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In September, 48 BC, Pompey the Great fled to Egypt after being defeated by Caesar in the Battle of Pharsalus during the Roman Civil War.

In September, 48 BC, Pompey the Great fled to Egypt after being defeated by Caesar in the Battle of Pharsalus during the Roman Civil War. 


But immediately upon his arrival in Alexandria, Pompey was assassinated on the orders of the eunuch Pothinus, regent and political minister of the 14-year-old pharaoh Ptolemy XIII. 

Pothinus and the other court officials saw clearly which way the winds of war were blowing and hoped that by dispatching Caesar’s enemy they would win favor with the Roman general. 

They badly miscalculated, however. Caesar arrived in Egypt in pursuit of Pompey with a legion of troops, shortly after Pompey’s murder, and upon his arrival, Pothinus and Ptolemy presented him with Pompey’s severed head. 

Seeing the treacherous and inglorious end that had befallen the great Roman hero, his long-time comrade and former son in law, Caesar famously wept. 

Caesar did not avenge Pompey immediately, but when informed by a slave that Pothinus had arranged for Caesar to be assassinated at a formal state dinner in the royal palace, he struck, sending one of his personal guards to find and kill Pothinus, thus simultaneously thwarting the assassination plot and eliminating Pothinus. 

By then Caesar had been joined by Ptolemy’s exiled sister Cleopatra, who had been smuggled into Caesar’s headquarters in the royal palace, wrapped in a carpet.

After the killing of Pothinus, and after learning that Caesar was holding Ptolemy as a hostage while allying himself with Cleopatra, the Alexandrians rose up. 

Under the leadership of Cleopatra’s half-sister Arsinoë and her former tutor the eunuch Ganymede, the significantly larger Alexandrian force trapped Caesar and his legion in a siege. 

Caesar released Ptolemy, hoping he might call off the siege, but instead the young pharaoh took (at least titular) command of the Alexandrian army and continued the war.

The situation for Caesar and his trapped legion was growing increasingly desperate, when he received word that his ally Mithridates of Pergamum was marching to his relief with a large army. 

Upon learning that Mithridates had reached Egypt, Caesar left a small garrison in Alexandria and sailed out with the rest of his men to join forces with him. The forces combined and attacked the Ptolemaic army, which was deployed on the banks of the Nile River. 

Although outnumbered, Caesar and Mithridates won a crushing victory and Ptolemy drowned after his boat capsized during the retreat. The victorious army then marched to Alexandria, broke the siege, and scattered the remaining Ptolemaic forces. 

Ganymede was captured and executed and Arsinoë was exiled (later to be assassinated on the orders of Mark Antony and Cleopatra). Caesar put Cleopatra and her 12-year-old brother Ptolemy XIV on the Egyptian throne, but it was Cleopatra alone who held the power. 

Despite the fact that he still had a civil war to finish winning, Caesar lingered in Egypt for two months, beguiled, according to the ancient sources, by the alluring Egyptian queen. 

By the time Caesar finally left Egypt, Cleopatra was pregnant. And that is the beginning of another fascinating story that will be the subject of future Doses.

The Battle of the Nile, which rescued Caesar’s army, ended the Egyptian Civil War, and elevated Cleopatra to the throne of Egypt, was fought in February, 47 BC, two thousand seventy years ago this month.

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