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$Title{History Of Cleopatra, Queen Of Egypt
Chapter VI: Cleopatra And Caesar}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Abbott, Jacob}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{caesar
ptolemy
cleopatra
city
caesar's
achillas
alexandria
time
pothinus
army
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1900}
$Log{See Cleopatra In Palace*0000801.scf
}
Title:       History Of Cleopatra, Queen Of Egypt
Book:        Cleopatra
Author:      Abbott, Jacob
Date:        1900

Chapter VI: Cleopatra And Caesar

     In the mean time, while the events related in the last chapter were
taking place at Alexandria, Cleopatra remained anxious and uneasy in her camp,
quite uncertain, for a time, what it was best for her to do.  She wished to be
at Alexandria.  She knew very well that Caesar's power in controlling the
course of affairs in Egypt would necessarily be supreme.  She was, of course,
very earnest in her desire to be able to present her cause before him.  As it
was, Ptolemy and Pothinus were in communication with the arbiter, and, for
aught she knew, assiduously cultivating his favor, while she was far away, her
cause unheard, her wrongs unknown, and perhaps even her existence forgotten.
Of course, under such circumstances, she was very earnest to get to
Alexandria.

     But how to accomplish this purpose was a source of great perplexity. She
could not march thither at the head of an army, for the army of the king was
strongly intrenched at Pelusium, and effectually barred the way.  She could
not attempt to pass alone, or with few attendants, through the country, for
every town and village was occupied with garrisons and officers under the
orders of Pothinus, and she would be certainly intercepted.  She had no fleet,
and could not, therefore, make the passage by sea.  Besides, even if she could
by any means reach the gates of Alexandria, how was she to pass safely through
the streets of the city to the palace where Caesar resided, since the city,
except in Caesar's quarters, was wholly in the hands of Pothinus's government?
The difficulties in the way of accomplishing her object seemed thus almost
insurmountable.

     She was, however, resolved to make the attempt.  She sent a message to
Caesar, asking permission to appear before him and plead her own cause. Caesar
replied, urging her by all means to come.  She took a single boat, and with
the smallest number of attendants possible, made her way along the coast to
Alexandria.  The man on whom she principally relied in this hazardous
expedition was a domestic named Apollodorus.  She had, however, some other
attendants besides.  When the party reached Alexandria, they waited until
night, and then advanced to the foot of the walls of the citadel.  Here
Apollodorus rolled the queen up in a piece of carpeting, and, covering the
whole package with a cloth, he tied it with a thong, so as to give it the
appearance of a bale of ordinary merchandise, and then throwing the load
across his shoulder, he advanced into the city.  Cleopatra was at this time
about twenty-one years of age, but she was of a slender and graceful form, and
the burden was, consequently, not very heavy.  Apollodorus came to the gates
of the palace where Caesar was residing.  The guards at the gates asked him
what it was that he was carrying.  He said that it was a present for Caesar.
So they allowed him to pass, and the pretended porter carried his package
safely in.

     When it was unrolled, and Cleopatra came out to view, Caesar was
perfectly charmed with the spectacle.  In fact, the various conflicting
emotions which she could not but feel under such circumstances as these,
imparted a double interest to her beautiful and expressive face, and to her
naturally bewitching manners.  She was excited by the adventure through which
she had passed, and yet pleased with her narrow escape from its dangers.  The
curiosity and interest which she felt on the one hand, in respect to the great
personage into whose presence she had been thus strangely ushered, was very
strong; but then, on the other, it was chastened and subdued by that feeling
of timidity which, in new and unexpected situations like these, and under a
consciousness of being the object of eager observation to the other sex, is
inseparable from the nature of woman.

     The conversation which Caesar held with Cleopatra deepened the impression
which her first appearance had made upon him.  Her intelligence and animation,
the originality of her ideas, and the point and pertinency of her mode of
expressing them, made her, independently of her personal charms, an
exceedingly entertaining and agreeable companion.  She, in fact, completely
won the great conqueror's heart; and, through the strong attachment to her
which he immediately formed, he became wholly disqualified to act impartially
between her and her brother in regard to their respective rights to the crown.
We call Ptolemy Cleopatra's brother; for, though he was also, in fact, her
husband, still, as he was only ten or twelve years of age at the time of
Cleopatra's expulsion from Alexandria, the marriage had been probably
regarded, thus far, only as a mere matter of form.  Caesar was now about
fifty-two.  He had a wife, named Calpurnia, to whom he had been married about
ten years.  She was living, at this time, in an unostentatious and quiet
manner at Rome.  She was a lady of an amiable and gentle character, devotedly
attached to her husband, patient and forbearing in respect to his faults, and
often anxious and unhappy at the thought of the difficulties and dangers in
which his ardent and unbounded ambition so often involved him.

     Caesar immediately began to take a very strong interest in Cleopatra's
cause.  He treated her personally with the fondest attention, and it was
impossible for her not to reciprocate in some degree the kind feeling with
which he regarded her.  It was, in fact, something altogether new to her to
have a warm and devoted friend, espousing her cause, tendering her protection,
and seeking in every way to promote her happiness.  Her father had all his
life neglected her.  Her brother, of years and understanding totally inferior
to hers, whom she had been compelled to make her husband, had become her
mortal enemy.  It is true that, in depriving her of her inheritance and
expelling her from her native land, he had been only the too and instrument of
more designing men.  This, however, far from improving the point of view from
which she regarded him, made him appear not only hateful, but contemptible
too.  All the officers of government, also, in the Alexandrian court had
turned against her, because they had supposed that they could control her
brother more easily if she were away.  Thus she had always been surrounded by
selfish, mercenary, and implacable foes.  Now, for the first time, she seemed
to have a friend.  A protector had suddenly arisen to support and defend her -
a man of very alluring person and manners, of a very noble and generous
spirit, and of the very highest station.  He loved her, and she could not
refrain from loving him in return.  She committed her cause entirely into his
hands, confided to him all her interests, and gave herself up wholly into his
power.

     Nor was the unbounded confidence which she reposed in him undeserved, so
far as related to his efforts to restore her to her throne.  The legions which
Caesar had sent for into Syria had not yet arrived, and his situation in
Alexandria was still very defenseless and very precarious.  He did not,
however, on this account, abate in the least degree the loftiness and
self-confidence of the position which he had assumed, but he commenced
immediately the work of securing Cleopatra's restoration.  This quiet
assumption of the right and power to arbitrate and decide such a question as
that of the claim to the throne, in a country where he had accidentally landed
and found rival claimants disputing for the succession, while he was still
wholly destitute of the means of enforcing the superiority which he so coolly
assumed, marks the immense ascendency which the Roman power had attained at
this time in the estimation of mankind, and is, besides, specially
characteristic of the genius and disposition of Caesar.

     Very soon after Cleopatra had come to him, Caesar sent for the young
Ptolemy, and urged upon him the duty and expediency of restoring Cleopatra.
Ptolemy was beginning now to attain an age at which he might be supposed to
have some opinion of his own on such a question.  He declared himself utterly
opposed to any such design.  In the course of the conversation he learned that
Cleopatra had arrived at Alexandria, and that she was then concealed in
Caesar's palace.  This intelligence awakened in his mind the greatest
excitement and indignation.  He went away from Caesar's presence in a rage. He
tore the diadem which he was accustomed to wear from his head in the streets,
threw it down, and trampled it under his feet.  He declared to the people that
he was betrayed, and displayed the most violent indications of vexation and
chagrin.  The chief subject of his complaint, in the attempts which he made to
awaken the popular indignation against Caesar and the Romans, was the
disgraceful impropriety of the position which his sister had assumed in
surrendering herself as she had done to Caesar.  It is most probable, however,
unless his character was very different from that of every other Ptolemy in
the line, that what really awakened his jealousy and anger was fear of the
commanding influence and power to which Cleopatra was likely to attain through
the agency of so distinguished a protector, rather than any other consequences
of his friendship, or any real considerations of delicacy in respect to his
sister's good name or his own marital honor.

[See Cleopatra In Palace: Cleopatra had arrived at Alexandria and was then
concealed in Caesar's palace.]

     However this may be, Ptolemy, together with Pothinus and Achillas, and
all his other friends and adherents, who joined him in the terrible outcry
that he made against the coalition which he had discovered between Cleopatra
and Caesar, succeeded in producing a very general and violent tumult
throughout the city.  The populace were aroused, and began to assemble in
great crowds, and full of indignation and anger.  Some knew the facts, and
acted under something like an understanding of the cause of their anger.
Others only knew that the aim of this sudden outbreak was to assault the
Romans, and were ready, on any pretext, known or unknown, to join in any deeds
of violence directed against these foreign intruders.  There were others
still, and these, probably, far the larger portion, who knew nothing and
understood nothing but that there was to be tumult and a riot in and around
the palaces, and were, accordingly, eager to be there.

     Ptolemy and his officers had no large body of troops in Alexandria; for
the events which had thus far occurred since Caesar's arrival had succeeded
each other so rapidly, that a very short time had yet elapsed, and the main
army remained still at Pelusium.  The main force, therefore, by which Caesar
was now attacked, consisted of the population of the city, headed, perhaps, by
the few guards which the young king had at his command.

     Caesar, on his part, had but a small portion of his forces at the palace
where he was attacked.  The rest were scattered about the city.  He, however,
seems to have felt no alarm.  He did not even confine himself to acting on the
defensive.  He sent out a detachment of his soldiers with orders to seize
Ptolemy and bring him in a prisoner.  Soldiers trained, disciplined, and armed
as the Roman veterans were, and nerved by the ardor and enthusiasm which
seemed always to animate troops which were under Caesar's personal command,
could accomplish almost any undertaking against a mere populace, however
numerous or however furiously excited they might be.  The soldiers sallied
out, seized Ptolemy, and brought him in.

     The populace were at first astounded at the daring presumption of this
deed, and then exasperated at the indignity of it, considered as a violation
of the person of their sovereign.  The tumult would have greatly increased,
had it not been that Caesar - who had now attained all his ends in thus having
brought Cleopatra and Ptolemy both within his power - thought it most
expedient to allay it.  He accordingly ascended to the window of a tower, or
of some other elevated portion of his palace, so high that missiles from the
mob below could not reach him, and began to make signals expressive of his
wish to address them.

     When silence was obtained, he made them a speech well calculated to quiet
the excitement.  He told them that he did not pretend to any right to judge
between Cleopatra and Ptolemy as their superior, but only in the performance
of the duty solemnly assigned by Ptolemy Auletes, the father, to the Roman
people, whose representative he was.  Other than this he claimed no
jurisdiction in the case; and his only wish, in the discharge of the duty
which devolved upon him to consider the cause, was to settle the question in a
manner just and equitable to all the parties concerned, and thus arrest the
progress of the civil war, which, if not arrested, threatened to involve the
country in the most terrible calamities.  He counseled them, therefore, to
disperse, and no longer disturb the peace of the city.  He would immediately
take measures for trying the question between Cleopatra and Ptolemy, and he
did not doubt but that they would all be satisfied with his decision.

     This speech, made, as it was, in the eloquent and persuasive, and yet
dignified and imposing manner for which Caesar's harangues to turbulent
assemblies like these were so famed, produced a great effect.  Some were
convinced, others were silenced; and those whose resentment and anger were not
appeased, found themselves deprived of their power by the pacification of the
rest.  The mob was dispersed, and Ptolemy remained with Cleopatra in Caesar's
custody.

     The next day, Caesar, according to his promise, convened an assembly of
the principal people of Alexandria and officers of state, and then brought out
Ptolemy and Cleopatra, that he might decide their cause.  The original will
which Ptolemy Auletes had executed had been deposited in the public archives
of Alexandria, and carefully preserved there.  An authentic copy of it had
been sent to Rome.  Caesar caused the original will to be brought out and read
to the assembly.  The provisions of it were perfectly explicit and clear.  It
required that Cleopatra and Ptolemy should be married, and then settled the
sovereign power upon them jointly, as king and queen.  It recognized the Roman
commonwealth as the ally of Egypt, and constituted the Roman government the
executor of the will, and the guardian of the king and queen.  In fact, so
clear and explicit was this document, that the simple reading of it seemed to
be of itself a decision of the question.  When, therefore, Caesar announced
that, in his judgment, Cleopatra was entitled to share the supreme power with
Ptolemy, and that it was his duty, as the representative of the Roman power
and the executor of the will, to protect both the king and the queen in their
respective rights, there seemed to be nothing that could be said against his
decision.

     Besides Cleopatra and Ptolemy, there were two other children of Ptolemy
Auletes in the royal family at this time.  One was a girl, named Arsinoe. The
other, a boy, was, singularly enough, named, like his brother, Ptolemy. These
children were quite young, but Caesar thought that it would perhaps gratify
the Alexandrians, and lead them to acquiesce more readily in his decision, if
he were to make some royal provision for them.  He accordingly proposed to
assign the island of Cyprus as a realm for them.  This was literally a gift,
for Cyprus was at this time a Roman possession.

     The whole assembly seemed satisfied with this decision except Pothinus.
He had been so determined and inveterate an enemy to Cleopatra, that, as he
was well aware, her restoration must end in his downfall and ruin.  He went
away from the assembly moodily determining that he would not submit to the
decision, but would immediately adopt efficient measures to prevent its being
carried into effect.

     Caesar made arrangements for a series of festivals and celebrations, to
commemorate and confirm the re-establishment of a good understanding between
the king and the queen, and the consequent termination of the war.  Such
celebrations, he judged, would have great influence in removing any remaining
animosities from the minds of the people, and restore the dominion of a kind
and friendly feeling throughout the city.  The people fell in with these
measures, and cordially co-operated to give them effect; but Pothinus and
Achillas, though they suppressed all outward expressions of discontent, made
incessant efforts in secret to organize a party, and to form plans for
overthrowing the influence of Caesar, and making Ptolemy again the sole and
exclusive sovereign.

     Pothinus represented to all whom he could induce to listen to him that
Caesar's real design was to make Cleopatra queen alone, and to depose Ptolemy,
and urged them to combine with him to resist a policy which would end in
bringing Egypt under the dominion of a woman.  He also formed a plan, in
connection with Achillas, for ordering the army back from Pelusium.  The army
consisted of thirty thousand men.  If that army could be brought to Alexandria
and kept under Pothinus's orders, Caesar and his three thousand Roman soldiers
would be, they thought, wholly at their mercy.

     There was, however, one danger to be guarded against in ordering the army
to march toward the capital, and that was, that Ptolemy, while under Caesar's
influence, might open communications with the officers, and so obtain command
of its movements, and thwart all the conspirators' designs. To prevent this,
it was arranged between Pothinus and Achillas that the latter should make his
escape from Alexandria, proceed immediately to the camp at Pelusium, resume
the command of the troops there, and conduct them himself to the capital; and
that in all these operations, and also subsequently on his arrival, he should
obey no orders unless they came to him through Pothinus himself.

     Although sentinels and guards were probably stationed at the gates and
avenues leading from the city, Achillas contrived to effect his escape and to
join the army.  He placed himself at the head of the forces, and commenced his
march toward the capital.  Pothinus remained all the time within the city as a
spy, pretending to acquiesce in Caesar's decision, and to be on friendly terms
with him, but really plotting for his overthrow, and obtaining all the
information which his position enabled him to command, in order that he might
co-operate with the army and Achillas when they should arrive.

     All these things were done with the utmost secrecy, and so cunning and
adroit were the conspirators in forming and executing their plots, that Caesar
seems to have had no knowledge of the measures which his enemies were taking,
until he suddenly heard that the main body of Ptolemy's army was approaching
the city, at least twenty thousand strong.  In the mean time, however, the
forces which he had sent for from Syria had not arrived, and no alternative
was left but to defend the capital and himself as well as he could with the
very small force which he had at his disposal.

     He determined, however, first, to try the effect of orders sent out in
Ptolemy's name to forbid the approach of the army to the city.  Two officers
were accordingly intrusted with these orders, and sent out to communicate them
to Achillas.  The names of these officers were Dioscorides and Serapion.

     It shows in a very striking point of view to what an incredible
exaltation the authority and consequence of a sovereign king rose in those
ancient days, in the minds of men, that Achillas, at the moment when these men
made their appearance in the camp, bearing evidently some command from Ptolemy
in the city, considered it more prudent to kill them at once, without hearing
their message, rather than to allow the orders to be delivered and then take
the responsibility of disobeying them.  If he could succeed in marching to
Alexandria and in taking possession of the city, and then in expelling Caesar
and Cleopatra and restoring Ptolemy to the exclusive possession of the throne,
he knew very well that the king would rejoice in the result, and would
overlook all irregularities on his part in the means by which he had
accomplished it, short of absolute disobedience of a known command.  Whatever
might be the commands that these messengers were bringing him, he supposed
that they doubtless originated, not in Ptolemy's own free will, but that they
were dictated by the authority of Caesar.  Still, they would be commands
coming in Ptolemy's name; and the universal experience of officers serving
under the military despots of those ancient days showed that, rather than to
take the responsibility of directly disobeying a royal order once received, it
was safer to avoid receiving it by murdering the messengers.

     Achillas therefore directed the officers to be seized and slain.  They
were accordingly taken off and speared by the soldiers, and then the bodies
were borne away.  The soldiers, however, it was found, had not done their work
effectually.  There was no interest for them in such a cold-blooded
assassination, and perhaps something like a sentiment of compassion restrained
their hands.  At any rate, though both the men were desperately wounded, one
only died.  The other lived and recovered.

     Achillas continued to advance toward the city.  Caesar, finding that the
crisis which was approaching was becoming very serious in its character, took,
himself, the whole command within the capital, and began to make the best
arrangements possible under the circumstances of the case to defend himself
there.  His numbers were altogether too small to defend the whole city against
the overwhelming force which was advancing to assail it.  He accordingly
intrenched his troops in the palaces and in the citadel, and in such other
parts of the city as it seemed practicable to defend.  He barricaded all the
streets and avenues leading to these points, and fortified the gates.  Nor did
he, while thus doing all in his power to employ the insufficient means of
defense already in his hands to the best advantage, neglect the proper
exertions for obtaining succor from abroad.  He sent off galleys to Syria, to
Cyprus, to Rhodes, and to every other point accessible from Alexandria where
Roman troops might be expected to be found, urging the authorities there to
forward re-enforcements to him with the utmost possible dispatch.

     During all this time Cleopatra and Ptolemy remained in the palace with
Caesar, both ostensibly co-operating with him in his councils and measures for
defending the city from Achillas, Cleopatra, of course, was sincere and in
earnest in this co-operation; but Ptolemy's adhesion to the common cause was
very little to be relied upon.  Although, situated as he was, he was compelled
to seem to be on Caesar's side, he must have secretly desired that Achillas
should succeed and Caesar's plans be overthrown.  Pothinus was more active,
though not less cautious in his hostility to them.  He opened a secret
communication with Achillas, sending him information, from time to time, of
what took place within the walls, and of the arrangements made there for the
defense of the city against him, and gave him also directions how to proceed.
He was very wary and sagacious in all these movements, feigning all the time
to be on Caesar's side.  He pretended to be very zealously employed in aiding
Caesar to secure more effectually the various points where attacks were to be
expected, and in maturing and completing the arrangements for defense.

     But, notwithstanding all his cunning, he was detected in his double
dealing, and his career was suddenly brought to a close, before the great
final conflict came on.  There was a barber in Caesar's household, who, for
some cause or other, began to suspect Pothinus; and, having little else to do,
he employed himself in watching the eunuch's movements and reporting them to
Caesar.  Caesar directed the barber to continue his observations.  He did so;
his suspicions were soon confirmed, and at length a letter, which Pothinus had
written to Achillas, was intercepted and brought to Caesar. This furnished the
necessary proof of what they called his guilt, and Caesar ordered him to be
beheaded.

     This circumstance produced, of course, a great excitement within the
palace, for Pothinus had been for many years the great ruling minister of
state - the king, in fact, in all but in name.  His execution alarmed a great
many others, who, though in Caesar's power, were secretly wishing that
Achillas might prevail.  Among those most disturbed by these fears was a man
named Ganymede.  He was the officer who had charge of Arsinoe, Cleopatra's
sister.  The arrangement which Caesar had proposed for establishing her in
conjunction with her brother Ptolemy over the island of Cyprus had not gone
into effect; for, immediately after the decision of Caesar, the attention of
all concerned had been wholly engrossed by the tidings of the advance of the
army, and by the busy preparations which were required on all hands for the
impending contest.  Arsinoe, therefore, with her governor Ganymede, remained
in the palace Ganymede had joined Pothinus in his plots, and when Pothinus was
beheaded, he concluded that it would be safest for him to fly.

     He accordingly resolved to make his escape from the city, taking Arsinoe
with him.  It was a very hazardous attempt, but he succeeded in accomplishing
it.  Arsinoe was very willing to go, for she was now beginning to be old
enough to feel the impulse of that insatiable and reckless ambition which
seemed to form such an essential element in the character of every son and
daughter in the whole Ptolemaic line.  She was insignificant and powerless
where she was, but at the head of the army she might become immediately a
queen.

     It resulted, in the first instance, as she had anticipated.  Achillas and
his army received her with acclamations.  Under Ganymede's influence they
decided that, as all the other members of the royal family were in durance,
being held captive by a foreign general, who had by chance obtained possession
of the capital, and were thus incapacitated for exercising the royal power,
the crown devolved upon Arsinoe; and they accordingly proclaimed her queen.

     Every thing was now prepared for a desperate and determined contest for
the crown between Cleopatra, with Caesar for her minister and general, on the
one side, and Arsinoe, with Ganymede and Achillas for her chief officers, on
the other.  The young Ptolemy in the meantime, remained Caesar's prisoner,
confused with the intricacies in which the quarrel had become involved, and
scarcely knowing now what to wish in respect to the issue of the contest.  It
was very difficult to foresee whether it would be best for him that Cleopatra
or that Arsinoe should succeed.