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to you after frequent conversations with him and with his approval and authority, and what I say is this,—that, since no decree of the Senate exists whereby the restoration of the king of Alexandria is taken out of your hands, and that the resolution which was drafted (and you know it was vetoed) "that nobody at all should restore the king" has so little force that it seems to be the ex parte outburst of a few angry men, rather than the deliberate measure of a sober Senate, in that case you, who hold Cilicia and Cyprus,^[1] can clearly estimate what you can achieve and attain; and if circumstances seem likely to give you the opportunity of holding Alexandria and Egypt, it is not inconsistent with your own dignity and that of our Empire that you should put the king in Ptolemais or some neighbouring spot and proceed with fleet and army to Alexandria, so that when you have pacified and garrisoned that town, Ptolemy may return to his kingdom; and so it will come about that he will be reinstated through your agency, just as the Senate originally decided, and that he will be reinstated "without a host" as was the intention (according to the religious party) of the Sibyl.

⁵ But he and I, in approving this decision, did not 5 fail to see that men are likely to judge of your policy according to its issue, that if it should fall out as we hope and pray it will, everybody will say you acted with wisdom and courage; if there be any hitch, the same people will say you acted with greed and rashness. And so it is not so easy for us to judge how far you may succeed, as it is for you, who have Egypt almost before your eyes. What we feel is this, that if you have quite satisfied yourself that you can take possession of that kingdom, you must not