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iron. It was called the ship of Syracuse, but after it had been given to Philopator it was known by the name of the ship of Alexandria.

Livy,

(45) In the second year of Philopator's reign the Romans began that long and doubtful war with Hannibal, called the seccnd Punic war, and in the twelfth year of this lib. xxvii. 4. reign they sent ambassadors to renew their treaty of peace with Egypt. They sent as their gifts robes B.C. 210. of purple for Philopator and Arsinoë, and for Philopator a chair of ivory and gold, which was the usual gift of the republic to friendly kings. The Alexandrians kept upon good terms both with the Romans and the Carthaginians during the whole of the Punic wars.

(46) When the city of Rhodes, which had long been joined in close friendship with Egypt, was shaken by an Polybius, earthquake that threw down the colossal statue of lib. v. Apollo, together with a large part of the city walls and docks, Philopator was not behind the other friendly kings and states in his gifts and help. He sent to his brave allies a large sum of silver and copper, with corn, timber, and hemp. (47) On the birth of his son and heir, ambassadors crowded to Alexandria with gifts and messages of joy. But Ant. xii, 4. they were all thrown into the shade by Hyrcanus, the son of Joseph, who was sent from Jerusalem B.C. 209. by his father, and who brought to the king one hundred boys and one hundred girls, each carrying a talent of silver.

Josephus,

(48) Philopator soon after the birth of this his only child, employed Philammon, at the bidding of his mistress, Justinus, to put to death his queen and sister Arsinoë, or lib. xxx. 1. Eurydice, as she is sometimes called. He had already forgotten his rank and his name, ennobled by the virtues of three generations, and had given up his days and nights to vice and riot. He kept in his pay several Athenæus, fools or laughing-stocks, as they were then called, lib. vi. 12. who were the chosen companions of his meals; and he was the first who brought eunuchs into the court of Alexandria. His mistress Agathoclea, her brother AgaJustinus, thocles, and their mother Enanthe, held him bound lib. xxx. 1. by those chains which clever, worthless, and selfish

favourites throw around the mind of a weak and debauched

king. Agathocles, who never left his side, was his adviser in matters of business or pleasure, and governed alike the army, the courts of justice, and the women. Thus was spent a reign of seventeen years, during which the king had never but once, when he met Antiochus in battle, roused himself from his life of sloth.

XV.

lib. xv.

(49) The misconduct and vices of Agathocles raised such an outcry against him, that Philopator, without Polybius, giving up the pleasure of his favourite's company, De Virtut. was forced to take away from him the charge of receiving the taxes. That high post was then given to Tlepolemus, a young man, whose strength of body and warlike courage had made him the darling of the soldiers. Another charge given to Tlepolemus was Polybius, that of watching over the supply and price of corn in Alexandria. The wisest statesmen of old thought it part of a king's duty to take care that the people were fed, and seem never to have found out that it would be better done if the people were left to take care of themselves. They thought it moreover a piece of wise policy, or at any rate of clever king-craft, to keep down the price of food in the capital at the cost of the rest of the kingdom, and even sometimes to give a monthly fixed measure of corn to each citizen. By such means as these the crowd of poor and restless citizens who swell the mob of every capital, was larger in Alexandria than it otherwise would have been; and the danger of riot, which it was meant to lessen, was every year increased.

De Virtut.

XV.

(50) Sosibius had made himself more hated than Agathocles; he had been the king's ready tool in all his murders. He had been stained, or at least reproached, with the murder of Lysimachus, the son of Philadelphus; then of Magas, the son of Euergetes, and Berenice, the widow of Euergetes; of Cleomenes, the Spartan; and lastly, of Arsinoë, the wife of Philopator. For these crimes Sosibius was forced by the soldiers to De Virtut. give up to Tlepolemus the king's ring, or what in modern language would be called the great seal of the kingdom, the badge of office by which Egypt was governed; but the world soon saw that a body of luxurious mercenaries were as little able to choose a wise statesman as the king had becu. 2 B

VOL. I.

xvi.,

(51) With all his vices, Philopator had yet inherited tho love of letters which has thrown so bright a light around the whole of the family; and to his other luxuries he sometimes added that of the society of the learned men of the Diogenes Laertius, Museum. When one of the professorships was lib. vii. 177. empty, he wrote to Athens, and invited to Alexandria Sphærus, who had been the pupil of Zeno. One day when Sphærus was dining with the king, he said that a wise man should never guess, but only say what he knows. Philopator, wishing to tease him, ordered some waxen pomegranates to be handed to him, and when Sphærus bit one of them, he laughed at him for guessing that it was real fruit. But the Stoic answered that there are many cases in which our actions must be guided by what seems probable. None of the works of Sphærus have come down to us.

Suidas.

(52) Eratosthenes, of whom we have before spoken, was librarian of the Museum during this reign; and Ptolemy, the son of Agesarchus, then wrote his Athenæus, history of Alexandria, a work now lost. It was lib. x. 7. not, however, from their want of accuracy that these Alexandrian historians have been allowed to perish. None but a few scholars will turn aside from the cares and pleasures of life, from earning their livelihood, or even from the amusements of idleness, to read books written without life or feeling. Had these historians been so fortunate as to have been witnesses of a series of great and good actions, or had they been warmed with a love for their fellow-creatures, or had they had an aim after what was noble, or even had their pages contained a clear picture of the manners and customs of their times, the world would not have let them die.

Ælianus,

(53) The want of moral feeling in Alexandria was poorly supplied by the respect for talent. Philopator built V. H. xiii. there a shrine or temple to Homer, in which ho 22. placed a sitting figure of the poet, and round it seven worshippers, meant for the seven cities which claimed the honour of giving him birth. Had Homer himself worshipped in such temples, and had his thoughts been raised by no more lofty views, he would not have left us an Iliad or an Odyssey. In Upper Egypt there was no such want of religious earnestness; there the priests placed the name of

Philopator upon a small temple near Medinet Abou, dedicated to Amun-Ra and the goddess Athor; his name is also seen upon the temple at Karnak, and Wilkinson, on the additions to the sculptures on the temple

Thebes.

of Thoth at Pselcis in Ethiopia, between the first and second cataracts. Further than this the Ptolemies hardly aimed at holding the valley of the Nile southward. From this place the gold mines could be reached through the desert; and the country further south was of no value.

MALY

YEM

Fig. 243.

(54) Some of this king's coins bear the name of "Ptolemy Philopator" (see Fig. 243), while those of the queen Visconti, have her name, "Arsinoë Philopator," around the Icon. Grec. head (see Fig. 244). They are of a good style Josephus, of art. He was also sometimes named Eupator; Letronne, and it was under that name that the people of Paphos set up a monument to him in the temple of Venus.

Ant. xii. 3.

Recherches.

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(55) The first three Ptolemies had been loved by their subjects and feared by their enemies; but Philopator, though his power was still acknowledged abroad, had by his vices

and cruelty made himself hated at home, and had undermined the foundations of the government. He began his reign like an eastern despot; instead of looking to his brother as a friend for help and strength, he distrusted him as a rival, and had him put to death. He employed the ministers of his vicious pleasures in the high offices of government; and, instead of philosophers and men of learning, he brought eunuchs into the palace as the companions of his son. He died worn out with disease in the sevenPorphyrius teenth year of his reign and about the fifty-first of his age, leaving the fabric of the monarchy tottering with weakness; and thus in the pages of history the vices of Philopator and the wisdom of Soter teach nearly the same lesson.

ap. Scalig.

Justinus,

B.C. 204.

(56) On the death of Philopator his son was only five years old. The minister Agathocles, who had ruled over lib. xxx. 2. the country with unbounded power, endeavoured by the help of his sister Agathoclea and the other mistresses of the late king to keep his death secret ; so that while the women seized the money and jewels of the palace, he might have time to take such steps as would secure his own power over the kingdom. But the secret could not be long kept, and Agathocles called together the citizens of Alexandria to tell them of the death of Philopator, and to show them their young king.

▪་

440

(57) He went to the meeting, followed by his sister Aga thoclea and the young Ptolemy, Polybius, afterwards called Epiphanes lib. xv. (see Fig. 245). He began his speech, "Ye men of Macedonia," as this mixed body of Greeks and Jews was always called. He wiped his eyes with his chlamys in well-feigned grief, and showed them the new king, who had been trusted, he said, by his father to the motherly care of Agathoclea and to their loyalty. He then accused Tlepolemus of aiming at the throne, and brought forward a creature of his own to prove the truth of the charge. But his voice was soon drowned in the loud murmurs of the citizens; they had smarted too long under his tyranny, and

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Fig. 245.

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