He also ordered the Jews to sacrifice on the pagan altars, and many of them were sent up to Alexandria to be punished for rebelling against his decree. Their resolution, however, or, as their historian asserts, a miracle from heaven changed the king’s mind. They expected to be trampled to death in the hippodrome by furious elephants; but after some delay they were released unhurt. The history of their escape, however, is more melancholy than the history of their danger. No sooner did the persecution cease than they turned with Pharisaical cruelty against their weaker brethren who had yielded to the storm; and they put to death three hundred of their countrymen, who in the hour of danger had yielded to the threats of punishment, and complied with the ceremonies required of them.
The Egyptians, who, when the Persians were conquered by Alexander, could neither help nor hinder the Greek army, and who, when they formed part of the troops under the first Ptolemy, were uncounted and unvalued, had by this time been armed and disciplined like Greeks; and in the battle of Raphia the Egyptian phalanx had shown itself not an unworthy rival of the Macedonians. By this success in war, and by their hatred of their vicious and cruel king, the Egyptians were now for the first time encouraged to take arms against the Greek government. The Egyptian phalanx murmured against their Greek officers, and claimed their right to be under an Egyptian general. But history has told us nothing more of the rebellion than that it was successfully put down. The Greeks were still the better soldiers. The ships built by Philopator were more remarkable for their unwieldy size, their luxurious and costly furniture, than for their fitness for war. One was four hundred and twenty feet long and fifty-seven feet wide, with forty banks of oars. The longest oars were fifty-seven feet long, and weighted with lead at the handles that they might be the more easily moved. This huge ship was to be rowed by four thousand rowers, its sails were to be shifted by four hundred sailors, and three thousand soldiers were to stand in ranks upon deck. There were seven beaks in front, by which it was to strike and sink the ships of the enemy. The royal barge, in which the king and court moved on the quiet waters of the Nile, was nearly as large as this ship of war. It was three hundred and thirty feet long, and forty-five feet wide; it was fitted up with staterooms and private rooms, and was nearly sixty feet high to the top of the royal awning. A third ship, which even surpassed these in its fittings and ornaments, was given to Philopator by Hiero, King of Syracuse. It was built under the care of Archimedes, and its timbers would have made sixty triremes. Beside baths, and rooms for pleasures of all kinds, it had a library, and astronomical instruments, not only for navigation, as in modern ships, but for study, as in an observatory. It was a ship of war, and had eight towers, from each of which stone’s were to be thrown at the enemy by six men. Its machines, like modern cannons, could throw stones of three hundred pounds weight, and arrows of eighteen feet in length. It had four anchors of wood, and eight of iron. It was called the ship of Syracuse, but after it had been given to Philopator it was known by the name of the ship of Alexandria.
In the second year of Philopator’s reign the Romans began that long and doubtful war with Hannibal, called the second Punic war, and in the twelfth year of this reign they sent ambassadors to renew their treaty of peace with Egypt. They sent as their gifts robes of purple for Philopator and Arsinoë, and for Philopator a chair of ivory and gold, which was the usual gift of the republic to friendly kings. The Alexandrians kept upon good terms both with the Romans and the Carthaginians during the whole of the Punic wars.
When the city of Rhodes, which had long been joined in close friendship with Egypt, was shaken by an earthquake, that threw down the colossal statue of Apollo, together with a large part of the city walls and docks, Philopator was not behind the other friendly kings and states in his gifts and help. He sent to his brave allies a large sum of money, with grain, timber, and hemp.
On the birth of his son and heir, in B.C. 209, ambassadors crowded to Alexandria with gifts and messages of joy. But they were all thrown into the shade by Hyrcanus, the son of Joseph, who was sent from Jerusalem by his father, and who brought to the king one hundred boys and one hundred girls, each carrying a talent of silver.
Philopator, soon after the birth of this his only child, employed Philammon, at the bidding of his mistress, to put to death his queen and sister Arsinoë, or Eurydice, as she is sometimes called. He had already forgotten his rank, and his name ennobled by the virtues of three generations, and had given up his days and nights to vice and riot. He kept in his pay several fools, or laughing-stocks as they were then called, who were the chosen companions of his meals; and he was the first who brought eunuchs into the court of Alexandria. His mistress Agathoclea, her brother Agathocles, and their mother OEnanthe, held him bound by those chains which clever, worthless, and selfish favourites throw around the mind of a weak and debauched king. Agathocles, who never left his side, was his adviser in matters of business or pleasure, and governed alike the army, the courts of justice, and the women. Thus was spent a reign of seventeen years, during which the king had never but once, when he met Antiochus in battle, roused himself from his life of sloth.
The misconduct and vices of Agathocles raised such an outcry against him, that Philopator, without giving up the pleasure of his favourite’s company, was forced to take away from him the charge of receiving the taxes. That high post was then given to Tlepolemus, a young man, whose strength of body and warlike courage had made him the darling of the soldiers. Another charge given to Tlepolemus was that of watching over the supply and price of corn in Alexandria. The wisest statesmen of old thought it part of a king’s duty to take care that the people were fed, and seem never to have found out that it would be better done if the people were left to take care of themselves. They thought it moreover a piece of wise policy, or at any rate of clever kingcraft, to keep down the price of food in the capital at the cost of the rest of the kingdom, and even sometimes to give a monthly fixed measure of corn to each citizen. By such means as these the crowd of poor and restless citizens, who swell the mob of every capital, was larger in Alexandria than it otherwise would have been; and the danger of riot, which it was meant to lessen, was every year increased.
Sosibius had made himself more hated than Agathocles; he had been the king’s ready tool in all his murders. He had been stained, or at least reproached, with the murder of Lysimachus, the son of Philadelphus; then of Magas, the son of Euergetes, and Berenicê, the widow of Euergetes; of Cleomenes, the Spartan; and lastly, of Arsinoë, the wife of Philopator. For these crimes Sosibius was forced by the soldiers to give up to Tlepolemus the king’s ring, or what in modern language would be called the great seal of the kingdom, the badge of office by which Egypt was governed; but the world soon saw that a body of luxurious mercenaries were as little able to choose a wise statesman as the king had been.
