she had been queen of Parthia).

This is the Nativity story.

But who was Thea Musa in the later records? In reality, these are the royal family from Adiabene (King Izates and Queen Helena), with Queen Helena being the daughter. They were all royals from Parthia. In addition, the short name of Izates was Izas, and so King Izas and King Jesus shared a common title.


However, the trouble with all these characters from Adiabene is that they are literary apparitions in the works of Josephus Flavius. And so even if Jesus was Izas of Adiabene, that really does not tell us too much.

But after much further research, it appears that King Monobazus and King Izas were actually King Abgarus and King Manu of Edessa. And we know this for many reasons, but the most obvious is that according to the Syriac historians Queen Helena married both King Monobazus and King Abgar.

So we now know that the royal family of Adiabene is the same as the royal family of Edessa. But if King Jesus was King Izas of Adiabene, then he must also have been King Manu of Edessa.

Indeed he was. This is why Math 1:23 calls Jesus Emmanuel, because the gospel authors were laughing at us. They knew full well that King Jesus was called King Manu, and so they gave him the name Em-Manu-El. It was a little in-joke for the initiated, while the million of uninitiated Muggles had no clue who their hero figure was (but still believed in him anyway).

But now we do know who he was. He was King Manu VI of Edessa, who led the Jewish Revolt against Rome in the AD 60s (according to Josephus). This was the real revolution that the gospels mention, when they say that Jesus was crucified along with rebels in a Revolution.

The gospel accounts are a true story, but they actually relate the traumatic events of the Jewish Revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem. But so deft was the retelling of this story, and its relocation into the AD 30s, that the true history it relates has remained hidden for 2,000 years.

But now Pandora's biblical box has been opened, and it will be very difficult for the Catholic Church to stuff it all back in again, without a lot of people noticing.


.

 

[freivolk]

Oh dear, the newest "real" Jesus comes to shatter Christanity as we know it. Must be Thursday.

 

[Dom]

Spam

This site is not a vessel to advertise your own works, especially if those works claim to have discovered a long hidden secret history.

Since you have made 2 posts in total on this site since joining, both of them in a thread months old, i'm guessing you have no other reason to be here.

Banned.

 

[Zireael]

Well, I would say I would be very interesting in reading a TL featuring the lost girl of Cleo's. Especially if it would be written by Velasco.

 

[euromellows]

This is a fascinating idea but if true how could it be suppressed so thoroughly leading us only to conjecture, albeit very interesting conjecture.

 

[Velasco]

This is a fascinating idea but if true how could it be suppressed so thoroughly leading us only to conjecture, albeit very interesting conjecture.

I have no idea, but on the other hand Cleopatra also had two sons by her exceptional alliance with Mark Antony - uncles to the future emperor Claudius - who completely disappear from record after being featured in Augustus' triumph. They also had multiple siblings from Antony's first marriage to the daughter of a freedman, none of whom appear in the historical record.

Anyway - reason for bumping the thread. It seems as a name Musa might be the same/interchangeable with Nysa or Nyssa, and therefore should be interpreted not as in the sense of a Hellenistic royal sobriquet ("the Muse") but as a proper name, with the 'Thea' and 'Urania' being like the 'Thea' and 'Philadelphos' which flesh out the nomenclature of her kinswoman Laodice Thea Philadelphos, for example. In the generations preceding Cleopatra the name appears several times among the Cappadocian-Bithynian-Pontic nexus of royal relations, but all deriving from the same source: a Seleucid princess by that name. Considering the almost excessive number of Seleucid queens known as Laodike, I wonder if perhaps some other Musas/Nysas adopted the more prestigious name upon donning the consort's crown (highlighting their new position of dynastic matriarch) while the Bithynians etc were happy to perpetuate the name as a declaration of their Seleucid heritage. A situation perhaps analogous to this might be observed among the Ptolemies, where upon succession 'Ptolemy' and 'Cleopatra' were so associated with the crown that personal (and still dynastic) names like Alexander, Alexas, Apion, Berenike, Tryphaena, Selene...took second place.

Interestingly Cleopatra's father Ptolemy Auletes and her uncle Ptolemy of Cyprus were betrothed to daughters of Mithridates VI of Pontus - one of whom was called Nysa. No indication whether they had issue, or even whether they married, but for all we know said Nysa could even be her mother or an aunt, queen consort of Cyprus.

Thus we have Cleopatra with a son, Ptolemy Kaisarion, whose name points to his mixed Ptolemaic and Julian heritage, and a daughter, Musa Ourania, whose name points to Seleucid ancestry and to Aphrodite Ourania (from whom the Julii family claimed descent and who was said to be the source of the power of Aeneas' race (the Romans)).

Thoughts on plausibility, logic..?

 

[Zireael]

I like this idea a LOT.