In fact, it was the control of the subterranean corridors of the sanctuary which had suggested to Gorgias the idea of carrying Dion through them to Pyrrhus’s fishing-boat.  To accomplish this it was only necessary to have the Temple of Isis, which usually remained open day and night, left to the fugitive’s friends for a short time; and this was successfully managed.

The historian Timagenes, who had come from Rome as ambassador and claimed the hospitality of his former pupil Archibius, had been empowered to offer Cleopatra recognition of her own and her children’s right to the throne, and a full pardon, if she would deliver Mark Antony into the hands of Octavianus, or have him put to death.

The Alexandrian Timagenes considered this demand both just and desirable, because it promised to deliver his native city from the man whose despotic arrogance menaced its freedom, and whose lavish generosity and boundless love of splendour diminished its wealth.  To Rome, as whose representative the historian appeared, this man’s mere existence meant constant turmoil and civil war.  At the restoration of the flute-player by Gabinius and Mark Antony, Timagenes had been carried into slavery.  Later, when, after his freedom had been purchased by the son of Sulla, he succeeded in attaining great influence in Rome, he still remained hostile to Mark Antony, and it had been a welcome charge to work against him in Alexandria.  He hoped to find an ally in Archibius, whose loyal devotion to the Queen he knew.  Arius, Barine’s uncle and Octavianus’s former tutor, would also aid him.  The most powerful support of his mission, however, could be rendered by the venerable chief priest, the head of the whole Egyptian hierarchy.  He had shown the latter that Antony, in any case, was a lost man, and Egypt was in the act of dropping like a ripe fruit into the lap of Octavianus.  It would soon be in his power to give the country whatever degree of liberty and independence he might choose.  The Caesar had the sole disposal of the Queen’s fate also, and whoever desired to see her remain on the throne must strive to gain the good-will of Octavianus.

The wise Anubis had considered all these things, but he owed to Timagenes the hint that Arius was the man whom Octavianus most trusted.  So the august prelate secretly entered into communication with Barine’s uncle.  But the dignity of his high office, and the feebleness of extreme age, forbade Anubis to seek the man who was suspected of friendship for the Romans.  He had therefore sent his trusted secretary, the young Serapion, to make a compact as his representative with the friend of Octavianus, whose severe injuries prevented his leaving the house to go to the chief priest.