"figure called Jesus Christ" would have been "invented" and given a "life modeled on that of Julius Caesar", and "why there should be four versions of the career of Jesus". Latinist Maria Wyke called Carotta's views "eccentric" and described the connections between Caesar and Jesus listed by him as "sweeping and often superficial parallels, however detailed and justified at book length". Spanish philologist Antonio Piñero called Carotta's reading of the Gospel as a diegetic transposition an "ingenious exercise" but also noted several methodological shortcomings which made the theory "completely implausible". Expanded theory and other works During a 2008 lecture and in a subsequent article Carotta presented an extension of his theory, which interprets the Gospel as a diegetic transposition (see above). In 2009 Carotta wrote an article in which he supported the arguments for the authenticity of the so-called Orpheos Bakkikos, a supposedly syncretistic early Christian amulet showing the Crucifixion of Christ. Carotta postulates that the lost amulet showed the funerary wax effigy of Caesar, presented on a tropaeum. In a 2011 article Carotta argued for a restitution of the Liberalia (17 March) as the correct date of Caesar's funeral ceremony, and for a dismissal of the chronology developed by 19th century German scholars. In a 2012 book containing earlier and new articles he argued that Fulvia was the mother of Christianity and possibly the author of the ur-gospel. Carotta argues that the number 666 in the Book of Revelation refers to Cleopatra. In a specialized article that appeared recently - Die ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΙΣ ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ als Palimpsest der Taten Octavians, "The Apocalypse of John, as a Palimpsest of Octavian's Deeds" - obsolete historical assumptions (Nero, Domitian, etc.) are rejected by showing that only CLEOPATRA explains all three variants found in the manuscripts: 616, 666 and 665. ΚΛΕΟΠΑΤΡΑ Θ(εα) – Κ' 20 + Λ' 30 + Ε' 5 + Ο' 70 + Π' 80 + Α' 1 + Τ' 300 + Ρ' 100 + Α' 1 + Θ' 9 = 616 ΚΛΕΟΠΑΤΡΑ Θ(εα) N(εωτερα) – Κ' 20 + Λ' 30 + Ε' 5 + Ο' 70 + Π' 80 + Α' 1 + Τ' 300 + Ρ' 100 + Α' 1 + Θ' 9 + Ν' 50 = 666 And with non-repeated counting of Α' 1: ΚΛΕΟΠΑΤΡΑ Θ(εα) N(εωτερα) – Κ' 20 + Λ' 30 + Ε' 5 + Ο' 70 + Π' 80 + Α' 1 + Τ' 300 + Ρ'