Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city. Whilst the cities of Upper Egypt and Heptanomis had preserved the national character, in the Delta the Hellenic civilization had been grafted on the Egyptian, or rather they went side by side. The laws and decrees were written in both languages; the priesthood, the government, the police, the tribunals, the whole administration belonged equally to both; the army was composed of Greek and Gallic mercenaries, of Cilician robbers, of fugitive Roman slaves. In Alexandria, where for more than two centuries unnumbered colonies had settled, the native race dwelt together in the ancient Egyptian city of Rhakotis, but they composed at the most only one-third of the population. The Jews, who inhabited a distinct quarter where they had their ethnarch and their Sanhedrim, were in the proportion of one to three. From the Pharos to the Serapium, from the gate of the Necropolis to the Canopic gate were seen as many foreigners as Egyptians. They composed a noisy and variegated crowd of Greeks, Jews, Syrians, Italians, Arabs, Illyrians, Persians, and Phenicians. In the streets and on the wharves every language was spoken, in the temples every god was worshiped. Into this Babel each race brought its own passions. The population of Alexandria, which amounted to three hundred and twenty thousand exclusive of the slaves, was as turbulent as that of the other Egyptian cities was tranquil and resigned, and during the reigns of the latter LagidÆ the Alexandrian populace always seconded the revolutions of the palace, hoping under new sovereigns to find more liberty and less taxes.

Ptolemy XI. (Auletes) died in July, 51 B.C. He left four children. By his will he appointed to succeed him on the throne his eldest daughter Cleopatra and his eldest son Ptolemy, and according to the custom of Egypt the brother was to marry the sister. At her father’s death Cleopatra was sixteen and Ptolemy thirteen years old. The tutor of young Ptolemy, the eunuch Pothinus, was an ambitious man, and, being complete master of the mind of his pupil, he calculated to rule Egypt under the new reign; but he soon found that Cleopatra would permit neither him nor Ptolemy to govern the kingdom. Proud and headstrong, Cleopatra was likewise skillful, intelligent, and very learned; she spoke eight or ten languages, among them Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac. How is it possible to think that this woman, so haughty and so gifted, would abandon her share of the sovereignty in favor of a child governed by a eunuch? Either she would get rid of her brother, or if she consented to live with the young king she would soon acquire an absolute supremacy over him. Pothinus realized this, and he devoted all his energies to accomplish the ruin of the queen. He began by provoking jealousies among the ministers and the high officers of the crown; then, when the dissension between the partisans of the king and those of Cleopatra was at its height he aroused the people of Alexandria against the young queen. He accused her of desiring to reign alone, even should she have to call in the armed intervention of the Romans. He declared that she had made this plan in conjunction with the eldest son of the great Pompey, Cn. Pompey, who, on his way through Alexandria in 49, had then become her lover. The riot reached even to the gates of the palace, and the connivance of Pothinus and the young king could not escape the perspicacity of Cleopatra. She quitted Alexandria, accompanied by a few faithful attendants. The fugitive, however, did not regard herself as vanquished; she would not so easily renounce that crown which she had already worn for three years. It was soon known that Cleopatra had raised an army on the confines of Egypt and Arabia, and that she was marching on Pelusium. The young king collected his forces and advanced to meet her.

The brother and sister, the husband and wife, were face to face with their armies in the neighborhood of Pelusium when the illustrious victim of Pharsalia came to seek an asylum in Egypt. Pompey supposed he might reckon on the gratitude of the children of Ptolemy Auletes, for it was at his instigation that seven years previously Gabienus, pro-consul of Syria, had replaced that king on his throne. It is true that after the battle of Pharsalia Pompey was helpless and CÆsar all-powerful, and in assisting a fugitive from whom nothing more could be hoped for, the anger of CÆsar might be provoked. Pothinus and the other ministers of the young king did not hesitate; they welcomed Pompey; but it was to murder him as soon as he set foot on Egyptian territory. His head, embalmed with the learned art of the Egyptians, was presented to CÆsar when the latter, who was pursuing Pompey, landed at Alexandria. CÆsar turned his eyes from the ghastly trophy, and warmly reproached Pothinus and Achillas with their crime. Doubtless the two wretches cared but little for his reproaches; they considered that they had done CÆsar a great service in ridding him of his most powerful adversary, and they knew enough of mankind to understand that, Pompey being dead, it was easy for CÆsar to be magnanimous.

CÆsar soon learned the contentions of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, the flight of the latter in consequence of the threats of the populace, and the battle about to take place between the two armies assembled at Pelusium. It had always been the Roman policy to intermeddle in the private dissensions of nations. This policy of intervention was still more in order for CÆsar with regard to Egypt, because during his first consulate Ptolemy Auletes had been declared the ally of Rome, and in his will had conjured the Roman people to have his last wishes executed. Another motive, which he does not mention in his “Commentaries,” induced CÆsar to intermeddle in the affairs of Egypt. With little expense he had made himself the creditor of the late king, and he had to call upon the heirs for a large amount. This was no less than seven millions fifty thousand sesterces which remained due of the thirty-three thousand talents which Ptolemy had promised to pay CÆsar and Pompey if by the assistance of the Romans he should recover his crown.

Pothinus, however, thought he had done enough for CÆsar in offering him the head of Pompey. He urged him, therefore, to reËmbark and to go whither he was called by much more important matters than the disputes of Ptolemy and Cleopatra: to Pontus, whence Pharnaces was driving his lieutenant Domitius, to Rome where Coelius was exciting the plebeians. To the claims of CÆsar, he replied that the treasury was empty; to his offers of arbitration between the heirs of Ptolemy, he objected that it was not proper for a foreigner to interfere in this quarrel, that such an interference would rouse all Egypt. In support of his words, he reminded him that the people of Alexandria, regarding the fasces borne before CÆsar as an outrage on the royal dignity, were enraged at it; that daily new riots arose, that every night Roman soldiers were assassinated, that the Alexandrian population was very numerous, and that the army of CÆsar (numbering only three thousand two hundred legionaries and eight hundred cavalry) was very small.

But his refusals, his counsels, his implied menaces availed nought against the will of CÆsar. His prayers exhausted, he commands. Pothinus is ordered formally to invite in his name Ptolemy and Cleopatra to disband their armies and to present themselves before his consular tribunal to settle their differences. The eunuch was forced to yield, but, as cunning as CÆsar was persistent, he hoped to turn this intervention, which he at first dreaded, to secure the success of his designs. With this purpose he sent to Cleopatra CÆsar’s command to disband her troops, but without telling her she was expected at Alexandria, and he wrote to Ptolemy to repair at once to CÆsar but still to keep his soldiers under arms. Pothinus calculated by these means to free himself from Cleopatra’s army and to secure to the young king the favor of CÆsar, since Ptolemy alone of the two heirs of Auletes summoned by the consul paid due attention to his invitation. A few days after, Ptolemy actually arrived in Alexandria. He offered to CÆsar the warmest protestations of friendship, in which he was joined by Pothinus, Achillas, and the other ministers; he explained the disputes between himself and Cleopatra, laying all the blame on her. CÆsar, however, was not so easily duped. Pothinus had supposed that the absence of Cleopatra would irritate CÆsar against her, but CÆsar could not believe that the young queen had, through contempt, declined his invitation to repair to Alexandria. He thought it more probable that some machination of Pothinus had prevented her coming. In order to satisfy himself of this he secretly despatched a messenger to Cleopatra, whom he knew to be still at Pelusium.

The queen was waiting impatiently for news from CÆsar. On the receipt of his first message, but partially transmitted by Pothinus, she had hastened to disband her army. She already felt full confidence in the favor of the great leader who was called “the husband of all women,” but she knew that she must see CÆsar, or rather that CÆsar must see her. But the days passed and the invitation to Alexandria did not arrive. Finally the second message reached her, and she learned that CÆsar had already sent for her to go to him, but that Pothinus had taken measures to prevent her knowing it. The thing was plain enough; her enemies were not willing that she should have an interview with CÆsar, and now that their trick was discovered they would employ force; no doubt they were on their guard and laid their plans accordingly. If Cleopatra sought to reach Alexandria by land she would be taken by the outposts of the Egyptian army encamped before Pelusium; by sea, her royal trireme could not escape the vessels of Ptolemy cruising about the entrance to the port. Even should she succeed in reaching Alexandria she would run the risk of being torn to pieces by the populace, incited by Pothinus. Even in the king’s palace, where CÆsar resided as the guest of Ptolemy, that is to say with an Egyptian guard of honor, she might be seized and slain by the sentinels.

Cleopatra, abandoning the idea of entering Alexandria with the trappings of a queen, bethought herself of a plan to do so not merely under a disguise, but as a bale of goods. Accompanied by a single devoted attendant, Apollodorus, the Sicilian, she embarked from near Pelusium in a decked bark which, in the middle of the night, entered the port of Alexandria. They landed at a pier before one of the lesser gates of the palace. Cleopatra enveloped herself in a great sack of coarse cloth of many colors, such as were used by travelers to pack up mats and mattresses, and Apollodorus bound it round with a strap, then taking the sack upon his shoulders, entered the gate of the palace, went straight to the apartments of CÆsar, and laid his precious burden at his feet.

Aphrodite rose radiant from the sea: Cleopatra less pretendingly from a sack; but CÆsar was none the less moved at the surprise and ravished with the apparition. Cleopatra, who was then nineteen, was in the flower of her marvelous and seductive beauty. Dion Cassius calls the queen of Egypt the most beautiful of women, but Plutarch finds one epithet insufficient to depict her, and expresses himself thus: “There was nothing so incomparable in her beauty as to compel admiration; but by the charm of her physiognomy, the grace of her whole person, the fascination of her presence, Cleopatra left a sting in the soul.” This is her veritable portrait. Cleopatra did not possess supreme beauty, she possessed supreme seductiveness. As Victor Hugo said of a celebrated theatrical character, “She is not pretty, she is worse,” which suggestive expression may well apply to Cleopatra. Plutarch adds, and his testimony is confirmed by Dion, that Cleopatra spoke in a melodious voice and with infinite sweetness. This information is valuable in a psychological point of view. Certes, this charm of voice, divine gift so rarely bestowed, this pure and winning caress, this ever new delight was not one of the least attractions of the Siren of the Nile.

This first interview between CÆsar and Cleopatra probably extended far into the night. It is certain that, with the earliest dawn, CÆsar sent for Ptolemy, and told him he must be reconciled to his sister and associate her in the government. “In one night,” says Dion Cassius, “CÆsar had become the advocate of her of whom he had erewhile thought himself the judge.” Ptolemy was resisting the thinly disguised commands of the consul, when Cleopatra appearing, the young king, mad with rage, cast his crown at the feet of CÆsar and rushed from the palace uttering the cry: “Treason! treason! to arms!” The mob, excited by his cries, rose and marched on the palace. CÆsar feeling himself too weak to resist (he had but a handful of legionaries about him) ascended one of the terraces and harangued the multitude from a distance. He succeeded in restoring a calm by his promises of satisfying the Egyptians in their demands. Just at this time his legionaries arrived from the camp, surrounded the young prince, separated him from his partisans, and with every mark of respect reinstated him willy-nilly in the palace where he might serve as a hostage for CÆsar. The next day the people were assembled in the public square, and CÆsar, accompanied by Ptolemy and Cleopatra, went thither in great state with his escort of lictors. Every Roman was under arms, ready to suppress the first symptom of sedition. CÆsar read aloud the testament of Ptolemy Auletes, and declared solemnly in the name of the Roman people that he would insist on carrying out the last will of the late king. By this the two elder of his children were to reign conjointly over Egypt. As for the other two children of the king, he, CÆsar, made them a gift of the island of Cyprus, and handed over to them the sovereignty of it.

This scene overawed the Egyptians; nevertheless, CÆsar, fearing an insurrection, hastened to summon to Alexandria the new legions which he had formed in Asia Minor of the wrecks of Pompey’s army. But long before these reËnforcements could reach him, the Egyptian army from Pelusium, on secret orders from Pothinus, entered the city to drive out the Romans. At the same time, ArsinoË, the young sister of Cleopatra, assisted by the eunuch Ganymede, made her escape from the palace, and in default of Ptolemy, still CÆsar’s prisoner, was received with acclamations both by the army and people as the daughter of the LagidÆ. This army, commanded by Achillas, amounted to eighteen thousand foot and two thousand horse, and the people of Alexandria made with it common cause against the foreigner.

CÆsar had but four thousand soldiers and the crews of his triremes. He was in extreme peril; occupying with this handful of men the palaces of the Bruchium, he was attacked from the city by the troops of Achillas and the armed populace, and his fleet, which was at anchor in the greater harbor, was virtually captive, since the enemy held the passes of Taurus and Heptastadium. He even feared that this inactive fleet might fall into the hands of the Alexandrians, who would have made use of it to intercept his supplies of men and munitions. CÆsar averted this danger by setting fire to his vessels. The immense conflagration reached the quays and destroyed many houses and edifices, among others the arsenal, the library, and the grain emporium. The Egyptians, exasperated, rushed to the attack, but the legionaries, as good diggers as brave soldiers, had transformed the Bruchium into an impregnable entrenched camp. On all sides were embankments, barricades, lines of earthworks; the theater had become a citadel. The Romans sustained twenty assaults without losing an inch of ground. CÆsar even succeeded in seizing the island of Pharos, which gave him the command of the great harbor.

The Egyptians imagined that victory would be theirs if, instead of a woman, they could have Ptolemy to lead them. They therefore sent word to CÆsar that they made war on him only because he kept their king a prisoner, and that as soon as he should be restored to liberty hostilities would cease. CÆsar, who knew the fickleness of the Alexandrians, yielded—he gave them back Ptolemy. As for his accustomed counsellor Pothinus, CÆsar had intercepted letters from him to Achillas, and had delivered him over to the lictors. No sooner had Ptolemy rejoined the Egyptian army than the war, far from ceasing, was renewed with increased vigor. Just then the first reËnforcement, the thirty-seventh legion, reached CÆsar by sea. The war was carried on without any decided advantage till the beginning of the spring of 47 B.C. Then it was learned that Pelusium had been taken by assault by an army that was coming to the relief of CÆsar; it was a body of auxiliaries from Syria, led by Mithridates of Pergamos. The Egyptians, fearing to be shut in between two enemies if they remained in Alexandria to await the coming of Mithridates, marched to meet him. The first battle, which was indecisive, took place near Memphis; but, a few days later, CÆsar, who had also quitted Alexandria, succeeded in joining the troops of Mithridates and a second battle was fought. The Egyptians were broken and cut to pieces, and King Ptolemy drowned himself in the Nile. CÆsar returned with his victorious army to Alexandria, now humbled; the turbulent populace of the great city, henceforth, knowing the power of the Roman steel, received the consul with loud acclaims. Thus ended the War of Alexandria, which should rather be styled the War of Cleopatra, since this war, adding nothing to CÆsar’s fame, injurious to his interests, useless to his country, and to which he nearly sacrificed both his life and his glory, had been maintained by him for the love of Cleopatra.