258 Fig. 208.-Ptolemy Soter. CHAPTER VII. PTOLEMY SOTER, AS GOVERNOR UNDER PHILIP ARRIDÆUS, AND UNDER ALEXANDER ÆGUS, AND AS KING. B.C. 322-284. (1) WHENEVER a man of ambition aims at raising himself by means of industry and ability to a higher rank in the world than that in which he was born, if he seeks to throw off his family and to break those ties by which he fancies he is held back, the opinion of the world as certainly chains him to the load that he wishes to rise from. Anybody with less good sense and knowledge of mankind than PTOLEMY would have called himself the natural son of Philip Amyntas, the king of Macedonia, and would have wished his relationship with Lagus to have been forgotten; but we may be sure that in Pausanias, lib. i. 6. that case the name of Lagus would have been thrown at him as a reproach, and he more wisely took it as his title; instead of being ashamed of his father's name he ennobled it, and took care that his children and his children's children should be proud of being of the family of the Lagidæ. He was one of those who at the death of Alexander had raised their voices against giving the whole of the conquered countries to one king; he wished that they should have been shared equally among the generals as independent kingdoms; but in this he was overruled, and he accepted his government as the lieutenant of the youthful Philip Arridæus (see Fig. 209), though no doubt with the fixed purpose of making Egypt an independent kingdom. On reaching Memphis, the seat of his government, his whole thoughts were turned towards strengthening himself against Perdiccas, who hoped to be obeyed, in the name of his young and weakminded king, by all his fellow generals. Fig. 209. (2) The Greek and foreign mercenaries of which the army of Alexander was made up, and who were faithful to his memory and to his family, had little to guide them in the choice of which leader they should follow to his distant province, beside the thought of where they should be best treated; and Ptolemy's high character for wisdom, generosity, and warlike skill had gained many friends for him among the officers; they saw that the wealth of Egypt would put it in his power to reward those whose services were valuable to him; and hence crowds flocked to his standard. On reaching their provinces, the Greek soldiers, whether Spartans or Athenians, forgetting the glories of Thermopyla and Marathon, and proud of their wider conquests under the late king, always called themselves Macedonians. They pleased themselves with the thought that the whole of the conquered countries were still governed by the brother of Alexander; and no one of his generals, in his wildest thoughts of ambition, whether aiming like Ptolemy at founding a kingdom, or like Perdiccas at the government of the world, was unwise enough to throw off the title of lieutenant to Philip Arridæus, and to forfeit the love of the Macedonian soldiers and his surest hold on their loyalty. (3) The first act of Ptolemy was to put to death Cleomenes, who had been made receiver-general of the taxes by Alexander, and who had afterwards been made sub-governor of Egypt by the same council of generals which had made Ptolemy governor. This may even have been called for by the dis honesty and crooked dealing which Cleomenes had been guilty of in getting in the taxes; but though the whole tenor of Ptolemy's life would seem to disprove the charge, we cannot but fear that he was in part led to this deed because he looked upon Cleomenes as the friend of Perdiccas, or because he could not trust him in his plans for making himself king of Egypt. Conquerors are seldom very nice about the steps which they take to gain the end in view, and though we shall be often called upon to praise the mildness with which Ptolemy used his power, we shall see that he was not much better than other kings in the means which he took to enlarge it. (4) The first addition which he made to his kingdom was the little Dorian state of Cyrene and its sister cities, Diod. Sic. which had before asked for the friendship of lib. xviii. Alexander, but was still free. It was being torn to pieces by the struggles of two parties for power, which ended in an appeal to arms; and the nobles were driven out to seek for help from Ptolemy. This was readily granted; he led them back in triumph into their city, and Cyrene became the prize of the conquering umpire, and was easily united to the Greek portion of Ptolemy's kingdom. (5) In the second year after the death of Alexander, the funeral train set out from Babylon to carry the B.C. 321. body of the conqueror to its place of burial. This sacred charge had been given to a general named Arridæus, who followed the chariot with a strong band of soldiers. In Pausanias, every city through which the funeral passed, the lib. i. 6; people came out in crowds to gaze upon the ap. Photium, dazzling show, and to pay their last homage to the and Arrian. lib. x. embalmed body of their king. Perdiccas had given orders that it should be carried to Ega, in Macedonia, the burial-place of Philip and his forefathers; for such was the love borne by the soldiers to Alexander, even after his death, that it was thought that the city which should have the honour of being his last resting-place would be the scat of Diod. Sic. lib. xviii. 26. government for the whole of his wide conquests. But Ptolemy had gained over Arridæus to favour his ambitious views; and when the funeral reached Syria he met it with an army which he led out of Egypt to honour and to guard the sacred prize. He then gave out that the body was to be buried in the Oasis of Ammon, in the temple of the god who had acknowledged Alexander as his son; but when the joint armies reached Memphis, they left it there, till the new city of Alexandria should be ready to receive it; and we shall soon see that Ptolemy, who never forgot to reward any one who had been of use to him, gave to Arridæus the earliest and greatest gift that he had in his power to give. lib. i. 6. (6) Perdiccas, in the death of Cleomenes and the seizure of the body of Alexander, had seen quite enough proof that Ptolemy, though too wise to take the name of Pausanias, king, had in reality grasped the power; and he now led the Macedonian army against Egypt, to enforce obedience and to punish the rebellious lieutenant. He carried with him the two princes, Philip Arridæus, and the infant Alexander Ægus, the son of Alexander the Great, born after his father's death, both to ornament his army and to prove his right to issue orders over the provinces. At Pelusium he was met by Ptolemy, who had strengthened all his cities, and had left garrisons in them; and, when he, Diod. Sic. laid siege to a small fortress near Pelusium, Ptolemy forced him to withdraw his troops, and to retire to his camp. At night, however, he left his trenches without any noise, and marched hastily towards Memphis, leaving the garrisoned towns in his rear. lib. xviii. 33. (7) In this bold and as it would seem rash step, Perdiccas was badly supported by his generals. He was stern and overbearing in his manner; he never asked advice from a council of war; his highest officers were kept in the dark about to-morrow's march; he wished to be obeyed, without caring to be loved. Ptolemy, on the other hand, was just and mild to everybody; he always sought the advice of his generals, and listened to them as his equals; he was beloved alike by officers and soldiers. Perdiccas attempted to cross the Nile at the deep fords below Memphis. Part of his army passed the first ford, though the water was up to the men's breasts. But they could not pass the second ford in the face of Ptolemy's army. After this check, whole bodies of men, headed by their generals, left their ranks; and among them Python, a general who had held the same rank under Alexander as Perdiccas himself, and who would no longer put up with his haughty commands. Upon this the disorder spread through the whole army, and Perdiccas soon fell by the hand of one of his own soldiers. (8) On the death of their leader, all cause of war ceased. Ptolemy sent corn and cattle into the camp of the invading army, which then asked for orders from him who the day before had been their enemy. The princes Philip Arridæus and the young Alexander both fell into his hands; and he might then, as guardian in their name, have sent his orders over the whole of Alexander's conquests. But, by grasping at what was clearly out of his reach, he would have lost more friends and power than he would have gained; and when the Macedonian phalanx, whose voice was law to the rest of the army, asked his advice in the choice of a guardian for the two princes, he recommended to them Python and Arridæus ; Python, who had just joined him, and had been the cause of the rout of the Macedonian army, and Arridæus, who had given up to him the body of Alexander. (9) The Macedonian army, accordingly, chose Python and Arridæus as guardians, and as rulers with unlimited power over the whole of Alexander's conquests; but, though none of the Greek generals who now held Asia Minor, Syria, Babylonia, Thrace, or Egypt, dared to acknowledge it to the soldiers, yet in reality the power of the guardians was limited to the little kingdom of Macedonia. With the death of Perdiccas, and the withdrawal of his army, Phenicia and Cole-Syria were left unguarded, and almost without a master; and Ptolemy, who had before been kept back by his wise forethought rather than by the moderation of his views, sent an army under the command of Nicanor, to conquer those countries. Jerusalem was the only place that contra held out against the Egyptian army; but Nicanor, says the historian Agatharcides, seeing that on every seventh day the garrison withdrew from the walls, chose that day for the assault, and thus gained the city. (10) In the earlier times of Egyptian history, when navi Josephus, Apionem. |
