388 CHAPTER X. PTOLEMY PHILOMETOR AND PTOLEMY EUERGETES II. (1) Ar the beginning of the last reign the Alexandrians had Livy, lib xlii. 6. COS Fig. 249. (2) When Philometor reached his fourteenth Polybius, year, the age at which his minority ceased, Legat. 78. the Anacleteria, or ceremony of his coronation, was B.C. 173. celebrated with great pomp. Ambassadors from several foreign states were sent to Egypt to wish the king joy, to do honour to the day, and to renew the treaties of peace with him; Caius Valerius and four 2 Macca- others were sent from Rome; Apollonius, the son bees, iv. 21. of Mnestheus, was sent from Judæa; and we may regret with Polybius that he himself was not able to form part of the embassy then sent from the Achaians, that he might have seen the costly and curious ceremony and given us an account of it. (3) While Cleopatra lived, she had been able to keep her Hieronym. son at peace with her brother Antiochus Epiphanes, in Dan. xi. and to guide the vessel of the state with a steady hand. But upon her death, Leneus and the eunuch Eulaius, who then had the care of the young king, sought to reconquer Cole-Syria; and they embroiled the country in a war, at a time when weakness and decay might have been seen in every part of the army and navy, and when there was the greatest need of peace. Cole-Syria and Phenicia had been given to Ptolemy Epiphanes as his wife's Polybius, dower; but, when Philometor seemed too weak to Legat. 82. grasp them, Antiochus denied that his father had ever made such a treaty, and got ready to march against Egypt, as the easiest way to guard Cole-Syria. in Dan. xi. (4) By this time the statesmen of Egypt ought to have learned the mistake in their foreign policy. By widening their frontier they always weakened it. They should have fortified the passes between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, not cities in Asia. When Antiochus Hieronym. entered Egypt he was met at Pelusium by the army of Philometor, which he at once routed in a pitched battle. The whole of Egypt was then in his power; he marched upon Memphis with a small force, and seized it without having to strike a blow, helped perhaps by the plea that he was acting on behalf of his nephew Ptolemy Philometor, who then fell into his hands. (5) On this, the younger Ptolemy, the brother of Philometor, who was with his sister Cleopatra in Alexandria, and was about fifteen years old, declared himself king, and sent ambassadors to Rome to ask for help lib. 19. against Antiochus; and taking Porphyrius, ap. Scalig. B.C. 170. Livy, the name of the most popular of his forefathers, he called himself EUERGETES (see Fig. 250). He is, however, better known in history as Ptolemy Physcon, or bloated, a nickname which was afterwards given to him when he had grown fat and unwieldy from the diseases of luxury. Fig. 250. Legat. 81. (6) Comanus and Cineas were the chief advisers of the young Euergetes; and in their alarm they proposed to send the foreign ambassadors to meet the invader Polybius, on his march from Memphis, and to plead for peace. This task the ambassadors kindly undertook. There were then in Alexandria two embassies from the Achaians, one to renew the treaty of peace, and one to settle the terms of the coming wrestling match. There were there three embassies from Athens, one with gifts from the city, one about the Panathenaic games, and one about the celebration of the mysteries, of which the last two were sacred embassies. There was also an embassy from Miletus, and one from Clazomena. On the day of their arrival at Memphis, Antiochus feasted these numerous ambassadors in grand state, and on the next day gave them an audience. But their arguments for peace carried no weight with him; and he denied that his father Antiochus the Great had ever given Cole-Syria as a dower with his daughter Cleopatra to Epiphanes. To gain time, he promised the ambassadors that he would give them an answer as soon as his own ambassadors returned from Alexandria; and in the meanwhile he carried his army down the Nile to Naucratis, and thence marched to the capital to begin the siege. Legat. 83. (7) Antiochus, however, was defeated in his first assault upon Alexandria; and finding that he should not Polybius, soon be able to bring the siege to an end, he sent off an embassy to Rome with a hundred and fifty talents of gold, fifty as a present to the senate under the name of a crown, and the rest to be divided among the states of Greece, whose help he might need. At the same time also an embassy from the Rhodians arrived in the port of Alexandria, to attempt to restore peace to the country of their old allies. Antiochus received the Rhodian ambassadors in his tent, but would not listen to the long speech with which they threatened him, and shortly told them that he came as the friend of his elder nephew, the young Philometor, and if the Alexandrians wished for peace they should open the gates to their rightful king. Antiochus was, however, defeated in all his assaults Legat. 84. Livy, lib. xlv. 11. on the city, and he at last withdrew his army and returned to Syria. He left Euergetes king of the Greeks at Alexandria, and Philometor at Memphis king of the rest of Egypt. But he kept Pelusium, where he placed a strong garrison, that he might be able easily to re-enter Egypt whenever he chose. (8) Ptolemy Macron, the Alexandrian governor of Cyprus, added to the troubles of the country by giving up 2 Macca- his island to Antiochus. But he met with the usual bees, x. 13. fate of traitors, he was badly rewarded; and when he complained of his treatment, he was called a traitor by the very men who had gained by his treachery, and he poisoned himself in the bitterness of his grief. Little as we know of his name, the historian can still point to it to prove the folly of wickedness. Antiochus, like most lib. v. 5. invaders, carried off whatever treasure fell into his Athenæus, hands. Egypt was a sponge which had not lately been squeezed, and his court and even his own dinner-table then shone with a blaze of silver and gold unknown in Syria before the inroad into Egypt. Livy, (9) By these acts, and by the garrison left in Pelusium, the eyes of Philometor were opened, and he saw that his uncle had not entered Egypt for his sake, lib. xlv. 11. but to make it a province of Syria, after it had been weakened by civil war. He therefore wisely forgave his rebellious brother and sister in Alexandria, and sent offers of peace to them; and it was agreed that the two Ptolemies should reign together, and turn their forces against the common enemy. It was most likely at this time, and as a part of this treaty, that Philometor married his sister Cleopatra; a marriage which, however much it may shock our feelings of right, was not forbidden either by the law or custom of the country. It was mainly by her advice and persuasion that the quarrel between the two brothers was for the time healed. (10) On this treaty between the brothers the year was called the twelfth of Ptolemy Philometor and the Porphyrius, first of Ptolemy Euergetes, and the public deeds of ap. Scalig. the kingdom were so dated. B.C. 169. Livy, lib. xlv. 12. He (11) The next year Antiochus Epiphanes again entered Egypt, claiming the island of Cyprus and the country round Pelusium as the price of his forbearance; and on his marching forward, Memphis a second time opened its gates to him without a battle. came down by slow marches towards Alexandria, and crossed the canal at Leucine, four miles from the city. There he was met by the Roman ambassadors, who ordered him to quit the country. On his hesitating, Popilius, who was one of them, drew a circle round him on the sand with his stick, and told him that, if he crossed that line without promising to leave Egypt at once, it should be taken as a declaration of war against Rome. On this threat Antiochus again quitted Egypt, and the brothers sent ambassadors to Rome to thank the senate for their Lib. xlv. 13. Diogenes V. 64. help, and to acknowledge that they owed more to the Roman people than they did to the gods or to their forefathers. (12) The treaty made on this occasion between Philometor and Antiochus was written by Heraclides Lembus, Suidas. the son of Serapion, a native of Oxyrynchus, who Laertius, wrote on the succession of the philosophers in the several Greek schools, and other works on philosophy, but whose chief work was a history named the Lembeutic History. It is the natural policy of despotic monarchs to employ men of letters and science in the offices of government. Soldiers may rebel, nobles and men of wealth may be too independent, but men of letters without money, if they consent to be employed, can only obey. Moreover, when a literary education was enjoyed by few, neither kings nor statesmen had knowledge enough to write their own state papers, and they employed for this purpose some of the philosophers and grammarians who hung about the court. This task was not thought important enough to be usually mentioned in the lives of men whose fame rested on more lasting works, and hence we do not often know by whom it was performed. B.C. 164. (13) Four years afterwards Antiochus Epiphanes died; and the Jews of Judæa, who had been for some time 1 Macca struggling for liberty, then gained a short rest for bees, iv. 5. their unhappy country. Judas Maccabeus had raised his countrymen in rebellion against the foreigners, he had defeated the Syrian forces in several battles, and was at last able to purify the temple and re-establish 2 Macca- the service there as of old. He therefore sent to the Jews of Egypt to ask them to join their Hebrew brethren in celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles on that great occasion. bees, i. 10. Livy, lib. xlvi. 21. (14) The unhappy quarrels between the Egyptian kings soon broke out again; and, as the party of Euergetes was the stronger, Philometor was driven from his kingdom, and he fled to Rome for safety and for help. He entered the city privately, and took up his lodgings in the house of one of his own subjects, a painter of Alexandria. His pride led him to refuse the offers of better entertainment which were made to him by Demetrius, the nephew of Antiochus, who like himself was hoping to regain |
