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.