above the water.  However, the forces from Syria were soon brought to him, and he was able to fight a battle in which the young king was drowned; and Egypt was at his mercy.  Cleopatra was determined to have an interview with him, and had herself carried into his rooms in a roll of carpet, and when there, she charmed him so much that he set her up as queen of Egypt.  He remained three months longer in Egypt collecting money; and hearing that Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, had attacked the Roman settlements in Asia Minor, he sailed for Tarsus, marched against Pharnaces, routed and killed him in battle.  The success was announced to the Senate in the following brief words, “Veni, vidi, vici”—­“I came, I saw, I conquered.”

[Illustration:  CATO.]

He was a second time appointed Dictator, and came home to arrange affairs; but there were no proscriptions, though he took away the estates of those who opposed him.  There was still a party of the senators and their supporters who had followed Pompeius in Africa, with Cato and Cnaeus Pompeius, the eldest son of the great leader, and Caesar had to follow them thither.  He gave them a great defeat at Thapsus, and the remnant took refuge in the city of Utica, whither Caesar followed them.  They would have stood a siege, but the townspeople would not consent, and Cato sent off all his party by sea, and remained alone with his son and a few of his friends, not to face the conqueror, but to die by his own sword ere he came, as the Romans had learned from Stoic philosophy to think the nobler part.

[Illustration:  FUNERAL SOLEMNITIES IN THE COLUMBARIUM (lit. Pigeon-house) OF THE HOUSE OF JULIUS CAESAR AT THE PORTA CAPENA IN ROME.

(The rows of niches for the cinerary urns in a Roman sepulchre were called by this name from their resemblance to a dovecot.)]

Such of the Senate as had not joined Pompeius were ready to fall down and worship Caesar when he came home.  So rejoiced was Rome to fear no proscription, that temples were dedicated to Caesar’s clemency, and his image was to be carried in procession with those of the gods.  He was named Dictator for ten years, and was received with four triumphs—­over the Gauls, over the Egyptians, over Pharnaces, and over Juba, an African king who had aided Cato.  Foremost of the Gaulish prisoners was the brave Vercingetorix, and among the Egyptians, Arsinoe, the sister of Cleopatra.  A banquet was given at his cost to the whole Roman people, and the shows of gladiators and beasts surpassed all that had ever been seen.  The Julii were said to be descended from AEneas and to Venus, as his ancestress, Caesar dedicated a breastplate of pearls from the river mussels of Britain.  Still, however, he had to go to Spain to reduce the sons of Pompeius.  They were defeated in battle, the elder was killed, but Cnaeus, the younger, held out in the mountains and hid himself among the natives.