to be disputed by three sons, Appion, Lathyrus, and Alexander. This reign will appear interesting in the eye of the philosophical historian, from the fact, which the Egyptians could no longer conceal from themselves, that the influence of Rome was daily gaining ground in their councils, and already securing the foundations of that dominion which she afterwards formally usurped.

Through the influence of Cleopatra, who had returned from her Syrian exile, Alexander was preferred to the throne. But as the claims of Lathyrus were acknowledged by a majority of the people, he was encouraged to assert his right by force of arms; and having succeeded in driving his younger brother into a foreign country, he inflicted a severe punishment upon the insurgents of Upper Egypt, who had, during the political dissensions of the new capital, endeavoured to establish their independence. The inhabitants of the Thebaid had long felt themselves overlooked. The rising glory of Memphis had first obscured the splendour of the ancient metropolis; while, more recently, the importance of Alexandria, both as a place of learning and of commerce, had attracted, to a still greater extent, the wealth and population of the kingdom. It is not surprising, therefore, that the citizens of Thebes should have entertained the desire of recovering some share of the distinction of which they had been gradually deprived, and, at the same time, of securing to the Egyptians a seat of government at a greater distance from the arms and intrigues of their warlike neighbours. In suppressing this spirit of disaffection, Lathyrus is accused of an excessive severity, in which he emulated the destructive policy of

Cambyses, and reduced the remains of the venerable city to a heap of ruins.

His death, in the year eighty-one before Christ, relieved the apprehensions of the people, and opened a path for the accession of Cleopatra, his only child, whose gentle sex and manners gave the promise of a happy reign. This cheering anticipation might have been realized, had there not existed another claimant for the same honour in the person of Alexander, the son of her father's brother. Cleopatra was, without doubt, the legitimate sovereign, and was acknowledged as such by nearly all her subjects; but the councils which now directed the affairs of Egypt emanated from the shores of the Tiber. The Romans who, at first, acted only as umpires, had already begun to enlarge their views, and to claim a right to interpose with their advice, and even with their arms. Sylla at this period discharged the office of Dictator, and, in virtue of his high prerogative as master of the commonwealth, prescribed an arrangement to the competitors for the Egyptian crown. Cleopatra became the wife of her cousin Ptolemy, Alexander the Second, and thereby, it was hoped, had finally united the rival interests of the two branches of the royal family. But this measure produced not the auspicious results which were expected to arise from it. The ambitious youth, impatient of an equal, murdered his young wife, and seized the undivided sovereignty, which he appears to have occupied several years. At length he was compelled to flee from the indignation of his subjects to the coast of Tyre; where, just before his death, he made a will, by which he bequeathed Egypt to the Roman senate and people.

The next who assumed and disgraced the title of Ptolemy, was a son of Lathyrus, who, from the excellence of his performances on the flute, was surnamed Auletes. This weak prince proved a tool in the hand of the Romans, and evidently lent himself to accomplish their favourite design of reducing Egypt to the condition of a province dependent on the republic. The leading men at court, who had no difficulty in penetrating his intentions, expelled him from the throne, and placed the sceptre in the hand of his daughter Berenice. To defend themselves still farther against the intrigues of Rome, they proposed to marry their young sovereign to the King of Syria,-hoping that the combined forces of the two kingdoms would prove more than a match for the legions usually stationed beyond the Hellespont. But the premature death of Antiochus defeated this wise project. Auletes was restored through the interest of the celebrated Pompey, and conducted into his capital by Mark Antony, a commander hardly less renowned. After a series of oppressions and cruelties, among which may be mentioned the murder of Berenice, he terminated a shameful reign by an early death,-intrusting his surviving children to the care and tuition of the Roman government.

Among the infants thus left to the protection of the senate, were the famous Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy Dionysius. As soon as these princes came of age, they were raised to the throne, and associated in the government. But their friendship and union were of short continuance; and each having the support of a numerous party, their dissensions almost necessarily terminated in a civil war.

Cleo

patra was compelled to seek refuge in Syria; soon after which event, Julius Cæsar, who, by his victory at Pharsalia, had already made himself master of the commonwealth, appeared in Egypt to complete his conquest, and to quell the intestine commotions by which the whole of that kingdom was distracted. She lost no time in repairing to Alexandria, where she was secretly introduced into the presence of the Roman general. This able soldier and politician immediately restored to her the share of power which she had formerly possessed,-issuing a decree, in the name of the senate, that Ptolemy Dionysius and his sister Cleopatra should be acknowledged as joint sovereigns of Egypt. The partisans of the young king, being dissatisfied with this arrangement, had recourse to a military stratagem, by which Cæsar and his attendants were nearly de. stroyed. A war ensued soon afterwards, which ended in the death of Ptolemy and the complete establishment of the Romans, not less as conquerors than as guardians of the children of Auletes.

But it was not consistent with Egyptian decorum that Cleopatra should reign without a colleague; and, therefore, to satisfy the prejudices of the people, her youngest brother, not more than eleven years of age, was placed beside her on the throne. Such a nomination could not be regarded in any other light than as a show of limiting the power of the queen; and even this apparent check on her authority was soon removed by the murder of the child, who fell a victim to the furious passions which at that period dishonoured the descendants of the great Ptolemy.

But the term of their dynasty was now fast ap

proaching. The assassination of the conqueror of Pharsalia, and the subsequent defeat of Mark Antony, raised the fortunes of Octavianus above the reach of the most powerful of his rivals, and at length invested him with the imperial purple, as the acknowledged head of the Roman world. Cleopatra made her escape from his revenge in a voluntary death; for, suspecting that he intended to wound her feelings, by assigning to her a place in the train of captives who were to adorn his triumph at Rome, she found means to put an end to her life by the bite of a poisonous reptile. With her ended the line of Grecian sovereigns, which had continued two hundred and ninety-six years.

As a province of the Roman empire, the history of Egypt can hardly be separated from that of the mighty people by whose deputies it was now to be governed. It was, indeed, occasionally disturbed by insurrections, and sometimes even by foreign war; but it was, notwithstanding, retained with a firm grasp both against domestic and external foes, until the decline of power compelled the successors of Augustus to withdraw their legions from the extremities of the empire, to defend the provinces on the Tiber and the Danube. Adrian, in the beginning of the second century, spent two years in Egypt, during which he laboured to revive among the natives the love of letters and the beauties of architecture. Severus, too, at a somewhat later period, made a similar visit, when, like his predecessor, he exerted himself to relieve the burdens and improve the condition of the great body of the people. In particular, he countenanced every attempt that was made to repair the ancient monuments, as also to replenish the