He found only the garrison which Ptolemy's government had left in charge of the city.

At first the officers of this garrison gave him an outwardly friendly reception, but they soon began to take offense at the air of authority and command which he assumed, and which seemed to them to indicate a spirit of encroachment on the sovereignty of their own king.
[Sidenote: The Roman fasces.] [Sidenote: The lictors.] Feelings of deeply-seated alienation and animosity sometimes find their outward expression in contests about things intrinsically of very little importance.

It was so in this case.

The Roman consuls were accustomed to use a certain badge of authority called the _fasces_.

It consisted of a bundle of rods, bound around the handle of an ax.