unpaid for the whole of the eight years of the minority, were wisely forgiven. All the temples of Egypt, and that of Apis at Memphis, in particular, were enriched by his gifts; in which pious works, in grateful remembrance of their former benefactor, and with a marked slight towards Philopator, they said that he was following the wishes of his grandfather the god Euergetes. From this decree we gain some little insight into the means by which the taxes were raised under the Ptolemies; and we also learn that they were so new and foreign from the habits of the people that they had no Egyptian word by which they could speak of them, and therefore borrowed the Greek word Syntaxes, as we have since done.

294.

Plutarch.

tor.

(76) History gives us many examples of kings who like Epiphanes gained great praise for the mildness and weakness of the government during their minorities. Aristo- Diod. Sic. menes, the minister who had governed Egypt for Excerpt. Epiphanes, fully deserved that trust. While the young king looked up to him as a father, the country was well governed, and his orders obeyed; but as he grew older his good feelings were weakened by the pleasures which usually beset youth and royalty. The companions of his vices gained that power over his mind which Aristomenes lost, and it was not long before this wise tutor and counsellor was got rid of. The king, weary perhaps De adulawith last night's debauchery, had one day fallen asleep when he should have been listening to the speech of a foreign ambassador. Aristomenes gently shook him and awoke him. His flatterers, when alone with him, urged him to take this as an affront. If, said they, it was right to blame the king for falling asleep when worn out with business and the cares of state, it should have been done in private, and not in the face of the whole court. So Aristomenes was put to death by being ordered to drink poison. Epiphanes then lost that love of his people which the wisdom of the minister had gained for him; and he governed the kingdom with the cruelty of a tyrant, rather than with the legal power of a king. Even Aristonicus, his favourite eunuch, who was of the same age as himself, and had been brought up as his playfellow, passed him in the manly virtues of his age, and earned the praise of

Diod. Sic.

Excerpt.

297.

Polybius,

Virtut. xx.

the country for setting him a good example, and checking him in his career of vice.

Hieronym.

(77) In the thirteenth year of his reign, when the young king reached the age of eighteen, Antiochus the in Dan. xi. Great sent his daughter Cleopatra into Egypt, and B.C. 192. the marriage, which had been agreed upon six years before, was then carried into effect; and the provinces of Cole-Syria, Phenicia, and Judæa, which had been promised as a dower, were, in form at least, handed over to the generals of Epiphanes. Cleopatra was a woman of strong mind and enlarged understanding; and Antiochus hoped that, by means of the power which she would have over the weaker mind of Epiphanes, he should gain more than he lost by giving up Cole-Syria and Phenicia. But she acted the part of a wife and queen, and instead of betraying her husband into the hands of her father, she was throughout the reign his wisest and best counsellor.

(78) Antiochus seems never to have given up his hold upon the provinces which had been promised as the dower; and the peace between the two countries, which had been kept during the six years after Cleopatra had been betrothed, was broken as soon as she was married. The war Livy, lib. Xxxvi. 4. was still going on between Antiochus and the B.C. 191. Romans; and Epiphanes soon sent to Rome a thousand pounds weight of gold, and twenty thousand pounds of silver, to help the republic against their common enemy. But the Romans neither hired mercenaries nor fought as such, the thirst for gold had not yet become the strongest feeling in the senate, and they sent back the money to Alexandria with many thanks.

(79) In the twentieth year of his reign Epiphanes was troubled by a second serious rebellion of the EgypPolybius, tians. Polycrates marched against them at the Virtut. xx. head of the Greek troops; and, as he brought with him a superior force, and the king's promise of a free pardon to all who should return to their obedience, the rebels yielded to necessity and laid down their arms. The leaders of the rebellion, Athinis, Pausiras, Chesuphus, and Irobashtus, whose Coptic names prove that this was a struggle on the part of the Egyptians to throw off the Greek yoke, were brought before the king at Sais. Epiphanes, in whose youthful heart

СПАР. ІХ.]

REBELLION OF THE EGYPTIANS.

385 were joined the cruelty and cowardice of a tyrant, who had not even shown himself to the army during the danger, was now eager to act the conqueror; and, in spite of the promises of safety on which these brave Copts had laid down their arms, he had them tied to his chariot wheels, and copying the vices of men whose virtues he could not even understand, like Achilles and Alexander, he dragged them living round the city walls, and then ordered them to be put to death. He then led the army to Naucratis, which was the port of Sais, and there he embarked on the Nile for Alexandria, and taking with him a further body of mercenaries, which Aristonicus had just brought from Greece, he entered the city in triumph. (80) Ptolemy of Megalopolis, the new governor of Cyprus, copied his predecessor Polycrates in his wise and careful management. His chief aim was to keep the province quiet, and his next to collect the taxes. He was at first distrusted by the Alexandrian council for the large sum of money which he had got together and kept within his own power; but when he sent it all home to the empty treasury, they were as much pleased as they were surprised. (81) Apollonius, whom we have spoken of in the reign of Euergetes, and who had been teaching at Rhodes during the reign of Philopator, was recalled to Alexandria in the beginning of this reign, and made librarian of the Museum on the death of Eratosthenes. But he did not long enjoy that honour. He was already old, and shortly died at the age of ninety.

"On

Virtut.

xxvii.

Suidas.

Icon. Grec.

(82) The coins of this king are known by the glory or rays of sun which surround his head, and which agrees with his name Epiphanes, illustrious, or, as it, Visconti, is written in the hieroglyphics, "light bearing." On the other side is the cornucopia between two stars, with the name of “King Ptolemy" (see Fig. 247). No temples, and few additions to temples, seem to have been built in Upper Egypt during this reign, which began and ended in rebellion. We find, however, a Greek inscription at Philæ, of "King Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra, gods plate 65. Epiphanes, and Ptolemy their son, to Asclepius," a god whom the Egyptians called Imothph, the son of Pthah.

Hierogl.

(83) Cyprus and Cyrene were nearly all that were left to Egypt of its foreign provinces. The citics of Greece, which

VOL. I.

2 c

had of their own wish put themselves under Egypt for help against their nearer neighbours, now looked to Rome for that help; part of Asia Minor was under Seleucus, the son of

Antiochus the Great; Cole-Syria and Phenicia, which had been given up to Epiphanes, had been again soon lost; and the Jews, who in all former wars had sided with the kings of Egypt, as being not only the stronger but the milder rulers, now joined Seleucus. The ease with which the wide-spreading provinces of this once mighty empire fell off from the decayed trunk, almost without a shake, showed how the whole had been upheld by the warlike skill of its kings, rather than by any deep-rooted hold in the habits of the people. The trunk indeed was never strong enough for its branches; and, instead of wondering that the handful of Greeks in Alexandria, on whom the power rested, lost those wide provinces, we should rather wonder that they were ever able to hold them.

Hieronym.

(84) After the death of Antiochus the Great, Ptolemy again proposed to enforce his rights over Cole-Syria, which he had given up only in the weakness of his nonym: minority; and he is said to have been asked by one of his generals, how he should be able to pay for the large forces which he was getting together for that purpose; and he playfully answered, that his treasure was in the number of his friends. But his joke was taken in earnest; they were afraid of new taxes and fresh levies on their estates; and means were easily taken to Porphyrius, poison him. He died in the twenty-ninth year of his age, after a reign of twenty-four years; leaving the navy unmanned, the army in disobedience, the treasury

ap. Scalig.

empty, and the whole framework of government out of order.

Legat. 57.

(85) Just before his death he had sent to the Achaians to offer to send ten galleys to join their fleet; and Polybius, the historian, to whom we owe so much of Polybius, our knowledge of these reigns, although he had not yet reached the age called for by the Greek law, was sent by the Achaians as one of the ambassadors, with his father, to return thanks; but before they had quitted their own country they were stopped by the news of the death of the Epiphanes.

(86) Those who took away the life of the king seem to have had no thoughts of mending the form of government, nor any plan by which they might lessen the power of his successor. It was only one of those outbreaks of private vengeance which have often happened in unmixed monarchies, where men are taught that the only way to check the king's tyranny is by his murder; and the little notice that was taken of it by the people proves their want of public virtuo as well as of political wisdom.

Fig. 248.-Ship on the Nile.