She sees Caesar as, like herself, a god in human form, and thus worthy of breeding into the Ptolemaic dynasty. He does, however, stick around long enough to sire a son on her - which Cleopatra credits with ending the Nile’s drought. Caesar tries to impress better form on her, but it doesn’t seem to take. No, she’s small, profoundly ugly, obsessed with her family’s bloodlines, and a completely impulsive ruler. He determines to set things right in Egypt, mostly to recover some debts another Ptolemy owed to Rome and to secure the grain trade, but also because he’s intrigued by Queen/Pharaoh Cleopatra - who is not, by McCullough’s depiction, the stuff of legend. Caesar tracks him there, finds out what happened, and decides that he really doesn’t have any patience for this Ptolemaic nonsense. It begins well enough, very nearly where Caesar left off, following Pompey’s death in Egypt. The October Horse is, I would say, the weakest of the series thus far, and it particularly suffers after (er, spoiler alert?) Caesar’s death. Title: The October Horse (Masters of Rome #6)
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