EPIPHANES.
_The struggle for Syria--Decline of the dynasty--Advent of Roman
control._
Ptolemy, the eldest son of Philadelphus, succeeded his father on
the throne of Egypt, and after a short time was accorded the name of
Euergetes. The new reign was clouded by dark occurrences, which again
involved Egypt and Syria in war. It has been already related that when
peace was concluded between Antiochus and Philadelphus, the latter gave
to the former his daughter Berenicê in marriage, stipulating that the
offspring of that union should succeed to the Syrian throne, though
Antiochus had, by his wife Laodice, a son, already arrived at the age of
manhood. The repudiated queen murdered her husband, and placed Seleucus
on the vacant throne; who, in order to remove all competition on the
part of Berenicê and her child, made no scruple to deprive them both
of life. Euergetes could not behold such proceedings unmoved. Advancing
into Syria at the head of a powerful army, he took possession of the
greater part of the country, which seems not to have been defended,
the majority of the cities opening their gates at his approach. The
important town of Seleucia Pieria, the seaport of the capital, fell into
his hands, in the neighbourhood of which he was still further gratified
with the apprehension of the cruel Laodice, at whose instigation his
sister and nephew lost their lives. The punishment of this unprincipled
woman seems, however, to have completely satiated his resentment; for,
instead of securing his conquests in Syria, and achieving the entire
humiliation of Seleucus, he led his army on a plundering expedition into
the remote provinces of Asia, whence, on the news of domestic troubles,
he returned to the shores of Africa in triumph, laden with an immense
booty, comprising among other objects all the statues of the Egyptian
deities which had been carried off by Cambyses to Persia or Babylon.
These he restored to their respective temples, an act by which he earned
the greatest popularity among his native Egyptian subjects, who bestowed
upon him, in consequence, the title of Euergetes (Benefactor), by which
he is generally known. He brought back also from this expedition a vast
number of other works of art, for the museums were a passion with the
Ptolemies. The Asiatics might, indeed, have got over these things, but
he levied, in addition, immense contributions from the Asiatics, and is
said to have raised over forty thousand talents. On his march homeward,
he laid his gifts upon the altar in the Temple of Jerusalem, and there
returned thanks to Heaven for his victories. He had been taught to bow
the knee to the crowds of Greek and Egyptian gods; and, as Palestine was
part of his kingdom, it seemed quite natural to add the God of the Jews
to the list.
Of the insurrection in Egypt, which obliged him to return, we know no
particulars, but Euergetes seems to have become convinced that Egypt was
too small a basis for such an empire. If he had wished to retain all
his conquests relates the chronicler, he would have been obliged to
make Antioch his residence, and this would weaken the ground of his
strength. He, moreover, appears to have been well aware that the
conquests had been made too quickly. He accordingly divided them,
retaining for himself Syria as far as Euphrates, and the coast districts
of Asia Minor and Thrace, so that he had a complete maritime empire. The
remaining territories he divided into two states: the country beyond the
Euphrates was given, according to St. Jerome, to one Xantippus, who
is otherwise unknown, and Western Asia was left to Antiochus Hierax. It
would seem that after this he never visited those countries again.
One of the notable incidents of the war against Syria was an offer
of help to Egypt from the Romans. From the middle of the reign of
Philadelphus till the fifth year of this reign, for twenty-two years,
the Romans had been struggling with the Carthaginians for their very
being, in the first Punic war, which they had just brought to a close,
and on hearing of Ptolemys war in Syria, they sent to Egypt with
friendly offers of help. But their ambassadors did not reach Alexandria
before peace was made, and they were sent home with many thanks. The
event serves to show the trend of the aspirations of this now important
nation, which was afterwards destined to engulf the kingdoms of Egypt
and Syria alike.
After Euergetes had, as he thought, established his authority in Asia,
a party hostile to him came forward to oppose him. The Rhodians, with
their wise policy, who had hitherto given no decided support to either
empire, now stepped forward, setting to other maritime cities the
example of joining that hostile party. The confederates formed a fleet,
with the assistance of which, and supported by a general insurrection of
the Asiatics, who were exasperated against the Egyptians on account of
their rapacity, Seleucus Callinicus rallied again.
[Illustration: 157.jpg AN ABYSSINIAN SLAVE]
He recovered the whole of upper Asia, and for a time he was united with
his brother, Antiochus Hierax. The insurrection in Egypt must have
been of a very serious nature, and Ptolemy, being pressed on all
sides, concluded a truce of ten years with Seleucus on basis of _uti
possidetis_. Both parties seem to have retained the places which they
possessed at the time, so that all the disadvantage was on the side of
the Seleucidæ, for the fortified town of Seleucia, for example, remained
in the hands of the Egyptians, whereby the capital was placed in a
dangerous position. A part of Cilicia, the whole of Caria, the Ionian
cities, the Thracian Chersonesus, and several Macedonian towns likewise
continued to belong to Egypt. Soon after his re-appearance in Egypt,
Euergetes was solicited by Cleomenes, the King of Sparta, to grant the
assistance of his arms in the struggle which that republic was then
supporting with Antigonus, the ruler of Macedon, and with the members
of the Achaian league. But the battle of Sellasia proved that the aid
offered was inadequate. Cleomenes fled to the banks of the Nile, where
he found his august ally reposing under the successful banners of a
numerous army, which he had just led home from the savage mountains of
Ethiopia, whither his love of romantic conquest had conducted them. He
appears to have penetrated into the interior provinces of Abyssinia,
and to have subdued the rude tribes which dwelt on the shores of the
Red Sea, levying on the unfortunate natives the most oppressive
contributions in cattle, gold, perfumes, and other articles belonging
to that valuable merchandise which the Ethiopians and Arabs had long
carried on with their Egyptian neighbours. At Adule, the principal
seaport of Abyssinia, he collected his victorious troops, and made them
a speech on the wonderful exploits which they had achieved under his
auspices, and on the numerous benefits which they had thereby secured
to their native country. The throne on which he sat, composed of white
marble and supported by a slab of porphyry, was consecrated to the god
of war, whom he chose to claim for his father and patron, and that the
descendants of the vanquished Ethiopians might not be ignorant of their
obligations to Ptolemy Euergetes, King of Egypt, he gave orders that his
name and principal triumphs should be inscribed on the votive chair. But
not content with his real conquests, which reached from the Hellespont
to the Euphrates, he added, like Ramsesr 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 Strabo was making
inquiries about that part of 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. These inscriptions, it
is worthy of remark, are still preserved, and constitute the only
historical account that has reached these times of the Ethiopian warfare
of this Egyptian monarch. About seven hundred years after the reign
of Euergetes, they were first published in the _Topography_ of Cosmas
Indicopleustes, a Grecian monk, by whom they were copied on the spot.
The traveller Bruce, moreover, informs us that the stone containing the
name of Ptolemy Euergetes serves as a footstool to the throne on which
the kings of Abyssinia are crowned to this day.
[Illustration: 160b.jpg SIGNS, ARMS AND INSTRUMENTS FROM THE FIFTH TOMB]
Amid the ruins of Ascum, also, the ancient capital of that country,
various fragments of marble have been found bearing the name and title
of the same Egyptian sovereign. This empty fame, however, is the only
return that ever recompensed the toils of Euergetes among the fierce
barbarians of the south.
Euergetes, as part of his general policy of conciliating the Egyptians,
enlarged the great temple at Thebes, which is now called the temple
of Karnak, on the walls of which we see him handing an offering to
his father and mother, the brother-gods. In one place he is in a Greek
dress, which is not common on the Ptolemaic buildings, as most of the
Greek kings are carved upon the walls in the dress of the country. The
early kings had often 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. 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 to the temple at Hibe in the Great Oasis, and
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 tame lion.
[Illustration: 161.jpg GATE AT KARNAK]
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 Berenicê, whom he called his wife and sister.
She is also called the kings 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 Phtah,
the god of Memphis, an addition to his name which was used by most of
his successors.
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 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.
[Illustration: 163.jpg RUINS OF SAIS]
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 them, 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 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 Saïs.
But, while the Egyptians were flattered, and no doubt raised in moral
worth, by their monarchs 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 retain their former
characteristics.
Since Coele-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 high
priest; 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 sixteen cents for every male above the age of twenty, which by the
Mosaic law they had previously paid for the service of the Temple.
This is called in the Gospels the Didrachms; though the Alexandrian
translators of the Bible, altering the sum, either through mistake or on
purpose, have made it in the Greek Pentateuch only half a didrachm, or
about eight cents. This 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 fifteen
thousand dollars, 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. On
this, Joseph, the nephew of Onias, set out for Egypt, to try and turn
away the kings 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 six million
dollars, for the taxes of Coele-Syria, Phoenicia, 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.
Among the men of letters who at this time taught in the Alexandrian
schools was Aristophanes, the grammarian, who afterwards held the office
of head 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 with him as judges, was to
give away honours and rewards to the best authors, one of the chairs was
empty, one of the judges happened not to be there. The king asked who
should be called up to fill his place; and, after thinking over the
matter, the six judges fixed upon Aristophanes, who had made himself
known to them by being seen daily studying in the public library. When
the reading was over, the king, the public, and the six other judges
were agreed upon which was the best piece of writing; but Aristophanes
was bold enough to think otherwise, and he was able, by means of his
great reading, to find the book in the library from which the pupil had
copied the greater part of his work. The king was much struck with
this proof of his learning, and soon afterwards made him keeper of
the library which he had already so well used. Aristophanes followed
Zenodotus in his critical efforts to mend the text of Homers poems. He
also invented the several marks by which grammarians now distinguish the
length and tone of a syllable and the breathing of a vowel, that is, the
marks for long and short, and the accents and aspirate. The last two,
after his time, were always placed over Greek words, and are still used
in printed books.
Eratosthenes of Cyrene, the inventor of astronomical geography, was at
this time the head of the mathematical school. He has the credit for
being the first to calculate the circumference of the earth by means
of his Theory of Shadows. As a poet he wrote a description of the
constellations. He also wrote a history of Egypt, to correct the errors
of Manetho. What most strikes us with wonder and regret is, that of
these two writers, Manetho, an Egyptian priest who wrote in Greek,
Eratosthenes, a Greek who understood something of Egyptian, neither of
them took the trouble to lay open to their readers the peculiarities of
the hieroglyphics. Through all these reigns, the titles and praises of
the Ptolemies were carved upon the temples in the sacred characters.
These two histories were translated from the same inscriptions. We even
now read the names of the kings which they mention carved on the statues
and temples; and yet the language of the hieroglyphics still remained
unknown beyond the class of priests; such was the want of curiosity on
the part of the Greek grammarians of Alexandria. Such, we may add, was
their want of respect for the philosophy of the Egyptians; and we
need no stronger proof that the philosophers of the museum had hitherto
borrowed none of the doctrines of the priests.
[Illustration: 169.jpg GATEWAY OF PTOLEMY EUERGETES AT KARNAK]
Lycon of Troas was another settler in Alexandria. He followed Strato at
the head of one of the schools in the museum. He was very successful in
bringing up the young men, who needed, he used to say, modesty and the
love of praise, as a horse needs bridle and spur. His eloquence was so
pleasing that he was wittily called Glycon, or the sweet. Carneades of
Cyrene at the same time held a high place among philosophers; but as
he had removed to Athens, where he was at the head of a school, and was
even sent to Rome as the ambassador of the Athenians, we must not claim
the whole honour of him for the Ptolemies under whom he was born. It is
therefore enough to say of him that, though a follower of Plato, he made
such changes in the opinions of the Academy, by not wholly throwing off
the evidence of the senses, that his school was called the New Academy.
Apollonius, who was born at Alexandria, but is commonly called
Apollonius Rhodius because he passed many years of his life at Rhodes,
had been, like Eratosthenes, a hearer of Callimachus. His only work
which we now know is his _Argonautics_, a poem on the voyage of Jason
to Colchis in search of the golden fleece. It is a regular epic poem,
in imitation of Homer; and, like other imitations, it wants the interest
which hangs upon reality of manners and story in the Iliad.
Callimachus showed his dislike of his young rival by hurling against him
a reproachful poem, in which he speaks of him under the name of an Ibis.
This is now lost, but it was copied by Ovid in his poem of the same
name; and from the Roman we can gather something of the dark and learned
style in which Callimachus threw out his biting reproaches. We do not
know from what this quarrel arose, but it seems to have been the cause
of Apollonius leaving Alexandria. He removed to Rhodes, where he taught
in the schools during all the reign of Philopator, till he was recalled
by Epiphanes, and made librarian of the museum in his old age, on the
death of Eratosthenes.
Lycophron, the tragic writer, lived about this time at Alexandria, and
was one of the seven men of letters sometimes called the Alexandrian
Pleiades, though writers are not agreed upon the names which fill up the
list. His tragedies are all lost, and the only work of his which we now
have is the dark and muddy poem of Alcandra, or Cassandra, of which the
lines most striking to the historian are those in which the prophetess
foretells the coming greatness of Rome; that the children of Æneas will
raise the crown upon their spears, and seize the sceptres of sea and
land. Lycophron was the friend of Menedemus and Aratus; and it is not
easy to believe that these lines were written before the overthrow of
Hannibal in Italy, and of the Greek phalanx at Cynocéphale, or that
one who was a man in the reign of Philadelphus should have foreseen the
triumph of the Roman arms. These words must have been a later addition
to the poem, to improve the prophecy.
Conon, one of the greatest of the Alexandrian astronomers, has left no
writings for us to judge of his merits, though they were thought highly
of, and made great use of, by his successors. He worked both as an
observer and an inquirer, mapping out the heavens by his observations,
and collecting the accounts of the eclipses which had been before
observed in Egypt. He was the friend of Archimedes of Syracuse, to
whom he sent his problems, and from whom he received that great
geometricians writings in return.
Apollonius of Perga came to Alexandria in this reign, to study
mathematics under the pupils of Euclid. He is well known for his work
on conic sections, and he may be called the founder of this study.
The Greek mathematicians sought after knowledge for its own sake, and
followed up those branches of their studies which led to no end that
could in the narrow sense be called useful, with the same zeal that they
did other branches out of which sprung the great practical truths of
mechanics, astronomy, and geography. They found reward enough in the
enlargement of their minds and in the beauty of the truth learnt.
Alexandrian science gained in loftiness of tone what its poetry and
philosophy wanted. Thus the properties of the ellipse, the hyperbola,
and the parabola, continued to be studied by after mathematicians; but
no use was made of this knowledge till nearly two thousand years later,
when Kepler crowned the labours of Apollonius with the great discovery
that the paths of the planets round the sun were conic sections.
The Egyptians, however, made great use of mathematical knowledge,
particularly in the irrigation of their fields; and Archimedes of
Syracuse, who came to Alexandria about this time to study under Conon,
did the country a real service by his invention of the cochlea, or
screw-pump. The more distant fields of the valley of the Nile, rising
above the level of the inundation, have to be watered artificially by
pumping out of the canals into ditches at a higher level. For this work
Archimedes proposed a spiral tube, twisting round an axis, which was to
be put in motion either by the hand or by the force of the stream out
of which it was to pump; and this was found so convenient that it soon
became the machine most in use throughout Egypt for irrigation.
But while we are dazzled by the brilliancy of these clusters of men of
letters and science who graced the court of Alexandria, we must not shut
our eyes to those faults which are always found in works called forth
rather by the fostering warmth of royal pensions than by a love of
knowledge in the people. The well-fed and well-paid philosophers of the
museum were not likely to overtake the mighty men of Athens in its
best days, who had studied and taught without any pension from the
government, without taking any fee from their pupils; who were urged
forward towards excellence by the love of knowledge and of honour; who
had no other aim than that of being useful to their hearers, and looked
for no reward beyond their love and esteem.
In oratory Alexandria made no attempts whatever; it is a branch of
literature not likely to flourish under a despotic monarchy. In Athens
it fell with the loss of liberty, and Demetrius Phalereus was the
last of the real Athenian orators. After his time the orations were
declamations written carefully in the study, and coldly spoken in the
school for the instruction of the pupils, and wholly wanting in fire and
genius; and the Alexandrian men of letters forbore to copy Greece in
its lifeless harangues. For the same reasons the Alexandrians were not
successful in history. A species of writing, which a despot requires
to be false and flattering, is little likely to flourish; and hence
the only historians of the museum were chronologists, antiquaries, and
writers of travels. The coins of Euergetes bear the name of Ptolemy the
king, round the head on the one side, with no title by which they can
be known from the other kings of the same name.
[Illustration: 175.jpg COIN OF PTOLEMY III.]
But his portrait is known from his Phoenician coins. In the same way the
coins of his queen have only the name of Berenicê the queen, but
they are known from those of the later queens by the beauty of the
workmanship, which soon fell far below that of the first Ptolemies.
Euergetes had married his cousin Berenicê, who like the other queens of
Egypt is sometimes called Cleopatra; by her he left two sons, Ptolemy
and Magas, to the eldest of whom he left his kingdom, after a reign of
twenty-five years of unclouded prosperity. Egypt was during this reign
at the very height of its power and wealth. It had seen three kings,
who, though not equally great men, not equally fit to found a monarchy
or to raise the literature of a people, were equally successful in the
parts which they had undertaken. Euergetes left to his son a kingdom
perhaps as large as the world had ever seen under one sceptre; and
though many of his boasted victories were like letters written in
the sand, of which the traces were soon lost, yet he was by far the
greatest, and possibly the wisest, monarch of his day.
We may be sure that in these prosperous reigns life and property were
safe, and justice was administered fairly by judges who were independent
of the crown; as even centuries afterwards we find that it was part of
a judges oath on taking office, that, if he were ordered by the king to
do what was wrong, he would not obey him. But here the bright pages in
the history of the Ptolemies end.
[Illustration: 176.jpg COIN OF BERENICE, WIFE OF PTOLEMY III.]
Though trade and agriculture still enriched the country, though arts and
letters did not quit Alexandria, we have from this time forward to mark
the growth only of vice and luxury, and to measure the wisdom of Ptolemy
Soter by the length of time that his laws and institutions were able to
bear up against the misrule and folly of his descendants.
Ptolemy, the eldest son of Euergetes, inherited the crown of his
forefathers, but none of the great qualities by which they had won and
guarded it. He was then about thirty-four years old. His first act was
to call together his council, and to ask their advice about putting to
death his mother Berenicê and his brother Magas. Their crime was the
being too much liked by the army; and the council was called upon to say
whether it would be safe to have them killed. Cleomenes, the banished
King of Sparta, who was one of the council, alone raised his voice
against their murder, and wisely said that the throne would be still
safer if there were more brothers to stand between the king and the
daring hopes of a traitor. The minister Sosibius, on the other hand,
said that the mercenaries could not be trusted while Magas was alive;
but Cleomenes remarked to him, that more than three thousand of them
were Peloponnesians, and that they would follow him sooner than they
would follow Magas.
Berenicê and Magas were, however, put to death, but the speech of
Cleomenes was not forgotten. If his popularity with the mercenaries
could secure their allegiance, he could, when he chose, make them rebel;
from that time he was treated rather as a prisoner than as a friend,
and by his well-meaning but incautious observation he lost all chance
of being helped to regain his kingdom. Nothing is known of the death of
Euergetes, the late king, and there is no proof that it was by unfair
means. But when his son began a cruel and wicked reign by putting to
death his mother and brother, and by taking the name of Philopator, or
father-loving, the world seems to have thought that he was the murderer
of his father, and had taken this name to throw a cloak over the deed.
By this murder of his brother, and by the minority both of Antiochus,
King of Syria, and of Philip, King of Macedonia, Philopator found
himself safe from enemies either at home or abroad, and he gave himself
up to a life of thoughtlessness and pleasure. The army and fleet were
left to go to ruin, and the foreign provinces, which had hitherto been
looked upon as the bulwarks of Egypt, were only half-guarded; but the
throne rested on the virtues of his forefathers, and it was not till his
death that it was found to have been undermined by his own follies and
vice.
Egypt had been governed by kings of more than usual wisdom for above one
hundred years, and was at the very height of its power when Philopator
came to the throne. He found himself master of Ethiopia, Cy-rene,
Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, part of Upper Syria, Cyprus, Rhodes, the cities
along the coast of Asia Minor from Pamphilia to Lysimachia, and the
cities of Ænos and Maronea in Thrace. The unwilling obedience of
distant provinces usually costs more than it is worth; but many of these
possessions across the Mediterranean had put themselves willingly into
the power of his predecessors for the sake of their protection, and
they cost little more than a message to warn off invaders. Egypt was the
greatest naval power in the world, having the command of the sea and the
whole of the coast at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
On the death of Euergetes, the happiness of the people came to an end.
The first trouble arose from the loose and vicious habits of the new
king, and was an attempt made upon his life by Cleomenes, who found the
palace in Alexandria had now become a prison. The Spartan took advantage
of the kings being at Canopus to escape from his guards, and to raise
a riot in Alexandria; but not being able to gain the citadel, and seeing
that disgrace and death must follow upon his failure, he stabbed himself
with his own dagger.
The kingdom of Syria, after being humbled by Ptolemy Euergetes,
had risen lately under the able rule of Antiochus, son of Seleucus
Callinicus. He was a man possessed of abilities of a high order. His
energy and courage soon recovered from Egypt the provinces that Syria
had before lost, and afterwards gained for him the name of Antiochus the
Great. He made himself master of the city of Damascus by a stratagem.
Soon after this, Seleucia, the capital, which had been taken by
Euergetes, was retaken by Antiochus, or rather given up to him by
treachery. Theodotus also, the Alexandrian governor of Coele-Syria,
delivered up to him that province; and Antiochus marched southward, and
had taken Tyre and Ptolemaïs before the Egyptian army could be brought
into the field. There he gained forty ships of war, of which twenty were
decked vessels with four banks of oars, and the others smaller. He
then marched towards Egypt, and on his way learned that Ptolemy was at
Memphis. On his arrival at Pelusium he found that the place was strongly
guarded, and that the garrison had opened the flood-gates from the
neighbouring lake, and thereby spoiled the fresh water of all the
neighbourhood; he therefore did not lay siege to that city, but seized
many of the open towns on the east side of the Nile.
On this, Philopator roused himself from his idleness, and got together
his forces against the coming danger. His troops consisted of Greeks,
Egyptians, and mercenaries to the total of seventy-three thousand men
and seventy-three elephants, or one elephant to every thousand men,
which was the number usually allowed to the armies about this time. But
before this army reached Pelusium, Antiochus had led back his forces
to winter in Seleucia. The next spring Antiochus again marched towards
Egypt with an army of seventy-two thousand foot, six thousand horse, and
one hundred and two elephants. Philopator led his whole forces to the
frontier to oppose his march, and met the Syrian army near the village
of Raphia, the border town between Egypt and Palestine. Arsinoë, his
queen and sister, rode with him on horseback through the ranks, and
called upon the soldiers to fight for their wives and children. At first
the Egyptians seemed in danger of being beaten. As the armies approached
one another, the Ethiopian elephants trembled at the very smell of the
Indian elephants, and shrunk from engaging with beasts so much larger
than themselves. On the charge, the left wing of each army was routed,
as was often the case among the Greeks, when, from too great a trust in
the shield, every soldier kept moving to the right, and thus left the
left wing uncovered. But before the end of the day the invading army was
defeated; and, though some of the Egyptian officers treacherously left
their posts, and carried their troops over to Antiochus, yet the Syrian
army was wholly routed, and Arsinoë enjoyed the knowledge and the praise
of having been the chief cause of her husbands success. The king in
gratitude sacrificed to the gods the unusual offering of four elephants.
By this victory Philopator regained Coele-Syria, and there he spent
three months; he then made a hasty, and, if we judge his reasons
rightly, we must add, a disgraceful treaty with the enemy, that he might
the sooner get back to his life of ease. Before going home he passed
through Jerusalem, where he gave thanks and sacrificed to the Hebrew
god in the temple of the Jews; and, being struck with the beauty of the
building, asked to be shown into the inner room, in which were kept
the ark of the covenant, Aarons rod that budded, and the golden pot of
manna, with the tables of the covenant. The priests told him of their
law, by which every stranger, every Jew, and every priest but the high
priest, was forbidden to pass beyond the second veil; but Philopator
roughly answered that he was not bound by the Jewish laws, and ordered
them to lead him into the holy of holies.
The city was thrown into alarm by this unheard-of wickedness; the
streets were filled with men and women in despair; the air was rent
with shrieks and cries, and the priests prayed to Javeh to guard his own
temple from the stain. The kings mind, however, was not to be changed;
the refusal of the priests only strengthened his wish, and all struggle
was useless while the court of the temple was filled with Greek
soldiers. But, says the Jewish historian, the prayer of the priests was
heard; the king fell to the ground in a fit, like a reed broken by the
wind, and was carried out speechless by his friends and generals.
On his return to Egypt, he showed his hatred of the nation by his
treatment of the Jews in Alexandria. He made a law that they should lose
the rank of Macedonians, and be enrolled among the class of Egyptians.
He ordered them to have their bodies marked with pricks, in the form of
an ivy leaf, in honour of Bacchus; and those who refused to have this
done were outlawed, or forbidden to enter the courts of justice. The
king himself had an ivy leaf marked with pricks upon his forehead, from
which he received the nickname of Gallus. This custom of marking the
body had been forbidden in the Levitical law: it was not known among the
Kopts, but must always have been in use among the Lower Egyptians. It
was used by the Arab prisoners of Ramses, and is still practiced among
the Egyptian Arabs of the present day.
He also ordered the Jews to sacrifice on the pagan altars, and many of
them were sent up to Alexandria to be punished for rebelling against
his decree. Their resolution, however, or, as their historian asserts,
a miracle from heaven changed the kings mind. They expected to be
trampled to death in the hippodrome by furious elephants; but after some
delay they were released unhurt. The history of their escape, however,
is more melancholy than the history of their danger. No sooner did the
persecution cease than they turned with Pharisaical cruelty against
their weaker brethren who had yielded to the storm; and they put to
death three hundred of their countrymen, who in the hour of danger had
yielded to the threats of punishment, and complied with the ceremonies
required of them.
The Egyptians, who, when the Persians were conquered by Alexander, could
neither help nor hinder the Greek army, and who, when they formed part
of the troops under the first Ptolemy, were uncounted and unvalued, had
by this time been armed and disciplined like Greeks; and in the battle
of Raphia the Egyptian phalanx had shown itself not an unworthy rival
of the Macedonians. By this success in war, and by their hatred of
their vicious and cruel king, the Egyptians were now for the first
time encouraged to take arms against the Greek government. The Egyptian
phalanx murmured against their Greek officers, and claimed their right
to be under an Egyptian general. But history has told us nothing more
of the rebellion than that it was successfully put down. The Greeks
were still the better soldiers. The ships built by Philopator were
more remarkable for their unwieldy size, their luxurious and costly
furniture, than for their fitness for war. One was four hundred and
twenty feet long and fifty-seven feet wide, with forty banks of oars.
The longest oars were fifty-seven feet long, and weighted with lead at
the handles that they might be the more easily moved. This huge ship
was to be rowed by four thousand rowers, its sails were to be shifted by
four hundred sailors, and three thousand soldiers were to stand in ranks
upon deck. There were seven beaks in front, by which it was to strike
and sink the ships of the enemy. The royal barge, in which the king and
court moved on the quiet waters of the Nile, was nearly as large as this
ship of war. It was three hundred and thirty feet long, and forty-five
feet wide; it was fitted up with staterooms and private rooms, and was
nearly sixty feet high to the top of the royal awning. A third ship,
which even surpassed these in its fittings and ornaments, was given to
Philopator by Hiero, King of Syracuse. It was built under the care
of Archimedes, and its timbers would have made sixty triremes. Beside
baths, and rooms for pleasures of all kinds, it had a library, and
astronomical instruments, not only for navigation, as in modern ships,
but for study, as in an observatory. It was a ship of war, and had eight
towers, from each of which stones were to be thrown at the enemy by
six men. Its machines, like modern cannons, could throw stones of three
hundred pounds weight, and arrows of eighteen feet in length. It had
four anchors of wood, and eight of 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.
In the second year of Philopators reign the Romans began that long
and doubtful war with Hannibal, called the second Punic war, and in the
twelfth year of this reign they sent ambassadors to renew their treaty
of peace with Egypt. They sent as their gifts robes 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.
When the city of Rhodes, which had long been joined in close friendship
with Egypt, was shaken by an earthquake, that threw down the colossal
statue of 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 money,
with grain, timber, and hemp.
On the birth of his son and heir, in B.C. 209, ambassadors crowded to
Alexandria with gifts and messages of joy. But they were all thrown into
the shade by Hyrcanus, the son of Joseph, who was sent from Jerusalem by
his father, and who brought to the king one hundred boys and one hundred
girls, each carrying a talent of silver.
Philopator, soon after the birth of this his only child, employed
Philammon, at the bidding of his mistress, to put to death his queen and
sister Arsinoë, or 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 fools, or laughing-stocks as they were then
called, 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 Agathocles, and their mother OEnanthe, held him
bound 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.
The misconduct and vices of Agathocles raised such an outcry against
him, that Philopator, without giving up the pleasure of his favourites
company, 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 that of watching over
the supply and price of corn in Alexandria. The wisest statesmen of old
thought it part of a kings 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 kingcraft, 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.
Sosibius had made himself more hated than Agathocles; he had been the
kings 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 Berenicê, 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 give up to
Tlepolemus the kings 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 been.
[Illustration: 187.jpg TEMPLE OF HATHOR.]
With all his vices, Philopator had yet inherited the 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 museum. When one of the professorships was 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. Eratosthenes, of
whom we have before spoken, was librarian of the museum during this
reign; and Ptolemy, the son of Agesarchus, then wrote his history of
Alexandria, a work now lost.
[Illustration: 188jpg COIN OF PTOLEMY PHILOPATER]
The want of moral feeling in Alexandria was poorly supplied by the
respect for talent. Philopator built there a shrine or temple to Homer,
in which he 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-Habu, dedicated to Amon-Ra and the
goddess Hâthor; his name is also seen upon the temple at Karnak, and
on the additions to the sculptures on the temple of Thot at Pselcis in
Ethiopia.
Some of this kings coins bear the name of Ptolemy Philopator, while
those of the queen have her name, Arsinoë Philopator, around the head.
They are of a good style of art. He was also sometimes named Eupator;
and it was under that name that the people of Paphos set up a monument
to him in the temple of Venus.
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. In B.C. 204 he
died, worn out with disease, in the seventeenth year of his reign and
about the fifty-first of his age; and very few lamented his decease.
On the death of Philopator his son was only five years old. The minister
Agathocles, who had ruled over 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.
[Illustration: 189.jpg COIN OF ARSINOE PHILOPATE]
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.
He went to the meeting, followed by his sister Agathoclea and the young
Ptolemy, afterwards called Epiphanes. He began his speech, Ye men of
Macedonia, as this mixed body of Greeks and Jews was always called. He
wiped his eyes 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 were too well
acquainted with his falsehoods, to listen to anything that he could
say against his rival. Besides, Tlepolemus had the charge of supplying
Alexandria with corn, a duty which was more likely to gain friends than
the pandering to the vices of their hated tyrant. Agathocles soon saw
that his life was in danger, and he left the meeting and returned to the
palace, in doubt whether he should seek for safety in flight, or boldly
seize the power which he was craftily aiming at, and rid himself of his
enemies by their murder.
While he was wasting these precious minutes in doubt, the streets were
filled with groups of men, and of boys, who always formed a part of the
mobs of Alexandria. They sullenly but loudly gave vent to their hatred
of the minister; and if they had but found a leader they would have been
in rebellion. In a little while the crowd moved off to the tents of
the Macedonians, to learn their feelings on the matter, and then to the
quarters of the mercenaries, both of which were close to the palace, and
the mixed mob of armed and unarmed men soon told the fatal news, that
the soldiers were as angry as the citizens. But they were still without
a leader; they sent messengers to Tlepolemus, who was not in Alexandria,
and he promised that he would soon be there; but perhaps he no more knew
what to do than his guilty rival.
Agathocles, in his doubt, did nothing; he sat down to supper with
his friends, perhaps hoping that the storm might blow over of itself,
perhaps trusting to chance and to the strong walls of the palace. His
mother, OEnanthe, ran to the temple of Ceres and Proserpine, and sat
down before the altar in tears, believing that the sanctuary of the
temple would be her best safeguard; as if the laws of heaven, which had
never bound her, would bind her enemies. It was a festal day, and the
women in the temple, who knew nothing of the storm which had risen in
the forum within these few hours, came forward to comfort her; but she
answered them with curses; she knew that she was hated and would soon be
despised, and she added the savage prayer, that they might have to eat
their own children. The riot did not lessen at sunset. Men, women, and
boys were moving through the streets all night with torches. The crowds
were greatest in the stadium and in the theatre of Bacchus, but most
noisy in front of the palace. Agathocles was awakened by the noise, and
in his fright ran to the bedroom of the young Ptolemy; and, distrusting
the palace walls, hid himself, with his own family, the king, and two
or three guards, in the underground passage which led from the palace to
the theatre.
The night, however, passed off without any violence; but at daybreak the
murmurs became louder, and the thousands in the palace yard called for
the young king. By that time the Greek soldiers joined the mob, and then
the guards within were no longer to be feared. The gates were soon burst
open, and the palace searched. The mob rushed through the halls
and lobbies, and, learning where the king had fled, hastened to the
underground passage. It was guarded by three doors of iron grating; but,
when the first was beaten in, Aristomenes was sent out to offer terms of
surrender. Agathocles was willing to give up the young king, his misused
power, his ill-gotten wealth and estates; he asked only for his life.
But this was sternly refused, and a shout was raised to kill the
messenger; and Aristomenes, the best of the ministers, whose only fault
was the being a friend of Agathocles, and the having named his little
daughter Agathoclea, would certainly have been killed upon the spot if
somebody had not reminded them that they wanted to send back an answer.
Agathocles, seeing that he could hold out no longer, then gave up the
little king, who was set upon a horse, and led away to the stadium amid
the shouts of the crowd. There they seated him on the throne, and,
while he was crying at being surrounded by strange faces, the mob loudly
called for revenge on the guilty ministers. Sosibius, the somatophylax,
the son of the former general of that name, seeing no other way of
stopping the fury of the mob and the childs sobs, asked him if the
enemies of his mother and of his throne should be given up to the
people. The child of course answered yes, without understanding what
was meant; and on that they let Sosibius take him to his own house to be
out of the uproar. Agathocles was soon led out bound, and was stabbed by
those who two days before would have felt honoured by a look from him.
Agathoclea and her sister were then brought out, and lastly OEnanthe,
their mother was dragged away from the altar of Ceres and Proserpine.
Some bit them, some struck them with sticks, some tore their eyes out;
her body was torn to pieces, and her limbs scattered among the crowd;
to such lengths of madness and angry cruelty was the Alexandrian mob
sometimes driven.
In the meanwhile some of the women called to mind that Philammon, who
had been employed in the murder of Arsinoë, had within those three days
come to Alexandria, and they made a rush at his house. The doors quickly
gave way before their blows, and he was killed upon the spot by clubs
and stones; his little son was strangled by these raging mothers, and
his wife dragged naked into the street, and there torn to pieces. Thus
died Agathocles and all his family; and the care of the young king then
fell to Sosibius, and to Aristomenes, who had already gained a high
character for wisdom and firmness.
While Egypt was thus without a government, Philip of Macedonia and
Antiochus of Syria agreed to divide the foreign provinces between them;
and Antiochus marched against Coele-Syria and Phoenicia. The guardians
of the young Ptolemy sent against him an army under Scopas, the Ætolian,
who was at first successful, but was afterwards beaten by Antiochus at
Paneas in the valley of the Jordan, three and twenty miles above the
Lake of Tiberias, and driven back into Egypt. In these battles the Jews,
who had not forgotten the ill treatment that they had received from
Philopator, joined Antiochus, after having been under the government of
Egypt for exactly one hundred years; and in return Antiochus released
Jerusalem from all taxes for three years, and afterwards from one-third
of the taxes. He also sent a large sum of money for the service of the
temple, and released the elders, priests, scribes, and singing men from
all taxes for the future.
The Alexandrian statesmen had latterly shown themselves in their foreign
policy very unworthy pupils of Ptolemy Soter and Philadelphus, who had
both ably trimmed the balance of power between the several successors of
Alexander. But even had they been wiser, they could hardly, before the
end of the second Punic war, have foreseen that the Romans would soon be
their most dangerous enemies. The overthrow of Hannibal, however, might
perhaps have opened their eyes; but it was then too late; Egypt was too
weak to form an alliance with Macedonia or Syria against the Romans.
About this time, also, the Romans sent to Alexandria, to inform the
king that they had conquered Hannibal, and brought to a close the second
Punic war, and to thank him for the friendship of the Egyptians during
that long and doubtful struggle of eighteen years, when so many of their
nearer neighbours had joined the enemy. They begged that if the senate
felt called upon to undertake a war against Philip, who, though no
friend to the Egyptians, had not yet taken arms against them, it might
cause no breach in the friendship between the King of Egypt and the
Romans. In answer to this embassy, the Alexandrians, rushing to their
own destruction, sent to Rome a message, which was meant to place
the kingdom wholly in the hands of the senate. It was to beg them to
undertake the guardianship of the young Ptolemy, and the defence of the
kingdom against Philip and Antiochus during his childhood.
The Romans, in return, gave the wished-for answer; they sent ambassadors
to Antiochus and Philip, to order them to make no attack upon Egypt,
on pain of falling under the displeasure of the senate; and they sent
Marcus Lepidus to Alexandria, to accept the offered prize, and to govern
the foreign affairs of the kingdom, under the modest name of tutor to
the young king. This high honour was afterwards mentioned by Lepidus,
with pride, upon the coins struck when he was consul, in the eighteenth
year of this reign. They have the city of Alexandria on the one side,
and on the other the title of Tutor to the king, with the figure
of the Roman in his toga, putting the diadem on the head of the young
Ptolemy.
The haughty orders of the senate at first had very little weight with
the two kings. Antiochus conquered Phoenicia and Coele-Syria; and he was
then met by a second message from the senate, who no longer spoke in the
name of their ward, the young King of Egypt, but ordered him to give up
to the Roman people the states which he had seized, and which belonged,
they said, to the Romans by the right of war.
[Illustration: 196.jpg ROMAN COIN, ISSUED UNDER PTOLEMY V.]
On this, Antiochus made peace with Egypt by a treaty, in which he
betrothed his daughter Cleopatra to the young Ptolemy, and added the
disputed provinces of Phoenicia and Ccele-Syria as a dower, which were
to be given up to Egypt when the king was old enough to be married.
Philip marched against Athens and the other states of Greece which had
heretofore held themselves independent and in alliance with Egypt; and,
when the Athenian embassy came to Alexandria to beg for the usual help,
Ptolemys ministers felt themselves so much in the power of the senate
that they sent to Rome to ask whether they should help their old
friends, the Athenians, against Philip, the common enemy, or whether
they should leave it to the Romans to help them. And these haughty
republicans, who wished all their allies to forget the use of arms, who
valued their friends not for their strength but for their obedience,
sent them word that the senate did not wish them to help the Athenians,
and that the Roman people would take care of their own allies. The
Alexandrians looked upon the proud but unlettered Romans only as
friends, as allies, who asked for no pay, who took no reward, who fought
only for ambition and for the glory of their country.
Soon after this, the battle of Cynocephake in Thessaly was fought
between Philip and the Romans, in which the Romans lost only seven
hundred men, while as many as eight thousand Macedonians were left dead
upon the field. This battle, though only between Rome and Macedonia,
must not be passed unnoticed in the history of Egypt, where the troops
were armed and disciplined like Macedonians; as it was the first time
that the world had seen the Macedonian phalanx routed and in flight
before any troops not so armed.
The phalanx was a body of spearsmen, in such close array that each man
filled a space of only one square yard. The spear was seven yards long,
and, when held in both hands, its point was five yards in front of the
soldiers breast. There were sixteen ranks of these men, and, when the
first five ranks lowered their spears, the point of the fifth spear was
one yard in front of the foremost rank. The Romans, on the other hand,
fought in open ranks, with one yard between each, or each man filled
a space of four square yards, and in a charge would have to meet ten
Macedonian spears. But then the Roman soldiers went into battle with
much higher feelings than those of the Greeks. In Rome, arms were
trusted only to the citizens, to those who had a country to love, a
home to guard, and who had some share in making the laws which they were
called upon to obey. But the Greek armies of Macedonia, Egypt, and Syria
were made up either of natives who bowed their necks in slavery, or of
mercenaries who made war their trade and rioted in its lawlessness; both
of whom felt that they had little to gain from victory, and nothing to
lose by a change of masters. Moreover, the warlike skill of the Romans
was far greater than any that had yet been brought against the Greeks.
It had lately been improved in their wars with Hannibal, the great
master of that science. They saw that the phalanx could use its whole
strength only on a plain; that a wood, a bog, a hill, or a river were
difficulties which this close body of men could not always overcome. A
charge or a retreat equally lessened its force; the phalanx was meant to
stand the charge of others. The Romans, therefore, chose their own time
and their own ground; they loosened their ranks and widened their front,
avoided the charge, and attacked the Greeks at the side and in the rear;
and the fatal discovery was at last made that the Macedonian phalanx
was not unconquerable, and that closed ranks were only strong against
barbarians. This news must have been heard by every statesman of Egypt
and the East with alarm; the Romans were now their equals, and were
soon to be their masters.
But to return to Egypt. It was, as we have seen, a country governed by
men of a foreign race. Neither the poor who tilled the land, nor the
rich who owned the estates, had any share in the government. They had no
public duty except to pay taxes to their Greek masters, who walked among
them as superior beings, marked out for fitness to rule by greater skill
in the arts both of war and peace. The Greeks by their arms, or rather
by their military discipline, had enforced obedience for one hundred and
fifty years; and as they had at the same time checked lawless violence,
made life and property safe, and left industry to enjoy a large share of
its own earnings, this obedience had been for the most part granted to
them willingly. They had even trusted the Egyptians with arms. But none
are able to command unless they are at the same time able to obey. The
Alexandrians were now almost in rebellion against their young king
and his ministers; and the Greek government no longer gave the usual
advantages in return for the obedience which it tyrannically enforced.
Confusion increased each year during the childhood of the fifth Ptolemy,
to whom Alexandrian flattery gave the title of Epiphanes, or The
Illustrious. The Egyptian phalanx had in the last reign shown signs
of disobedience, and at length it broke out in open rebellion. The
discontented party strengthened themselves in the Busirite nome, in the
middle of the Delta, and fortified the city of Lycopolis against the
government; and a large supply of arms and warlike stores which
they there got together proved the length of time that they had been
preparing for resistance. The royal troops laid siege to the city in due
form; they surrounded it with mounds and ditches; they dammed up the
bed of the river on each side of it, and, being helped by a rise in the
Nile, which was that year greater than usual, they forced the rebels to
surrender, on the kings promise that they should be spared. But Ptolemy
was not bound by promises; he was as false and cruel as he was weak; the
rebels were punished; and many of the troubles in his reign arose from
his discontented subjects not being able to rely upon his word.
The rich island of Cyprus also, which had been left by Philopator under
the command of Polyerates, showed some signs of wishing to throw off
the Egyptian yoke. But Polyerates was true to his trust; and, though
the kings ministers were almost too weak either to help the faithful or
punish the treacherous, he not only saved the island for the minor, but,
when he gave up his government to Ptolemy of Megalopolis, he brought to
the royal treasury at Alexandria a large sum from the revenues of
his province. By this faithful conduct he gained great weight in the
Alexandrian councils, till, corrupted by the poisonous habits of the
place, he gave way to luxury and vice.
About the same time Scopas, who had lately led back to Alexandria his
Ætolian mercenaries, so far showed signs of discontent and disobedience
that the minister, Aristomenes, began to suspect him of planning
resistance to the government. Scopas was greedy of money; nothing would
satisfy his avarice.
[Illustration: 201.jpg THE ROSETTA STONE (BRITISH MUSEUM)]
The other Greek generals of his rank received while in the Egyptian
service a mina, or ten dollars a day, under the name of mess-money,
beyond the usual military pay; and Scopas claimed and received for his
services the large sum of ten minas, or one hundred and twenty-five
dollars, a day for mess-money. But even this did not content him.
Aristomenes observed that he was collecting his friends for some secret
purpose, and in frequent consultation with them. He therefore summoned
him to the kings presence, and, being prepared for his refusal, he sent
a large force to fetch him. Fearing that the mercenaries might support
their general, Aristomenes had even ordered out the elephants and
prepared for battle. But, as the blow came upon Scopas unexpectedly,
no resistance was made, and he was brought prisoner to the palace.
Aristomenes, however, did not immediately venture to punish him,
but wisely summoned the Ætolian ambassadors and the chiefs of the
mercenaries to his trial, and, as they made no objection, he then had
him poisoned in prison.
No sooner was this rebellion crushed than the council took into
consideration the propriety of declaring the kings minority at an
end, as the best means of re-establishing the royal authority; and they
thereupon determined shortly to celebrate his Anacleteria, or the grand
ceremony of exhibiting him to the people as their monarch, though he
wanted some years of the legal age; and accordingly, in the ninth year
of his reign, the young king was crowned with great pomp at Memphis, the
ancient capital of the kingdom.
On this occasion he came to Memphis by barge, in grand state, where
he was met by the priests of Upper and Lower Egypt, and crowned in the
temple of Phtah with the double crown, called Pschent, the crown of the
two provinces. After the ceremony, the priests made the Decree in honour
of the king, which is carved on the stone known by the name of the
Rosetta Stone, in the British Museum. Ptolemy is there styled King of
Upper and Lower Egypt, son of the gods Philopatores, approved by Phtah,
to whom Ra has given victory, a living image of Amon, son of Ra, Ptolemy
immortal, beloved by Phtah, god Epiphanes most gracious. In the date
of the decree we are told the names of the priests of Alexander, of the
gods Soteres, of the gods Adelphi, of the gods Euergetae, of the gods
Philopatores, of the god Epiphanes himself, of Berenicê Euergetis, of
Arsinoë Philadelphus, and of Arsinoë Philopator. The preamble mentions
with gratitude the services of the king, or rather of his wise minister,
Aristomenes; and the enactment orders that the statue of the king
shall be worshipped in every temple of Egypt, and be carried out in the
processions with those of the gods of the country; and lastly, that
the decree is to be carved at the foot of every statue of the king, in
sacred, in common, and in Greek writing. It is to this stone, with its
three kinds of letters, and to the skill and industry of Dr. Thomas
Young, and of the French scholar, Champollion, that we now owe our
knowledge of hieroglyphics. The Greeks of Alexandria, and after them the
Romans, who might have learned how to read this kind of writing if they
had wished, seem never to have taken the trouble: it fell into disuse on
the rise of Christianity in Egypt; and it was left for an Englishman
to unravel the hidden meaning after it had been forgotten for nearly
thirteen centuries.
The preamble of this decree tells us also that during the minority of
the king the taxes were lessened; the crown debtors were forgiven; those
who were found in prison charged with crimes against the state were
released; the allowance from government for upholding the splendour of
the temples was continued, as was the rent from land belonging to the
priests; the first-fruits, or rather the coronation money, a tax paid by
the priests to the king on the year of his coming to the throne, which
was by custom allowed to be less than what the law ordered, was not
increased; the priests were relieved from the heavy burden of making a
yearly voyage to do homage at Alexandria; there was a stop put to the
impressing men for the navy, which had been felt as a great cruelty by
an inland people, whose habits and religion alike made them hate the
sea, and this was a boon which was the more easily granted, as the
navy of Alexandria, which was built in foreign dockyards and steered by
foreign pilots, had very much fallen off in the reign of Philopator. The
duties on linen cloth, which was the chief manufacture of the kingdom,
and, after grain, the chief article exported, were lessened; the
priests, who manufactured linen for the kings own use, probably for the
clothing of the army, and the sails for the navy, were not called upon
for so large a part of what they made as before; and the royalties on
the other linen manufactories and the duties on the samples or patterns,
both of which seem to have been 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 actions, in grateful remembrance of their former benefactor,
and with a marked slight to 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
that they had no Egyptian word by which they could speak of them, and
therefore borrowed the Greek word _syntaxes_.
History gives us many examples of kings who, like Epiphanes, gained
great praise for the mildness and weakness of the government during
their minorities. Aristomenes, the minister, who had governed Egypt for
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 with last nights 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.
[Illustration: 207.jpg OUTSIDE ROSETTA]
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 the country for
setting him a good example, and checking him in his career of vice.
In the thirteenth year of his reign (B.C. 192), when the young king
reached the age of eighteen, Antiochus the Great sent his daughter
Cleopatra into Egypt, and the marriage, which had been agreed upon
six years before, was then carried into effect; and the provinces of
Coele-Syria, Phoenicia, 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 Coele-Syria and Phoenicia. But she acted the part of a wife and
a queen, and, instead of betraying her husband into the hands of her
father, she was throughout the reign his wisest and best counsellor.
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 was still
going on between Antiochus and the 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.
In the twentieth year of his reign Epiphanes was troubled by a second
serious rebellion of the Egyptians. Polycrates marched against them at
the head of the Greek troops; and, as he brought with him a superior
force, and the kings 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 Koptic 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 Saïs. Epiphanes, in whose youthful heart 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 Kopts 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 Saïs, 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.
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.
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 afterwards died at the age of
ninety.
[Illustration: 210.jpg A DESERT ROAD BETWEEN EGYPT AND SYRIA.]
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 is written in the hieroglyphics, light bearing.
On the other side is the cornucopia between two stars, with the name of
King Ptolemy. 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 Philas, of King
Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra, gods Epiphanes, and Ptolemy their son, to
Asclepius, a god whom the Egyptians called Imothph the son of Pthah.
Cyprus and Cyrene were nearly all that were left to Egypt of its
foreign provinces. The cities of Greece, which 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 Seleu-cus,
the son of Antiochus the Great; Cole-Syria and Phoenicia, 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
their allegiance, showed how the whole had been upheld by the warlike
skill of its kings, rather than by a deep-rooted hold in the habits
of the people. 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.
After the death of Antiochus the Great, Ptolemy again proposed to
enforce his rights over Ccele-Syria, which he had given up only in the
weakness of his 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 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 empty,
and the whole framework of government out of order.
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 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 Epiphanes.
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 kings tyranny is by his
murder; and the little notice that was taken of it by the people proves
their want of public virtue as well as of political wisdom.
[Illustration: 212.jpg TAILPIECE]