The excitement in the city
The excitement in the city of Alexandria was intense and universal when
the Roman army entered it to reinstate Cleopatra's father upon his
throne. A very large portion of the inhabitants were pleased with having
the former king restored. In fact, it appears, by a retrospect of the
history of kings that when a legitimate hereditary sovereign or dynasty
is deposed and expelled by a rebellious population, no matter how
intolerable may have been the tyranny, or how atrocious the crimes by
which the patience of the subject was exhausted, the lapse of a very few
years is ordinarily sufficient to produce a very general readiness to
acquiesce in a restoration; and in this particular instance there had
been no such superiority in the government of Berenice, during the
period while her power continued, over that of her father, which she had
displaced, as to make this case an exception to the general rule. The
mass of the people, therefore--all those, especially, who had taken no
active part in Berenice's government--were ready to welcome Ptolemy back
to his capital. Those who had taken such a part were all summarily
executed by Ptolemy's orders.
There was, of course, a great excitement throughout the city on the
arrival of the Roman army. All the foreign influence and power which had
been exercised in Egypt thus far, and almost all the officers, whether
civil or military, had been Greek. The coming of the Romans was the
introduction of a new element of interest to add to the endless variety
of excitements which animated the capital.
