<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Xena: Warrior Princess Character
Julius Caesar
Status	Deceased
Gender	Male
Species	Human
Origin	Rome
Portrayed by	Karl Urban
First Appearance	"Destiny"
Profession	Ruler of Rome
Relatives
Special Features

Gaius Julius Caesar is a villain on the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess. In history, Caesar is a controversial figure, a Roman politician who attempted to eradicate the selfishness and corruption in the Roman Senate to the benefit of the people but nevertheless used unorthodox methods- including such eyebrow-raising actions as leading a rebellion against the Republic and allowing himself to be named Dictator "for life". On this show, however, Caesar is portrayed as a purely power-hungry monster with no interest in championing the needs of the peasants and lacking all other redeeming qualities his historical counterpart had. Xena harbours a special hatred for him because he betrayed her early on in her career as a warlord.

Caesar's Clashes with the Warrior Princess

Xena first met Caesar when she and her pirate band captured him near Macedonia. Caesar managed to turn the tables on her, seducing her by promising to band with her once his ransom had been paid and he had been returned to his people. Upon his reunion with Xena, however, he had his men capture Xena and her pirate army and crucified them all. Xena escaped, but as a result she became fully evil in her hatred for him.

Xena's next encounter with him was in season three, roughly 10-15 years later. Caesar had been campaigning against the Britons on the island of Britannia, and Xena was coaxed there through her hatred of Caesar by a duplicitous follower of the evil god Dahak. Caesar's chief opponent there was Boadicea, an old adversary of Xena's, who nevertheless allied herself with warrior princess in the face of their common enemy. Caesar managed to capture Xena's companion, Gabrielle, however, and this inadvertently lead to the loss of her innocence in the Temple of Dahak. Xena was forced to leave the battlefield to try to save Gabrielle, so the outcome of Caesar's clash with Boadicea was never revealed. It can be presumed, however, that, like his real-life namesake, Caesar was ultimately unsuccessful in Britannia, and so he returned his attentions to Gaul. Later on Caesar succeeded in capturing the Gallic leader, Vercinix, who he took back to Rome for his Triumph. Xena, however, managed to foil his plans by secretly switching Vercinix with Caesar's fellow Triumvir, Marcus Licinius Crassus, who was virtually unrecognisable to the Roman public, just before his execution, forcing Caesar to execute him instead. Without Crassus to act as a buffer, the tensions between Caesar and his remaining Triumvir, Pompey Magnus, were permitted to rise to a boil, sparking a civil war between the two.

In season four, Caesar and Pompey's armies met in Greece. Xena arrived on the scene and fooled both armies into wiping each other out, stalling the conflict. When Marcus Junius Brutus and Pompey clashed with the Amazons, Xena killed Pompey while Gabrielle reconciled with Brutus, giving him a peace treaty for Caesar to sign. When Caesar burned the treaty, Brutus began to doubt Caesar's good intentions. Caesar then made plans to become king of Rome. Later on Caesar ordered Brutus to escort a group of religious cultists- Gabrielle among them- to a prison where he promised they wouldn't be harmed. But when Caesar ordered their crucifixion, Brutus felt completely betrayed by Caesar, and lead a successful movement to assassinate Caesar before he could declare himself king.

Caesar made a brief return in season six when he escaped Tartarus and messed with the loom of the Fates, undoing everything that happened since he first met Xena. An alternate world was thus created where Caesar was Emperor of Rome and Xena was his Empress. However, due to an absurd immediate attraction between the alternate Xena and Gabrielle, as well as the interference of the irritating shamaness Alti, the world became unstable, and everything broke apart.

Xena's Historical Legacy

Caesar was the first element added to the show which gave it a more solid historical context, and while this made things interesting, it spawned a wave of absurd historical inaccuracies which the show became notorious for, adding weight to the idea that Xena exists in an alternate universe from our own.