Arrival of Caesar

When Caesar following the track of Pompeius arrived in the roadstead of Alexandria, all was already over.  With deep agitation he turned away when the murderer brought to his ship the head of the man, who had been his son-in-law and for long years his colleague in rule, and to get whom alive into his power he had come to Egypt.  The dagger of the rash assassin precluded an answer to the question, how Caesar would have dealt with the captive Pompeius; but, while the humane sympathy, which still found a place in the great soul of Caesar side by side with ambition, enjoined that he should spare his former friend, his interest also required that he should annihilate Pompeius otherwise than by the executioner.  Pompeius had been for twenty years the acknowledged ruler of Rome; a dominion so deeply rooted does not perish with the ruler’s death.  The death of Pompeius did not break up the Pompeians, but gave to them instead of an aged, incapable, and worn-out chief in his sons Gnaeus and Sextus two leaders, both of whom were young and active and the second was a man of decided capacity.  To the newly-founded hereditary monarchy hereditary pretendership attached itself at once like a parasite, and it was very doubtful whether by this change of persons Caesar did not lose more than he gained.

Caesar Regulates Egypt

Meanwhile in Egypt Caesar had now nothing further to do, and the Romans and the Egyptians expected that he would immediately set sail and apply himself to the subjugation of Africa, and to the huge task of organization which awaited him after the victory.  But Caesar faithful to his custom—­wherever he found himself in the wide empire—­of finally regulating matters at once and in person, and firmly convinced that no resistance was to be expected either from the Roman garrison or from the court, being, moreover, in urgent pecuniary embarrassment, landed in Alexandria with the two amalgamated legions accompanying him to the number of 3200 men and 800 Celtic and German cavalry, took up his quarters in the royal palace, and proceeded to collect the necessary sums of money and to regulate the Egyptian succession, without allowing himself to be disturbed by the saucy remark of Pothinus that Caesar should not for such petty matters neglect his own so important affairs.  In his dealing with the Egyptians he was just and even indulgent.  Although the aid which they had given to Pompeius justified the imposing of a war contribution, the exhausted land was spared from this; and, while the arrears of the sum stipulated for in 695(40) and since then only about half paid were remitted, there was required merely a final payment of 10,000,000 -denarii- (400,000 pounds).  The belligerent brother and sister were enjoined immediately to suspend hostilities, and were invited to have their dispute investigated and decided before the arbiter.  They submitted; the royal boy was already in the palace and Cleopatra also presented herself there.  Caesar adjudged the kingdom of Egypt, agreeably to the testament of Auletes, to the intermarried brother and sister Cleopatra and Ptolemaeus Dionysus, and further gave unasked the kingdom of Cyprus—­cancelling the earlier act of annexation(41)—­ as the appanageof the second-born of Egypt to the younger children of Auletes, Arsinoe and Ptolemaeus the younger.