And Brought Back by Gabinius
A Roman Garrison Remains in Alexandria

Gabinius, without ostensible powers to undertake war against Egypt but directed to do so by the regents, made a pretext out of the alleged furtherance of piracy by the Egyptians and the building of a fleet by Archelaus, and started without delay for the Egyptian frontier (699).  The march through the sandy desert between Gaza and Pelusium, in which so many invasions previously directed against Egypt had broken down, was on this occasion successfully accomplished—­a result especially due to the quick and skilful leader of the cavalry Marcus Antonius.  The frontier fortress of Pelusium also was surrendered without resistance by the Jewish garrison stationed there.  In front of this city the Romans met the Egyptians, defeated them—­on which occasion Antonius again distinguished himself—­and arrived, as the first Roman army, at the Nile.  Here the fleet and army of the Egyptians were drawn up for the last decisive struggle; but the Romans once more conquered, and Archelaus himself with many of his followers perished in the combat.  Immediately after this battle the capital surrendered, and therewith all resistance was at an end.  The unhappy land was handed over to its legitimate oppressor; the hanging and beheading, with which, but for the intervention of the chivalrous Antonius, Ptolemaeus would have already in Pelusium begun to celebrate the restoration of the legitimate government, now took its course unhindered, and first of all the innocent daughter was sent by her father to the scaffold.  The payment of the reward agreed upon with the regents broke down through the absolute impossibility of exacting from the exhausted land the enormous sums required, although they took from the poor people the last penny; but care was taken that the country should at least be kept quiet by the garrison of Roman infantry and Celtic and German cavalry left in the capital, which took the place of the native praetorians and otherwise emulated them not unsuccessfully.  The previous hegemony of Rome over Egypt was thus converted into a direct military occupation, and the nominal continuance of the native monarchy was not so much a privilege granted to the land as a double burden imposed on it.

CHAPTER V

The Struggle of Parties During the Absence of Pompeius.

The Defeated Aristocracy

With the passing of the Gabinian law the parties in the capital changed positions.  From the time that the elected general of the democracy held in his hand the sword, his party, or what was reckoned such, had the preponderance in the capital.  The nobility doubtless still stood in compact array, and still as before there issued from the comitial machinery none but consuls, who according to the expression of the democrats were already designated to the consulate in their cradles; to command the elections andbreak