[545] Of Knidus. The same who is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic. xiii. 7) as a friend of Cæsar, and by Strabo, p. 48, &c.
Asia is the Roman province of Asia.
[546] Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 106) speaks of his arrival on the coast of Egypt. The Egyptians were offended to see the Roman fasces carried before him.
[547] Cæsar had the head of Pompeius burnt with due honours, and he built a temple to Nemesis over the ashes. The temple was pulled down by the Jews in their rising in Egypt during the time of Trajanus. (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 90.)
As to the seal ring see the Life of Pompeius, c. 80, and Dion Cassias (42. c. 18).
[548] The Alexandrine war, which is confusedly told here, is recorded in a single book entitled De Bello Alexandrino and in Dion Cassius (42. c. 34-44). The origin of it is told by Cæsar at the end of the third Book of the Civil War. The history of the Alexandrine war by Appianus was in his Ægyptiaca, which is lost. Dion Cassius, a lover of scandal, mentions that Cæsar's attachment to Kleopatra was the cause of the Alexandrine war (42. c. 44). But it could not be the sole cause. Cæsar landed with the insignia of his office, as if he were entering a Roman province, and it might be reasonably suspected by the Egyptians that he had a design on the country. Instead of thanking them for ridding him of his rival, he fixed himself and his soldiers in one of the quarters of Alexandria. Cæsar went to get money (Dion, 42. c. 9). Kleopatra kept him there longer than he at first intended to stay.
[549] Ptolemæus Auletes through Cæsar's influence had been declared a friend and ally of the Romans in Cæsar's consulship B.C. 59. (Cic. Ad Attic. ii. 16.) Ptolemæus had to spend money for this: he both gave and promised. It does not appear that this money was promised to Cæsar: it is more probable that it was promised to the Roman State and Cæsar came to get it.
[550] The story of Kleopatra coming to Cæsar is also told by Dion Cassius (42. c. 34). Cæsar mentions his putting Pothinus to death (Civil War, iii. 112). Cæsar had at first only 3200 foot soldiers and 800 cavalry to oppose to the 20,000 men of Achillas, who were not bad soldiers. Besides these 20,000 men Achillas had a great number of vagabonds collected from all parts of Cilicia and Syria.
[551] Alexandria had no springs, and it was supplied from the Nile, the water of which was received into cisterns under the houses. This supply was (Bell. Alex. 5, &c.) damaged by Ganymedes the Egyptian drawing up salt water from the sea and sending it into the cisterns. Cæsar supplied himself by digging wells in the sand.
[552] As to the destruction of the library see Dion Cassius (42. c. 38) and the notes of Reimarus. The destruction is not mentioned by Cæsar or the author of the Alexandrine war. Kleopatra afterwards restored it, and the library was famed for a long time after. Lipsius (Opera iii. 1124, Vesal 1675) has collected all that is known of this and other ancient libraries.