In the mean time, while the civil war between Caesar and Pompey was raging, Ptolemy succeeded in maintaining his seat on the throne, by the aid of the Roman soldiers whom Antony and Gabinius had left him, for about three years.  When he found himself drawing toward the close of life, the question arose to his mind to whom he should leave his kingdom.  Cleopatra was the oldest child, and she was a princess of great promise, both in respect to mental endowments and personal charms.  Her brothers were considerably younger than she.  The claim of a son, though younger, seemed to be naturally stronger than that of a daughter; but the commanding talents and rising influence of Cleopatra appeared to make it doubtful whether it would be safe to pass her by.  The father settled the question in the way in which such difficulties were usually surmounted in the Ptolemy family.  He ordained that Cleopatra should marry the oldest of her brothers, and that they two should jointly occupy the throne.  Adhering also, still, to the idea of the alliance of Egypt with Rome, which had been the leading principle of the whole policy of his reign, he solemnly committed the execution of his will and the guardianship of his children, by a provision of the instrument itself, to the Roman Senate.  The Senate accepted the appointment, and appointed Pompey as the agent, on their part, to perform the duties of the trust.  The attention of Pompey was, immediately after that time, too much engrossed by the civil war waged between himself, and Caesar, to take any active steps in respect to the duties of his appointment.  It seemed, however, that none were necessary, for all parties in Alexandria appeared disposed, after the death of the king, to acquiesce in the arrangements which he had made, and to join in carrying them into effect.  Cleopatra was married to her brother—­yet, it is true, only a boy.  He was about ten years old.  She was herself about eighteen.  They were both too young to govern; they could only reign.  The affairs of the kingdom were, accordingly, conducted by two ministers whom their father had designated.  These ministers were Pothinus, a eunuch, who was a sort of secretary of state, and Achillas, the commander-in-chief of the armies.

Thus, though Cleopatra, by these events, became nominally a queen, her real accession to the throne was not yet accomplished.  There were still many difficulties and dangers to be passed through, before the period arrived when she became really a sovereign.  She did not, herself, make any immediate attempt to hasten this period, but seems to have acquiesced, on the other hand, very quietly, for a time, in the arrangements which her father had made.