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CHAP. VII.] THE TEMPLE OF SERAPIS, THE MUSEUM.

269

the same neighbourhood. Or it may mean Pontic Jupiter, from Sinope, a city of Pontus, from whence Ptolemy is

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Plutarch.

said to have brought a statue to
ornament Alexandria, which De Iside
when it arrived Manetho and et Osiride.
Timotheus declared to be a Serapis. To
receive this statue a new temple was
built, which before it was finished was
the largest building in the city. Osiris
was also the god from whom the native
kings traced their pedigree; and as, to
spare the nation's wounded vanity, the
Ptolemies were no longer to be Diod. Sic.
counted as foreign conquerors, lib. i. 18.
a new god was added to the

mythology, who was given as another son to Osiris, and named Macedon, from whom the Macedonian kings were said to have sprung; and they were thus brought into the religion of the people. The Greeks readily took the same up reigns later, Satyrus traced the royal family of the Ptolemies from Bacchus or Osiris, through Hercules or Horus, and the kings of Macedonia.

Fig. 211.

story; and three

Theophilus,

Antioch. ii.

Strabo,

(17) But among the public buildings of Alexandria which were planned in the enlarged mind of Ptolemy, the one which chiefly calls for our notice, the one indeed lib. xvii. to which the city owes its fairest fame, is the Museum or college of philosophy. Its chief room was a great hall, which was used as a lecture-room and common dining-room; it had a covered walk or portico all round the outside, and there was an exhedra or seat on which the philosophers sometimes sat in the open air. The professors or fellows of the college were supported by a public income. Its library soon became the largest in the world. It was open equally to those who read for the sake of knowledge and those who copied for the sake of gain; and it thus helped to make science, wisdom, lofty thoughts, and poetic beauties, those rare fruits of genius and industry, the common property of all that valued them. Ptolemy was himself an author; his history of Alexander's wars was highly praised by Arrian, in

whose pages we now read much of it; his love of art was shown in the buildings of Alexandria; and those agreeable manners and that habit of rewarding skill and knowledge wherever he could find them, which had already brought to his army many of the bravest of Alexander's soldiers, were now equally successful in bringing to his court such painters and sculptors, such poets, historians, and mathematicians, as soon made the Museum one of the brightest spots in the known world. Fortunate indeed was Alexandria in having a sovereign who took such a true view of his own dignity as to encourage arts and letters as the means of making himself more respected at the head of a great commercial nation. Such an academy not only brings together a number of men of learning to direct the student, but its book-shelves are a storehouse of materials for future study, and it may be said to be surrounded with an atmosphere of knowledge, which makes tens of thousands better for the instruction which is delivered to a few hundreds in the class rooms. The arts

and letters which Ptolemy then planted, did not perhaps bear their richest fruit till the reign of his son; but they took such good root that they continued to flourish under the last of his successors, unchoked by the vices and follies by which they were then surrounded.

(18) In return for the literature which Greece then gave to Egypt, she gained the knowledge of papyrus, a Pliny, tall rush which grows wild near the sources of the lib. xiii. 21. Nile, and was then cultivated in the Egyptian

marshes. Before that time books had been written on linen, wax, bark, or the leaves of trees; and public records on stone, brass, or lead; but the knowledge of papyrus was felt by all men of letters like the invention of printing in modern Europe. Books were then known by many for the first time, and very little else was afterwards used in Greece or Rome; for, when parchment was made, about two centuries later, it was too costly to be used as long as papyrus was within reach. Copies were multiplied on frail strips of this plant, and it was found that mere thoughts, when worth preserving, were less liable to be destroyed by time than temples and palaces of the hardest stone.

(19) While Egypt under Ptolemy was thus enjoying the advantages of its insulated position, and was thereby at

B.C. 315.

lib. xix.

leisure to cultivate the arts of peace, the other provinces were being harassed by the unceasing wars of Alexander's generals, who were aiming like Ptolemy at raising their own power. Many changes had taken place among them in the short space of eight years which had passed since the death of Alexander. Philip Arridæus, in whose name the provinces had been governed, had been Diod. Sic. put to death; Antigonus was master of Asia Minor with a kingdom more powerful though not so easily guarded as Egypt; Cassander held Macedonia, and had the care of the young Alexander Egus (see Fig. 212), who was then called the heir to the whole of his father's wide conquests, and whose life, like that of Arridæus, was soon to end with his minority; Lysimachus was trying to form a kingdom in Thrace; and Seleucus had for a short time held Babylonia.

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Fig. 212.

(20) Ptolemy bore no part in the wars which brought about these changes, beyond being once or twice called upon to send troops to guard his province of Cole-Syria. But Antigonus, in his ambitious efforts to stretch his power over the whole of the provinces, had by force or treachery driven Seleucus out of Babylon, and forced him to seek Egypt for safety, where Ptolemy received him with the kindness and good policy which had before gained so many friends. No arguments of Seleucus were wanting to persuade Ptolemy that Antigonus was aiming at universal conquest, and that his next attack would be upon Egypt. He therefore sent ambassadors to make treaties of alliance with Cassander and Lysimachus, who readily joined him against the common

enemy.

B.C. 314.

(21) The large fleet and army which Antigonus got together for the invasion of Egypt proved his opinion of the strength and skill of Ptolemy. All Syria, except one or two cities, laid down its arms before him on his approach. But he found that the whole of the fleet had been already removed to the ports of Egypt, and he ordered Phenicia to furnish him with eight thousand ship-builders and carpenters, to build galleys from the forests of Lebanon and Antilibanus, and ordered Syria to send four hundred and fifty thousand medimni, or nearly three millions of bushels

of wheat, for the use of his army within the year. By theso means he raised his fleet to two hundred and forty-three long galleys or ships of war.

B.C. 313.

(22) Ptolemy was for a short time called off from the war in Syria by a rising in Cyrene. The Cyrenæans, who clung to their Doric love of freedom, and were latterly smarting at its loss, had taken arms and were besieging the Egyptian, or as they would have called themselves the Macedonian garrison, who had shut themselves up in the citadel. He at first sent messengers to order the Cyrenmans to return to their duty; but his orders were not listened to; the rebels no doubt thought themselves safe, as his armies seemed more wanted on the eastern frontier; his messengers were put to death, and the siege of the citadel pushed forward with all possible speed. On this he sent a large land force, followed by a fleet, in order to crush the revolt at a single blow; and the ringleaders were brought to Alexandria in chains. Magas, a son of Queen Berenice and step-son of Ptolemy, was then made governor of Cyrene.

Diod. Sic.

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(23) When this trouble at home was put an end to, Ptolemy crossed over to Cyprus to punish the kings of the little states on that island for having joined Antigonus. For now that the fate of empires was to be settled by naval battles the friendship of Cyprus became very important to the neighbouring states. The island of Cyprus is one hundred and fifty miles long and seventy-five broad, or not much less than Lower Egypt. It has always been rich in corn and wine, and not less so in its mines and harbours. It had usually been divided into nine little states, each governed by a king having several cities under him. One of these cities was Citium, whence the island or its people had been known to the Jews and in the east by the name of Chittim. It had long shared the trade of the Mediterranean with the cities of Tyre and Sidon and Tarsus, and when those seaports fell under Babylon and Persia, Cyprus shared their fate. The large and safe harbours gave to this island a great value in the naval warfare between Egypt, Phenicia, and Asia Minor. Alexander had given it as his opinion that the command of the sea went with the island of Cyprus. When he held Asia Minor he called Cyprus the key to Egypt; and with still greater

Arrian.

lib. ii.

Diod. Sic.

reason might Ptolemy, looking from Egypt, think that island the key to Phenicia. Accordingly he landed there with so large a force that he met with no resistance. He added Cyprus to the rest of his dominions. He banished the kings, and made Nicocreon governor of the whole island.

lib. xix.

(24) From Cyprus, Ptolemy landed with his army in Upper Syria, as the northern part of that country was called, while the part nearer to Palestine was called Cole-Syria. Here he took the towns of Posideion and Potami-Caron, and then marching hastily into Asia Minor, he took Mallus, a city of Cilicia. Having rewarded his soldiers with the booty there seized, he again embarked and returned to Alexandria. This inroad seems to have been ineant to draw off the enemy from Cole-Syria; and it had the wished-for effect, for Demetrius, who commanded the forces of his father Antigonus in that quarter, marched northward to the relief of Cilicia; but he did not arrive there till Ptolemy's fleet was already under sail for Egypt.

(25) Ptolemy, on reaching Alexandria, set his army in motion towards Pelusium, on its way to Palestine. His forces were eighteen thousand foot and four thousand horse, part Macedonians, as the Greeks living in Egypt were always called, and part mercenaries, followed by a crowd of Egyptians, of whom some were armed for battle, and some were to take care of the baggage. There are in all ages some nations who are so much before others in warlike skill and courage, that no inequality of numbers can make up for it. Not that one Greek could overcome ten barbarians; but that a body of Greeks, if large enough to make an army, with a centre, wings, heavy-armed, light-armed, and cavalry, would never think it worth while to count the crowd of barbarians that might be led against them. The number wanted to make an army has changed with the art of war. In modern Europe it must be much larger, perhaps many times what was needed before gunpowder was used; but we may quote the battle of Marathon, and the retreat of the ten thousand under Xenophon, to prove that this number was enough with the Greeks. When Greeks fought against Greeks it is probable that the larger army would conquer, but ten thousand Greeks would beat any number of barbarians.

VOL. I.

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