CAESAR (kindly). No, no, my boy: that is your chair of state. Sit down.
He makes Ptolemy sit down again. Meanwhile Rufio, looking about him, sees in the nearest corner an image of the god Ra, represented as a seated man with the head of a hawk. Before the image is a bronze tripod, about as large as a three-legged stool, with a stick of incense burning on it. Rufio, with Roman resourcefulness and indifference to foreign superstitions, promptly seizes the tripod; shakes off the incense; blows away the ash; and dumps it down behind Caesar, nearly in the middle of the hall.
RUFIO. Sit on that, Caesar.
A shiver runs through the court, followed by a hissing whisper of Sacrilege!
CAESAR (seating himself). Now, Pothinus, to business. I am badly in want of money.
BRITANNUS (disapproving of these informal expressions). My master would say that there is a lawful debt due to Rome by Egypt, contracted by the King’s deceased father to the Triumvirate; and that it is Caesar’s duty to his country to require immediate payment.
CAESAR (blandly). Ah, I forgot. I have not made my companions known here. Pothinus: this is Britannus, my secretary. He is an islander from the western end of the world, a day’s voyage from Gaul. (Britannus bows stiffly.) This gentleman is Rufio, my comrade in arms. (Rufio nods.) Pothinus: I want 1,600 talents.
The courtiers, appalled, murmur loudly, and Theodotus and Achillas appeal mutely to one another against so monstrous a demand.
POTHINUS (aghast). Forty million sesterces! Impossible. There is not so much money in the King’s treasury.
CAESAR (encouragingly). Only sixteen hundred talents, Pothinus. Why count it in sesterces? A sestertius is only worth a loaf of bread.