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.