Note 548 — LIFE OF C. CÆSAR. (continued 2)

The Alexandrine war, which is confusedly told here, is recorded in a single book entitled De Bello Alexandrino and in Dion Cassius (42. c. 34-44). The origin of it is told by Cæsar at the end of the third Book of the Civil War. The history of the Alexandrine war by Appianus was in his Ægyptiaca, which is lost. Dion Cassius, a lover of scandal, mentions that Cæsar's attachment to Kleopatra was the cause of the Alexandrine war (42. c. 44). But it could not be the sole cause. Cæsar landed with the insignia of his office, as if he were entering a Roman province, and it might be reasonably suspected by the Egyptians that he had a design on the country. Instead of thanking them for ridding him of his rival, he fixed himself and his soldiers in one of the quarters of Alexandria. Cæsar went to get money (Dion, 42. c. 9). Kleopatra kept him there longer than he at first intended to stay.