We can therefore hardly wonder that when Lathyrus landed in Egypt, and tried to recall the troubled cities to quiet government and good order, Thebes should have refused to obey. The spirit of the warriors who followed Ramses to the shores of the Black Sea was not quite dead. For three years the brave Kopts, entrenched within their temples, every one of which was a castle, withstood his armies; but the bows, the hatchets, and the chariots could do little against Greek arms; while the overthrow of the massive temple walls, and the utter ruin of the city, prove how slowly they yielded to greater skill and numbers, and mark the conqueror’s distrust lest the temples should be again so made use of. Perhaps the only time before when Thebes had been stormed after a long siege was when it first fell under the Persians; and the ruin which marked the footsteps of Cambyses had never been wholly repaired. But the wanton cruelty of the foreigners did little mischief, when compared with the unpitying and unforgiving distrust of the native conquerors. The temples of Tentyra, Apollinopolis, Latopolis, and Philæ show that the massive Egyptian buildings, when let alone, can withstand the wear of time for thousands of years; but the harder hand of man works much faster, and the wide acres of Theban ruins prove alike the greatness of the city and the force with which it was overthrown; and this is the last time that Egyptian Thebes is met with in the pages of history.
The traveller, whose means and leisure have allowed him to reach the spot, now counts the Arab villages which have been built within the city’s bounds, and perhaps pitches his tent in the open space in the middle of them. But the ruined temples still stand to call forth his wonder. They have seen the whole portion of time of which history keeps the reckoning roll before them; they have seen kingdoms and nations rise and fall: Babylonians, Assyrians, Hebrews, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. They have seen the childhood of all that we call ancient; and they still seem likely to stand, to tell their tale to those who will hereafter call us ancients. After this rebellion, Lathyrus reigned in quiet, and was even able to be of use to his Greek allies; and the Athenians, in gratitude, set up statues of bronze to him and Berenicê, his daughter.
During this reign, the Romans were carrying on a war with Mithridates, King of Pontus, in Asia Minor; and Sulla, who was then at the head of the republic, sent Lucullus, the soldier, the scholar, and the philosopher, as ambassador to Alexandria, to ask for help against the enemy. The Egyptian fleet moved out of harbour to meet him, a pomp which the kings of Egypt had before kept for themselves alone. Lathyrus received him on shore with the greatest respect, lodged him in the palace, and invited him to his own table, an honour which no foreigner had enjoyed since the kings of Egypt had thrown aside the plain manners of the first Ptolemies. Lucullus had brought with him the philosopher Antiochus of Athens, who had been the pupil of Philo, and they found time to enjoy the society of Dion, the academic philosopher, who was then teaching at Alexandria; and there they might have been seen with Heraclitus of Tyre, talking together about the changes which were creeping into the Platonic philosophy, and about the two newest works of Philo, which had just come to Alexandria. Antiochus could not read them without showing his anger: such sceptical opinions had never before been heard of in the Academy; but they knew the handwriting of Philo, they were certainly his. Selius and Tetrilius, who were there, had heard him teach the same opinions at Rome, whither he had fled, and where he was then teaching Cicero. The next day, the matter was again talked over with Lucullus, Heraclitus, Aristus of Athens, Ariston, and Dion; and it ended in Antiochus writing a book, which he named Sosus, against those new opinions of his old master, against the new Academy, and in behalf of the old Academy.
Lathyrus understood the principles of the balance of power and his own interest too well to help the Romans to crush Mithridates, and he wisely wished not to quarrel with either. He therefore at once made up his mind not to grant the fleet which Lucullus had been sent to ask for. It had been usual for the kings of Egypt to pay the expenses of the Roman ambassadors while living in Alexandria; and Lathyrus offered four times the usual allowance to Lucullus, beside eighty talents of silver. Lucullus, however, would take nothing beyond his expenses, and returned the gifts, which were meant as a civil refusal of the fleet; and, having failed in his embassy, he sailed hastily for Cyprus, leaving the wonders of Egypt unvisited. Lathyrus sent a fleet of honour to accompany him on his voyage, and gave him his portrait cut in an emerald. Mithridates was soon afterwards conquered by the Romans; and it was only by skilful embassies and well-timed bribes that Lathyrus was able to keep off the punishment which seemed to await him for having thus disobeyed the orders of Sulla. Egypt was then the only kingdom, to the west of Persia, that had not yet bowed its neck under the Roman yoke.
The coins of Lathyrus are not easily or certainly known from those of the other Ptolemies; but those of his second wife bear her head on the one side, with the name of “Queen Selene,” and on the other side the eagle, with the name of “King Ptolemy.”
He had before reigned ten years with his mother, and after his brother’s death he reigned six years and a half more, but, as he counted the years that he had reigned in Cyprus, he died in the thirty-seventh year of his reign. He left a daughter named Berenicê, and two natural sons, each named Ptolemy, one of whom reigned in Cyprus, and the other, nicknamed Auletes, the piper, afterwards gained the throne of Egypt.
On the death of Lathyrus, or Ptolemy Soter II., his daughter Cleopatra Berenicê, the widow of Ptolemy Alexander, mounted the throne of Egypt in B.C. 80; but it was also claimed by her stepson, the young Alexander, who was then living in Rome. Alexander had been sent to the island of Cos, as a place of safety, when his grandmother Cleopatra Cocce followed her army into Coele-Syria. But, as the Egyptians had lost the command of the sea, the royal treasure in Cos was no longer out of danger, and the island was soon afterwards taken by Mithridates, King of Pontus, who had conquered Asia Minor. Among the treasures in that island the Alexandrians lost one of the sacred relics of the kingdom, the chlamys or war-cloak which had belonged to Alexander the Great, and which they had kept with religious care as the safeguard of the empire. It then fell into the hands of Mithridates, and on his overthrow it became the prize of Pompey, who wore it in his triumph at the end of the Mithridatic war. With this chlamys, as had always been foretold by the believers in wonders, Egypt lost its rank among nations, and the command of the world passed to the Romans, who now possessed this time-worn symbol of sovereignty.
Alexander also at that time fell into the hands of Mithridates; but he afterwards escaped, and reached the army of Sulla, under whose care he lived for some time in Rome. The Alexandrian prince hoped to gain the throne of his father by means of the friendship of one who could make and unmake kings at his pleasure; and Sulla might have thought that the wealth of Egypt would be at his command by means of his young friend. To these reasons Alexander added the bribe which was then becoming common with the princes who held their thrones by the help of Rome, he made a will, in which he named the Roman people as his heirs; and the senate then took care that the kingdom of Egypt should be a part of the wealth which was afterwards to be theirs by inheritance. After Berenicê, his stepmother, had been queen about six months, they sent him to Alexandria, with orders that he should be received as king; and, to soften the harshness of this command, he was told to marry Berenicê, and reign jointly with her.