As a consequence, Pompey’s grateful supporters in the Senate had decreed that he should be the young king’s guardian as a mark of particular favor to the Egyptian monarch and his supporters. Why should Ptolemy refuse to aid him now? Pompey had his trireme anchored on the bobbing swell within sight of the camp at Mount Casius where Ptolemy’s army was preparing to give battle to Cleopatra’s forces. From here Pompey dispatched a messenger and confidently awaited an answer. Pompey’s arrival, however, caused consternation to Ptolemy’s regency council of Pothinus the eunuch, Achillas the military commander, and Theodotus the king’s tutor. According to Plutarch, the last sealed Pompey’s fate, arguing that “if they took him in they would have Caesar as their enemy and Pompey as their master, and if they sent him packing they would incur Pompey’s anger for expelling him and Caesar’s for not holding on to him.” The solution, Theodotus insisted, was to kill Pompey.
