Fig. 251.

common after that time, and proves both the lessened weight which the native Egyptians bore in the state, and that the kings had forgotten the wise rules of Ptolemy Soter, in regard to the religious feelings of the people. They must have been greatly shocked by this use of foreign writing in the place of the old characters of the country, which, from having been used in the temples, even for ages beyond the reach of history, had at last been called sacred. In the temple at Antæopolis we note a marked change in the style of building. The screen in front of the great portico is almost removed by having a doorway made in it between every pair of columns. This may have been done to meet some change in the manner in which the ceremonies under the portico were to be performed. A second change, that of having fewer columns in front, was more a matter of taste, except so

far as these newer temples were smaller than the old temples. Oimenepthah's temple at Rebek and Rameses II.'s Memnonium have each a row of ten columns under the portico; Rameses III.'s temple at Medinet Abou has eight columns, and this temple by Philometor has a row of only six columns under the portico. In Greece, on the other hand, the older temples had a front of only four columns, the newer of six columns, and afterwards some had a front of eight columns.

Wilkinson,

(30) It is to this reign, also, that we seem to owe the great temple at Apollinopolis Magna (see Fig. 252), although it was not finished till one or two reigns Thebes. later. It is one of the largest and least ruined of the Egyptian temples. Its front is formed of two huge square towers, with sloping sides, between which is the narrow doorway, the only opening in its massive walls. Through this the worshipper entered a spacious courtyard or cloister, where he found shade from

Denon,

pl. 58.

the sun under a covered walk on either side. In front is the lofty portico with six large columns, the entrance to the body of the building. This last is flat-roofed, and far lower than the grand portico, which hid it from the eyes of the crowd in the courtyard. The staircases in the towers are narrow. The sacred rooms within were small and dark, with only a glimmering flame here and there before an altar, except when lighted up with the blaze of lamps on a feast-day (see Plan Fig. 253 and Elevation Fig. 254). As a castle it must have had great strength; from the top and loopholes of the two towers, stones and darts might be hurled at the enemy; and as it was in the hands of the Egyptians, it is the strongest proof that they were either not distrusted or not feared by their Greek rulers. The city of Apollinopolis

stands on a grand and lofty situation, overlooking the river and the valley; and this proud temple, rising over all, can only have been planned by military skill as a fortress to command the whole.

(31) At this time the Greeks in Egypt were beginning to follow the custom of their Egyptian brethren, to take upon themselves monastic vows, and to shut themselves up in the

Fig. 253.

Boekh's

Cardl. Mai.

Auctores

v. 350.

Fig. 254.

temples in religious idleness. But these foreigners were looked upon with jealousy by the Egyptian monks Corpus as intruders on their endowments, they were not Inscript. members of the priestly families; and we meet with a petition addressed to Philometor by Ptolemy, the Classici, son of Glaucias, a monk in the temple of Serapis at Memphis, who styles himself a Macedonian, in which he begs as a reward for his having lived there as a religious recluse for fifteen years that his younger brother may receive an appointment as an officer in the army. In a second and third petition he complains that his cell had been violently entered by his brethren and himself illtreated because he was a Greek; and he reminds the king that last year when the king visited the Serapium he had addressed the same petition to him through the bars of his window.

(32) From the report made to the king upon the monk's petition above mentioned we learn the amount of a junior officer's pay in a favourite cohort of Greeks stationed in Memphis. The young man was promised three artabas, or nine bushels of wheat and one hundred and fifty pieces of brass per month, and one hundred pieces of brass in place of each artaba of wheat not given to him. Thus his monthly pay was equal to about fourteen bushels of wheat. If the pieces of brass were of the largest size, or of two ounces and a quarter each, the bushel of wheat was worth about fifteen shillings; but if, as is more probable, the piece of brass was of the smallest size, the didrachm or quarter of an ounce, then the bushel of wheat was worth about eighteen pence.

(33) The priests in the temples of Egypt were maintained, partly by their own estates, and partly by the offerings of the pious; and we still possess a deed of sale made in this reign by the Theban priests, of one half of a third of their collections for the dead who had been buried in Thynabunum, the Libyan suburb of Thebes. This sixth share of the collections consisted of seven or eight families of slaves; the price of it was four hundred pieces of brass; the bargain was made in the presence of sixteen witnesses, whose names are given; and the deed was registered and signed by a public notary in the city of Thebes. The custom of giving offerings to the priests for the good of the dead would seem to have been a cause of some wealth to the temples, and must have been common even in the time of Moses. It was Deuteron. one among the many Egyptian customs forbidden by the Hebrew law, and it continued in use from a very early time till long after the time of this deed. It is still common in China.

ch. xxvi. 14.

(34) From the deed of sale we also gain some knowledge of the state of slavery in Egypt. The names of the slaves and of their fathers are Coptic, and in some cases borrowed from the names of the gods; hence the slaves were probably of the same religion, and spoke nearly the same language as their masters. They sunk into that low state, rather by their own want of mind than by their masters' power. each case the slave was joined in the same lot with his children; and the low price of four hundred pieces of brass, perhaps about eighty shillings, for eight families, or even if

VOL. I

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it be meant for the half of eight families, proves that they were of the nature of serfs, and that the master either by law or custom could have had no power of cruelly overworking them. On the other hand, in the reign of Philadelphus, the prisoners taken in battle, who might be treated with greater severity, were ransomed at sixty shillings each. We see by the monuments that there were also a few negroes in the same unhappy state of slavery. They were probably not treated much worse than the lowest class of those born on the soil, but they were much more valuable. Other slaves of the Berber race were brought in coasting vessels from Opone, on the incense coast, near to the island of Dioscorides, and there they were purchased for Egypt. The morality of ancient nations was sadly lowered by this practice of owning slaves. The master degraded himself as well as the slave; and while a man's wealth arose from illtreating his poorer brethren, it was natural to remark that a rich man would not easily enter the kingdom of heaven.

Arriani Periplus.

He died at

(35) Aristarchus, who had been the tutor of Euergetes II., and of a son of Philometor, was one of the ornaments Suidas. of this reign. He had been a pupil of Aristophanes, the grammarian, and had then studied under Crates at Pergamus, the rival school to Alexandria. Cyprus, whither he probably withdrew himself on the death of Philometor. He was chiefly known for his critical writings, in which his opinions of poetry were thought so just that few dared to disagree with them; and his name soon became proverbial for a critic. Aristarchus had also the good fortune to be listened to in his lecture-room by one whose name is far more known than those of his two royal pupils. Moschus of Syracuse, the pastoral poet, was one of his hearers; but his fame must not be claimed for Alexandria; he can hardly have learned from the critic that just taste by which he joined softness and sweetness to the rude plainness of the Doric muse. Indeed in this he only followed his young friend Bion, whose death he so beautifully bewails, and from whose poems he generously owns that he learned so much. It may be as well to add, that the lines in which he says that Theocritus, who had been dead above one hundred years, joined with him in his sorrow for the death