Dio's Rome, Volume 2: An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English FormCassius Dio Cocceianus
History
Dio's Rome, Volume 2: An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form
Cassius Dio Cocceianus
Rome -- History
Ptolemy's knowledge went into the palace. [-35-] Caesar upon seeing her
and hearing her speak a few words was forthwith so completely captivated
that he at once, before dawn, sent for Ptolemy and tried to reconcile
them, acting as an advocate for the same woman whose judge he had
previously assumed to be. For this reason and because the sight of his
sister within the royal dwelling was so unexpected, the boy was filled
with wrath and rushed out among the people crying out that he had been
betrayed, and at last he tore the diadem from his head and cast it down.
In the mighty tumult which thereupon arose Caesar's soldiers seized the
prince who had caused the commotion; but the Egyptian mob was in
upheaval. They assaulted the palace by land and sea together and would
have taken it without difficulty (for the Romans had no force present
sufficient to cope with the foreigners, because the latter had been
regarded as friends) but for the fact that Caesar, alarmed, came out
before them and standing in a safe place promised to do for them
whatsoever they wished. Then he entered an assembly of theirs and
producing Ptolemy and Cleopatra read their father's will, in which it
was directed that they should live together according to the customs of
the Egyptians and rule in common, and that the Roman people should
exercise a guardianship over them. When he had done this and had added
that it belonged to him as dictator, holding all the power of the
people, to have an oversight of the children and to fulfill the father's
wishes, he bestowed upon them both the kingdom and granted Cyprus to
Arsinoë and Ptolemy the Younger, a sister and a brother of theirs. So
great fear possessed him that he not only laid hold on none of the
Egyptian domain, but actually gave the inhabitants in addition some of
what was his.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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