Julius Caesar: The Making of a Dictator

Narrator: The ritual sacrifice is overseen by one of the sacred order of priestesses, the Vestal Virgins.

Pandey: Everybody who was anyone in Roman elite society who was also female would be part of the ceremony.

So, there's a lot of pressure on his household to perform the ceremony right, to perform it well so that the gods that take care of Rome will be placated.

Suddenly, the word comes to Aurelia that a mysterious stranger has entered disguised as a harp player.

It turns out this is a man in drag trying to sneak into the house of Caesar as pontifex maximus.

Narrator: It's a serious violation.

The women go home, and gossip about Caesar and his wife spreads like wildfire.

The man who had desecrated the rites of the Bona Dea by going into Caesar's house had, it was said-- this is the rumor that is buzzing round Rome-- had been conducting an affair with Caesar's wife.

This is not the kind of thing that a Roman man wants to have said about him.

If he can't control his women, if he can't control his family, it would reflect very, very badly on the pontifex maximus.

Narrator: This is a scandal that Caesar could do without.

To minimize the damage, he's willing to sacrifice his marriage.

If there's one thing that Caesar hates, it's the idea that people might be laughing at him.

He doesn't want to seem a figure of ridicule.

So, what he does is brilliantly ruthless, brilliantly witty.

He proclaims that he is going to divorce his wife not because she had actually been conducting affair, but because, as he puts it, Caesar's wife must be above suspicion.

Pandey: There is no way that young Julia could have been unaware of the trouble that this scandal causes for her family.

Julia fully recognizes the responsibility that falls on her shoulders, not just to be a good wife, to be beyond suspicion in her own marriage, but also to ensure that she's protecting the Julian family name.

Caesar's entire genetic future and some of his political future are going to rest on little Julia's shoulders.