deep agitation
he turned away when the murderer brought to his ship the head of the man,
who had been his son-in-law and for long years his colleague
in rule, and to get whom alive into his power he had come to Egypt.
The dagger of the rash assassin precluded an answer to the question,
how Caesar would have dealt with the captive Pompeius; but, while
the humane sympathy, which still found a place in the great soul
of Caesar side by side with ambition, enjoined that he should
spare his former friend, his interest also required that he should
annihilate Pompeius otherwise than by the executioner.
Pompeius had been for twenty years the acknowledged ruler
of Rome; a dominion so deeply rooted does not perish
with the ruler's death. The death of Pompeius did not break up
the Pompeians, but gave to them instead of an aged, incapable,
and worn-out chief in his sons Gnaeus and Sextus two leaders,
both of whom were young and active and the second was a man
of decided capacity. To the newly-founded hereditary monarchy
hereditary pretendership attached itself at once like a parasite,
and it was very doubtful whether by this change of persons Caesar
did not lose more than he gained.

Caesar Regulates Egypt

Meanwhile in Egypt Caesar had now nothing further to do,
and the Romans and the Egyptians expected that he would
immediately set sail and apply himself to the subjugation of Africa,
and to the huge task of organization which awaited him after the victory.
But Caesar faithful to his custom--wherever he found himself
in the wide empire--of finally regulating matters at once and in person,
and firmly convinced that no resistance was to be expected
either from the Roman garrison or from the court, being, moreover,
in urgent pecuniary embarrassment, landed in Alexandria
with the two amalgamated legions accompanying him to the number
of 3200 men and 800 Celtic and German cavalry, took up his quarters
in the royal palace, and proceeded to collect the necessary sums of money
and to regulate the Egyptian succession, without allowing himself
to be disturbed by the saucy remark of Pothinus that Caesar
should not for such petty matters neglect his own so important affairs.
In his dealing with the Egyptians he was just and even indulgent.
Although the aid which they had given to Pompeius justified
the imposing of a war contribution, the exhausted land was spared
from this; and, while the arrears of the sum stipulated for in 695(40)
a