(9) During these years the building was going forward of the beautiful temple at the city, afterwards named

Wilkinson,
Thebes.

Denon, pl. 53.

by the Romans Contra-Latopolis, on the other side of the Nile from Latopolis or Esne (see Fig. 5). Little now remains of it but its massive portico, upheld by two rows of four columns each, having the sun with outstretched wings carved on the overhanging eaves. The earliest names found among the hieroglyphics with which its walls are covered are those of Cleopatra Cocce, and her son Ptolemy Soter, while the latest name is that of the Emperor Commodus. Even under Cleopatra Cocce, who was nearly the worst of the family, the building of these great temples did not cease.

Fig. 3.

Fig. 4.

(10) The two sons were so far puppets in the hands of their clever but wicked mother, that on the recall

B.C. 106.

of Alexander, no change was seen in the government beyond that of the names which were placed at the head of the public acts. The former year was called the tenth of Cleopatra and Ptolemy Soter, Porphyrius, ap. Scalig. and this year was called the eleventh of Cleopatra, and eighth of Ptolemy Alexander; as Alexander counted his years from the time when he was sent with the title of king to Cyprus. As he was, like his brother, under the guidance

of his mother, he was like him in the hieroglyphical inscriptions called mother-loving.

Josephus,

Antiq.

(11) While the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria were alike weakened by civil wars, and by the vices of their kings, Judæa, as we have seen, had risen under the wise government of the Maccabees to the rank of an independent state; and latterly Aristobulus, the eldest son xiii. 20. of Hyrcanus, and afterwards Alexander Jannæus, his second son, had made themselves kings. But Gaza, Ptolemais, and some other cities, bravely refused to part with their liberty, and sent to Lathyrus, then king of Cyprus, for help. This was not, however, done without many misgivings; for some were wise enough to see that, if Lathyrus helped them, Cleopatra would, on the other hand, help their king Jannæus; and when Lathyrus landed at Sicaminos with thirty thousand men, the citizens of Ptolemais refused even to listen to a message from him.

Josephus,

xiii. 21.

(12) The city of Gaza then eagerly sent for the help which the city of Ptolemais refused. Lathyrus drove back Jannæus, and marched upon Asochis, a city of Galilee, where he scaled the walls on the sabbath-day, and took ten thousand prisoners, and a large booty. He then sat Antiq. down before the city of Saphoris, but left it on hearing that Jannæus was marching against him on the other side of the Jordan, at the head of a force larger than his own. He crossed the river in face of the Jewish army, and routed it with great slaughter. The Jewish historian adds, that between thirty and fifty thousand men were slain upon the field of battle, and that the women and children of the neighbouring villages were cruelly put to death.

(13) Cleopatra now began to fear that her son Lathyrus would soon make himself too powerful, if not checked in his career of success, and that he might be able to march upon Egypt. She therefore mustered her forces, and put them under the command of Chelcias and Ananias, her Jewish generals. She sent her treasure, her will, and the children of Alexander, to the island of Cos, as a place of safety, and then marched with the army into Palestine, having sent forward her son Alexander with the fleet. By this movement Lathyrus was unable to keep his ground in Cole-Syria, and he took the bold step of marching towards Egypt. But he

was quickly followed by Chelcias, and his army was routed, though Chelcias lost his life in the battle. Cleopatra, after taking Ptolemais, sent part of her army to help that which had been led by Chelcias; and Lathyrus was forced to shut himself up in Gaza. Soon after this the campaign ended, by Lathyrus returning to his own kingdom of Cyprus, and Cleopatra to Egypt.

(14) On this success, Cleopatra was advised to seize upon the throne of Jannæus, and again to add to Egypt the provinces of Palestine and Cole-Syria, which had so long made part of the kingdom of her forefathers. We may be quite sure that this cruel overbearing woman, who had never yet been guided by any feeling of right or dislike for war, did not yield to the reasons of her general Ananias through any kind feeling towards his countrymen; but the Jews of Lower Egypt were too strong to be treated with slight; it was by the help of the Jews that Cleopatra had driven her son Lathyrus out of Egypt; they formed a large part of the Egyptian armies, which were no longer even commanded by Greeks; and it must have been by these clear and unanswerable reasons that Ananias was able to turn the queen from the thoughts of this conquest, and to renew the league between Egypt and Judæa.

4.

(15) Cleopatra, however, was still afraid that Lathyrus would be helped by his friend, Antiochus Cyzicenus, Justinus, to conquer Egypt, and she therefore kept up the lib. xxxix. quarrel between the brothers by again sending troops to help Antiochus Grypus; and lastly, she gave him in marriage her daughter Selene, whom she had before forced upon Lathyrus. She then sent an army against Cyprus; and Lathyrus was beaten and forced to fly from the island. Cleopatra then put to death the general because he had allowed her son to escape alive.

B.C. 97.

(16) In the middle of this reign died Ptolemy Apion, king of Cyrene. He was the half-brother of Livy, Lathyrus and Alexander, and having been made Epit. Ixx. king of Cyrene by his father, Euergetes II., he had there reigned quietly for twenty years. Being between Egypt and Carthage, then called the Roman province of Africa, and having no army which he could lead against the Roman legions, he had placed himself under the guardianship

of Rome; he had bought a truce during his lifetime, by making the Roman people his heirs in his will, so that on his death they were to have his kingdom. Cyrene had been part of Egypt for above two hundred years, and was usually governed by a younger son or brother of the king. But on the death of Ptolemy Apion, the Roman senate, who had latterly been grasping at everything within their reach, claimed his kingdom as their inheritance, and in the flattering language of their decree by which the country was enslaved, they declared Cyrene free; and from that time forward it was little better than a province of Rome.

Justinus,

(17) Ptolemy Alexander, who had been a mere tool in the hands of his mother, was at last tired of his gilded lib. xxxix. chains; but he saw no means of throwing them off, 4. or of gaining that power in the state which his birth and title, and the age which he had then reached, ought to have given him. The army was in favour of his mother, and an unsuccessful effort would certainly have been punished with death; so he took perhaps the only path open to him, he left Egypt by stealth, and chose rather to quit his throne and palace than to live surrounded by the creatures of his mother, and in daily fear for his life.

(18) Cleopatra might well doubt whether she could keep her throne against both her sons, and she therefore sent messengers with fair promises to Alexander, to ask him to return to Egypt. But he knew his mother too well ever again to trust himself in her hands; and while she was taking steps to have him put to death on his return, he formed a plot against her life by letters. In this double game Alexander had the advantage of his mother; her character was so well known that he needed not to be told of what was going on; while she perhaps thought that the son, whom she had so long ruled as a child, would not dare to act as a man. Alexander's plot was of the two Porphyrius, the best laid, and on his reaching Egypt his mother ap. Scalig. was put to death. Thus died, by the orders of her favourite son, after a reign of twenty-eight years, this wicked woman, who had married the husband of her mother, who had made her daughters marry and leave their husbands at her pleasure, who had made war upon one son, and had plotted the death of the other.

5.

(19) But Alexander did not long enjoy the fruits of his murder. The next year the Alexandrians rose Justinus, against him in a fury. He was hated not so much lib. xxxix. perhaps for the murder of his mother, as for the cruelties which he had been guilty of, or at least had to bear the blame of, while he reigned with her. His own soldiers turned against him, and he was forced Porphyrius, ap. Scalig. to seek his safety by flying on board a vessel in the harbour, and he left Egypt with his wife and daughter. He was followed by a fleet under the command of Tyrrhus, but he reached Myræ, a city of Lycia, in safety; and afterwards, in crossing over to Cyprus, he was met by an Egyptian fleet under Chæreas, and killed in battle.

B.C. 87.

(20) Though others may have been guilty of more crimes, Alexander had perhaps the fewest good qualities of any of the family of the Lagida. During his idle reign of twenty years, in which the crimes ought in fairness to be laid chiefly to his mother, he was wholly given up to the lowest and worst of pleasures, by which his mind and body Athenæus,

were alike ruined. He was so bloated with vice

and disease that he seldom walked without crutches; but at his feasts he could leap from his raised couch, and dance with naked feet upon the floor with the companions of his vices. He was blinded by flattery, ruined by debauchery, and hated by the people.

(21) His coins are not easily known from those of the other kings, which also bore the name of "Ptolemy the king" round the eagle. Some of the coins of his Visconti, mother have the same words round the eagle on the one side, while on the other is her head, with a helmet formed

Icon. Grec.