Caesar, besieged with Cleopatra in Alexandria, Ordered his Ships to be Burned to Prevent Retreat

If we talk about the sieges that Julius Caesar experienced, the one at Alesia immediately comes to mind, where he defeated the Gallic leader Vercingetorix after a month and a half of fighting and after being besieged himself when an enemy army unexpectedly appeared from the rear. He would go through this experience again five years later when he was forced to entrench himself in Alexandria in support of Cleopatra against the Egyptian troops of Arsinoe IV and Ptolemy XIII.

The context in this case was the civil war being fought in Egypt between the aforementioned characters, which intertwined with the one within Rome itself. Caesar and Pompey, once friends, had been at odds since 48 B.C., when the former refused to comply with the Senate’s decision not to renew his consulship, which the latter supported. The senators distrusted Caesar’s ambition because he no longer had any partners to serve as a counterbalance after the triumvirate he formed with Crassus (who had died fighting the Parthians) and Pompey (who, aside from that, had slighted him by marrying a Scipio instead of his niece).

Given the circumstances, the Senate deposed Caesar, and he responded by marching on Rome with his loyal Legio XIII Gemina, starting what became the Second Civil War of the Republic, notably marked by the polarization of its protagonists. Since Pompey had his main force in Hispania, Caesar marched there to defeat him in situ, which he achieved at Ilerda. The next battle was at Dyrrachium, where he lost, but Pompey failed to capitalize on his victory, so the final scene of that duel was in Greece.

Busts of Caesar and Pompey. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

The Battle of Pharsalus marked Caesar’s definitive victory; named dictator, he pursued his adversary to Egypt. There, he encountered an unpleasant surprise: Pompey, who had first taken refuge in Amphipolis and then in Pelusium, had been killed by one of his men, Lucius Septimius; the assassin was accompanied by Achillas, an Egyptian commander, but both had been instigated to the crime by the powerful court eunuch, Potinus, and the pharaoh’s advisor, Theodotus of Chios, hoping to gain Caesar’s favor.

They achieved the opposite effect, as the new and flamboyant Roman dictator was willing to forgive his old friend, whose death deeply affected him, especially given the manner in which it was reported (presenting his head in a basket). This surely prompted him to adopt a measure he likely already had in mind: to intervene in the political affairs of Egypt in favor of Rome to directly control its vast agricultural wealth. He took advantage of the fact that this kingdom owed Rome a huge sum and that the situation was unstable due to the conflict between the supporters of Ptolemy XIII and those of his sister Cleopatra.

Offering himself as a mediator in the dispute with the argument that their father, Ptolemy XII, had left Rome as the guardian of his offspring, Caesar actually sided with Cleopatra, co-regent with Ptolemy XIII, who was overthrown; this, despite the fact that both had militarily supported Pompey. The reason for this choice seems obvious: according to Lucan, Pompey had confirmed Ptolemy as the sole ruler, relegating Cleopatra, who withdrew to Thebes first and then Syria, organizing an army with her younger sister, Arsinoe. Thus, a good opportunity for an alliance presented itself for both.

This tense situation greeted Caesar upon his arrival in Alexandria in October of 48 B.C. Aside from the legend of her presentation wrapped in a carpet and the fascination this may have had on him, it is ironic that it was Cleopatra who managed to extract concessions from him instead of the other way around, to the point that Dio Cassius wrote sarcastically about the cession of Cyprus that Caesar lives in such panic that he not only refrains from annexing any territory, but cedes part of his own to Egypt. But the truth is that the Mediterranean island was handed over to Arsinoe and the younger brother, the boy Ptolemy XIV, although they were forbidden to leave Egypt, so nothing fundamentally changed.

Cleopatra and Caesar (Jean-Léon Gérôme). Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

The cunning Roman dictator was sowing for a future harvest. But the outlook was far from clear and worsened. First, because Ptolemy XIII was not going to sit idly by watching his sister and a foreigner take the throne from him, so he put Achillas in command of twenty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry who besieged the royal palace, where only four thousand troops were available to defend it: the Legio VI Ferrata and some Italic militias that had been established in Egypt for a while.

And second, because Arsinoe, frustrated, escaped from Alexandria with her trusted eunuch, Ganymedes, and joined Achillas’ army, proclaiming herself leader of the resistance against the Roman invaders, as Cleopatra was on their side and Ptolemy XIV was only twelve years old. The situation was dire, and Caesar ordered the ships in the port to be burned to avoid any temptation of retreat, during which the flames spread to the famous Alexandrian library, destroying it; it would not be the last time it suffered such a disaster. He also tried to negotiate, but the messengers were killed in an unequivocal message.

Achillas took control of the city except for the last stronghold of resistance, whose fall seemed imminent… and then a stroke of luck clarified the situation a bit. Ganymedes had a serious confrontation with Achillas, and Arsinoe ordered the latter’s execution, appointing the former as general. In this capacity, he applied some ingenious tactics, such as closing the river channels, depriving the defenders of drinking water. Fortunately, they had a military genius at the front who knew that the composition of the ground was porous limestone and, consequently, likely to have pockets of water; Caesar ordered wells to be dug and saved the situation once again.

The queen was an inexperienced twenty-something, both in the world of war and in politics, and that radical decision played against her because she and Ganymedes quickly earned the antipathy of many officers. A group of them contacted the besieged offering peace in exchange for freeing Ptolemy XIII. Caesar, informed that reinforcements were arriving, prolonged the negotiations as much as he could to buy time and finally accepted the deal, convinced that the delivery of the deposed pharaoh would only bring discord to the enemy camp.

Cleopatra on the Terraces of Philae, painting by Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1896). Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

And so it was. The two siblings couldn’t agree on anything and although they broke their word by continuing the siege, they lost two precious days that worked in favor of their adversaries, as at the beginning of 47 BC the long-awaited auxiliary forces appeared marching from Asia Minor: the ex-Pompeian Legio XXXVII, commanded by the loyal Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, along with other troops provided by Mithridates I of Pergamon and those arriving from Idumea sent by King Antipater I (rewarded for this with Roman citizenship, later inherited by his son Herod the Great).

With this, the tide turned and on March 27, 47 BC the Egyptians were defeated, trapped between two fronts. Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile when his boat capsized while fleeing, and Ganymedes suffered a similar fate. Arsinoe was captured, but her life was spared, according to a false rumor because she had been Caesar’s lover and they had a child together, although in reality it was due to her youth that pitied the Romans who saw her displayed in chains in the obligatory triumphal parade through the streets of Rome; otherwise, she would have likely ended up strangled at the end of the event, like Vercingetorix.

However, she could not escape her fateful destiny. The one Arsinoe feared most was her own sister and, indeed, years later Cleopatra would convince Mark Antony to execute her. The famous suicide by asp bite was due as much to the despair over the defeat by Octavian and the death of her lover as to the horror of being displayed in chains before the Roman populace.

And it was Cleopatra, who was not much older than Arsinoe (only two years), who was the main beneficiary of what is known as the Alexandrian Wars. Caesar enthroned her alongside the young Ptolemy XIV as co-regents, for which he had them marry, according to the old Egyptian custom of sibling marriage. However, the queen continued living with the Roman, to whom she bore a son, the future Ptolemy XV, better known as Caesarion. Her interest in favoring his succession led her to murder her brother five years later as well. Scruples were not something she had in abundance.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on November 17, 2018: César, sitiado con Cleopatra en Alejandría, mandó quemar sus naves para evitar la retirada

Sources

E. M. Forster, Alejandría. Historia y guía | Miguel Ángel Novillo López, Breve historia de Julio César | Dión Casio, Historia romana | Aulo Hircio, De bello Alexandrino | Plutarco, Vidas paralelas. Vida de Julio César | Francisco Javier Lomas Salmonte y Pedro López Barja de Quiroga, Historia de Roma | Stanley M. Burnstein, The reign of Cleopatra | Wikipedia

Share this article:

Discover more from LBV Magazine English Edition

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Figurine of Caesarion in a statue of Horus in front of the temple of Edfu

The Story of Caesarion, the Unfortunate Son of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra It was the year 30 B.C. when Octavian's victory at the Battle of Actium ended the Third Civil War, turning Egypt into a mere Roman province. With this new political-administrative…

The battle of Ilerda took place in the summer of 49 B.C., where the present-day city of Lleida is located

Ilerda, the Battle by which Julius Caesar Seized Hispania from Pompey The 1st century BC wasn't exactly peaceful for Rome. Apart from the wars it had to wage against external enemies, it found itself embroiled not in one but in two…

Ambiorix's Revolt, when the Gauls annihilated fifteen Roman cohorts with a cunning ruse Strictly speaking, the term genocide was not formulated until 1939, being legally defined as a crime in 1948. However, as a concept (deliberate and systematic extermination of a human group),…

Roman naval battle in an illustration from 1900

Naulochus, Agrippa's Great Naval Victory over Sextus Pompey that Raised Octavian to Power After the death of Julius Caesar, Rome was plunged into a civil war. Another one. If the previous had been due to the power struggle between the deceased and Pompey…

Julius Caesar used a cipher substitution system to communicate with his family and subordinates

The Encryption System Used by Julius Caesar in his Letters to Hide their Content Cryptography is nearly as old as human language. Many civilizations felt the need to conceal their messages using more or less sophisticated encryption methods, as demonstrated by some documentary examples…