When 1460-1 years had elapsed this chronological error had mounted to a whole year, and so the movable year and the fixed year fell together again. It is this Sothic period which Manetho has employed in his account of Egyptian history. Besides his history, Manetho has left us a work on astrology, called Apotelesmatica, or Events, a work of which there seems no reason to doubt the genuineness.
It is a poem in hexameter verse, in good Greek, addressed to King Ptolemy, in which he calls, not only upon Apollo and the Muse, but, like a true Egyptian, upon Hermes, from whose darkly worded writings he had gained his knowledge. He says that the king’s greatness might have been foretold from the places of Mars and the Sun at the time of his birth, and that his marriage with his sister Arsinoë arose from the places of Venus and Saturn at the same time. But while we smile at this being said as the result of astronomical calculations, we must remember that for centuries afterwards, almost in our own time, the science of judicial astrology was made a branch of astronomy, and that the fault lay rather in the age than in the man; and we have the pain of thinking that, while many of the valuable writings by Manetho are lost, the copiers and readers of manuscripts have carefully saved for us this nearly worthless poem on astrology.
Petosiris was another writer on astrology and astronomy who was highly praised by his friend Manetho; and his calculations on the distances of the sun and planets are quoted by Pliny. His works are lost; but his name calls for our notice, as he must have been a native Egyptian, and a priest. Like Manetho, he also wrote on the calculation of nativities; and the later Greek astrologers, when what they had foretold did not come to pass, were wont to lay the blame on Petosiris. The priests were believed to possess these and other supernatural powers; and to help their claims to be believed many of them practised ventriloquism.
Timosthenes, the admiral under Philadelphus, must not be forgotten in this list of authors; for though his verses to Apollo were little worth notice, his voyages of discovery, and his work in ten books on harbours, placed him in the first rank among geographers. Colotes, a pupil and follower of Epicurus, dedicated to Philadelphus a work of which the very title proves the nature of his philosophy, and how soon the rules of his master had fitted themselves to the habits of the sensualist. Its title was “That it is impossible even to support life according to the philosophical rules of any but the Epicureans.” It was a good deal read and talked about; and three hundred years afterwards Plutarch thought it not a waste of time to write against it at some length.
At a time when books were few, and far too dear to be within reach of the many, and indeed when the number of those who could read must have been small, other means were of course taken to meet the thirst after knowledge; and the chief of these were the public readings in the theatre. This was not overlooked by Phila-delphus, who employed Hegesias to read Herodotus, and Hermophantus to read Homer, the earliest historian and the earliest poet, the two authors who had taken deepest root in the minds of the Greeks. These public readings, which were common throughout Greece and its colonies, had not a little effect on the authors. They then wrote for the ear rather than the eye, to be listened to rather than to be read, which was one among the causes of Greek elegance and simplicity of style.
Among others who were brought to Alexandria by the fame of Philadelphus’ bounty was Zoilus, the grammarian, whose ill-natured criticism on Homer’s poems had earned for him the name of Homeromastix, or the scourge of Homer. He read his criticisms to Philadelphus, who was so much displeased with his carping and unfair manner of finding fault, that he even refused to relieve him when in distress. The king told him, that while hundreds had earned a livelihood by pointing out the beauties of the Iliad and Odyssey in their public readings, surely one person who was so much wiser might be able to live by pointing out the faults.
Timon, a tragic poet, was also one of the visitors to this court; but, as he was more fond of eating and drinking than of philosophy, we need not wonder at our knowing nothing of his tragedies, or at his not being made a professor by Philadelphus. But he took his revenge on the better-fed philosophers of the court, in a poem in which he calls them literary fighting-cocks, who were being fattened by the king, and were always quarrelling in the coops of the museum.
The Alexandrian men of science and letters maintained themselves, some few by fees received from their pupils, others as professors holding salaries in the museum, and others by civil employments under the government. There was little to encourage in them the feelings of noble pride or independence. The first rank in Alexandria was held by the civil and military servants of the crown, who enjoyed the lucrative employments of receiving the taxes, hearing the lawsuits by appeal, and repressing rebellions. With these men the philosophers mixed, not as equals, but partaking of their wealth and luxuries, and paying their score with wit and conversation. There were no landholders in the city, as the soil of the country was owned by Egyptians; and the wealthy trading classes, of all nations and languages, could bestow little patronage on Greek learning, and therefore little independence on its professors.
Philadelphus was not less fond of paintings and statues than of books; and he seems to have joined the Achaian league as much for the sake of the pictures which Aratus, its general, was in the habit of sending to him, as for political reasons. Aratus, the chief of Sicyon, was an acknowledged judge of paintings, and Sicyon was then the first school of Greece. The pieces which he sent to Philadelphus were mostly those of Pamphilus, the master, and of Melanthius, the fellow-pupil, of Apelles. Pamphilus was famed for his perspective; and he is said to have received from every pupil the large sum of ten talents, or seven thousand five hundred dollars, a year. His best known pieces were, Ulysses in his ship, and the victory of the Athenians near the town of Phlius. It was through Pamphilus that, at first in Sicyon, and afterwards throughout all Greece, drawing was taught to boys as part of a liberal education. Neacles also painted for Aratus; and we might almost suppose that it was as a gift to the King of Egypt that he painted his Sea-fight between the Egyptians and the Persians, in which the painter shows us that it was fought within the mouth of the Nile by making a crocodile bite at an ass drinking on the shore.
Helena, the daughter of Timon, was a painter of some note at this time, at Alexandria; but the only piece of hers known to us by name is the Battle of Issus, which three hundred years afterwards was hung up by Vespasian in the Temple of Peace at Rome. We must wonder at a woman choosing to paint the horrors and pains of a battle-piece; but, as we are not told what point of time was chosen, we may hope that it was after the battle, when Alexander, in his tent, raised up from their knees the wife and lovely daughter of Darius, who had been found among the prisoners. As for the Egyptians, they showed no taste in painting.