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Updated: June 29, 2025
The mob dispersed. Caesar convenes an assembly. Caesar's decision. Satisfaction of the assembly. Festivals and rejoicings. Pothinus and Achillas. Plot of Pothinus and Achillas. Escape of Achillas. March of the Egyptian army. Measures of Caesar. Murder of the messengers. Intentions of Achillas Cold-blooded assassination. Advance of Achillas Caesar's arrangements for defense. Cleopatra and Ptolemy.
He put to death Achillas and Potheinus, and the king himself being defeated in battle was lost somewhere near the river.
The freedman beside him washed his master's headless trunk. The general shrugged his shoulders as the faithful fellow heaped reproaches on him." Here Archibius paused, drawing a long breath. Then he continued more calmly: "Achillas did not lead the troops back to Alexandria, but eastward, towards Pelusium, as I learned later. "My brother and I stood on the rocky edge of the ravine.
Achillas and Pothinus he put to death; and king Ptolemy himself, being overthrown in battle upon the banks of the Nile, fled away and was never heard of afterwards.
He seized the low-lying ground which ran as an insignificant valley down between the halves of the city and tried to cut his enemies' position in twain. So the struggle dragged on. Achillas had been murdered by Arsinoë, and she had placed in command her governor, the eunuch Ganymed, who was more dangerous by his sly craft than fifty common generals.
In the meantime Ptolemy's younger daughter, hoping the throne would become vacant, made her escape from the palace to Achillas, and assisted him in prosecuting the war. But they soon quarrelled about the command, which circumstance enlarged the presents to the soldiers, for each endeavoured by great sacrifices to secure their affection.
Pothinus, a palace eunuch and one of young Ptolemy's guardians, sent secretly for the troops at Pelusium, and gave the command of them to Achillas, the officer who had murdered Pompey. The city rose when they came in, and Caesar found himself blockaded in the palace and the part of the city which joined the outer harbor.
The flames spread and produced an extensive conflagration, in the course of which the largest part of the great library was destroyed. This library was the only general collection of the ancient writings that ever had been made, and the loss of it was never repaired. The destruction of the Egyptian fleet resulted also in the downfall and ruin of Achillas.
Still, they would be commands coming in Ptolemy's name, and the universal experience of officers serving under the military despots of those ancient days showed that, rather than to take the responsibility of directly disobeying a royal order once received, it was safer to avoid receiving it by murdering the messengers. Achillas therefore directed the officers to be seized and slain.
Although, situated as he was, he was compelled to seem to be on Caesar's side, he must have secretly desired that Achillas should succeed and Caesar's plans be overthrown. Pothinus was more active, though not less cautious in his hostility to them.
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