Soldiers trained, disciplined, and armed as the Roman veterans were, and nerved by the ardor and enthusiasm which seemed always to animate troops which were under Caesar's personal command, could accomplish almost any undertaking against a mere populace, however numerous or however furiously excited they might be.

The soldiers sallied out, seized Ptolemy, and brought him in.
The populace were at first astounded at the daring presumption of this deed, and then exasperated at the indignity of it, considered as a violation of the person of their sovereign.

The tumult would have greatly increased, had it not been that Caesar,--who had now attained all his ends in thus having brought Cleopatra and Ptolemy both within his power,--thought it most expedient to allay it.

He accordingly ascended to the window of a tower, or of some other elevated portion of his palace, so high that missiles from the mob below could not reach him, and began to make signals expressive of his wish to address them.
When silence was obtained, he made them a speech well calculated to quiet the excitement.

He told them that he did not pretend to any right to judge between Cleopatra and Ptolemy as their superior, but only in the performance of the duty solemnly assigned by Ptolemy Auletes, the father, to the Roman people, whose representative he was.