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cealed his dissatisfaction at their behaviour; but he drew from the conversation that passed between them all the information he could wish with relation to the affairs that took them to court.

When they arrived at Alexandria, they were informed that the king had gone to Memphis. Joseph immediately repaired thither, and he met him as he was returning from Memphis, with the queen and Athenion in his chariot. The king, who had been prepossessed in his favour by Athenion, was pleased to see him, and invited him into his chariot. Joseph, to excuse his uncle, represented the infirmities of his great age, and the natural tardiness of his disposition, in such an engaging manner, as satisfied Ptolemy, and created in him a high esteem for the able advocate of the high priest. He ordered Joseph an apartment in the royal palace of Alexandria, and allowed him a place at his table.

When the day arrived for purchasing, by a sort of auction, the privilege of farming the revenues of the provinces, the companions of Joseph, in his journey to Egypt, offered 8,000 talents only for the provinces of Colo-Syria, Phenicia, Judea and Samaria. Joseph, who had discovered in the conversation that passed between them in his presence, that this purchase was worth double the sum they offered, reproached them for depreciating the king's revenues, and offered 16,000 talents. Ptolemy was well pleased to hear of his revenues being so much increased, but being apprehensive that the person who proffered so large a sum would not be able to pay it, he asked Joseph what security he would give him for the performance of the agreement. Joseph calmly replied, that he had such persons to offer for his security on that occasion as he was certain his majesty could have no objection to. Upon being ordered to mention them, he named the king and queen themselves, adding, that they would be his securities to each other. The king could not avoid smiling at this pleasantry, and he allowed him to farm the revenues without any other security than his verbal promise for payment. Nor was his confidence abused. Joseph acted in that station for the space of ten years, to the mutual satisfaction of the court and provinces.

In the year B. c. 222, Ptolemy entertained Cleomenes the Spartan, who had been driven from his throne by Antigonus. He gave that prince repeated assurances, indeed, that he would send him into Greece with a fleet and a supply of money, and would re-establish him on his throne. The next

year, however, before his designs could be carried into execution, Euergetes died, and Cleomenes found by experience how vain it was to trust in man. Truly wise is the advice of the psalmist, wherein he says: "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish," Psa. cxlvi. 3, 4.

Ptolemy Euergetes had reigned twenty-five years. He was the last of the race of the Ptolemies, says Strabo, in whom any true virtue and moderation shone forth; the generality of his successors being monsters of debauchery and wickedness. He was succeeded on the throne of Egypt by his son,

PTOLEMY PHILOPATER.

This prince plunged himself in the most abominable excesses during the whole of his reign. The very commencement of it was marked by outrage and bloodshed. By some historians he is said to have poisoned his father, whence he received the surname of Philopater, by antiphrasis, that word signifying, “a lover of his father." He received the name of Tryphon from his extravagance and debauchery; and that of Gallus, because he appeared in the streets of Alexandria like one of the bacchanals, and with all the wild gestures of the priests of Cybele.*

In the early part of his reign, B. c. 220, Ptolemy committed a gross act of injustice and cruelty upon the person of Cleomenes. That prince still continued in Egypt; but as Ptolemy regarded nothing but pleasures and excesses of every kind, he led a very solitary life. At first, however, Ptolemy made use of Cleomenes. As he was afraid of his brother Magas, who on his mother's account had great authority and power over the soldiery, he admitted Cleomenes into his most secret councils, in which means for getting rid of his brother were devised. Cleomenes was the only person who had moral rectitude enough to oppose the unnatural scheme; declaring, that a king cannot have any ministers more zealous for his service, or more able to aid him in sus

* In the celebration of the festivals of Cybele, her priests imitated the manners of madmen, and filled the air with dreadful shrieks and howlings, mixed with the confused noise of drums, tabrets, bucklers, and spears. This was in commemoration of the sorrows of Cybele for the loss of her favourite Atys.

taining the burden of government, than his brothers. This wise counsel prevailed for a moment; but Ptolemy's suspicions soon returned, and he imagined there would be no other way to disperse them than by taking away the life of him that occasioned them. Accordingly, he publicly caused Berenice his mother, and Magas, his brother, to be put to death. After this, says Plutarch, he thought himself secure, fondly concluding that he had no enemies to fear either at home or abroad; because Antigonus and Seleucus at their death left no other successors but Philip and Antiochus, both of whom he despised on account of their tender age. In this security, he devoted himself to all kinds of pleasures, never interrupting them by cares or business. His very courtiers, and those who had employments in the state, dared not approach him, and he would scarcely deign to bestow the least attention on what occurred in the neighbouring kingdoms.

With such dispositions, it can readily be imagined that he had no great esteem for Cleomenes. This was manifested by his conduct. The instant the latter heard of the death of Antigonus, that the Achæans were engaged in a war with the Etolians, that the Lacedemonians were united with the latter against the Achæans and Macedonians, and that all things conspired to recall him to his native country, he solicited leave to depart from Alexandria. At first he implored the king to favour him with troops and warlike stores sufficient for his return, and when he found that he could not obtain this request, he desired that he at least might be suffered to depart with his family, and be allowed to embrace the favourable opportunity of repossessing himself of his kingdom. But Ptolemy was too much engaged by his pleasures to lend an ear to the entreaties of Cleomenes.

Sosibius, who at this time had great authority in the kingdom, and who ministered to the king's brutal pleasures, assembled his friends; and in this council a resolution was formed not to furnish Cleomenes either with a fleet or provisions. They supposed such an expense would be useless; for, from the death of Antigonus, all foreign affairs had seemed to them of small importance. This council were apprehensive, moreover, that as Antigonus was dead, and as there was none to oppose Cleomenes, that that prince, after having made a conquest of Greece, would become a formida ble enemy to Egypt. And what increased their fears was, his having thoroughly studied the state of the kingdom, his

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