But, notwithstanding all his cunning, he was detected in his double dealing, and his career was suddenly brought to a close, before the great final conflict came on. There was a barber in Cæsar’s household, who, for some cause or other, began to suspect Pothinus; and, having little else to do, he employed himself in watching the eunuch’s movements and reporting them to Cæsar. Cæsar directed the barber to continue his observations. He did so; his suspicions were soon confirmed, and at length a letter, which Pothinus had written to Achillas, was intercepted and brought to Cæsar. This furnished the necessary proof of what they called his guilt, and Cæsar ordered him to be beheaded.
This circumstance produced, of course, a great excitement within the palace, for Pothinus had been for many years the great ruling minister of state—the king, in fact, in all but in name. His execution alarmed a great many others, who, though in Cæsar’s power, were secretly wishing that Achillas might prevail. Among those most disturbed by these fears was a man named Ganymede. He was the officer who had charge of Arsinoë, Cleopatra’s sister. The arrangement which Cæsar had proposed for establishing her in conjunction with her brother Ptolemy over the island of Cyprus had not gone into effect; for, immediately after the decision of Cæsar, the attention of all concerned had been wholly engrossed by the tidings of the advance of the army, and by the busy preparations which were required on all hands for the impending contest. Arsinoë, therefore, with her governor Ganymede, remained in the palace. Ganymede had joined Pothinus in his plots; and when Pothinus was beheaded, he concluded that it would be safest for him to fly.
He accordingly resolved to make his escape from the city, taking Arsinoë with him. It was a very hazardous attempt, but he succeeded in accomplishing it. Arsinoë was very willing to go, for she was now beginning to be old enough to feel the impulse of that insatiable and reckless ambition which seemed to form such an essential element in the character of every son and daughter in the whole Ptolemaic line. She was insignificant and powerless where she was, but at the head of the army she might become immediately a queen.
It resulted, in the first instance, as she had anticipated. Achillas and his army received her with acclamations. Under Ganymede’s influence they decided that, as all the other members of the royal family were in durance, being held captive by a foreign general, who had by chance obtained possession of the capital, and were thus incapacitated for exercising the royal power, the crown devolved upon Arsinoë; and they accordingly proclaimed her queen.
Every thing was now prepared for a desperate and determined contest for the crown between Cleopatra, with Cæsar for her minister and general, on the one side, and Arsinoë, with Ganymede and Achillas for her chief officers, on the other. The young Ptolemy, in the mean time, remained Cæsar’s prisoner, confused with the intricacies in which the quarrel had become involved, and scarcely knowing now what to wish in respect to the issue of the contest. It was very difficult to foresee whether it would be best for him that Cleopatra or that Arsinoë should succeed.
Chapter VII.
The Alexandrine War.
The war which ensued as the result of the intrigues and maneuvers described in the last chapter is known in the history of Rome and Julius Cæsar as the Alexandrine war. The events which occurred during the progress of it, and its termination at last in the triumph of Cæsar and Cleopatra, will form the subject of this chapter.