youthful sovereign. Mólon and Alexander escaped a public execution by suicide, and Hermeías expiated his complicated treasons on the scaffold (B. c. 220). Whilst Antiochus was thus engaged in the remote east, Achæ'us, whom he had forced into rebellion, had strengthened himself in Asia Minor; and the Egyptian monarch Ptolemy Philop'ater was becoming formidable on the southern frontiers of Syria. Antiochus obtained possession of Cœlé-Syria by the treachery of Theodótus, its governor; but he was soon after defeated by Ptolemy, at the battle of Ráphia near Gáza (в. c. 217), and forced to purchase peace by the sacrifice of the newly-acquired province. This defeat was in some degree compensated, the following year, by the capture of Acha'us, whose ravages to support his troops having provoked the resentment of the kings of lesser Asia, he was besieged in the citadel of Sar'dis by the joint forces of Antiochus and At'talus, king of Per'gamus, treacherously betrayed, and ungratefully put to death.

Freed from the dangers of this war, Antiochus turned his attention to the affairs of upper Asia, and gained several victories over the Parthians and Bactrians (B. c. 214). He was, however, forced to recognise the independence of both nations. To secure his dominions, he gave his daughter in marriage to Demétrius, the son of the Bactrian monarch, and joined that prince in an important expedition against northern India (B. c. 206). In return, he made some efforts to revive the commercial system of Alexander the Great, and paid particular attention to the trade of the Persian gulf. On the death of Ptolemy Philop'ater (B. c. 203), and the accession of his infant son, Antíochus entered into an alliance with Philip, king of Macedon, to wrest Egypt from the family of the Ptolemies. He conquered Calé-Syria and Palestine ; but was prevented from pursuing his success by the interference of At'talus, the Rhodians, and the Romans. Checked in this direction, he revived the claims of his family on the northern states of Europe and Asia. While his generals besieged Smyr'na and Lamp'sacus, he conquered the Thracian Chersonese, and prepared to invade Greece (B. c. 196). The Romans again interfered; but the Syrian monarch, instigated by Hannibal, who had sought refuge at his court, treated their remonstrances with disdain. War immediately followed. Antiochus lost the fairest opportunities of success by neglecting the advice of Hannibal driven from Europe into Asia, he was forced to act solely on the defensive, until his total defeat at Magnésia, near Mount Sip'ylus, laid him prostrate at the feet of his enemies. The Romans deprived him of all his dominions in Asia Minor, the greater part of which were annexed to the kingdom of Per'gamus. The unfortunate monarch did long survive his defeat: he was murdered by his servants (B. C. 187); but the cause and manner of the crime are uncertain.

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Seleúcus IV., surnamed Philop'ater (a lover of his father), succeeded to a throne fast falling into decay. His reign lasted eleven years, but was not distinguished by any remarkable event. Anxious to have the aid of his brother Antiochus, who had been given as an hostage to the Romans, Seleúcus sent his son Demétrius to Rome in exchange. Before Antiochus could reach home, Heliodórus poisoned Seleúcus, and usurped the crown (B. c. 176). This is represented by many Jewish

writers as a providential punishment of the king, who had employed that very minister to plunder the sacred treasury of Jerúsalem.

Antiochus IV. soon expelled the usurper, and assumed the surname of Epiphanes (illustrious) which his subsequent conduct induced his contemporaries to change into that of Epimánes (madman). He sought to combine the freedom of Roman manners with the ostentatious luxury of the Asiatics, and thereby provoked universal hatred. His reign commenced with a war against Egypt, in consequence of the claim made by the Ptolemies to Colé-Syria and Palestine. Antiochus was very successful in two campaigns he penetrated to the walls of Alexandria, and gained possession of the person of Ptolemy Philom'eter, the rightful heir of the Egyptian throne, who had been driven from Alexandria by his brother Phys'con. With this prince the Syrian monarch concluded a most advantageous peace; but scarcely had he returned home, when Philom'eter entered into an accommodation with his brother, and both combined to resist the power of Syria. Justly enraged at this treachery, Antiochus returned to Egypt; but his further progress was stopped by the interference of the Romans, at whose imperious command he found himself compelled to resign all his conquests (B. c. 169).

The ambition of Antiochus was next directed against his own subjects he resolved to establish uniformity of worship throughout his dominions, and to Hellenize all his subjects. His intolerance and rapacity engendered a determined spirit of resistance (B. c. 168). The Jews, headed by the gallant Mac'cabees, commenced a fierce struggle, which, after much suffering, ended in the restoration of their former independence; and the Persians, equally attached to their ancient faith, raised the standard of revolt. Antiochus hasted to suppress the insurrection in upper Asia; but being severely defeated (B. c. 165), he died of vexation on his road to Babylon.

Eúpator, the young son of the deceased monarch, was placed on the throne by the Syrians; but Demétrius, the son of Seleucus Philop'ater, having escaped from Rome, no sooner appeared in Asia than he was joined by such numerous partisans, that he easily dethroned his rival (B. C. 162). With the usual barbarity of Asiatic sovereigns, he put the young prince to death, and found means to purchase the pardon of his crimes from the Roman senate. After an inglorious reign, he was slain in battle by Alexander Bálas (B. c. 150), an impostor who personated the unfortunate Eúpator, and was supported in his fraud by the Mac'cabees and the Romans. Bálas was in his turn defeated by Demétrius Nicátor, the son of the late monarch (в. c. 145), and forced to seek refuge in Arabia, where he was murdered by his treacherous host.

Nicátor, having lost the affections of his subjects, was driven from Antíoch by Try'phon, who placed the crown on the head of young Antiochus, the son of Bálas; but in a short time murdered that prince, and proclaimed himself king. Demétrius was withheld from marching against the usurper by the hope of acquiring a better kingdom in upper Asia, whither he was invited by the descendants of the Greek and Macedonian colonists, to defend them from the power of the Parthians (B. c. 140). He was at first successful, but was finally captured by his enemies, who detained him a prisoner for ten years. In the meantime his brother Antiochus Sidétes, having overthrown Try'phon, seized

the crown of Syria. He appears to have been a good and wise sovereign; but unfortunately he was induced, by the provincials of upper Asia, to wage war against the Parthians, and was treacherously murdered by his own allies (B. c. 130). Demétrius, about the same time, escaped from prison, and was restored to the throne. But after a brief reign he was defeated and slain by Zebínus (B. c. 126), a pretended son of the impostor Bálas.

Seleúcus, the son of Demétrius, was waging a successful war against Zebínas, when he was treacherously murdered by his own mother Cleopátra, who wished to secure the crown for her favorite child Antiochus Gry'phus. She also prevailed on her relative, the king of Egypt, to declare war against the usurper; and Zebínas was soon defeated and slain. Gry'phus no sooner found himself secure on the throne than he put his mother to death for the murder of Seleúcus (B. C. 122); and it must be added, that this measure was necessary to secure his own life. After some years, Cyzicénus, the half-brother of Gry/phus, attempted to usurp the throne; and during the civil war that ensued, many cities and provinces separated from the Syrian kingdom. Gry'phus was assassinated (B. c. 97). His five sons and the son of Cyzicénus engaged in a dreary series of civil wars; until the Syrians, weary of enduring the calamities and bloodshed of their protracted dissensions, expelled the entire family, and gave the crown to Tigránes, king of Arménia (B. c. 83). Tigránes, after a long and not inglorious reign, was involved in a war with the Romans, which ended in his complete overthrow; and he was forced to resign Syria to the conquerors (B. c. 64.) Thus the kingdom of the Seleúcide was made a Roman province, and the family soon after became extinct in the person of Se leúcus Cybrosac'tes (B. c. 57). He was raised to the throne of Egypt by his wife, the princess Berenice, and afterward murdered by her orders.

SECTION III.-History of Egypt under the Ptolemies.

FROM B. C. 301 To B. c. 30.

PTOL'EMY, the son of Lágus, was the wisest statesman among the successors of Alexander. No sooner had the battle of Ip'sus put him in possession of the kingdom of Egypt, than he began to provide for the happiness of his new subjects by a regeneration of their entire social system. Unlike the Seleúcidæ, he made no attempt to Hellenize the Egyptians; on the contrary, he revived, as much as altered circumstances would permit, their ancient religious and political constitution; the priestly caste was restored to a portion of its ancient privileges; the division of the country into nomes was renewed; Memphis, though not the usual residence of the monarchs, was constituted the capital of the kingdom, and its temple of Phtha declared the national sanctuary, where alone the kings could receive the crown. But not less wise was the generous patronage accorded to literature and science: the Muséum was founded in Alexandria as a kind of university for students, and a place of assembly for the learned; the first great national library was established in another part of the city; and the philosophers and

men of letters were invited to seek shelter from the storms which shook every other part of the world in the tranquil land of Egypt. Impressed by the example of his illustrious master, Ptolemy paid great attention to trade and navigation. Colonists from every quarter of the globe were invited to settle at Alexandria, and the Jews flocked thither in great numbers, to escape the persecution of their Syrian masters. So many of that singular people became subjects of the Ptol'emies, that the Septuagint version of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek was made for their use, and a Jewish temple erected in Egypt similar to that of Jerúsalem. The double harbors of Alexandria, on the sea, and on the Maræot'ic lake, were constructed at the same time, and the celebrated Phárus, or lighthouse, erected at the entrance of the haven.

The city of Alexandria, which had been begun before the death of Alexander, owed most of its splendor to Ptol'emy. But among all the public buildings he planned or erected, there is none better deserves our attention than the Muséum, 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 a raised seat or bench on which the philosophers sometimes sat in the open air. The professors and teachers of the college were supported by a public income. Ptol'emy's love of art, his anxiety to reward merit, and his agreeable manners, brought to his court so many persons distingnished in science, literature, and the fine arts, that the Muséum of Alexandria became the centre of civilization for the known world. The arts and letters thus introduced, did not bear their richest fruit in the reign of the founder: they flourished most in the age of his son; but this does not detract from the merit of the first Ptolemy, who gave the institutions he planted such permanence, that they struck deep root in the soil and continued to flourish under all his successors, unchoked by the vices and follies which unfortunately grew up around them.

In return for the literature which Greece then gave to Egypt, she gained the knowledge of papy'rus. Before that time books had been written on linen, wax, or the bark of trees: and public records on stone, brass, or lead but the knowledge of papy'rus 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 afterward used in Greece and Rome; for when parchment was invented about two centuries later, it was found too costly to be generally used so long as papy'rus could be obtained. The papy'rus reed is only found in Egypt and a small district in Sicily. Successful attempts have been made to manufacture it in modern times, but the process is too tedious and uncertain to be remunerative, and the papy'rus is only prepared as a matter of curiosity.

The external security of Egypt was strengthened by the conquest of the Syrian frontiers, the ancient kingdom of Cyréne, a considerable part of Ethiopia, and the island of Cyprus. Hence, during the administration of Ptolemy I., Egypt was free from the fear of foreign invasion, and its inhabitants, for the first time during several centuries, were free to develop the great internal resources of the country. Few

sovereigns were more deservedly lamented than the son of Lágus (B. C. 284) his death spread universal sorrow among his subjects, who at once lamented him as a father, and worshipped him as a god.

The reign of Ptolemy II., surnamed Philadelphus (a lover of his brethren), was disturbed only by the rebellion of Mágas, which was supported by Antiochus II., as has been mentioned in the preceding section. Under the peaceful administration of Philadelphus, Egyptian commerce made the most rapid strides; ports for the Indian and Arabian trade were constructed on the Red sea, at Arsinoë (Suez), My'os Hor'mus (Cosseir), and Berenice. From the two latter stations caravan roads were made to the Upper Nile, and the lower river was united to the Red sea by a canal, which was further continued to the lesser harbor of Alexandria, on the Maræotic lake. The Ethiopian trade was revived with great spirit; and remote countries of central and southern Africa were opened to the enterprise of the Alexandrian merchants. Unfortunately, the luxury of the court increased in the same proportion as the wealth of the country. Philadelphus fell into all the effeminate dissipation of the Asiatic sovereigns, and adopted their pernicious habits of intermarriages between near relations. He set the example by repudiating his first wife, and marrying his own sister Arsinoë, who exercised the greatest influence over her husband. She brought him no children, but she adopted the offspring of her predecessor.

It was during the reign of Ptol'emy Philadelphus that Pyr'rhus was driven out of Italy by the Romans (B. c. 274); and this event induced the Egyptian king to send an ambassador to the senate, to wish them joy of their success, and to make a treaty of peace with the republic. The Romans received the envoy with great joy, and in return sent four ambassadors to Egypt to seal the treaty. Ptol'emy showed the Roman deputies every kindness, and explained to them those processes of Greek art with which they were acquainted. Subsequently two of the ambassadors, Quin'tus Ogul'nius and Fábius Pic'tor, having been elected consuls, introduced a silver coinage at Rome, the advantages of which they had been taught in Egypt.

Philadelphus was succeeded by his son Ptolemy III., surnamed Evergétes (the benefactor) (B. c. 246). Unlike his father, he was a warlike, enterprising prince, and his conquests extended into the remote regions of the east and south. His war with Seleúcus II., in which the Egyptian army penetrated as far as Bactria, has been described in the preceding section; but the result of the Asiatic campaigns was plunder, not any permanent acquisition of territory; very different was the result of the southern wars, by which a great part of Abyssinian and the Arabian peninsula was added to the Egyptian dominions, and new roads for trade opened through these remote coun

tries.

With the death of Evergétes (B. c. 221), ended the glory of the Ptol'emies. His son Ptol'emy, surnamed Philop'ater (a lover of his father), was a weak, debauched prince, who was, during his whole life, under the tutelage of unworthy favorites. At the instigation of his first minister, Sosib'ius, he put to death his brother Mágas, and Cleom'enes, the exiled king of Sparta. Antiochus the Great, who then ruled in Syria, took advantage of Philop'ater's incapacity to wage war against