When determining which person or event led Xena to become the murderous warlord she once was, there is only one answer... Julius Caesar. His betrayal would be the catalyst to Xena's reign as the Destroyer of Nations. Here we document the history of Roman influence in the Xenaverse.

Caesar is Xena's most long-standing enemy. Early in her career as Warrior Princess she tried to hold Caesar for ransom, only to be betrayed and almost killed by him. Xena has fought him on the battlefield and in more clandestine campaigns, yet he was once her lover. Perhaps it is because she once wanted to love him and join forces with him that Xena, far from rejecting what Caesar represented, chose to become like him after he betrayed her. The episode Destiny identified Xena's early meeting with Caesar as a turning point in her life. After Caesar, she changed from the defender of Amphipolis to the "murdering harlot" first introduced in the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode, The Warrior Princess.

When she first meets Caesar, Xena is still mainly interested in protecting her homeland. Her men bring a captive Roman soldier to her - he is Caesar, not yet famous but with a very high opinion of himself. Xena decides to ransom him, urged on by Caesar's assurance that he will fetch as much as 100,000 dinars.

Fascinated by his lack of fear, Xena is surprised when Caesar explains that he knows it's his destiny to rule the world. On the deck of the ship where Caesar is tied to the mast. Flicking aside a canvas cover, she reveals an unlikely stowaway -- a beautiful young girl who turns out to be a formidable warrior. The girl quickly incapacitates Xena and her lieutenants, Vicerius and Telos, by putting the "pinch" on them. In a spectacular flurry of kicks and blows, she manages to hold off the rest of Xena's men, but is ultimately overwhelmed by their sheer numbers. Xena commands Caesar, who speaks the girl's language, to let her know that her life will be spared if she teaches Xena the secret of the mysterious "pinch." The girl, who is wearing a gold lion-shaped medallion, agrees to show her.

Xena takes Caesar on her pirate ship, where she begins to become fascinated by him. She offers to join forces with him, thus making an "unstoppable team".

When she turns him over to the Romans in exchange for his ransom, they promise to meet again.

Unfortunately, when they do, it is on Caesar's terms. He boards her ship and defeats her men. In chains, Xena and her pirates are taken to a beach to be crucified. As Xena is hoisted up on a cross, Caesar commands his soldier to break her legs with a sledgehammer.

Xena escapes with the help of her friend M'Lila, but Caesar's men hunt her down again, and kill M'Lila. This is the critical moment in Xena's personal history. Xena fights off the Roman soldiers in a rage and declares:

"A new Xena is born tonight, with a new purpose in life: Death".

Rage at Caesar's betrayal leads Xena to her "new purpose in life". Like Callisto, who made herself into a Warrior Queen even more bloodthirsty and dangerous than the Warrior Princess, Xena sets out to become a more ruthless conqueror than Caesar. In Xena's debut on HTLJ, she tries to defeat Hercules by employing tactics similar to those Caesar had used on her.

A Woman's Affections In the HTLJ episode that introduced her, The Warrior Princess, Xena tells her lieutenant, Estragon, "A true warrior would understand that you demoralize and weaken before you destroy".

Xena's approach to demoralizing Hercules is to seduce his best friend, Iolaus, and trick Hercules into killing him. "When Hercules realizes that he's killed his best friend," continues Xena to Estragon, "he'll be ripe for slaughter".

Xena's plan borrows from Caesar in two ways. First, Xena romances Iolaus while planning to kill him, just as Caesar feigned an interest in Xena while planning her betrayal and death.

Second, Xena employs Caesar's divide-and-conquer tactic (Caesar explains this strategy to Gabrielle in "The Deliverer", and tries to use it on Xena and Gabrielle in that episode as well as in "When In Rome…"). Xena separates Hercules and Iolaus in order to destroy both.

Betrayed by Caesar, Xena learns from him to use lust and sex as a weapon. In "The Warrior Princess", Xena motivates her soldiers by holding out the reward of her love. She sends her lieutenant, Theodorus, after Hercules. It is a suicide mission, but he accepts it out of love for her. The episode implies that this "sex-ploitation" of her men and the trivial imparting her affections are tactics she uses frequently.

Crucifixion

"Destiny" presents Xena's crucifixion at the hands of Caesar as the defining moment in her life as a warrior. Caesar's betrayal and torture is what created the "Evil Xena". Again, Xena chooses not to reject but to adopt her enemy's brutal methods.

In "The Warrior Princess", Hercules' first encounter with Xena's work is a field of crucified villagers. Xena and her army have killed every single man in an attack on a village, and the bodies are left pinned on a variety of farm equipment, strewn as far as the eye can see.

This scene is later repeated in the alternative timeline of the HTLJ episode, "Armageddon Now II". Xena, still the evil Warrior Princess in a world without Hercules, has become the tyrant of Corinth. Outside the gates of the city, Iolaus finds fields of the crucified victims of Evil Xena.

Worse yet, in "Armageddon Now II", Evil Xena orders the execution of the rebel Gabrielle, who, in that alternative world, never befriends Xena. Not only does Evil Xena have Gabrielle crucified, but she orders Gabrielle's legs broken.

A Brutal Legacy

Not long after meeting Caesar, Xena's army destroys a village called Cirra. A surviving girl, Callisto, grows up with a purpose in life similar to the post-Caesar Xena's. Like Xena herself, Callisto chooses to model herself on the enemy she longs to destroy. Callisto wants to become a Warrior Queen even nastier than the Warrior Princess she blames for her family's death.

Callisto was born into a simple family in the small village of Cirra. She led a normal, village girl life, growing up with her sister and raised by loving parents. Callisto had no idea that all she knew was about to change, 16 years after she was born. Callisto saw the most horrific site of her life. Xena, the Warrior Princess, came marching in with her army. Callisto watched in terror as her as her kinsmen were killed around her, as Xena's men cut them down one by one. Suddenly, a wave of fire consumed the village and Callisto lost her home, her friends and her family. One of the only survivors, Callisto did not shed a single tear. Her uncle was another survivor and took the girl under his wing. However, Callisto no longer wanted to be a part of the simple village life. She wanted revenge.

Callisto made her debut on XWP in the first season episode "The Greater Good." No longer just the child of Cirra, Callisto had become a heartless monster, eaten away by hatred. She took down Xena with a poison dart and then roamed Greece, attacking villages. She had everyone slaughtered - men, women and children - and had Xena blamed for the deaths. In "Callisto," Xena learned of the woman's presence and they met for the first time. Callisto let Xena know who she was, and let her know, "You made me." Xena's guilt would cloud her judgment throughout the episode even, wanting to let Callisto go. In the end, she didn't kill Callisto, but captured her and sent her to jail. However, this only promised the return of the Warrior Queen. "The right thing to do. That's what they think." The crucifixion motif comes back to haunt Xena. In the episode "Callisto", Xena's new nemesis attacks and destroys villages, crucifying not just the men, but women and children, as well.

She returned in "Return of Callisto," and made a widow of Gabrielle, killing Perdicus before her eyes. This time Xena would not show Callisto mercy, and Xena left her to sink to her death in quicksand. But you can't keep a bad girl dead. With the help of Ares, Callisto was able to enter Xena's dreams. Using her guilt as a door in "Intimate Stranger." She made Xena admit to murdering her and then took over her body. In the body of Callisto, Xena returned to the land of the living, having only one day to return Callisto to Tartarus or she would take her place. Xena brought Callisto to the Underworld and made her face her victims. Callisto remained in Tartarus, her victims making her see what she had done, and what she had become.

Callisto's next appearance was on HTLJ in the episode "Surprise." In this episode Hera promised to make Callisto an Immortal if she killed Hercules (Gods love helping Psycho Barbie). Callisto agreed. She moved quickly, poisoning Hercules' family and friends, forcing the demi-god to help her through the Labyrinth of the Gods, the only place that held the cure for his loved ones, and the way to Callisto's immortality. Yet Hercules was able to trap Callisto in the Labyrinth before returning to save his family. Callisto would not remain in the Labyrinth for long. In "A Necessary Evil" Xena needed the immortal to help her stop the Goddess of Chaos, Velasca. However, the immortal would have some conditions to helping her enemy...

Xena: "My name is Xena. Some call me Warrior Princess. Some call me ‘murderer.' Many years ago, there was a village called Cirra. It was a village just like your's, small and prosperous, full of life ... until the day that my army came ... until the day that I came and destroyed it. Under my orders my men sacked the village, burned the houses and killed every living thing. Everything was destroyed, including the soul of one young, innocent girl who will never be able to reclaim her childhood and will never know what the Fates had planned for her if it weren't for me."

Xena and Gabrielle would later trap Callisto in a lava flow but the Goddess would continue to return and haunt Xena at every opportunity.

We get an inkling of how upsetting Callisto's methods were to Xena in "The Furies" when Xena, plagued with madness, accuses a group of innocent villagers (consisting, ironically, of only women and children) of committing this very atrocity.

In the otherworldly Illusia in "The Bitter Suite", Xena again is confronted with this particular torture as she is hung on a cross and an image of Gabrielle threatens her legs with a sledgehammer.

Better Lessons Fortunately, crucifixion and betrayal were not Caesar's only legacies to Xena. After her reformation, she continues to use some of the techniques the Roman general had used against her. In "Destiny", Caesar takes advantage of his capture by Xena. In convincing her to ask for a huge ransom, he is planning to pad his own pockets. Once he betrays Xena, he uses the ransom money to finance the military exploits that will bring him power in Rome.

Xena too has used being captured for her own ends. In "The Black Wolf", she gives the trick a clever twist by pretending to pretend to be captured. She hires herself out to King Xerxes, claiming she will help find the rebel leader if he puts her in prison with the rebel band. Xena then uses her position in the dungeon to help the rebels escape.

In "The Dirty Half Dozen", Xena also stages her own capture so she can get inside Ares' pawn's fortress.

Xena also uses this technique to get revenge on Caesar. In "When In Rome...", Xena stages an assassination attempt on Caesar. He throws her in jail, where Gabrielle is waiting for her with Vercinix, the Celtic hero they have come to Rome to rescue. Once inside jail, the Warrior Princess naturally has little trouble getting her friends out.

Conclusion Xena emerges from her first tangle with Caesar a changed woman. She hates him, but chooses to be like him...or worse than him. Her campaign of terror borrows Caesar's own tactics. Years later, Callisto follows the same path, modeling herself on her hated rival, hence also following in Caesar's brutal footsteps. Xena's crucifixion in particular continues to haunt her. Yet, Xena has also been able to put some of Caesar's lessons to a better use and even use them against him. Xena has learned to use such tactics not to emulate Caesar, but to thwart him.

By his next appearance, in “A Good Day”, Xena seems much less 'personal' in her response to Caesar. This time he is simply an opponent in war. She plays Caesar and Pompey off one another to save Greece from conquest. This time Xena's defense of her homeland did not lead her down the path to tyranny. She has long since stopped trying to be a more brutal general than Caesar. She is instead a smarter one.

The final chapter in the Caesar story is on the Ides of March where, after being somewhat influenced by Xena’s own divide and conquer tactics, Brutus and members of the senate assassinate the would be Emperor.

Unfortunately, this day also marks the crucifixion of Xena & Gabrielle. But fortunately for the duo, their destiny was yet to be fulfilled. But this would be the end to Caesar’s involvement in Xena and Gabrielle’s lives.