Rome and Egypt, 100–30 BC

The Event Register

Reference codes read source . work . passage — so 9.1.83 is source 9 (Suetonius), work 1 (Divus Julius), chapter 83. Every code links to its entry in the source register below, and every register entry carries its number. The register cites the earliest attestation, not the most familiar one. Green M1 chips link to the section of Caesar, to the Ides covering the event. Dashed chart markers carry an approximate or disputed date; where the window is wide enough to draw at this scale, an error bar shows it. Narrower windows live in the data layer.

The Source Register

Every surviving source for the period, ordered by when it was written — then the sources that are missing, listed with the same seriousness. Numbers are master register numbers — permanent across the whole timelines project; the full register lives at the master source register. The pattern the ordering shows: contemporary material is either by participants on the Roman side, or in Egyptian stone; the earliest surviving connected narrative was written by a client of the victor; the fullest narratives are 150 to 270 years after the events.

Surviving sources

1. 1 · Julius Caesar and his officers — written 48–45 BC, contemporary, participants. Survives complete; ends before the events of 44.1.1 Civil War · 1.2 Alexandrian War (continuation by his officers) — no stable public edition to link
2. 2 · Cicero — 46–43 BC, contemporary, senior participant. Cleopatra in Rome (“reginam odi,” 2.1.15.15), her departure (2.1.14.8), the Lupercalia (2.2.2.84–87), the charge that Antony forged entries in Caesar’s acta (2.2.1). Never mentions the Cinna bill — the silence is noted and weighed in Memo 1.2.1 Letters to Atticus · 2.2 Philippics · 2.3 De Divinatione
3. 3 · Cleopatra VII — 33 BC, contemporary, the queen’s own chancery. One Greek word, ginesthō (“let it be so”), subscribed on a royal ordinance papyrus — the entire surviving output of her side in anything possibly her own hand.3.1 Papyrus subscription, 33 BC — no stable public edition to link
4. 4 · The Egyptian stone record — contemporary and official, the only substantial body of evidence for Caesarion outside the reach of the Roman victor’s editing.4.1 Serapeum birth stele, Memphis · 4.2 Armant mammisi cartouches (recorded by Napoleon’s savants and later travellers; demolished 1861–62) · 4.3 Dendera reliefs (standing) · 4.4 Bronze coinage with the infant · 4.5 Egyptian regnal dating — stone, coin and dating record; no single edition to link
5. 5 · Nicolaus of Damascus — ~20s BC, tutor to Cleopatra’s children, afterwards client of Herod and of Augustus. The earliest surviving connected account of the assassination; survives in fragments; written inside the victor’s patronage network by a man who had served the other side.5.1 Life of Augustus (fragments)
6. 6 · Augustus — completed AD 14, the victor’s own official account, inscribed across the empire. Actium and the taking of Egypt are claimed (6.1.25–27); Antony and Cleopatra are never once named.6.1 Res Gestae Divi Augusti
7. 7 · Velleius Paterculus — ~AD 30, army officer under Tiberius. Brief loyalist compendium.7.1 Roman History
8. 8 · Plutarch — ~AD 100–120, some 150 years after. Greek biographer using earlier sources now lost, including Asinius Pollio and, for Cleopatra’s death, her physician Olympos. The Lupercalia scene, the Donations, “too many Caesars.”8.1 Caesar · 8.2 Antony · 8.3 Brutus
9. 9 · Suetonius — ~AD 121, imperial secretary to Hadrian with access to the archives. The will (9.1.83), the Cinna bill (9.1.52.3), the Oppius pamphlet (9.1.52.2), the funeral and Cinna’s death (9.1.85).9.1 Divus Julius · 9.2 Divus Augustus
10. 10 · Appian — ~AD 150s, Alexandrian Greek in Roman service, drawing on Pollio. The statue in Venus Genetrix (10.1.2.102), the funeral, the triumviral wars.10.1 Civil Wars
11. 11 · Cassius Dio — ~AD 200–230, some 250 years after, Roman senator writing in Greek. The fullest connected narrative; the Sibylline report “whether true or false” (11.1.44.15); the fate of the statue (11.1.51.22); the end in Alexandria (11.1.51.10–15).11.1 Roman History

Missing sources

Nothing in this list links out: these works are lost — their absence is the entry.

12. 12 · Caesar’s private papers and the acta — secured by Antony from Calpurnia on the evening of 15 March 44; contested at the time (Cicero’s forgery charge, 2.2.1). Not one document survives.
13. 13 · The drafted Cinna bill — attested only at 9.1.52.3; its carrier was killed on 20 March 44 and the text is never heard of again.
14. 14 · Cleopatra’s archive — the entire chancery, correspondence and any memoirs of a reigning literate monarch of twenty-one years: nothing survives beyond 3.1. The largest single silence in the record.
15. 15 · Gaius Oppius, the paternity pamphlet — the book denying Caesar’s paternity of Caesarion, commissioned into the record (attested 9.1.52.2), then itself lost; known only from its citation.
16. 16 · Asinius Pollio, Histories — written by a commander who fought these wars, the acknowledged backbone of Plutarch and Appian. Lost entirely.
17. 17 · Livy, books 109–133 — the Augustan-era narrative of 49–30 BC. Lost; survives only as one-line summaries (Periochae).
18. 18 · Augustus, De vita sua — his memoirs in thirteen books. Lost; its account shaped the surviving tradition before disappearing.

Memos for This Period

Held as references, per the stream rule — the arguments live in the memos; the timeline states only what is attested and by whom.

1. Caesar, to the Ides — Part 1 of the series: the life to 15 March 44 BC, from the record
2. The Julii: From Troy to the Ides — the family volume, on its own family timeline