“But he was your enemy,” Pothinus protested, “I thought you would be pleased!”
“He was a Consul of Rome,” Caesar roared more loudly than I had ever heard him. He shook his head, his voice suddenly sounding tired and I saw his shoulders slump. “You had no right or cause to meddle in internal Roman matters. You have shamed not just yourselves, but you have shamed me.” He took a deep breath before regaining control of himself. “This changes nothing,” he declared. “You know what you must do. And I know what I must do.”
With that, he turned away, but before I faced about to wait for him to pass, I am sure that I saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes.
The news of Pompey’s death angered the men greatly. Fortunately, their anger was not aimed at Caesar but at the Egyptians because of their treachery. It also told Caesar that he had to watch himself while in their midst; if they would murder Pompey, it was not out of the realm of possibility that they would try to murder Caesar. Now that Pompey was dead, there was really no need to linger where we were so clearly not wanted, at least as far as the men were concerned, but we were staying put while Caesar waited for Ptolemy to answer his summons. However, Caesar was not idle; he commanded his admiral Cassius to set sail as quickly as possible with orders to retrieve the 27th Legion, along with two new Legions he had ordered to be formed out of Pompey’s veterans, numbered 36th and 37th. Meanwhile, we set up our quarters inside the compound in a series of buildings near the royal theater, and I was ordered to bring the rest of the 6th within the enclosure, with the 28th setting up camp on the quay. Our presence was still a festering sore to the Egyptians, and they had taken to making daily demonstrations expressing their displeasure. At first, they contented themselves with gathering in a crowd to hurl insults and an occasional rotten vegetable or small dead animal. Then a couple boys from the 28th wandered too far from their Cohort area, evidently in search of some of the fleshly delights they had heard so much about, winding up with their throats cut and dumped in an alley. Their Centurion took his Century out in search of them; while they found the two men, they also found themselves surrounded very quickly by a mob, and this lot was not content just to throw fruit and whatnot. According to the Centurion, it started out in the usual manner, but then out of the crowd came one of the bricks that the Egyptians use to pave their streets, striking a man in the chest and knocking him down. An instant later, the air was filled with bricks, stones, and whatever else the crowd could get their hands on, with several men struck and injured, a couple of them seriously. That in turn ignited the rage of the men, who were already eager to lash out because of their two dead comrades, and without receiving any orders, they rushed the crowd, striking a few dozen down before the crowd ran for its collective life, whereupon the Century marched back to the camp carrying their dead and wounded. That was the beginning of daily riots before Caesar finally ordered first Century-sized, then Cohort-sized sorties out to disperse the crowds, with orders to stop just short of deadly force. However, this merely served to escalate the violence, and soon there were pitched battles going on between our men and the Egyptians. It was not until Caesar finally allowed us to unsheathe our weapons that a semblance of order was restored. I do not know how many Egyptians were killed, but it was in the hundreds, although we did not survive unscathed. Since both of my Cohorts were now at the enclosure, we were not involved in any of these actions, but I suspected that if we stayed much longer, we would see more than enough action, and it appeared that Caesar had every intention of staying. The question was, what was he staying for?
~ ~ ~ ~
I know that there has been much speculation about the true reason for Caesar’s time in Alexandria; some men who claimed to have inside knowledge have even said that it was for love. These men are at best fools, and at worst liars. I know why Caesar chose to stay and wait for Ptolemy to answer his summons, although I also know firsthand that he was very well aware that when Ptolemy finally did come, it might be at the head of an army that outnumbered us by more than ten to one. While I cannot claim that Caesar told this to me directly, we had enough conversations where the subject came up and he made some sort of comment that now leads me to be as sure as I can be that I know the real reason that we stayed in Alexandria, and love was not it. However, before I impart what I know, I cannot deny that there might be a partial grain of truth that Caesar had feelings for young Cleopatra, although I can say with certainty that she was not the driving force behind his decision. No, it was more mundane and as a result more pressing reason than love; Caesar needed money. I have already detailed the agreement Caesar struck with the men of the 6th, yet the 6th was just the tip of the javelin. Caesar had made similar promises to his Spanish Legions to quell their revolt, and had just formed new Legions from the Pompeian survivors who chose to fight for him. As a result, he knew that to renege on these promises would bring on his destruction more surely and more quickly than Pompey or his minions ever could. The amounts we are talking about were massive, and that was just for the troops; Caesar also had to rebuild a Republic torn apart by civil war. Although his Gallic conquests would go a long way towards providing the kind of income he needed, the cash that he had accrued through the sale of hundreds of thousands of slaves was long since expended and it would be years before the new provinces started providing the kind of revenue needed. The wealth of Egypt was well known, even by people as lowly born and uneducated as me, and it was this that Caesar planned on using to keep his enterprise going. What I do not know was whether he planned to take the contents of Egypt’s treasury outright, or if his goal was more subtle, by placing Cleopatra on the throne, knowing that she would be a pliant ally. First though, he had to settle the question of the squabble between brother-husband and sister-wife, but before that could begin, he had to find Cleopatra. Especially now that, after several days of waiting, we received word that young Ptolemy was returning to the capital.
~ ~ ~ ~
Surprisingly, the young king chose to leave his army behind, bringing only his immediate entourage. His retinue included Pothinus, whom I have already mentioned, and was left behind to manage matters in his absence, along with an old toad by the name of Theodotus, who was a tutor of some kind. I thought it the height of irony, and not a little amusing that Ptolemy had to come to his own palace seeking an audience with Caesar, despite Caesar taking pains to avoid the appearance of Ptolemy being a supplicant. I was not present at the meeting, but Caesar’s secretary Appolonius was friends with Diocles, so I heard of what took place in a matter of a watch. During the time Caesar waited for Ptolemy to arrive, he had Appolonius and the rest of the staff turn the palace upside down looking for a document, which in a palace the size of Ptolemy’s, crammed full of a few hundred years' worth of documents was no small feat. But they did find it, and Caesar had this document in front of him when the young Ptolemy finally made his appearance.
“He’s a spindly, weak-looking thing,” sniffed Appolonius, sipping the wine Diocles had poured.
He was sitting in my quarters, but in the front room that served as the Legion office where Diocles spent most of his time. I was in my private quarters, but the walls were thin, the door open, and I suspect that he knew full well that I was listening. Something that I was learning from Diocles was that much could be learned, and one’s life could be made much easier, if one treated their slaves and servants well. As quick as slaves are to swap tales of woe about cruel masters with each other, they are just as quick to speak well of kind ones, and when all is said and done, slaves run Rome and the Republic. Also, when one has a reputation for kindness to his own slaves, he finds that the slaves of others are much more willing to do small favors for him, though I do not really know why, so I know that what Appolonius was saying was as much for my ears as it was just two slaves gossiping.