His arrogance was daily becoming more pronounced, and his ambition was now “swell’d so much that it did almost stretch the sides o’ the world.”[63] He severely rebuked Pontius Aquila, one of the Tribunes, for not rising when he passed in front of the Tribunician seats; and for some time afterwards he used to qualify any declaration which he made in casual conversation by the sneering words, “By Pontius Aquila’s kind permission.” Once, when a deputation of Senators came to him to confer new honours upon him, he, on the other hand, received them without rising from his seat; and he was now wont to keep his closest friends waiting in an anteroom for an audience, a fact of which Cicero bitterly complains. When his authority was questioned he invariably lost his temper, and would swear in the most horrible manner. “Men ought to look upon what I say as _law_,” he is reported by Titus Ampius to have said; and, indeed, there were very few persons who had the hardihood not to do so. On a certain occasion it was discovered that some enthusiast had placed a royal diadem upon the head of one of his statues, and, very correctly, the two Tribunes caused it to be removed. This so infuriated Cæsar, who declared the official act to be a deliberate insult, that he determined to punish the two men at the first convenient opportunity. On January 26th of the new year this opportunity presented itself. As he was walking through the streets some persons in the crowd hailed him as King, whereupon these zealous officials ordered them to be arrested and flung into prison. Cæsar at once raised an appalling storm, the result of which was that the two Tribunes were expelled from the Senate.
Cleopatra’s attitude could not well fail to be influenced by that of the Dictator; and it is probable that she gave some offence by an occasional haughtiness of manner. Her Egyptian chamberlains and court officials must also have annoyed the Romans by failing to disguise their Alexandrian vanity; and there can be little doubt that many of Cæsar’s friends began to regard the menage at the transpontine villa with growing dislike. A letter written by Cicero to his friend Atticus is an interesting commentary upon the situation. It seems that the great writer had been favoured by Cleopatra with the promise of a gift suitable to his standing, probably in return for some service which he had rendered her. “I detest the Queen,” he writes, “and the voucher for her promises, Hammonios, knows that I have good cause for saying so. What she promised, indeed, were all things of the learned sort and suitable to my character, such as I could avow even in a public meeting. As for Sara (pion),[64] besides finding him an unprincipled rascal, I also found him inclined to give himself airs towards me. I only saw him once at my house; and when I asked him politely what I could do for him, he said that he had come in hopes of seeing Atticus. The Queen’s insolence, too, when she was living in Cæsar’s trans-tiberine villa,[65] I cannot recall without a pang. So I will not have anything to do with that lot.”