shown their piety to a temple by enlarging the sacred area and adding a new wall and gateway in front of the former; and this custom Euergetes followed at Karnak (see Fig. 236).* As these grand stone sculptured gateways belonged to a wall of unbaked bricks, which has long since crumbled to pieces, they now stand apart like so many triumphal arches. He also added a portico with beautiful columns to the temple at Hibe in the Great Oasis, and he began a small temple at Esne, or Latopolis, where he is drawn upon the walls in the act of striking down the chiefs of the conquered nations, and is followed by a Letronne, tame lion. He built a temple to Osiris at Canopus, on the mouth of the Nile; for, notwithstanding the large number of Greeks and strangers who had settled there, the ancient religion was not yet driven out of the Delta; and he dedicated it to the god in a Greek inscription on a plate of gold, in the names of himself and Berenice, whom he called his wife and sister. She is also called the king's sister in many of the hieroglyphical inscriptions, as are many of the other queens of the Ptolemies who were not so related to their husbands. This custom, though it took its rise in the Egyptian mythology, must have been strengthened by the marriages of Philadelphus and some of his successors with their sisters. In the hieroglyphical inscriptions he is usually called "beloved by Pthah," the god of Memphis, an addition to his name which was used by most of his successors.

Inscript.

Recherches.

Fig. 236.

(9) During this century the Greek artists in Egypt, as indeed elsewhere, adopted in their style an affectation of antiquity, which unless seen through would make us think their statues older than they really are. They sometimes set a stiff beard upon a face without expression, or arranged the hair of the head in an old-fashioned manner, and while making the drapery fly out in a direction opposed to that of the figure, gave to it formal zigzag lines, which could only * Vide Additions, p. 429.

be proper if it were hanging down in quiet. At other times, while they gave to the human figure all the truth to which their art had then reached, they yet gave to the drapery these stiff zigzag forms. Such is the style of art in a figure of Mercury which was brought

from Canopus, and may have been made at this time (see Fig. 237). No habit of mind would have been more improving to the Alexandrian character than a respect for antiquity; but this respect ought to be shown in a noble rivalry, in trying to surpass those who have gone before us, and not, as in this manner, by copying their faults. Hieroglyphics seem to have flourished in their more ancient style and forms under the generous patronage of the Ptolemies. In the time of the Egyptian Fig. 237. kings of Lower Egypt, we find new grammatical endings to the nouns, and more letters used to spell each word than under the kings of Thebes; but, on comparing the hieroglyphics of the Ptolemies with the others, we find that in these and some other points they are more like the older writings, under the kings of Thebes, than the newer, under the kings of Sais.

(10) But, while the Egyptians were flattered, and no doubt raised in moral worth by their monarch's taking up the religious feelings of the country, and throwing aside some of the Greek habits of his father and grandfather, Euergetes was sowing the seeds of a greater change than he could himself have been aware of. It was by Greek arms and arts of war that Egypt then held its place among nations; and we shall see in the coming reigns, that while the court became more Asiatic and less European, the army and government did not remain unchanged.

(11) Euergetes, finding himself at peace with all his neigh

Agathar

cides

bours on the coasts of the Mediterranean, then turned his arms towards the south. In preparation for this war he added a body of five hundred Greek cavalry to his army; and he clothed one hundred of them, horses De Mari as well as men, in thick linen cloth against the Erythræo, arrows of the enemy, so that no part of the horses lib. v. could be seen but their eyes. He easily conquered the tribes of Ethiopia, whose wild courage was but a weak barrier to the arms and discipline of the Greeks; and made himself for the moment master of part of highlands of Abyssinia, the country of the Hexumitæ. The range of mountains which follows the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea divides in about latitude 15°, and a branch turns westward. On the north side of this range rises the River Astaborus, which reaches the Nile above the fifth cataract, and forms one side of the island of Meroë. On the south side of the same high district rises the Blue River, which reaches the Nile above the sixth cataract, and forms another side of Meroë. The Hexumitæ, who dwelt on this mountain district and the neighbouring coast, were of a different race from the Arabs of Ethiopia. They were more Jewish in language and religion. Their civilization reached them, not from Egypt, from which they were separated by wilder tribes, but from the opposite coast of Arabia. To the ports of the Hexumitæ the ships of Solomon and Hiram sailed, in their way to the more distant places on the African coast. This district Euergetes conquered, and at Adule, a port pleustes. in latitude 15°, he set up a large chair or throne of white marble, on which he recounted his victories in a Greek inscription. But not content with his real conquests, which reached from the Hellespont to the Euphrates, he added, like Rameses, that he had conquered Thrace, Persia, Media, and Bactria. He thus teaches us that monumental inscriptions, though read with difficulty, do not always tell the truth. This was the most southerly spot to which the kings of Egypt ever sent an army. But they kept no hold on the country. Distance had placed it not only beyond their power, but almost beyond their knowledge; and two hundred years afterwards, when the geographer lib. xvi. 4. Strabo was making inquiries about that part of

Cosmas Indico

Strabo,

Arabia, as it was called, he was told of this monument as set up

by the hero Sesostris, to whom it was usual to give the credit of so many wonderful works.

(12) Since Cole-Syria and Judæa were by the first Ptolemy made a province of Egypt, the Jews had lived in unbroken tranquillity, and with very little loss of freedom. The kings of Egypt had allowed them to govern themselves, to live under their own laws, and choose their own highpriest; but they required of them the payment to Alexandria of a yearly tribute. Part of this was the sacred poll-tax of half a shekel, or about eightpence for every male above the age of twenty, which by the Mosaic law they had previously paid for the service

Exodus, ch. xxx. 13.

24.

of the Temple. This is called in the Gospels the Matt. xvii. Didrachms; though the Alexandrian translators of

Antiq. xii. 3.

the Bible, altering the sum, either through mistake or on purpose, have made it in the Greek Pentateuch only half a didrachm, or about fourpence. This Josephus, yearly tribute from the Temple the high-priest of Jerusalem had been usually allowed to collect and farm; but in the latter end of this reign, the high-priest Onias, a weak and covetous old man, refused to send to Alexandria the twenty talents, or three thousand pounds, at which it was then valued. When Euergetes sent Athenion as ambassador to claim it, and even threatened to send a body of troops to fetch it, still the tribute was not paid; notwithstanding the fright of the Jews, the priest would not part with his money. (13) On this, Joseph, the nephew of Onias, set out for Egypt, to try and turn away the king's anger. He went to Memphis, and met Euergetes riding in his chariot with the queen and Athenion, the ambassador. The king, when he knew him, begged him to get into the chariot and sit with him; and Joseph made himself so agreeable that he was lodged in the palace at Memphis, and dined every day at the royal table. While he was at Memphis the revenues of the provinces for the coming year were put up to auction; and the farmers bid eight thousand talents, or one million two hundred thousand pounds, for the taxes of Cole-Syria, Phenicia, and Samaria. Joseph then bid double that sum, and when he was asked what security he could give, he playfully said that he was sure that Euergetes and the queen would willingly become bound for his honesty; and the king

was so much pleased with him, that the office was at once given to him, and he held it for twenty-two years.

Cleomenes.

(14) Euergetes did not forget his allies in Greece, but continued the yearly payment to Aratus, the general Plutarch. of the Achaian league, to support a power which held the Macedonians in check; and when the Spartans under Cleomenes tried to overthrow the power of the Achaians, Euergetes would not help them. He naturally thought that they wished to throw off their dependence on Alexandria, and he might perhaps have had the wisdom to see that if the Grecian states quarrelled among themselves they could no longer withstand the armies of Macedonia. But Cleomenes, while struggling to raise his little kingdom to its former rank among the states of Greece, was not so unwise as to break the Egyptian treaty, and to throw himself into the power of his more dangerous neighbour, Antigonus, king of Macedonia; and, when Antigonus marched upon the Peloponnesus, Cleomenes routed his army at the isthmus of Corinth. Antigonus, however, afterwards passed the isthmus, and beat the Spartans before the walls of Argos. Cleomenes then sent to Egypt for help in money; but the distrust felt by Euergetes was not yet removed, and the money was not granted till he had sent his mother and children to Alexandria, as hostages for his good faith. With the gold of Egypt he raised an army of twenty thousand men; but he was soon afterwards beaten at Sellasia by Antigonus with thirty thousand; and the whole of the Peloponnesus, weakened by the jealousy of its states, then fell under the power of the Macedonians. Upon this defeat, Cleomenes sailed for Alexandria, and there he was kindly received by Euergetes, who then saw how mistaken he had been in distrusting this brave Spartan; and the king gave him twenty-four talents, or four thousand pounds a year for his maintenance in Egypt, till he should be sent back to Greece with a fleet and army to regain his throne.

Suidas.

(15) Among the men of letters who at this time taught in the Alexandrian schools was Aristophanes, the Vitruvius, grammarian, who afterwards held the office of head lib. vii. præf. of the Museum. At one of the public sittings, at which the king was to hear the poems and other writings of the pupils read, and, by the help of seven men of letters who sat