section_path: Civil war/Alexandrine war and Asia Minor
section_name: Alexandrine war and Asia Minor
paragraph_text: Alexandrine war and Asia Minor
  
  Pompey was killed when he arrived in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt. Caesar arrived three days later on 2 October 48 BC. Prevented from leaving the city by Etesian winds, Caesar decided to arbitrate an Egyptian civil war between the child pharaoh Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator and Cleopatra, his sister, wife, and co-regent queen. In late October 48 BC, Caesar was appointed in absentia to a year-long dictatorship, after news of his victory at Pharsalus arrived to Rome. While in Alexandria, he started an affair with Cleopatra and withstood a siege by Ptolemy and his other sister Arsinoe until March 47 BC. Reinforced by eastern client allies under Mithridates of Pergamum, he then defeated Ptolemy at the Battle of the Nile and installed Cleopatra as ruler. Caesar and Cleopatra celebrated the victory with a triumphal procession on the Nile. He stayed in Egypt with Cleopatra until June or July that year, though the relevant commentaries attributed to him give no such impression. Some time in late June, Cleopatra gave birth to a child by Caesar, called Caesarion.
  
  When Caesar landed at Antioch, he learnt that during his time in Egypt, the king of what is now Crimea, Pharnaces, had attempted to seize what had been his father's kingdom, Pontus, across the Black Sea in northern Anatolia. His invasion had swept aside Caesar's legates and the local client kings, but Caesar engaged him at Zela and defeated him immediately, leading Caesar to write veni, vidi, vici ("I came, I saw, I conquered"), downplaying Pompey's previous Pontic victories. He then left quickly for Italy.