their furnishing Ptolemy himself with troops, it did not forbid their sending an armed force into Egypt under leaders of their own. That they could certainly do; and then, when the rebellion was suppressed, and Berenice’s government overthrown, they could invite Ptolemy to return to his kingdom and resume his crown in a peaceful manner.  This, they alleged, would not be “furnishing him with troops,” and, of course would not be disobeying the oracle.

These attempts to evade the direction of the oracle on the part of Ptolemy’s friends, only made the debates and dissensions between them and his enemies more violent than ever.  Pompey made every effort in his power to aid Ptolemy’s cause; but Lentulus, after long hesitation and delay, decided that it would not be safe for him to embark in it.  At length, however, Gabinius, the lieutenant who commanded in Syria, was induced to undertake the enterprise.  On certain promises which he received from Ptolemy, to be performed in case he succeeded, and with a certain encouragement, not very legal or regular, which Pompey gave him, in respect to the employment of the Roman troops under his command, he resolved to march to Egypt.  His route, of course, would lie along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and through the desert, to Pelusium, which has already been mentioned as the frontier town on this side of Egypt.  From Pelusium he was to march through the heart of the Delta to Alexandria, and, if successful in his invasion, overthrow the government of Berenice and Archelaus, and then, inviting Ptolemy to return, reinstate him on the throne.

In the prosecution of this dangerous enterprise, Gabinius relied strongly on the assistance of a very remarkable man, then his second in command, who afterward acted a very important part in the subsequent history of Cleopatra.  His name was Mark Antony.  Antony was born in Rome, of a very distinguished family, but his father died when he was very young, and being left subsequently much to himself, he became a very wild and dissolute young man.  He wasted the property which his father had left him in folly and vice; and then going on desperately in the same career, he soon incurred enormous debts, and involved himself, in consequence, in inextricable difficulties.  His creditors continually harassed him with importunities for money, and with suits at law to compel payments which he had no means of making.  He was likewise incessantly pursued by the hostility of the many enemies that he had made in the city by his violence and his crimes.  At length he absconded, and went to Greece.