They offered him such resources and aid as he might desire.

He did not, however, stop to organize a large fleet or to collect an army.
He depended, like Napoleon, in all the great movements of his life, not on grandeur of preparation, but on celerity of action.

He organized at Rhodes a small but very efficient fleet of ten galleys, and, embarking his best troops in them, he made sail for the coasts of Egypt.

Pompey had landed at Pelusium, on the eastern frontier, having heard that the young king and his court were there to meet and resist Cleopatra's invasion.

Caesar, however, with the characteristic boldness and energy of his character, proceeded directly to Alexandria, the capital.
[Sidenote: Caesar at Alexandria.] Egypt was, in those days, an _ally_ of the Romans, as the phrase was; that is, the country, though it preserved its independent organization and its forms of royalty, was still united to the Roman people by an intimate league, so as to form an integral part of the great empire.
Caesar, consequently, in appearing there with an armed force, would naturally be received as a friend.