The strength of the senatorial party lay in Pompey's popularity in the
East. A halo was still supposed to hang about him as the creator of the
Eastern Empire, and so long as he was alive and at liberty there was
always a possibility that he might collect a new army. To overtake him,
to reason with him, and, if reason failed, to prevent him by force from
involving himself and the State in fresh difficulties, was Caesar's
first object. Pompey, it was found, had ridden from the battlefield
direct to the sea, attended by a handful of horse. He had gone on board
a grain vessel, which carried him to Amphipolis. At Amphipolis he had
stayed but a single night, and had sailed for Mitylene, where he had
left his wife and his sons. The last accounts which the poor lady had
heard of him had been such as reached Lesbos after the affair at
Durazzo. Young patricians had brought her word that her husband had
gained a glorious victory, that he had joined her father, Metellus
Scipio, and that together they were pursuing Caesar with the certainty
of overwhelming him. Rumor, cruel as usual,
Had brought smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.
Rumor had told Cornelia that Caesar had "stooped his head" before
Pompey's "rage." Pompey came in person to inform her of the miserable
reality. At Mitylene Pompey's family were no longer welcome guests.
They joined him on board his ship to share his fortunes, but what those
fortunes were to be was all uncertain. Asia had seemed devoted to him.
To what part of it should he go? To Cilicia? to Syria? to Armenia? To
Parthia? For even Parthia was thought of. Unhappily the report of
Pharsalia had flown before him, and the vane of sentiment had
everywhere veered round. The Aegean islands begged him politely not to
compromise them by his presence. He touched at Rhodes. Lentulus, flying
from the battlefield, had tried Rhodes before him, and had been
requested to pass on upon his way. Lentulus was said to be gone to
Egypt. Polite to Pompey the Rhodians were, but perhaps he was
generously unwilling to involve them in trouble in his behalf. He went
on to Cilicia, the scene of his old glory in the pirate wars. There he
had meant to land and take refuge either with the Parthians or with one
of the allied princes. But in Cilicia he heard that Antioch had
declared for Caesar. Allies and subjects, as far as he could learn,
were all for Caesar. Egypt, whither Lentulus had gone, appeared the
only place where he could surely calculate on being welcome. Ptolemy
the Piper, the occasion of so much scandal, was no longer living, but
he owed the recovery of his throne to Pompey. Gabinius had left a few
thousand of Pompey's old soldiers at Alexandria to protect him against
his subjects. These men had married Egyptian wives and had adopted
Egyptian habits, but they could not have forgotten their old general.
They were acting as guards at present to Ptolemy's four children, two
girls, Cleopatra and Arsinoe, and two boys, each called Ptolemy. The
father had bequeathed the crown to the two elder ones, Cleopatra, who
was turned sixteen, and a brother two years younger. Here at least,
among these young princes and their guardians, who had been their
father's friends, their father's greatest benefactor might count with
confidence on finding hospitality.
For Egypt, therefore, Pompey sailed, taking his family along with him.
He had collected a few ships and 2,000 miscellaneous followers, and
with them he arrived off Pelusium, the modern Damietta. His forlorn
condition was a punishment sufficiently terrible for the vanity which
had flung his country into war. But that it had been his own doing the
letters of Cicero prove with painful clearness; and though he had
partially seen his error at Capua, and would then have possibly drawn
back, the passions and hopes which he had excited had become too strong
for him to contend against. From the day of his flight from Italy he
had been as a leaf whirled upon a winter torrent. Plain enough it had
long been to him that he would not be able to govern the wild forces of
a reaction which, if it had prevailed, would have brought back a more
cruel tyranny than Sylla's. He was now flung as a waif on the shore of
a foreign land; and if Providence on each occasion proportioned the
penalties of misdoing to the magnitude of the fault, it might have been
considered that adequate retribution had been inflicted on him. But the
consequences of the actions of men live when the actions are themselves
forgotten, and come to light without regard to the fitness of the
moment. The senators of Rome were responsible for the exactions which
Ptolemy Auletes had been compelled to wring out of his subjects. Pompey
himself had entertained and supported him in Rome when he was driven
from his throne, and had connived at the murder of the Alexandrians who
had been sent to remonstrate against his restoration. It was by Pompey
that he had been forced again upon his miserable subjects, and had been
compelled to grind them with fresh extortions. It was not unnatural
under these circumstances that the Egyptians were eager to free
themselves from a subjection which bore more heavily on them than
annexation to the Empire. A national party had been formed on Ptolemy's
death to take advantage of the minority of his children. Cleopatra had
been expelled. The Alexandrian citizens kept her brother in their
hands, and were now ruling in his name; the demoralized Roman garrison
had been seduced into supporting them, and they had an army lying at
the time at Pelusium, to guard against Cleopatra and her friends.
Of all this Pompey knew nothing. When he arrived off the port he learnt
that the young king with a body of troops was in the neighborhood, and
he sent on shore to ask permission to land. The Egyptians had already
heard of Pharsalia. Civil war among the Romans was an opportunity for
them to assert their independence, or to secure their liberties by
taking the side which seemed most likely to be successful. Lentulus had
already arrived, and had been imprisoned--a not unnatural return for
the murder of Dion and his fellow-citizens. Pompey, whose name more
than that of any other Roman was identified with their sufferings, was
now placing himself spontaneously in their hands. Why, by sparing him,
should they neglect the opportunity of avenging their own wrongs, and
of earning, as they might suppose that they would, the lasting
gratitude of Caesar? The Roman garrison had no feeling for their once
glorious commander. "In calamity," Caesar observes, "friends easily
become foes." The guardians of the young king sent a smooth answer,
bidding Pompey welcome. The water being shallow, they despatched
Achillas, a prefect in the king's army, and Septimius, a Roman officer,
whom Pompey personally knew, with a boat to conduct him on shore. His
wife and friends distrusted the tone of the reception, and begged him
to wait till he could land with his own guard. The presence of
Septimius gave Pompey confidence. Weak men, when in difficulties, fall
into a kind of despairing fatalism, as if tired of contending longer
with adverse fortune. Pompey stepped into the boat, and when out of
arrow-shot from the ship was murdered under his wife's eyes. His head
was cut off and carried away. His body was left lying on the sands. A
man who had been once his slave, and had been set free by him, gathered
a few sticks and burnt it there; and thus the last rites were bestowed
upon one whom, a few months before, Caesar himself would have been
content to acknowledge as his superior.
So ended Pompey the Great. History has dealt tenderly with him on
account of his misfortunes, and has not refused him deserved admiration
for qualities as rare in his age as they were truly excellent. His
capacities as a soldier were not extraordinary. He had risen to
distinction by his honesty. The pirates who had swept the Mediterranean
had bought their impunity by a tribute paid to senators and governors.
They were suppressed instantly when a commander was sent against them
whom they were unable to bribe. The conquest of Asia was no less easy
to a man who could resist temptations to enrich himself. The worst
enemy of Pompey never charged him with corruption or rapacity. So far
as he was himself concerned, the restoration of Ptolemy was gratuitous,
for he received nothing for it. His private fortune, when he had the
world at his feet, was never more than moderate; nor as a politician
did his faults extend beyond weakness and incompetence. Unfortunately
he had acquired a position by his negative virtues which was above his
natural level, and misled him into overrating his capabilities. So long
as he stood by Caesar he had maintained his honor and his authority. He
allowed men more cunning than himself to play upon his vanity, and
Pompey fell--fell amidst the ruins of a Constitution which had been
undermined by the villanies of its representatives. His end was
piteous, but scarcely tragic, for the cause to which he was sacrificed
was too slightly removed from being ignominious. He was no Phoebus
Apollo sinking into the ocean, surrounded with glory. He was not even a
brilliant meteor. He was a weak, good man, whom accident had thrust
into a place to which he was unequal; and ignorant of himself, and
unwilling to part with his imaginary greatness, he was flung down with
careless cruelty by the forces which were dividing the world. His
friend Lentulus shared his fate, and was killed a few days later, while
Pompey's ashes were still smoking. Two of Bibulus's sons, who had
accompanied him, were murdered as well.
Caesar meanwhile had followed along Pompey's track, hoping to overtake
him. In Cilicia he heard where he was gone; and learning something more
accurately there of the state of Egypt, he took two legions with him,
one of which had attended him from Pharsalia, and another which he had
sent for from Achaia. With these he sailed for Alexandria. Together, so
much had they been thinned by hard service, these legions mustered
between them little over 3,000 men. The force was small, but Caesar
considered that, after Pharsalia, there could be no danger for him
anywhere in the Mediterranean. He landed without opposition, and was
presented on his arrival, as a supposed welcome offering, with the head
of his rival. Politically it would have been better far for him to have
returned to Rome with Pompey as a friend. Nor, if it had been certain
that Pompey would have refused to be reconciled, were services such as
this a road to Caesar's favor. The Alexandrians speedily found that
they were not to be rewarded with the desired independence. The
consular fasces, the emblem of the hated Roman authority, were carried
openly before Caesar when he appeared in the streets; and it was not
long before mobs began to assemble with cries that Egypt was a free
country, and that the people would not allow their king to be insulted.
Evidently there was business to be done in Egypt before Caesar could
leave it. Delay was specially inconvenient. A prolonged absence from
Italy would allow faction time to rally again. But Caesar did not look
on himself as the leader of a party, but as the guardian of Roman
interests, and it was not his habit to leave any necessary work
uncompleted. The etesian winds, too, had set in, which made it
difficult for his heavy vessels to work out of the harbor. Seeing that
troubles might rise, he sent a message to Mithridates of Pergamus,[1]
to bring him reinforcements from Syria, while he himself at once took
the government of Egypt into his hands. He forbade the Alexandrians to
set aside Ptolemy's will, and insisted that the sovereignty must be
vested jointly in Cleopatra and her brother as their father had
ordered.[2]he cries of discontent grew bolder. Alexandria was a large,
populous city, the common receptacle of vagabonds from all parts of the
Mediterranean. Pirates, thieves, political exiles, and outlaws had
taken refuge there, and had been received into the king's service. With
the addition of the dissolute legionaries left by Gabinius, they made
up 20,000 as dangerous ruffians as had ever been gathered into a single
city. The more respectable citizens had no reason to love the Romans.
The fate of Cyprus seemed a foreshadowing of their own. They too,
unless they looked to themselves, would be absorbed in the devouring
Empire. They had made an end of Pompey, and Caesar had shown no
gratitude. Caesar himself was now in their hands. Till the wind changed
they thought that he could not escape, and they were tempted, naturally
enough, to use the chance which fate had given them.
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 situation was irritating
from its absurdity, but more or less it was really dangerous. The
Egyptian fleet which had been sent to Greece in aid of Pompey had come
back, and was in the inner basin. It outnumbered Caesar's, and the
Alexandrians were the best seamen in the Mediterranean. If they came
out, they might cut his communications. Without hesitation he set fire
to the docks; burnt or disabled the great part of the ships; seized the
Pharos and the mole which connected it with the town; fortified the
palace and the line of houses occupied by his troops; and in this
position he remained for several weeks, defending himself against the
whole power of Egypt. Of the time in which legend describes him as
abandoned to his love for Cleopatra, there was hardly an hour of either
day or night in which he was not fighting for his very life. The
Alexandrians were ingenious and indefatigable. They pumped the sea into
the conduits which supplied his quarters with water, for a moment it
seemed with fatal effect. Fresh water was happily found by sinking
wells. They made a new fleet; old vessels on the stocks were launched,
others were brought down from the canals on the river. They made oars
and spars out of the benches and tables of the professors' lecture
rooms. With these they made desperate attempts to retake the mole. Once
with a sudden rush they carried a ship, in which Caesar was present in
person, and he was obliged to swim for his life.[3] Still, he held on,
keeping up his men's spirits, and knowing that relief must arrive in
time. He was never greater than in unlooked-for difficulties. He never
rested. He was always inventing some new contrivance. He could have
retired from the place with no serious loss. He could have taken to his
ships and forced his way to sea in spite of the winds and the
Alexandrians. But he felt that to fly from such an enemy would dishonor
the Roman name, and he would not entertain the thought of it.
[Sidenote: B.C. 47.] The Egyptians made desperate efforts to close the
harbor. Finding that they could neither capture the Pharos nor make an
impression on Caesar's lines, they affected to desire peace. Caesar had
kept young Ptolemy with him as a security. They petitioned that he
should be given up to them, promising on compliance to discontinue
their assaults. Caesar did not believe them. But the boy was of no use
to him; the army wished him gone, for they thought him treacherous; and
his presence would not strengthen the enemy. 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. Ganymede, another eunuch,
assassinated Achillas, and took his place as commander-in-chief.
Reinforcements began to come in. Mithridates had not yet been heard of;
but Domitius Calvinus, who had been left in charge of Asia Minor, and
to whom Caesar had also sent, had despatched two legions to him. One
arrived by sea at Alexandria, and was brought in with some difficulty.
The other was sent by land, and did not arrive in time to be of
service. There was a singular irony in Caesar being left to struggle
for months with a set of miscreants, but the trial came to an end at
last. Mithridates, skilful, active, and faithful, had raised a force
with extraordinary rapidity in Cilicia and on the Euphrates. He had
marched swiftly through Syria; and in the beginning of the new year
Caesar heard the welcome news that he had reached Pelusium, and had
taken it by storm. Not delaying for a day, Mithridates had gone up the
bank of the Nile to Cairo. A division of the Egyptian army lay opposite
to him, in the face of whom he did not think it prudent to attempt to
cross, and from thence he sent word of his position to Caesar. The news
reached Caesar and the Alexandrians at the same moment. The
Alexandrians had the easiest access to the scene. They had merely to
ascend the river in their boats. Caesar was obliged to go round by sea
to Pelusium, and to follow the course which Mithridates had taken
himself. Rapidity of movement made up the difference. Taking with him
such cohorts as could be spared from his lines, Caesar had joined
Mithridates before the Alexandrians had arrived. Together they forced
the passage; and Ptolemy came only for his camp to be stormed, his army
to be cut to pieces, and himself to be drowned in the Nile, and so end
his brief and miserable life.
Alexandria immediately capitulated. Arsinoe, the youngest sister, was
sent to Rome. Cleopatra and her surviving brother were made joint
sovereigns; and Roman rumor, glad to represent Caesar's actions in
monstrous characters, insisted in after years that they were married.
The absence of contemporary authority for the story precludes also the
possibility of denying it. Two legions were left in Egypt to protect
them if they were faithful, or to coerce them if they misconducted
themselves. The Alexandrian episode was over, and Caesar sailed for
Syria. His long detention over a complication so insignificant had been
unfortunate in many ways. Scipio and Cato, with the other fugitives
from Pharsalia, had rallied in Africa, under the protection of Juba.
Italy was in confusion. The popular party, now absolutely in the
ascendant, were disposed to treat the aristocracy as the aristocracy
would have treated them had they been victorious. The controlling hand
was absent; the rich, long hated and envied, were in the power of the
multitude, and wild measures were advocated, communistic, socialistic,
such as are always heard of in revolutions, meaning in one form or
another the equalization of wealth, the division of property, the poor
taking their turn on the upper crest of fortune and the rich at the
bottom. The tribunes were outbidding one another in extravagant
proposals, while Caesar's legions, sent home from Greece to rest after
their long service, were enjoying their victory in the license which is
miscalled liberty. They demanded the lands, or rewards in money, which
had been promised them at the end of the war. Discipline was relaxed or
abandoned. Their officers wore unable, perhaps unwilling, to control
them. They, too, regarded the Commonwealth as a spoil which their
swords had won, and which they were entitled to distribute among
themselves.
In Spain, too, a bad feeling had revived. After Caesar's departure his
generals had oppressed the people, and had quarrelled with one another.
The country was disorganized and disaffected. In Spain, as in Egypt,
there was a national party still dreaming of independence. The
smouldering traditions of Sertorius were blown into flame by the
continuance of the civil war. The proud motley race of Spaniards,
Italians, Gauls, indigenous mountaineers, Moors from Africa, the
remnants of the Carthaginian colonies, however they might hate one
another, yet united in resenting an uncertain servitude under the
alternate ascendency of Roman factions. Spain was ripe for revolt. Gaul
alone, Caesar's own province, rewarded him for the use which he had
made of his victory, by unswerving loyalty and obedience.
On his landing in Syria, Caesar found letters pressing for his instant
return to Rome. Important persons were waiting to give him fuller
information than could be safely committed to writing. He would have
hastened home at once, but restless spirits had been let loose
everywhere by the conflict of the Roman leaders. Disorder had broken
out near at hand. The still recent defeat of Crassus had stirred the
ambition of the Asiatic princes; and to leave the Eastern frontier
disturbed was to risk a greater danger to the Empire than was to be
feared from the impatient politics of the Roman mob, or the dying
convulsions of the aristocracy.
Pharnaces, a legitimate son of Mithridates the Great, had been left
sovereign of Upper Armenia. He had watched the collision between Pompey
and Caesar with a neutrality which was to plead for him with the
conqueror, and he had intended to make his own advantage out of the
quarrels between his father's enemies. Deiotarus, tributary king of
Lower Armenia and Colchis, had given some help to Pompey, and had sent
him men and money; and on Pompey's defeat, Pharnaces had supposed that
he might seize on Deiotarus's territories without fear of Caesar's
resentment. Deiotarus had applied to Domitius Calvinus for assistance;
which Calvinus, weakened as he was by the despatch of two of his
legions to Egypt, had been imperfectly able to give. Pharnaces had
advanced into Cappadocia. When Calvinus ordered him to retire, he had
replied by sending presents, which had hitherto proved so effective
with Roman proconsuls, and by an equivocating profession of readiness
to abide by Caesar's decision. Pharnaces came of a dangerous race.
Caesar's lieutenant was afraid that, if he hesitated, the son of
Mithridates might become as troublesome as his father had been. He
refused the presents. Disregarding his weakness, he sent a peremptory
command to Pharnaces to fall back within his own frontiers, and
advanced to compel him if he refused. In times of excitement the minds
of men are electric, and news travels with telegraphic rapidity if not
with telegraphic accuracy. Pharnaces heard that Caesar was shut up in
Alexandria and was in a position of extreme danger, that he had sent
for all his Asiatic legions, and that Calvinus had himself been
summoned to his assistance. Thus he thought that he might safely
postpone compliance till the Roman army was gone, and he had the
country to himself. The reports from Egypt were so unfavorable that,
although as yet he had received no positive orders, Calvinus was in
daily expectation that he would be obliged to go. It would be unsafe,
he thought, to leave an insolent barbarian unchastised. He had learnt
in Caesar's school to strike quickly. He had not learnt the comparison
between means and ends, without which celerity is imprudence. He had
but one legion left; but he had a respectable number of Asiatic
auxiliaries, and with them he ventured to attack Pharnaces in an
intricate position. His Asiatics deserted. The legion behaved
admirably; but in the face of overwhelming numbers, it could do no more
than cut its way to security. Pharnaces at once reclaimed his father's
kingdom, and overran Pontus, killing, mutilating, or imprisoning every
Roman that he encountered; and in this condition Caesar found Asia
Minor on his coming to Syria.
It was not in Caesar's character to leave a Roman Province behind him
in the hands of an invader, for his own political interests. He saw
that he must punish Pharnaces before he returned to Rome, and he
immediately addressed himself to the work. He made a hasty progress
through the Syrian towns, hearing complaints and distributing rewards
and promotions. The allied chiefs came to him from the borders of the
Province to pay their respects. He received them graciously, and
dismissed them pleased and satisfied. After a few days spent thus, he
sailed for Cilicia, held a council at Tarsus, and then crossed the
Taurus, and went by forced marches through Cappadocia to Pontus. He
received a legion from Deiotarus which had been organized in Roman
fashion. He sent to Calvinus to meet him with the survivors of his lost
battle; and when they arrived, he reviewed the force which was at his
disposition. It was not satisfactory. He had brought a veteran legion
with him from Egypt, but it was reduced to a thousand strong. He had
another which he had taken up in Syria; but even this did not raise his
army to a point which could assure him of success. But time pressed,
and skill might compensate for defective numbers.
Pharnaces, hearing that Caesar was at hand, promised submission. He
sent Caesar a golden crown, in anticipation perhaps that he was about
to make himself king. He pleaded his desertion of Pompey as a set-off
against his faults. Caesar answered that he would accept the
submission, if it were sincere; but Pharnaces must not suppose that
good offices to himself could atone for injuries to the Empire.[4] The
provinces which he had invaded must be instantly evacuated; his Roman
prisoners must be released, and their property must be restored to them.
Pharnaces was a politician, and knew enough of Caesar's circumstances
to mislead him. The state of Rome required Caesar's presence. A
campaign in Asia would occupy more time than he could afford, and
Pharnaces calculated that he must be gone in a few days or weeks. The
victory over Calvinus had strengthened his ambition of emulating his
father. He delayed his answer, shifted from place to place, and tried
to protract the correspondence till Caesar's impatience to be gone
should bring him to agree to a compromise.
Caesar cut short negotiations. Pharnaces was at Zela, a town in the
midst of mountains behind Trebizond, and the scene of a great victory
which had been won by Mithridates over the Romans. Caesar defied
auguries. He seized a position at night on the brow of a hill directly
opposite to the Armenian camp, and divided from it by a narrow valley.
As soon as day broke the legions were busy intrenching with their
spades and pickaxes. Pharnaces, with the rashness which if it fails is
madness, and if it succeeds is the intuition of genius, decided to fall
on them at a moment when no sane person could rationally expect an
attack; and Caesar could not restrain his astonishment when he saw the
enemy pouring down the steep side of the ravine, and breasting the
ascent on which he stood. It was like the battle of Maubeuge over
again, with the difference that he had here to deal with Asiatics, and
not with the Nervii. There was some confusion while the legions were
exchanging their digging tools for their arms. When the exchange had
been made, there was no longer a battle, but a rout. The Armenians were
hurled back down the hill, and slaughtered in masses at the bottom of
it. The camp was taken. Pharnaces escaped for the moment, and made his
way into his own country; but he was killed immediately after, and Asia
Minor was again at peace.
Caesar, calm as usual, but well satisfied to have ended a second
awkward business so easily, passed quickly down to the Hellespont, and
had landed in Italy before it was known that he had left Pontus.
[1] Supposed to have been a natural son of Mithridates the Great. The
reason for the special confidence which Caesar placed in him does not
appear. The danger at Alexandria, perhaps, did not appear at the
moment particularly serious.
[2] Roman scandal discovered afterward that Caesar had been fascinated by
the charms of Cleopatra, and allowed his politics to be influenced by
a love affair. Roman fashionable society hated Caesar, and any carrion
was welcome to them which would taint his reputation. Cleopatra
herself favored the story, and afterward produced a child, whom she
named Caesarion. Oppius, Caesar's most intimate friend, proved that
the child could not have been his--of course, therefore, that the
intrigue was a fable; and the boy was afterward put to death by
Augustus as an impostor. No one claims immaculate virtue for Caesar.
An amour with Cleopatra may have been an accident of his presence in
Alexandria. But to suppose that such a person as Caesar, with the
concerns of the world upon his hands, would have allowed his public
action to be governed by a connection with a loose girl of sixteen is
to make too large a demand upon human credulity; nor is it likely
that, in a situation of so much danger and difficulty as that in which
he found himself, he would have added to his embarrassments by
indulging in an intrigue. The report proves nothing, for whether true
or false it was alike certain to arise. The _salons_ of Rome,
like the _salons_ of London and Paris, took their revenge on
greatness by soiling it with filth; and happily Suetonius, the chief
authority for the scandal, couples it with a story which is
demonstrably false. He says that Caesar made a long expedition with
Cleopatra in a barge upon the Nile; that he was so fascinated with her
that he wished to extend his voyage to Aethiopia, and was prevented
only by the refusal of his army to follow him. The details of Caesar's
stay at Alexandria, so minutely given by Hirtius, show that there was
not a moment when such an expedition could have been contemplated.
During the greater part of the time he was blockaded in the palace.
Immediately after the insurrection was put down, he was obliged to
hurry off on matters of instant and urgent moment. Of the story of
Cleopatra's presence in Rome at the time of his murder, more will be
said hereafter.
[3] Legend is more absurd than usual over this incident. It pretends that
he swam with one hand, and carried his Commentaries, holding them
above water, with the other. As if a general would take his MSS. with
him into a hot action!
[4] "Neque provinciarum injurias condonari iis posse qui fuissent in se
officiosi."--_De Bello Alexandrino_, 70.