The new King of Egypt, whom we may now call by his nickname Auletes, was much disturbed by the existence of this will, and throughout his reign he was constantly making efforts to buy off the expected interference of Rome. He was an unhappy and unfortunate man. All he asked was to be allowed to enjoy the royal wealth in drunken peace, and not to be bothered by the haunting fear that he might be turned out of his kingdom. He was a keen enjoyer of good living, and there was nothing that pleased him so much as the participation in one of the orgies of Dionysos. He played the pipes with some proficiency, and, when he was sober, it would seem that he spent many a contented hour piping pleasantly in the sun. Yet his reign was continuously overshadowed by this knowledge that the Romans might at any moment dethrone him; and one pictures him often giving vent to an evening melancholy by blowing from his little flute one of those wailing dirges of his native land, which flutter upon the ears like the notes of a night-bird, and drift at last upon a half-tone into silence.
In the fifth year of his reign, that is to say in B.C. 75, his kinswoman, Selene, sent her two sons to Rome with the object of obtaining the thrones of Egypt, Cyprus, and Syria; and Auletes must have watched with anxiety their attempts to oust him. He knew that they were giving bribes right and left to the Senators, in order to effect their purpose, and he was aware that in this manner alone the heart of the Roman Republic could be touched; yet for the time being he avoided these methods of expending his country’s revenue, and, after a while, he had the satisfaction of hearing that Selene had abandoned her efforts to obtain recognition. In the thirteenth year of his reign Pompey sent a fleet under Lentulus Marcellinus to clear the Egyptian coast of pirates, and when Lentulus was made consul he caused the Ptolemaic eagle and thunderbolt to be displayed upon his coins to mark the fact that he had exercised an act of sovereignty in connection with that country. Three years later another Roman fleet was sent to Alexandria to impose the will of the Senate in regard to certain disputed questions; and once more Auletes must have suffered from the terrors of imminent dethronement.