possessions in Cilicia, carried over an army in person to attack the forces of Antigonus in Lycia. He landed at Phaselis, the frontier town of Pamphylia, and having carried that by storm, he moved westward along the coast of Lycia. He made himself master of Xanthus, the capital, which was garrisoned by the troops of Antigonus; and then of Caunus, a strong place on the coast of Caria, with two citadels, one of which he gained by force and the other by surrender. He then sailed to the island of Cos, which he gained by the treachery of Ptolemy, the nephew of Antigonus, who held it for his uncle, but who went cver to the Egyptian king with all his forces. By this success he gained the whole southern coast of Asia Minor.

(44) The brother and two children of Alexander having been in their turns, as we have seen, murdered by Diod. Sic. their guardians, Cleopatra, his sister, and Thessa- lib. xx. 37. lonica, his niece, were alone left alive of the royal B.C. 308. family of Macedonia. Almost every one of the generals had already courted a marriage with Cleopatra, which had either been refused by herself or hindered by his rivals; and lastly Ptolemy, now that by the death of her nephews she brought kingdoms, or the love of the Macedonian mercenaries, which was worth more than kingdoms, as her dower, sent to ask her hand in marriage. This offer was accepted by Cleopatra ; but, on her journey from Sardis, the capital of Lydia, to Egypt, on her way to join her future husband, she was put to death by Antigonus. The niece was put to death a few years later. Thus every one who was of the family of Alexander paid the forfeit of life for that honour, and these two deaths ended the tragedy. An aristocracy does not arise or keep its place in all countries with equal ease or from the same causes. Families that had before been renowned were forgotten on the wide and brilliant spread of Greek power under Alexander in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The royal house of Macedon stood alone in its greatness. The officers which surrounded it, like Charlemagne's Knights, outshone all other nobles; and upon the death of his sister and niece the only princely families among the Greeks were those of the generals in Alexander's army.

(45) While Ptolemy was busy in helping the Greek cities of Asia to gain their liberty, Menelaus, his brother and

admiral, was almost driven out of Cyprus by Demetrius. On this Ptolemy got together his fleet, to the number of oue hundred and forty long galleys and two hundred transports, manned with not less than ten thousand men, and sailed with them to the help of his brother. This fleet, under the command of Menelaus, was met by Demetrius with the fleet of Antigonus, consisting of one hundred and twelve long galleys and a number of transports; and the Egyptian fleet, which had hitherto been master of the sea, was beaten near the city of Salamis in Cyprus by the smaller fleet of Demetrius. This was the heaviest loss that had ever befallen Ptolemy. Eighty long galleys were sunk, and forty long galleys, with one hundred transports and eight thousand men, were taken prisoners. He could no longer hope to keep Cyprus, and he sailed hastily back to Egypt, leaving to Demetrius the garrisons of the island as his prisoners, all of whom were enrolled in the army of Antigonus, to the number of sixteen thousand foot and six hundred horse.

Vit. Demet.

lib. xv. 2.

(46) This naval victory gave Demetrius the means of unburdening his proud mind of a debt of gratitude to Plutarch. his enemy; and accordingly, remembering what Ptolemy had done after the battle of Gaza, he sent back to Egypt, unasked for and unransomed, those prisoners who were of high rank, that is to say, the whole that Justinus, had any choice about which side they fought for and among them were Leontiscus, the son, and Menelaus, the brother, of Ptolemy (vide Additions, p. 428). (47) Antigonus was overjoyed with the news of his son's victory. By lessening the power of Ptolemy, it had done much to smooth his own path to the sovereignty of Alexander's empire, which was the left without lib. xx. 53. an heir; and he immediately took the title of king. B.C. 306. and gave the same title to his son Demetrius. In this he was followed by Ptolemy and the other generals, but with this difference, that while Antigonus called himself sovereign of all the provinces, Ptolemy called himself sovereign of Egypt (see Fig. 214); and while Antigonus gained Syria and Cy Ptolemy gained the friendship of every other kingdom and of every free city in Greece; they all looked upon Fig. 2.4. him as their best ally against Antigonus, the ar

Diod. Sic.

y

yprus, 440

common enemy.

B.C. 305.

(48) The next year Antigonus mustered his forces in ColeSyria, and got ready for a second attack upon Diod. Sic. Egypt. He had more than eighty thousand foot, lib. xx. 73. accompanied with what was then the usual proportion of cavalry, namely, eight thousand horse, and eightythree elephants. Demetrius brought with him from Cyprus the fleet of one hundred and fifty long galleys, and one hundred transports laden with stores and engines of war. With this fleet, to which Ptolemy after his late loss had no ships that he could oppose, Antigonus had no need to ask leave of the Arabs of the little city of Petra to march through their passes; but he led his army straight through the desert to Pelusium, while the ships of burden kept close to the shore with the stores. The pride of Antigonus would not let him follow the advice of the sailors, and wait eight days till the north winds of the spring equinox had passed; and by this haste many of his ships were wrecked on the coast, while others were driven into the Nile, and fell into the hands of Ptolemy. Antigonus himself, marching with the land forces, found all the strong places well guarded by the Egyptian army; and, being driven back at every point, discouraged by the loss of his ships and by seeing whole bodies of his troops go over to Ptolemy, he at last took the advice of his officers and led back his army to Syria, while Ptolemy returned to Alexandria, to employ those powers of mind in the works of peace which he had so successfully used in war.

(49) Antigonus then turned the weight of his mighty kingdom against the little island of Rhodes, which, though in sight of the coast of Asia Minor, held itself independent of him, and in close friendship with Ptolemy. The Dorian island of Rhodes had from the earliest dawn of history held a high place among the states of Greece; and in all the arts of civilized life, in painting, sculpture, letters, and commerce, it had been lately rising in rank while the other free states had been falling. Its maritime laws were so highly thought of that they were copied by most other states, and being afterwards adopted into the Pandects of Justinian, they have in part become the law of modern Europe. It was the only state in which Greek liberty then kept its ground against the great empires of Alexander's successors.

(50) Against this little state Demetrius led two hundred

Plutarch.

lib. xx. 93.

long galleys and one hundred and seventy transports, with more than forty thousand men. The Greek world looked on with deep interest while the veterans of Antigonus were again and again driven back from the walls of the blockaded city by its brave and virtuous citizens; who, while Vit. Demet. their houses were burning and their walls crumbling Diod. Sic, under the battering-ram, left the statues of Antigonus and Demetrius standing unhurt in the market-place, saved by their love of art and the remembrance of former kindness, which, with a true greatness of mind, they would not let the cruelties of the siege outweigh. The galleys of Ptolemy, though unable to keep at sea against the larger fleet of Demetrius, often forced their way into the harbour with the welcome supplies of corn. Month after month every stratagem and machine which the ingenuity of Demetrius could invent were tried and failed; and after the siege had lasted more than a year he was glad to find an excuse for withdrawing his troops; and the Rhodians in their joy hailed Ptolemy with the title of Soter, or saviour. This name he ever afterwards kept, though by the Greek writers he is more often called Ptolemy the son of Lagus. If we search the history of the world for a second instance of so small a state daring to withstand the armies of so mighty an empire, we shall perhaps not find any one more remarkable than that of the same island, when, seventeen hundred years afterwards, it again drew upon itself the eyes of the world, while it beat off the forces of the Ottoman empire under Mahomet II., and, standing like a rock in front of Christendom, it rolled back for years the tide of war, till its walls were at last crumbled to a heap of ruins by Solyman the Great, after a siege of many months.

lib. xxi. 1.

(51) The next of Ptolemy's conquests was Coele-Syria ; and soon after this the wars between these successors Lib. xx. 113; of Alexander were put an end to by the death of B.C. 301. Antigonus, whose overtowering ambition was among the chief causes of quarrel. This happened at the great battle of Ipsus, in Phrygia, where they all met, with above eighty thousand men in each army. Antigonus, king of Asia Minor, was accompanied by his son Demetrius, and by Pyrrhus, king of Epirus; and he was defeated by Ptolemy, king of Egypt, Seleucus, king of Babylon, Lysimachus, king

of Thrace, and Cassander, king of Macedonia; and the old

man lost his life fighting bravely. After the battle Plutarch. Demetrius fled to Cyprus, and yielded to the terms Vit. Pyrrhi. of peace which were imposed on him by the four

allied sovereigns. He sent his friend Pyrrhus as a hostage to Alexandria; and there this young king of Epirus soon gained the friendship of Ptolemy, and afterwards his stepdaughter in marriage. Ptolemy was thus left master of the whole of the southern coast of Asia Minor and Syria, indeed, of the whole coast of the eastern end of the Mediterranean, from the island of Cos on the north to Cyrene on the south.

(52) During these formidable wars with Antigonus, Ptolemy had never been troubled with any serious rising of the conquered Egyptians; and perhaps the wars may not have been without their use in strengthening his throne. The first danger to a successful conqueror is from the avarice and disappointment of his followers, who usually claim the kingdom as their booty, and who think themselves wronged and their past services forgotten if any limit is placed to their tyranny over the conquered. But these foreign wars may have taught the Alexandrians that Ptolemy was not strong enough to ill-treat the Egyptians, and may thus have saved him from the indiscretion of his friends and from their reproaches for ingratitude.

v. 19.

(53) In the late war the little Dorian island of Cos, on the coast of Asia Minor, fell, as we have seen, under the power of Ptolemy. This island was remarkable as being the Aristoteles, first spot in Europe into which the manufacture of Hist. Anim. silk was introduced, which it probably gained when under the power of Persia before the overthrow of Darius. The luxury of the Egyptian ladies, who affected to be overheated by any clothing that could conceal their limbs, had long ago introduced a tight thin dress which neither our climate nor notions of modesty would allow, and for this dress silk, when it could be obtained, was much valued; and Pamphila of Cos had the glory of having woven webs so transparent that the Egyptian women were enabled to display their fair forms yet more openly by means of this clothing. Cos continued always in the power of the Ptolemies, who used it as a royal fortress, occasionally sending their treasures and their children there as to a place of safety from