²⁷ The emperor Gaius advised Agrippa I not to return from Rome to Palestine overland but ‘to wait for the Etesian winds and take the short route through Alexandria. He told him that the ships are crack sailing craft and their skippers the most experienced there are; they drive their vessels like race horses on an unswerving course that goes straight as a die’ (Philo, In Flaccum 26; trans. Casson).