to return to Alexandria, and make peace with
his rebellious subjects. Auletes, however, went on to Italy, and he
arrived at Rome in the twenty-fourth year of his reign; and in the
three years that he spent there in courting and bribing the senators, he
learned the truth of Cato's statements, and the value of his advice.

His brother Ptolemy, who was reigning in Cyprus, was not even so well
treated. The Romans passed a law making that wealthy island a Roman
province, no doubt upon the plea of the will of Alexander II. and the
king's illegitimacy; and they sent Cato, rather against his will, to
turn Ptolemy out of his kingdom. Ptolemy gave up the island without Cato
being called upon to use force, and in return the Romans made him high
priest in the temple of the Paphian Venus; but he soon put himself to
death by poison. Canidius Crassus, who had been employed by Cato in
this affair, may have had some fighting at sea with the Egyptians, as
on one of his coins we see on one side a crocodile, and on the other the
prow of a ship, as if he had beaten the Egyptian fleet in the mouth of
the Nile.

On the flight of their king, the rebellious Alexandrians set on
the throne the two eldest of his daughters, Cleopatra Tryphaena and
Berenice, and sent an embassy, at the head of which was Dion, the
academic philosopher, to plead their cause at Rome against the king. But
the gold of Auletes had already gained the senate; and Cicero spoke, on
his behalf, one of his great speeches, now unfortunately lost, in which
he rebutted the charge that Auletes was at all to be blamed for the
death of Alexander, whom he thought justly killed by his guards for the
murder of his queen and kinswoman. Caesar, whose year of consulship was
then drawing to an end, took his part warmly; and Auletes became in debt
to him in the sum of seventeen million drachmas, or nearly two and a
half million dollars, either for money lent to bribe the senators, or
for bonds then given to Caesar instead of money. By these means Auletes
got his title acknowledged; the door of the senate was shut against
the Alexandrian ambassadors; and the philosopher Dion, the head of the
embassy, was poisoned in Rome by the slaves of his friend Lucceius, in
whose house he was dwelling. But nevertheless, Auletes was not able to
get an army sent to help him against his rebellious subjects and his
daughters; nor was Caesar able to get from the senate, for the employment
of his proconsular