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Achillas, captain of Ptolemy's guards, sent to kill Pompey, C. iii. 104; appointed by Pothinus commander of all the Egyptian forces, ibid. 108; heads an army of twenty thousand veteran troops, ibid. 110 Acilla, or Achilla, or Acholla. There were two cities in Africa of this name, one inland, the other on the coast. The modern name of the latter is Elalia Acilius, Caesar's lieutenant, C. iii. 15
Caesar, says Hirtius, considered that it would be more respectable to be fighting with a king than with a gang of ruffians. Young Ptolemy was released, and joined his countrymen, and the war went on more fiercely than before. Pompey's murderers were brought to justice in the course of it. Pothinus fell into Caesar's hands, and was executed.
Her father was interested in these things, especially as, through them, and the power of the mighty Isis, he expected to obtain relief from his many and severe sufferings. "Cleopatra's brothers were still mere boys, completely dependent upon their guardian, Pothinus, to whom the King left the care of the government, and their tutor, Theodotus, a clever but unprincipled rhetorician.
"That is all that I can discover." "I must see them at once," declared the lady. "I do not know how Pothinus will take this," replied the young freedman; "the discovery of his secret will be rightly attributed to me, and your ladyship would not care to imperil my life unless something very great is to be gained thereby." "I shall miss you very much," said Cornelia, soberly.
"We succeeded in joining Cleopatra, and heard that, spite of the hostility of our citizens, Caesar had occupied the palace of the Ptolemies and was engaged in restoring order. "We knew in what way Pothinus, Achillas, and Arsinoe would seek to influence him.
Cleopatra and the Imperator met, and the two strong personalities recognized each other's affinity instantly. Her coming was as a thunder-clap to Pothinus and his puppet Ptolemæus. They could only cringe and acquiesce when Cæsar ordered them to be reconciled with the queen, and seal her restoration by a splendid court banquet. The palace servants made ready for the feast.
When, many years before, the boy with whom, according to her father's will, she shared the throne, and his guardian Pothinus, had compelled her to fly from Alexandria, she had found in the eastern frontier of the Delta, on the isthmus which united Egypt to Asia, the remains of the canal which the energetic Pharaohs of former times had constructed to connect the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.
The people fell in with these measures, and cordially co-operated to give them effect; but Pothinus and Achillas, though they suppressed all outward expressions of discontent, made incessant efforts in secret to organize a party, and to form plans for overthrowing the influence of Caesar, and making Ptolemy again the sole and exclusive sovereign.
She could not march thither at the head of an army, for the army of the king was strongly intrenched at Pelusium, and effectually barred the way. She could not attempt to pass alone, or with few attendants, through the country, for every town and village was occupied with garrisons and officers under the orders of Pothinus, and she would be certainly intercepted.
She did not, herself, make any immediate attempt to hasten this period, but seems to have acquiesced, on the other hand, very quietly, for a time, in the arrangements which her father had made. Pothinus was a eunuch. He had been, for a long time, an officer of government under Ptolemy, the father.
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