His first action was to send messengers to Pelusium strongly urging both Ptolemy and Cleopatra to cease their warfare, and to come to Alexandria in order to lay their respective cases before him. He chose to regard the settlement of the quarrel between the two sovereigns as a particular obligation upon himself, for it was during his previous consulship that the late monarch, Auletes, had entrusted his children to the Roman people and had made the Republic the executors of his will; and, moreover, that will had been confided to the care of Pompey, whose position as patron of the Egyptian Court Cæsar was now anxious to fill. In response to the summons Ptolemy came promptly to Alexandria, with his minister Potheinos, arriving, I suppose, on about October 5th, in order to ascertain what on earth Cæsar was doing in the Palace; and meanwhile Achillas was left in command of the army at Pelusium. On reaching Alexandria they seem to have been invited by Cæsar to take up their residence in the Palace into which he had intruded, and which was now patrolled by his Roman troops; and, apparently upon the advice of the unctuous Potheinos, the two of them made themselves as pleasant as possible to their new patron. Cæsar at once asked Ptolemy to disband his army, but to this Potheinos would not agree, and immediately sent word to Achillas to bring his forces to Alexandria. Cæsar, hearing of this, obliged the young King to despatch two officers, Dioscorides and Serapion, to order Achillas to remain at that place. These messengers, however, were intercepted by the agents of Potheinos, one being killed and the other wounded; and two or three days later Achillas arrived at the capital at the head of the first batch of his army of some twenty thousand foot and two thousand horse,[25] taking up his residence in that part of the city unoccupied by the Romans. Cæsar thereupon fortified his position, deciding to hold as much of the city as his small force could defend--namely, the Palace and the Royal Area behind it, including the Theatre, the Forum, and probably a portion of the Street of Canopus. The Egyptian army presented a pugnacious but not extremely formidable array,[26] consisting as it did of the Gabinian troops, who had now become entirely expatriated, and had assumed to some extent the habits and liberties of their adopted country; a number of criminals and outlaws from Italy who had been enrolled as mercenary troops; a horde of Syrian and Cilician pirates and brigands; and, probably, a few native levies. But as Cæsar now had with him in the Palace King Ptolemy, the little Prince Ptolemy, the Princess Arsinoe, and the minister Potheinos, who could be regarded as hostages for his safety, and four thousand of his war-hardened veterans, ensconced in a fortified position and supported by a business-like little fleet of galleys, I cannot see that he had any cause at the moment for alarm. One serious difficulty, however, presented itself. Immediately on arriving in Egypt he had sent orders to Cleopatra to repair to the Palace; and his task as arbiter in the royal dispute could not be performed until she arrived, nor could he expect to assert his authority until her presence completed the group of interested persons under his enforced protection. Yet she could not dare to place herself in the hands of Achillas, nor rely upon him for a safe escort through the lines; and thus Cæsar found himself in a dilemma.