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The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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Having now arrived on the Asiatic coast, Cæsar advanced more leisurely. He had received information of Pompey’s flight to Egypt, and was aware that, if the suppliant were received there, he could not be dislodged except by regular military operations. He was content therefore to await the arrival of ampler succours, and employed himself in the meanwhile with repairing the injuries which Scipio was accused of having inflicted upon the unfortunate provincials. He earned their favourable opinion by the remission of taxes, and by restraining the exactions of the farmers of the revenue. He saved a second time from spoliation the treasures of the Ephesian Diana, which Ampius, an adherent of the opposite party, had been on the point of seizing. These benefits he accompanied with further favours and distinctions, and then handed over the government of the province to Calvinus, to whom he entrusted three legions, to defend it against Pharnaces and the other oriental allies of the senate. Cæsar retained only two legions about his own person, and those so much reduced in number as to contain much less, than half their proper complements. The whole of this force consisted of only 3200 infantry, and eight hundred cavalry, and with these he sailed without hesitation for Egypt. It was only a few days after the death of Pompey that he appeared thus attended off the port of Alexandria. No sooner was his arrival known than Theodotus hastened to meet him on board his vessel, and brought to him the head and ring of his murdered rival. The latter might be of important service to assure the wavering of the event which had occurred, and Cæsar took and preserved it for that purpose; but from the mangled head he turned away with horror, and gave orders, with tears in his eyes, that it should be consumed with the costliest spices. The ashes he caused to be deposited in a shrine which he erected to the avenging Nemesis. The murderers were confounded and alarmed at the feeling he exhibited, nor were they less astonished, perhaps, at the perfect confidence with which he disembarked upon their coast, and claimed with his handful of followers to settle the concerns of a powerful kingdom.
It had been Cæsar’s policy to spare the wealth of the provinces which he wished to attach to his side, and his system was directly opposed to the confiscation of his enemies’ estates; but his want of money was urgent, and it was in arranging the quarrels of a dependent kingdom that the best opportunity might be found for exacting it. This undoubtedly was the urgent motive which impelled him to intrude upon the affairs of a jealous people, in which his principal designs were in no way implicated. When Auletes came to Rome to negotiate his restoration to the throne, he had purchased the support of the leaders of the senate by the most lavish bribes. Cæsar himself had received the promise of seventeen millions and a half of drachmæ; an obligation which had never yet been discharged. He now confined his demand to ten millions, but sternly rejected the representations of Pothinus, who pleaded for a longer time for the payment of so large a sum. But even at the moment of landing Cæsar was warned of the difficulties into which he was rushing. His military force was contemptible; it was upon the dignity of his title as consul of the republic that he could alone rely. Accordingly, he entered the streets of Alexandria with all the insignia of his office, thereby offending the populace, who were easily persuaded that he offered an intentional insult to their independence. A riot ensued, in which many of the Cæsarian soldiers lost their lives. Cæsar felt that he had mistaken the character of the nation, and underrated their jealousy of foreigners.
But policy would not allow him to give way. He summoned the rival sovereigns before him, and offered to decide their disputes in the name of the republic. Ptolemy left his camp at Pelusium, and gave Cæsar a meeting in the palace of Alexandria, where he soon found himself watched and detained as a hostage. Cleopatra had already implored the consul’s mediation, and now, when her brother or his ministers obstructed her approach to his presence, she caused herself to be carried by stratagem into his chamber. The fame of Cleopatra’s beauty, which was destined to become second only to Helen’s in renown, was already bruited widely abroad. She had been seen by Mark Antony during the brief inroad of Gabinius into Egypt; and grave legates of the republic had brought back to Rome glowing reports of the girlish charms of the Lagid princess. She was indeed, at the time of her introduction to Cæsar, not twenty years old, and her wit and genius in the arts of female conquest were yet unknown. Perhaps it was fortunate for their celebrity that the man upon whom she was first to prove their power was already predisposed to submit. Cæsar forthwith undertook the championship of the distressed beauty, for it suited his purpose to play off her claims against the haughty minions of her rival. In devoting himself to her cause he did not deny himself the reward of his gallantry; but while he indulged in the luxuries and dissipations of the most sensual of capitals, he kept his eye steadily fixed on his main object, and at the same time carefully guarded his own person from the machinations of his unscrupulous enemies.
The ministers of the young king were well assured that the reconciliation of the brother and sister would be the signal for their own disgrace. They employed every artifice to rouse the passions of a jealous mob, and alarmed the fanaticism of priests and people against a foreigner, whom they accused of desecrating their holy places, of eating accursed meats, and violating their most cherished usages. Cæsar had despatched an urgent message to Calvinus to hasten to his succour with all the forces he could muster. But while waiting for the arrival of reinforcements, the necessity of which he now keenly felt, he dissembled every appearance of apprehension, and occupied himself in public with the society of Cleopatra, or in conversation with the Egyptian sages, and inquiry into their mysterious lore. His judgment was no more mastered by a woman’s charms than by the fascinations of science; but the occupation of Alexandria was essential to his plans, and he assumed the air of curiosity or dissipation to veil his ulterior designs. With this view he visited with affected interest all the vaunted wonders of the city of the Ptolemies, and even proposed, it was said, to relinquish his schemes of ambition to discover the sources of the Nile. At the first outset of his career of glory, his imagination had been fired at Gades by the sight of Alexander’s statue; now that the highest summit of power was within his reach, he descended to the tomb of the illustrious conqueror, and mused perhaps on the vanity of vanities beside his shrouded remains.
The young king, though kept in hardly disguised captivity within the walls of his palace, had found means to communicate to his adherents the alarm and indignation with which he viewed the apparent influence of his sister over the Roman commander. The Macedonian dynasty which had reigned for three centuries in Alexandria was not unpopular with its Egyptian subjects. Though the descendants of Lagus had degenerated from the genius and virtues of the first sovereigns of their line, their sway had ever been mild and tolerant, and both conquerors and conquered reposed in equal security under the shadow of their paternal throne. Achillas, the general of the king’s armies, had a force of twenty thousand men, consisting principally of the troops which Gabinius had employed in the restoration of Auletes, and which had been left behind for his protection. These men had for the most part formed connections with the natives, and had imbibed their sentiments at the same time that they adopted their manners. The camp was filled, moreover, with a crowd of deserters and fugitive slaves from all parts of the Roman Empire, for Alexandria was the common resort of the desperate and abandoned, who purchased impunity for their crimes by enlisting in the king’s service. These were the men who had placed Auletes on his throne, who had murdered the sons of the Roman legate Gabinius, and expelled Cleopatra from her royal inheritance. They were the reckless agents of the populace of Alexandria in each capricious mood of turbulence or loyalty. They were now prepared to join in the general outcry against the intrusion of the Romans, and encouraged by their leader and Arsinoe, the younger sister of their sovereign, they entered the city, and imparted vigour and concentration to the hostile ebullitions of the multitude.