sanctuary which had suggested to Gorgias the idea of carrying Dion
through them to Pyrrhus's fishing-boat. To accomplish this it was only
necessary to have the Temple of Isis, which usually remained open day and
night, left to the fugitive's friends for a short time; and this was
successfully managed.

The historian Timagenes, who had come from Rome as ambassador and claimed
the hospitality of his former pupil Archibius, had been empowered to
offer Cleopatra recognition of her own and her children's right to the
throne, and a full pardon, if she would deliver Mark Antony into the
hands of Octavianus, or have him put to death.

The Alexandrian Timagenes considered this demand both just and desirable,
because it promised to deliver his native city from the man whose
despotic arrogance menaced its freedom, and whose lavish generosity and
boundless love of splendour diminished its wealth. To Rome, as whose
representative the historian appeared, this man's mere existence meant
constant turmoil and civil war. At the restoration of the flute-player
by Gabinius and Mark Antony, Timagenes had been carried into slavery.
Later, when, after his freedom had been purchased by the son of Sulla, he
succeeded in attaining great influence in Rome, he still remained hostile
to Mark Antony, and it had been a welcome charge to work against him in
Alexandria. He hoped to find an ally in Archibius, whose loyal devotion
to the Queen he knew. Arius, Barine's uncle and Octavianus's former
tutor, would also aid him. The most powerful support of his mission,
however, could be rendered by the venerable chief priest, the head of the
whole Egyptian hierarchy. He had shown the latter that Antony, in any
case, was a lost man, and Egypt was in the act of dropping like a ripe
fruit into the lap of Octavianus. It would soon be in his power to give
the country whatever degree of liberty and independence he might choose.