At last, in B.C. 59, Auletes decided to go himself to Rome, in the hope of obtaining, through the good offices of Pompey, or of Cæsar, who was Consul in that year, the official recognition by the Senate of his right to the Egyptian throne. Being so degenerate and so worthless a personage, there was no likelihood that the Romans would confirm him in his kingdom unless they were well paid to do so, and he therefore took with him all the money he could lay his hands upon. In Rome, as Mommsen says, “men had forgotten what honesty was. A person who refused a bribe was regarded not as an upright man, but as a personal foe.” Auletes, therefore, when he had arrived, gave huge bribes to various Senators in order to obtain their support, and he appears to have been most systematically fleeced by the acute magnates of Rome. When for the moment his Egyptian resources were exhausted, he borrowed a large sum from the great financier, Rabirius Postumus, who persuaded some of his friends also to lend the King money. These men formed a kind of syndicate to finance Auletes, on the understanding that if he were confirmed in his heritage, they should each receive in return a sum vastly greater than that which they had put in.
The visit of Auletes to Rome was made in the nick of time. The Pirate and the Third Mithridatic wars had left the Republic in pressing need of money, and there was much talk in regard to the advantages of an immediate annexation of Egypt. Crassus, the tribune Rullus, and Julius Cæsar had shown themselves anxious to take the country without delay; and the unfortunate King of Egypt thus found himself in a most desperate position. At last, however, a bribe of 6000 talents (about a million and a half sterling) induced the nearly bankrupt Cæsar to give Auletes the desired recognition, and the disgraceful transaction came to a temporary conclusion with Cæsar’s violent forcing of his “Julian Law concerning the King of Egypt” through the Senate, whereby Ptolemy was named the “ally and friend of the Roman people.”
In the next year, B.C. 58, the Romans, still in need of money, prepared to annex Cyprus, over which Ptolemy, the brother of Auletes, was reigning. The annexation had been proposed by Publius Clodius, a scoundrelly politician, who bore a grudge against the Cyprian Ptolemy owing to the fact that once when Clodius was captured by pirates Ptolemy had only offered two talents for his ransom. Ptolemy would not now buy off the invaders as his brother had done, and in consequence Cato landed on the island and converted it into part of the Roman province of Cilicia. Ptolemy, with a certain royal dignity, at once poisoned himself, preferring to die than to suffer the humiliation of banishment from the throne which he had usurped. His treasure of 7000 talents (some £1,700,000) fell into the hands of Cato, who having, no doubt, helped himself to a portion of the booty,[16] handed the remainder over to the benign Senate.
No sooner had Auletes obtained the support of Rome, however, than his own people of Alexandria, incensed by the increase of taxation necessary for paying off his debts, and angry also at the King’s refusal to seize Cyprus from the Romans, rose in rebellion and drove him out of Egypt. While the wretched man was on his way to Rome, he put in at Rhodes, where he had heard that Cato was staying, in order to obtain some help from this celebrated Senator; and, having had few personal dealings with Romans, he sent a royal invitation or command to Cato to come to him. The Senator, however, who that day was suffering from a bilious attack, and had just swallowed a dose of medicine, was in no mind to wait upon drunken kings. He therefore sent a message to Auletes stating that if he wished to see him he had better come to his lodgings in the town; and the King of Egypt was thus obliged to humble himself and to find his way to the Senator’s house. Cato did not even rise from his seat when Auletes was ushered in; but straightway bidding the King be seated, gave him a severe lecture on the folly of going to Rome to plead his cause. All Egypt turned into silver, he declared, would hardly satisfy the greed of the Romans whom he would have to bribe, and he strongly urged him to return to Egypt and to make his peace with his subjects. The Senator’s bilious attack, however, seems to have cut short the interview, and Auletes, unconvinced, set sail for Italy.
Meanwhile the King’s daughter, Berenice IV., had seized the Egyptian throne, and was reigning serenely in her father’s place. This princess and her sister, Cleopatra VI., who died soon afterwards, were the only two children of Auletes’ first marriage—namely, with Cleopatra V. There were four young children in the Palace nurseries who were born of a second marriage, but who their mother was, or whether she was at this time alive or dead, history does not record. Of these four children, two afterwards succeeded to the throne as Ptolemy XIV. and Ptolemy XV., a third was the unfortunate Princess Arsinoe, and the fourth was the great Cleopatra VII., the heroine of the present volume, at this time about eleven years of age, having been born in the winter of B.C. 69–68.
Auletes having fled to Rome, approached the Senate in the manner of one who had been unjustly evicted from an estate which he had purchased from them. Again he bribed the leading statesmen, and again borrowed money on all sides, though now it is probable that his Roman creditors were less sanguine than on the previous occasion. Cæsar was absent in Gaul at this time, and therefore was not able to be bribed. Pompey, curiously enough, does not appear to have accepted the King’s money, though he offered him the hospitality of his villa in the Alban district, a fact which suggests that the idea of restoring Auletes to his throne had made a strong appeal to the imagination of this impressionable Roman. He had already made himself a kind of patron of the Egyptian Court, and there can be little doubt that he hoped to obtain from Auletes, in return for his favours, the freedom to make use of the wealth and resources of that monarch’s enormously valuable dominion.
The people of Alexandria, who were eagerly desirous that Auletes should not be reinstated, now sent an embassy of a hundred persons to Rome to lay before the Senate their case against the King; but the banished monarch, driven by despair to any lengths, hired assassins and caused the embassy to be attacked near Puteoli, the modern Pozzuoli, many of them being slain. Those who survived were heavily bribed, and thus the crime was hushed up. The leader of the deputation, the philosopher Dion, escaped on this occasion, but was poisoned by Auletes as soon as he arrived in Rome; and thereupon the desperate King was able to breathe once more in peace. All might now have gone well with his cause, and a Roman army might have been placed at his disposal had not some political opponent discovered in the Sibylline Books an oracle which stated that if the King of Egypt were to come begging for help he should be aided with friendship but not with arms. Thereat, in despair, the unfortunate Auletes quitted Rome, and took up his residence at Ephesus, leaving in the capital an agent named Ammonios to keep him in touch with events.
Three years later, in January B.C. 55, the King’s interests were still being discussed, and Pompey was trying, in a desultory manner, to assist him back to his throne; but so great were the fears of the Senate at placing the task in the hands of any one man, that no decision could be arrived at. It was suggested that Lentulus Spinther, the Governor of Cilicia, should evade the Sibylline decree by leaving Auletes at Ptolemais (Acre) and going himself to Egypt at the head of an army; but the King no doubt saw in this an attempt by the wily Romans simply to seize his country, and he appears to have opposed the plan with understandable vehemence. It was then proposed that Lentulus should take no army, but should trust to the might of the Roman name for his purpose, thereby following the advice of the prophetic Books.
At last, however, Auletes offered the huge bribe of 10,000 talents (nearly two and a half millions sterling) for the repurchase of his kingdom; and, as a consequence, the Governor of Syria, Aulus Gabinius, himself a bankrupt in sore need of money, arranged to invade Egypt and to place Auletes upon the throne in spite of the Sibylline warnings. Gabinius, being so deeply in debt, and knowing that a large portion of the promised sum would pass to him, was extremely eager to undertake the war, though it is said that he feared the possibility of disaster. He therefore pushed forward the arrangements for the campaign with all despatch, and soon was prepared to set out across the desert to Egypt.
Meanwhile the Alexandrians had married Berenice IV. to Archelaus, the High Priest of Komana in Cappadocia, an ambitious man of great influence and authority, a protégé of Pompey the Great, who had been raised to the High Priesthood by him in B.C. 64, and who at once attempted, but without success, to obtain through him the support of Rome. Gabinius was not long in declaring war against Archelaus, under the pretext that he was encouraging piracy along the North African coast, and also that he was building a fleet which might be regarded as a menace to Rome; and soon his army was marching across the desert from Gaza to Pelusium. The cavalry, which was sent in advance of the main army, was commanded by Marcus Antonius, at this time a smart young soldier whose future lay all golden before him. The frontier fortress of Pelusium fell to his brilliant generalship, and soon the Roman legions were marching on Alexandria. The palace soldiery now joined the invaders, Archelaus was killed, and the city fell.