IX. From U.C. 695 to 710, A.C. 59 to 44. CHAP. Some citizens of rank, who had been called together at Ephesus to sanction the removal of the treasures of the temple of Diana, for the service of Pompey and the Commonwealth. After a short stay in the province of Asia, he received information that Pompey had been seen at Cyprus; and thinking it probable that he would seek an asylum in Egypt, he resolved to follow him thither. Already the news of the battle of Pharsalia, and of the flight of Pompey, had induced many of the squadrons which had been sent to support the cause of the Commonwealth by the states in alliance with Rome, to return to their own countries. The Egyptian fleet had been one of this number; whilst the Rhodians, taking a more decisive part, had excluded Pompey, as we have seen, from their harbours, and now furnished Cæsar with ten ships of war, to enable him to follow the man in whose cause they themselves had been so lately engaged. These, with a few other vessels procured in the ports of the province of Asia, sufficed to transport the two incomplete legions, which at this moment were the whole of Cæsar's disposable force, and of which one had followed him immediately from Pharsalia, and the other had been sent for from the south of Greece, where it had been employed on a separate service, and consequently He arrives had not been present at the late battle. With and is there these two legions he landed at Alexandria, and there was informed of Pompey's murder, and saw his head and his ring presented to him as a grateful offering of Ptolemy by the murderers. He is said to have shed tears at in Egypt, involved in a war, by his inter ference in the disputes IS THERE INVOLVED IN WAR. 3 IX. to 710, to 44. and Cleo patra. the sight; and those signs of mere physical suscepti- CHAP. bility, so little imply any real humanity of character, From that they flowed very probably from a spontaneous U.C. 695 feeling; and Cæsar may have indulged them with A.C. 59 pleasure, flattering himself that they were a proof of the tenderness of his nature. At any rate it cost him no effort to refuse any expressions of gratitude to the murderers; for he was immediately involved in a quarrel with them, because he claimed the right, as Roman consul3, to arbitrate in all disputes which related to the execution of the late king's will. Thus the very interference, from the fear of which Ptolemy's counsellors had resolved to murder Pompey, now threatened them in a much more alarming shape, when Cæsar announced it as his decision that Ptolemy and Cleopatra should both dismiss their armies, and repair to his quarters at Alexandria, there to state their respective pretensions before him. The king's officers, indignant at the affront thus offered to the crown of Egypt, instantly brought up their army from the Syrian frontiers, and prepared to attack Cæsar; but the young king himself, with his tutor and minister Pothinus, was already in Alexandria, and in Cæsar's power; so that the attempts of his subjects to deliver him were represented by his oppressor as a rebellion against his authority. Cleopatra too was in Cæsar's quarters; but she was no unwilling prisoner, if the 2 Plutarch, in Cæsare, 48. Livy, 3 Cæsar, III. 107. Epitome, CXII. 4 PROCEEDINGS OF POMPEY'S PARTISANS IX. From U.C. 695 to 710, A.C. 59 to 44. CHAP. common stories of the time may be credited, which tell us, that trusting to the influence of her charms, she readily obeyed Cæsar's summons, and finding that access to him was precluded by the besieging army of her brother, she caused herself to be wrapped up in a package of carpeting, and in this manner was safely conveyed into Cæsar's presence. It is added, that she was not disappointed in her expectations; that Cæsar's interference in the dispute between her and her brother, which had originated in political and ambitious motives, was continued after his interview with Cleopatra from feelings of a different nature, and that his passion for her involved him more deeply in a contest, in which he had at first found himself engaged unexpectedly, and from which, when it became serious, he might otherwise have deemed it politic to extricate himself. Be this as it may, Cæsar remained some months at Alexandria, maintaining a difficult and sometimes a perilous struggle with the Egyptians. Without entering here into the detail of his adventures, we must take a survey of the state of the Roman empire during his absence, and describe the effects of his victory at Pharsalia, and of that subsequent neglect of his affairs which delayed for two years the full enjoyment of its advantages. Proceedings of If Pompey ever received intelligence, during his Pompey's flight, of the services performed by his navy in the seas westward of Greece, and of the sudden check partisans after the battle of Pharsalia. 4 Plutarch, in Cæsare, 49. Dion Cassius, XLII. 201, edit. Leunclav. AFTER THE BATTLE OF PHARSALIA. 5 IX. fortunes U.C. 695 to 710, to 44. At the A.C. 59 fugitive given to this career of success by the fatal issue of CHAP. 5 Cæsar, III. 100, 101. 6 Cicero, de Divinatione, I. 31. IX. From U.C. 695 to 710, A.C. 59 to 44. 6 CATO WITHDRAWS TO AFRICA. CHAP. themselves as they best could for their services; nor could they be induced to accompany their officers in their flight, but proceeded to burn the transports in the harbour, that none of their number might be able to separate their fortunes from those of the rest. But the ships of war for the most part were still faithful, and in these the chiefs of the vanquished party hastened to escape to Corcyra. When they had reached that island a new scene of distraction ensued. The command of the forces was offered to Cicero, as he was the oldest senator present of consular dignity'; but he being determined to take no further part in the contest, declined it; and being protected, as it is said, by Cato, from the violence of Cn. Pompeius, Pompey's eldest son, who wished to kill him as a deserter from the cause of the Commonwealth, he returned to Italy to throw himself on the mercy of the victorious party. D. Lælius, one of the commanders of the Asiatic squadron in Pompey's fleet, followed the example of Cicero. There were others, and these formed a considerable body, who neither chose to continue the war nor to submit to Cæsar, but who resolved for the present to remain in Greece, and there to observe from a distance the course of events at Rome. But Cato, Cn. Pompeius 10, Labienus, and several others, hoping that Cato with draws to Africa. 7 Plutarch, in Cicerone, 39. 9 Dion Cassius, XLII. 190, 191. 10 We had originally added here the name of Afranius, on the authority of Dion Cassius. But if Afranius had been with Cato, the command would naturally have devolved on him, as being a person of consular dignity; exactly |