So confident now was he in his strength that he next sailed round the island, and attacked the Egyptian fleet in its own harbour beyond the Heptastadium, inflicting heavy losses upon them. He then landed on the western end of Pharos, which was still held by the enemy, carried the forts by storm, and effected a junction with his own men who were stationed around the lighthouse at the eastern end. His plan was to advance across the Heptastadium, and thus, by holding both the island and the mole, to obtain possession of the western Harbour of the Happy Return and ultimately to strike a wedge into the city upon that side. But here he suffered a dangerous reverse. While he was leading in person the attack upon the south or city end of the Heptastadium, and his men were crowding on to it from the island and from the vessels in the Great Harbour, the Egyptians made a spirited attack upon its northern end, thus hemming the Romans in upon the narrow causeway, to the consternation of those who watched the battle from the Lochias Promontory. Fortunately vessels were at hand to take off the survivors of this sanguinary engagement, as the enemy drove them back from either end of the causeway; and presently they had all scrambled aboard and were rowing at full speed across the Great Harbour. Such numbers, however, jumped on to the deck of the vessel into which Cæsar had entered that it capsized, and we are then presented with the dramatic picture of the ruler of the world swimming for his life through the quiet waters of the harbour, holding aloft in one hand a bundle of important papers which he happened to be carrying at the moment of the catastrophe, dragging his scarlet military cloak along by his teeth, and at the same time constantly ducking his rather bald head under the water to avoid the missiles which were hurled at him by the victorious Egyptians, who must have been capering about upon the recaptured mole, all talking and shouting at once. He was, however, soon picked up by one of his ships; and thus he returned to the Palace, very cold and dripping wet, and having in the end lost the cloak which was the cherished mark of his rank. Four hundred legionaries and a number of seamen perished in this engagement, most of them being drowned; and now, perhaps for the first time, it began to appear to Cæsar that the warfare which he was waging was not the amusing game he had thought it. For at least four months he had entertained himself in the Palace, spending his days in pottering around his perfectly secure defences and his nights in enjoying the company of Cleopatra. Up till now he must have been in constant receipt of news from Rome, where his affairs were being managed by Antony, his boisterous but fairly reliable lieutenant, and it is evident that nothing had occurred there to necessitate his return. Far from being hemmed in within the Palace and obliged to fight for his life, as is generally supposed to have been the case, it seems to me that his position at all times was as open as it was secure. He could have travelled across the Mediterranean at any moment; and, had he thought it desirable, he could have sailed over to Italy for a few weeks and returned to Alexandria without any great risk. His fleet had shown itself quite capable of defending him from danger upon the high seas, as, for example, when he had sailed out to meet the Thirty-seventh Legion;[33] and, as on that occasion, his troops could have been left in security in their fortified position. Supplies from Syria were plentiful, and the Rhodian sailors, after escorting him as far as Cyprus, could have returned to their duties at Alexandria in order to ensure the safe and continuous arrival of these stores and provisions.
It is thus very apparent that he had no wish to abandon the enjoyments of his winter in the Egyptian capital, where he had become thoroughly absorbed both in the little Queen of that country and in the problems which were represented to him by her. He was an elderly man, and the weight of his years caused him to feel a temporary distaste for the restless anxieties which awaited him in Rome. His ambitions in the Occident had been attained; and now, finding himself engaged in what, I would suggest, was an easily managed and not at all dangerous war, he was determined to carry the struggle through to its inevitable end, and to find in this quite interesting and occasionally exciting task an excuse for remaining by the side of the woman who, for the time being, absorbed the attention of his wayward affections. Already he was beginning to realise that the subjection of Egypt to his will was a matter of very great political importance, as will be explained hereafter; and he felt the keenest objection to abandoning the Queen to her own devices, both on this account and by reason of the hold which she had obtained upon his heart. In after years he did not look back upon the fighting with an interest sufficient to induce him to record its history, as he had done that of other campaigns, but he caused an official account to be written by one of his comrades; and this author has been at pains to show that the struggle was severe in character. Such an interpretation of the war, however, though now unanimously accepted, is to be received with caution, and need not be taken more seriously than the statement that, in the first instance, Cæsar’s prolonged stay at Alexandria was due to the Etesian winds which made it difficult for his ships to leave the harbour. These annual winds from the north might have delayed his return for a week or two; but it is obvious that he had no desire to set sail; and the author of De Bello Alexandrino was doubtless permitted to cover Cæsar’s apparent negligence of important Roman affairs by thus attributing his lengthy absence to the strength of the enemy and to the inclemency of the Fates.
Now, however, after the ignominious defeat upon the Heptastadium, Cæsar appears to have become fully determined to punish the Alexandrians and to prosecute the campaign with more energy. He seems soon to have received news that a large army was marching across the desert from Syria to his relief, under the joint leadership of Mithridates of Pergamum, a natural son of Mithridates the Great, the Jewish Antipater, father of Herod, and Iamblichus, son of Sampsiceramus, a famous Arab chieftain from Hemesa. With the advent of these forces he knew that he would be able to crush all resistance and to impose his will upon Egypt; and he now, therefore, took a step which clearly shows his determination to handle affairs with sternness and ruthlessness, in such a manner that Cleopatra should speedily become sole ruler of the country, and thus should be in a position to lay all the might of her kingdom in his hands.
The Princess Arsinoe had failed to make herself Queen of Egypt in spite of the efforts of Ganymedes, and the royal army was still endeavouring to rescue King Ptolemy and to fight under his banner. Cæsar, therefore, determined to hand the young man over to them, knowing, as the historian of the war admits, that there was little probability of such an action leading to a cessation of hostilities. His avowed object in taking this step was to give Ptolemy the opportunity of arranging terms of peace for him; but he did not hesitate to record officially his opinion that, in the event of a continuation of the war, it would be far more honourable for him to be fighting against a king than against “a crowd of sweepings of the earth and renegades.” The truth of the matter, however, seems to me to be that Cæsar wished to rid himself of the boy, who stood in the way of the accomplishment of his schemes in regard to the sole sovereignty of Cleopatra; and by handing him over to the enemy at the moment when the news of the arrival of the army from Syria made the Egyptian downfall absolutely certain, he insured the young man’s inevitable death or degradation. The miserable Ptolemy must have realised this, for when Cæsar instructed him to go over to his friends beyond the Roman lines, he burst into tears and begged to be allowed to remain in the Palace. He knew quite well that the Egyptians had not a chance of victory—that when once he had taken up his residence with his own people their conqueror would treat him as an enemy and punish him accordingly. Cæsar, however, on his part, was aware that if in the hour of Roman victory Ptolemy was still under his protection, it would be difficult not to carry out the terms of the will of Auletes by making him joint-sovereign with Cleopatra. The King’s tears and paradoxical protestations of devotion were therefore ignored; and forthwith he was pushed out of the Palace into the welcoming arms of the Alexandrians, the younger brother, whom Cæsar had designed for the safely distant throne of Cyprus, being left in the custody of the Romans alone with Cleopatra.
The relieving army from Syria soon arrived at the eastern frontier of Egypt, and, taking Pelusium by storm, gave battle to the King’s forces not far from the Canopic mouth of the Nile. The Egyptians were easily defeated, and the invaders marched along the eastern edge of the Delta towards Memphis (near the modern Cairo), just below which they crossed the Nile to the western bank. The young Ptolemy thereupon, expecting no mercy at Cæsar’s hands, put himself boldly at the head of such troops as could be spared from the siege of the Palace at Alexandria, and marched across the Delta to measure swords with Mithridates and his allies. No sooner was he gone from the city than Cæsar, leaving a small garrison in the Palace, sailed out of the harbour with as many men as he could crowd into the ships at his disposal, and moved off eastwards as though making for Canopus or Pelusium. Under cover of darkness, however, he turned in the opposite direction, and before dawn disembarked upon the deserted shore some miles to the west of Alexandria. He thus out-manœuvred the Egyptian fleet with ease, and, incidentally, demonstrated that he had been throughout the siege perfectly free to come and go across the water as he chose. Marching along the western border of the desert, as his friends had marched along the eastern, he effected a junction with them at the apex of the Delta, not far north of Memphis, and immediately turned to attack the approaching Egyptian army. Ptolemy, on learning of their advance, fortified himself in a strong position at the foot of a tell, or mound, the Nile being upon one flank, a marsh upon the other, and a canal in front of him; but the allies, after a two-days’ battle, turned the position and gained a complete victory. The turning movement had been entrusted to a certain Carfulenus, who afterwards fell at Mutina fighting against Antony, and this officer managed to penetrate into the Egyptian camp. At his approach Ptolemy appears to have jumped into one of the boats which lay moored upon the Nile; but the weight of the numbers of fugitives who followed his example sank the vessel, and the young king was never seen alive again. It is said that his dead body was recognised afterwards by the golden corselet which he wore, and which, no doubt, had caused by its weight his rapid death. His tragic end, at the age of fifteen, relieved Cæsar of the embarrassing necessity either of pardoning him and making him joint-sovereign with Cleopatra, according to the terms of his father’s will, or of carrying him captive to Rome and putting him to death in the customary manner at the close of his triumph. The boy had foreseen the fate which would be chosen for him, when he had begged with tears to be allowed to remain in the Palace; and his sudden submersion in the muddy waters of the Nile must have terminated a life which of late had been intolerably overshadowed by the knowledge that his existence was an obstacle to Cæsar’s relentless ambitions, and by the horror of the certainty of speedy death.
On March 27th, B.C. 47,[34] Cæsar, who had ridden on with his cavalry, entered Alexandria in triumph, its gates being now thrown open to him. The inhabitants dressed themselves in mourning garments, sending deputations to him to beg for his mercy and forgiveness, and bringing out to him the statues of their gods as a token of their entire submission. Princess Arsinoe and Ganymedes were handed over to him as prisoners: and in pomp he rode through the city to the Palace, where as a conquering hero and saviour he was received into the arms of Cleopatra.
CHAPTER VII.
THE BIRTH OF CÆSARION AND CÆSAR’S DEPARTURE FROM EGYPT.
The death of Ptolemy and the submission of Alexandria brought the war to a definite close; and Cæsar, once more in comfortable residence at the Palace, was enabled at last to carry out his plans for the regulation of Egyptian affairs, with the execution of which the campaign had so long interfered. Cleopatra’s little brother, the younger Ptolemy, was a boy of only eleven years of age, who does not seem to have shown such signs of marked intelligence or strong character as would cause him to be a nuisance either to Cæsar or to his sister; and therefore it was arranged that he should be raised to the throne in place of his deceased brother, as nominal King and consort of Cleopatra. Cæsar, it will be remembered, had given Cyprus to this youth and to his sister Arsinoe; but now, since the latter was a prisoner in disgrace and the former was not old enough to cause trouble in Egypt, the island kingdom was not pressed upon them. To the Alexandrians, whose campaign against him had entertained him so admirably while he had pursued his intrigue with Cleopatra, Cæsar showed no desire to be other than lenient, and he preferred to regard the great havoc wrought in certain parts of their city as sufficient punishment for their misdeeds. He granted to the Jews, however, equal rights with the Greeks, in consideration of their assistance in the late war, a step which must have been somewhat irritating to the majority of the townsfolk. He then constituted a regular Roman Army of Occupation, for the purpose of supporting Cleopatra and her little brother upon the throne,[35] and to keep order in Alexandria and throughout the country. This army consisted of the two legions which had been besieged with him in the Palace, together with a third which presently arrived from Syria; and to the command of this force Cæsar appointed an able officer named Rufinus, who had risen by his personal merit from the ranks, being originally one of Cæsar’s own freedmen. It is usually stated that in handing over the command to a man of this standing and not to a person belonging to the Senate, Cæsar was showing his disdain for Egypt; but I am of opinion that the step was taken deliberately to retain the control of the country entirely in his own hands, Rufinus being, no doubt, absolutely Cæsar’s man. We do not hear what became of the Gabinian troops who had fought against Cæsar, but it is probable that they were drafted to legions stationed in other parts of the world.