"If you want to subdue the Praetorian Guard, you can only have a more powerful provincial army." —Trajan

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When the envoys returned to Alexandra and reported the bad news to Ptolemy XIII, the young man, hearing that Caesar had the audacity to intervene in the sibling strife, took out his anger on all the envoys and ordered them to be castrated and confiscated as royal slaves.

But now that the facts were already in front of him, Ptolemy XIII could only make serious preparations for the battle according to the advice of his staff, and at this time the border guards had 5,000 men entering the city of Alexandro, and the new pharaoh appointed the former "head of the capital guard" General Shebekhu as the supreme commander, and General Serapion as the adjutant general, "These personnel, together with the Gorta Legion, are only 10,000 men, which is far from enough." Shebek Hu said.

So Ptolemy XIII gritted his teeth, took out the gold and silver from the royal treasury, and ordered to recruit soldiers from the royal city and the surrounding suburbs, whether it was a lumpen-proletarian, a veteran, a herdsman, a horse bandit, or a slave who was willing to join the army to change his fate, all of them had to be brought in to make up the number, so that in a short period of time the legion guarding the royal city swelled to 20,000 people, including 2,000 cavalry, but the irony was that these cavalrymen were only three horses each, so Shebekhu also got permission to open the stables in the pharaoh's palaceThe cavalrymen were allowed to freely enter and choose their mounts, and about half of the thousands of horses originally raised in the palace were taken away, and the remaining half were stolen and sold by the soldiers—most of them were bought by Cyrene's horse dealers to finance the enrichment of Li Pida's horses.

Not only that. The courage of these soldiers grew. In the end, not only did he sell horses. They also took out and sold all the lions, crocodiles, ostriches, bighorn sheep and other rare birds and beasts raised by the pipers during their lifetime, and then they still could not satisfy their greed, and even besieged the palace of the Ibos many times, asking the pharaoh to give them a salary increase and reward.

Ptolemy XIII had just succeeded to the throne, and half of the limited money in the treasury was used to bribe Caesar and half was used to reward the army, and the piper's coffin was still in the palace. There was no way to make a mummy or spice, let alone send it to the Theban Valley for burial.

When they could not fulfill the demands of the Gorta legions, the soldiers shouted the slogan "Let us reward ourselves", and they threatened Pharaoh with an edict demanding the execution of the Ptolemaic royal family, nobles, or wealthy merchants, and then rushed into the houses with sharp swords in hand, openly setting fires, plundering, and committing adultery to "do the work" for Pharaoh. The Gorta Legion then targeted the Jewish Quarter of Alexandria. The monopolistic trade here was Adiana and Liebida "Krien" Joseph. After receiving the authorization of the secret letter, the great merchant immediately enclosed the shops and temples of the entire Jewish quarter with fireproof brick walls, and secretly armed the warehouses, dock workers, and oarsmen of the merchant ships, and defended them day and night, repelling the repeated attacks of the Gorta army, a battle of robbery and self-preservation, which began in Alexandra in advance, and the situation of the whole city had reached the point of chaos.

Yet, in the midst of all this confusion, Ptolemy XIII continued to gather his servants and hold military councils to discuss how to deal with the impending conquest of the Romans.

The chief eunuch, Methamenes, was the first to arrest the renegade centurion Septimius, who had killed the two former consuls, and then tortured him to confess that he had been instigated by Cleopatra.

As a result, the imprisoned Septimius was worthy of having been immersed in the army for many years, and this old fellow was very shrewd, and when Pharaoh's retinue came to prepare to torture him, he cried out, "If you dare to touch half a finger of me and my men, I will kill myself immediately, and if I die, your chance to retract your confession will be lost forever, and Caesar's invasion of your kingdom will be more unimpeded." Later, Pharaoh not only did not dare to touch this one at will, but also waited carefully every day.

Seeing that this trick did not work, Pharaoh and his servants thought of Scipio again, and some people proposed to release Scipio and give it to Caesar, but it was quickly rejected by the sober people, "Caesar's excuse for invasion is twofold, one is to come to question the killing of the former consul, and the other is to arbitrate the infighting between Pharaoh's siblings." Therefore, even if Scipio was handed over, Caesar still had a good reason to raise his army. ”

In the end, it was the veteran Serapion who put forward a relatively reliable plan: not to give up the peace talks, to treat Caesar very humbly, let him stop on the island of Pharos first, and then take advantage of the fact that his successor army has not yet followed, we mobilize the Gorta army and the citizens to attack and kill Caesar, who is inferior in numbers, so that there is still a chance to win in danger.

Ptolemy XIII then agreed to this plan, and then the young man begged Caesar to come to Alexandro with the fleet as soon as possible, "If Caesar had come a month late, the rebels would have looted the palace!" ”

But Caesar came in time after all, even if he encountered a headwind on the sea, he still took the 4,000 soldiers of the 10th legion, and reached anchor in the port of Onoldos on the island of Pharos in the shortest possible time, and the day became more and more beautiful, and the eagle banner of Caesar's legion appeared high on the most conspicuous lighthouse on the island, and then Ptolemy XIII, according to the plan of the generals in advance, sent an envoy again, saying that he could welcome Caesar and the legion into the royal city, and discuss peace matters in detail.

"My mention is that first Pharaoh and his sister disbanded their armies, and then they both came to me and cleared up the contradictions and estrangements in an open and honest manner. Next, let's talk about the arrest and punishment of the murderer. In the makeshift command post in the lighthouse, Caesar spoke to the envoy as he traced the map of Alexandra on the table with a hook pen.

At this time, the Egyptian envoy took the opportunity to say that since the piper had just left, the new pharaoh could not leave the palace too far without permission, so he asked His Excellency the Dictator to move with his legions to the headland of Nokias, which was very close to the palace of Ibos, and made it convenient for both sides to discuss matters.

So Caesar's sharp gaze immediately moved on the map to the so-called Nokias headland. Pharos Island is located northwest of the Pharaoh's Palace, connected by a 900-Roman foot breakwater (the Seven Mile Causeway) that leads to Alexandria's Intramural City and the iconic Great Library, while the Nokias headland is a narrow land tentacle to the northeast of the palace.

"It's a place where we can do it, the long and narrow terrain makes it easy for us to guard against the unexpected, and we can also communicate with Pharos by sea." Caesar's lieutenant, Secledilius, who was also the commander of the Tenth Army, said, "And there is a water source in this area. (To be continued......)