These messengers were instructed to
These messengers were instructed to urge upon the people that, unless
Caesar and his army were at once expelled from Alexandria, there was
imminent danger that the national independence of Egypt would be forever
destroyed. The Romans, they were to say, had extended their conquests
over almost all the rest of the world. They had sent one army into Egypt
before, under the command of Mark Antony, under the pretense of
restoring Ptolemy Auletes to the throne. Now another commander, with
another force, had come, offering some other pretexts for interfering in
their affairs. These Roman encroachments, the messengers were to say,
would end in the complete subjugation of Egypt to a foreign power,
unless the people of the country aroused themselves to meet the danger
manfully, and to expel the intruders.
As Caesar had possession of the island of Pharos and of the harbor,
Ganymede could not cut him off from receiving such re-enforcements of
men and arms as he might make arrangements for obtaining beyond the sea;
nor could he curtail his supply of food, as the granaries and magazines
within Caesar's quarter of the city contained almost inexhaustible stores
of corn. There was one remaining point essential to the subsistence of
an army besieged, and that was an abundant supply of water. The palaces
and citadels which Caesar occupied were supplied with water by means of
numerous subterranean aqueducts, which conveyed the water from the Nile
to vast cisterns built under ground, whence it was raised by buckets and
hydraulic engines for use. In reflecting upon this circumstance,
Ganymede conceived the design of secretly digging a canal, so as to turn
the waters of the sea by means of it into these aqueducts. This plan he
carried into effect. The consequence was, that the water in the cisterns
was gradually changed. It became first brackish, then more and more salt
and bitter, until, at length, it was wholly impossible to use it. For
some time the army within could not understand these changes; and when,
at length, they discovered the cause the soldiers were panic-stricken at
the thought, that they were now apparently wholly at the mercy of their
enemies, since, without supplies of water, they must all immediately
perish. They considered it hopeless to attempt any longer to hold out,
and urged Caesar to evacuate the city, embark on board his galleys, and
proceed to sea.
