and with a determination to drive Caesar and all his Roman
followers away.

[Sidenote: Caesar's guilty passion for Cleopatra.]

When Cleopatra arrived, she found that the avenues of approach to
Caesar's quarters were all in possession of her enemies, so that, in
attempting to join him, she incurred danger of falling into their hands
as a prisoner. She resorted to a stratagem, as the story is, to gain a
secret admission. They rolled her up in a sort of bale of bedding or
carpeting, and she was carried in in this way on the back of a man,
through the guards, who might otherwise have intercepted her. Caesar was
very much pleased with this device, and with the successful result of
it. Cleopatra, too, was young and beautiful, and Caesar immediately
conceived a strong but guilty attachment to her, which she readily
returned. Caesar espoused her cause, and decided that she and Ptolemy
should jointly occupy the throne.

[Sidenote: Resistance of Ptolemy.]
[Sidenote: The Alexandrine war.]

Ptolemy and his partisans were determined not to submit to this award.
The consequence was, a violent and protracted war. Ptolemy was not only
incensed at being deprived of what he considered his just right to the
realm, he was also half distracted at the thought of his sister's
disgraceful connection with Caesar. His excitement and distress, and the
exertions and efforts to which they aroused him, awakened a strong
sympathy in his cause among the people, and Caesar found himself
involved in a very serious contest, in which his own life was brought
repeatedly into the most imminent danger, and which seriously threatened