Euergetes showed them over the palace and the treasury; but, though the Romans had already begun to run the down-hill race of luxury, in which the Egyptians were so far ahead of them, yet Scipio, who held to the old fashions and plain manners of the republic, was not dazzled by mere gold and purple. But the trade of Alexandria, the natural harbour, the forest of masts, and the lighthouse, the only one in the world, surpassed anything that his well-stored mind had looked for. He went by boat to Memphis, and saw the rich crops on either bank, and the easy navigation of the Nile, in which the boats were sailing up the river by the force of the wind and floating down by the force of the stream. The villages on the river side were large and thickly set, each in the bosom of its own grove of palm-trees; and the crowded population was well fed and well clothed. The Roman statesman saw that nothing was wanting but a good government to make Egypt what it used to be, the greatest kingdom in the world.
Scipio went no higher than Memphis; the buildings of Upper Egypt, the oldest and the largest in the world, could not draw him to Thebes, a city whose trade had fallen off, where the deposits of bullion in the temples had lessened, and whose linen manufacture had moved towards the Delta. Had this great statesman been a Greek he would perhaps have gone on to this city, famous alike in history and in poetry; but, as it was, Scipio and his friends then sailed for Cyprus, Syria, and the other provinces or kingdoms under the power of Rome, to finish this tour of inspection.
For some time past, the Jews, taking advantage of the weakness of Egypt and Syria, had been struggling to make themselves free; and, at the beginning of this reign Simon Maccabæus, the high priest, sent an embassy to Rome, with a shield of gold weighing one thousand minae, as a present, to get their independence acknowledged by the Romans. On this the senate made a treaty of alliance with the family of the Maccabees, and, using the high tone of command to which they had for some time past been accustomed, they wrote to Euergetes and the King of Syria, ordering them not to make war upon their friends, the Jews. But in an after decree the Romans recognise the close friendship and the trading intercourse between Egypt and Judæa; and when they declared that they would protect the Jews in their right to levy custom-house duties, they made an exception in favour of the Egyptian trade. The people of Judæa in these struggles were glad to forget the jealousy which had separated them from their brethren in Egypt, and the old quarrel between the Hebrews and the Hellenists; the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem wrote to the Sanhedrim of Alexandria, telling them that they were going to keep the Feast of the Tabernacles in solemn thanksgiving to the Almighty for their deliverance, and begging for the benefit of their prayers.
The Jews, however, of Judæa, on their gaining their former place as a nation, did not, as before, carry forward the chain of history in their sacred books. While they had been under the yoke of the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Syrians, their language had undergone some changes; and when the Hebrew of the Old Testament was no longer the spoken language, they perhaps thought it unworthy of them to write in any other. At any rate, it is to their Greek brethren in Egypt that we are indebted for the history of the bravery of the Maccabees. Jason of Cyrene wrote the history of the Maccabees, and of the Jewish wars against Antiochus Epiphanes and his son, Antiochus Eupator. This work, which was in five books, is lost, and we now read only the short history which was drawn from it by some unknown Greek writer, which, with the letter from the Jews of Judaaa to their brethren of Egypt, forms the second book of Maccabees.
In the list of Alexandrian authors, we must not forget to mention Jesus, the son of Sirach, who came into Egypt in this reign, and translated into Greek the Hebrew work of his grandfather Jesus, which is named the Book of Wisdom, or Ecclesiasticus. It is written in imitation of the Proverbs of Solomon; and though its pithy sayings fall far short of the deep wisdom and lofty thoughts which crowd every line of that wonderful work, yet it will always be read with profit and pleasure. In this book we see the earliest example that we now possess of a Jewish writer borrowing from the Greek philosophers; though how far the Greek thoughts were part of the original Hebrew may be doubted, because the work was left unfinished by Jesus the grandfather, and completed by the Alexandrian translator, his grandson. Hereafter we shall see the Alexandrian Jews engrafting on the Jewish theology more and more of the Platonic philosophy, which very well suited the serious earnestness of their character, and which had a most remarkable effect in making their writings and opinions more fitted to spread into the ancient schools.
This and other writings of the Alexandrian Jews were by them added to the list of sacred books which together made their Greek Bible; but they were never acknowledged at Jerusalem. The Hebrew books of the law and the prophets were first gathered together by Nehemiah after the return of the Hebrews from Babylon; but his library had been broken up during the Syrian wars. These Hebrew books, with some few which had since been written, were again got together by Judas Maccabaeus; and after his time nothing more seems to have been added to them, though the Alexandrian Jews continued to add new books to their Greek Bible, while cultivating the Platonic philosophy with a success which made a change in their religious opinions. It was in Alexandria, and very much by the help of the Jews, that Eastern and Western opinions now met. Each made some change in the other, and, on the union of the two, Alexandria gave to the world a new form of philosophy. The vices and cruelty of Euergetes called for more than usual skill in the minister to keep down the angry feelings of the people. This skill was found in the general Hierax, who was one of those men whose popular manners, habits of business, and knowledge of war, make them rise over every difficulty in times of trouble. On him rested the whole weight of the government; his wise measures in part made up for the vices of his master; and, when the treasure of the state had been turned to the king’s pleasures, and the soldiers were murmuring for want of pay, Hierax brought forward his own money to quiet the rebellion. But at last the people could bear their grievances no longer; the soldiers without pay, instead of guarding the throne, were its greatest enemies, and the mob rose in Alexandria, set fire to the palace, and Euergetes was forced to leave the city and withdraw to Cyprus.
The Alexandrians, when free from their tyrant, sent for Cleopatra, his sister and divorced queen, and set her upon the throne. Her son by Philometor, in whose name she had before claimed the throne, had been put to death by Euergetes; Memphites, one of her sons by Euergetes, was with his father in the island of Cyprus; and Euergetes, fearing that his first wife Cleopatra and her advisers might make use of his son’s name to strengthen her throne, had the child at once put to death. The birthday of Cleopatra was at hand, and it was to be celebrated in Alexandria with the usual pomp; and Euergetes, putting the head, hands, and feet of his son Memphites into a box, sent it to Alexandria by a messenger, who had orders to deliver it to Cleopatra in the midst of the feast, when the nobles and ambassadors were making their accustomed gifts. The grief of Cleopatra was only equalled by the anger of the Alexandrians, who the more readily armed themselves under Marsyas to defend the queen against the invasion for which Euergetes was then making preparations.
The queen’s forces shortly marched against the army of Euergetes that was entering Egypt under the command of Hegelochus; but the Egyptian army was beaten on the Syrian frontier. Marsyas was sent prisoner to Euergetes; and the king then showed the only act of mercy which can be mentioned to his praise, and spared the life of a prisoner whom he thought he could make use of. Cleopatra then sent to Syria, to her son-in-law Demetrius, to ask for help, which was at first readily granted, but Demetrius was soon called home again by a rising in Antioch. But great indeed must be the cruelty which a people will not bear from their own king rather than call in a foreign master to relieve them.