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45.

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Consulship

of C. So

U. C.

But the two Consuls, C. Sosius and Cn. Domitius, were friends of Antonius, and as the Triumvirate was now legally at an end, the Consular power might seem entitled to resume its ancient ascendency. Accordingly, on the very first day of the year,† C. Sosius ius and Cn. delivered a speech full of the praises of Antonius, and Domitius. of invective against Augustus; and he would have immediately proceeded to employ the authority of his 721. office in some measure adverse to the interests of the latter, had not Nonius Balbus, one of the Tribunes, interposed with his negative. But this revival of the legal Government of the Commonwealth was, of all things, most unwelcome to Augustus; he returned, therefore, speedily to Rome, (for he had absented himself purposely from the meeting of the Senate on the first of January,) assembled the Senate, and surrounding his person with a military force, and with a multitude of his partisans, armed, it is said, with concealed daggers, he took his seat on the Curule chair, which he was used to occupy, between the chairs of the Consuls, and after having spoken at some length in defence of himself, he uttered a strong invective, in his turn, against Sosius and Antonius. The actual presence of his soldiers intimated sufficiently that "the Master of the Legions" was not a person with whom it was safe to argue; no one therefore answered him, and he summoned the Senate to meet again on a fixed day, when he assured them that he would produce written proofs of the unworthiness of AntoThe Con- nius. Meanwhile the Consuls, followed by a consider suls leave able number of Senators, left the Capital privately, and repaired to Antonius; while Augustus, to avoid the odium which their retirement cast upon him, pretended that he had himself allowed them freely to withdraw, and that he would not oppose the departure of any other friends of Antonius, who might wish, in like manner, to join him. It appears that Antonius had already begun to prepare for war; and that both Cleopatra and himself were about this time in Asia Minor, while their land and sea forces were gathering together in the same quarter and in the Egean. Here he heard of the proceedings which were going on against him at Rome, § of the subsequent meeting of the Senate which took place after the departure of the Consuls, and of the language which Augustus used both in speaking and writing concerning him. Upon this he assembled a sort of counter Senate, consisting of the numerous Senators who had repaired to him intonius from Rome. After much debate, it was resolved that enounces the war should be undertaken; and Antonius sent a formal divorce to Octavia, exactly as Augustus had divorced his first wife, Clodia, on the occasion of his quarrel with her mother Fulvia and with L. Antonius. But the notoriety of the connection of Antonius with ctavia. Cleopatra, made it appear that Octavia was rather

Rome and

repair to Antonius.

is connec

ion with

gustus ad di

orces

sacrificed to his passion for the Egyptian Queen, than Caius Octavius Cæsar divorced on account of his quarrel with her brother; Augustus. and this also was used as a topic on which to excite the national pride of the Romans, by representing a noble Roman lady as dishonoured and despised by her husband, in order to gratify the jealousy of his barbarian paramour.

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A. C.

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contents of

This feeling, indeed, was not confined to the Romans of the Capital; even the officers of Antonius were disgusted at the evident influence which Cleopatra exercised over him, and against which their wisest counsels were sure to be offered ineffectually. They might conjecture too, from the infatuation of their General, the probable result of the war; and thus L. Plancus,* who had formerly made so many professions of fidelity to the old Constitution, and had afterwards joined the Triumvirs, and procured from them the murder of his own brother as one of the rewards of his treason, now deserted the cause of Antonius. Accompanied He is deserted by by his nephew, M. Titius, the author of the death of L. Plancus Sex. Pompeius,† he hastened to Rome to transfer his and M. services to Augustus. Plancus and Titius had been Titius. deeply trusted by Antonius, and they now betrayed to his enemy every secret of which they were in possession. Amongst the rest they intimated to him They bethe contents of the Will of Antonius, which they had tray the themselves attested; and informed him in whose care it his Will to was deposited. Augustus immediately got this docu- Augustus, ment into his power; and, with shameless baseness, who pubbroke open the seals, and read the contents of it pub- lishes them licly, first to the Senate, and afterwards to the assembly Senate and of the People. The clause in it, which especially in- People. duced Augustus to commit this act, was one in which Antonius desired that his body might, after his death, be carried to Alexandria, and there buried by the side of Cleopatra. This proof of his romantic passion for a foreigner, seemed, in the eyes of the Romans, to attest his utter degeneracy, and induced the populace, at least, to credit the inventions of his enemies, who asserted that it was his intention, if victorious in the approaching contest, to give up Rome to the dominion of Cleopatra, and to transfer the seat of Empire from the banks of the Tiber to those of the Nile. It is clear, from the language of those poets, who wrote under the patronage of Augustus,§ that this was the light in which the war was industriously represented; that every effort was made to give it the character of a contest with a foreign enemy; and to array on the side of Augustus the national pride and jealousy of

before the

From U. C.

709.

to 722.

Biography. the people of Rome. Nor were these arts unsuccessful; insomuch, that the infamy of stealing and divulging the contents of a Will was forgotten, in the indignation felt by the Romans, at the preference shown by Antonius to Egypt, rather than to his own country; and it is said, that the Senate, as soon as they had heard the Will read, decreed that Antonius should be deprived of the Consulship to which he was to have succeeded in the following year,* and of all his other authority as an officer of the Roman Commonwealth. His adherents moreover were encouraged to desert him, by promises of indemnity and honours.

A. C.

45.

to 32. DeclaraAt the same time war was declared against Cleotion of war against patra, and Augustus discharged the office of Fecialis Cleopatra, or Herald, in going through all the usual ceremonies in denouncing it. But for a contest of this magnitude, immense resources were requisite, and accordingly Augustus imposed an income tax of twenty-five per cent. on all the free citizens who possessed any land in Italy; and a tax upon capital at the rate of 12. 10s. per cent. on all freedmen who were worth fifty thousand denarü, or about £1614. The inequality of these burdens was greatly resented by the freedmen; and numerous disturbances were the consequence,

* Dion Cassius, lib. 1. p. 421.

Ibid. p. 424. Plutarch, in Antonio, c. 58.

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insomuch, that it was supposed that the appearance of Caius OctaAntonius in Italy at that moment, would have ensured vius Cæsar him a complete victory over his rival. But whether Augustus. Antonius was not sufficiently advanced in his preparations to risk such an attempt, or whether there was any failure of enterprise on his part, it is certain that Augustus was suffered to crush the discontents of Italy without any interruption. His fleet was assembled in the neighbourhood of Brundusium,* and threatened the opposite coast of Epirus, about the autumn of the year 722; and Antonius judging it too late in the season to commence any active operations, fell back from Corcyra, to which place he had advanced in the hope of carrying the war into Italy be. fore his adversary was ready to meet him, and passed the winter at Patræ, on the north-western coast of Peloponnesus. And thus having brought the two parties to the eve of the decisive struggle, we shall here pause in our narrative; and referring our readers to the History of Egypt for the details of the Actian war, we shall hereafter resume the story of Augustus at the period when his ambition was fully gratified, and he was become the sole Sovereign of the Roman Empire.

* Dion Cassius, p. 424.

32.

3681.

History. In our IXth volume (p. 213) we have brought down the History of Egypt to the accession of the Greek From dynasty, in the person of Ptolemy the First, who is A. M. usually surnamed Soter; and in our account of the military exploits of "Alexander's Successors," we have supplied to our readers an outline of the more B. C. important occurrences which respected that country, 323. considered as a part of the Macedonian Empire. It is our intention to give, in the present Chapter, a rapid sketch of the internal History of Egypt during the reigns of the Grecian Kings; beginning with the renowned son of Lagus, whose name has been already mentioned, and ending with Cleopatra, whose imprudent conduct hastened the downfall of the Royal house, and the final subjugation of the Egyptian people.

to

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3974.

B. C.

30.

Søter.

323.

Accession The Province of Egypt having upon the death of of Ptolemy Alexander the Great, been assigned to Ptolemy, he proceeded thither without delay to assume the direcB. C. tion of its affairs. Cleomenes, an officer who had enjoyed the confidence of the Macedonian Prince, was already in that country, charged with the superintendence of its finances, and appointed to collect that portion of its revenue which the Egyptians had bound themselves to pay to their conquerors as the price of their security; and it would appear that the Council of Generals who sanctioned the division of their late master's territories, had resolved that this faithful envoy should continue to exercise his wonted authority, and divide the cares of administration with the new Governor. But Ptolemy, whose ambition very soon aspired to the Sovereignty of Egypt, determined to have no rival. He speedily procured the murder of Cleomenes; seized upon the Treasury at Alexandria, which contained eight thousand talents; added to his army, and increased the number of his ships; and in a word left no means unemployed whereby he might strengthen his own interests, and defeat the designs of his enemies. He laboured, at the same time, to gain the affections of the natives, and to secure their cooperation in his great designs and anticipating the dissensions that were about to burst out among his military colleagues in the other Provinces, he fortified his dominions so strongly against every species of assault from abroad, that, when the eventful struggle did take place among the Successors of Alexander, Egypt alone remained almost entirely unmoved by

those tremendous convulsions which shook every other part of the Macedonian Empire to its very centre.*

We must refer the reader to our History of AEXANDER'S SUCCESSORS for an account of the wars which ensued, first between Perdiccas and Ptolemy, and afterwards between the latter and Antigonus. Twenty years had passed away amidst the labours of the camp, or in the uncertain tranquillity of an occasional truce, until at length the victory obtained at Ipsus confirmed so completely the power of the Egyptian ruler, that he was enabled thenceforward to devote a large share of his attention to the internal improvement of his country, and to the furtherance of Learning and of the Arts.

It has been said of Ptolemy that, like the founder of the Roman Empire, he exhibited at different periods of his life a remarkable diversity of character. As long as his fortunes were suspended on the casualties of war, or were menaced by the intrigues of his enemies, he showed himself very little scrupulous as to the means which he employed to ensure success: but no sooner was his Kingdom placed on a firm basis, by the defeat of Antigonus, and by the acquisition of such frontier Provinces as he deemed necessary to its defence, than he laid aside the stern policy which had theretofore distinguished his measures, and turned all his thoughts to the happiness of the people, and to the decoration of his Capital.†

It may seem somewhat paradoxical to observe, that these benevolent and liberal views on the part of Ptolemy were greatly promoted by the unsettled state of the neighbouring nations. But this is not the only occasion on which a wise and moderate Government has profited by the anarchy of surrounding States. Thousands of ingenious persons who were driven from home by the violence of war, or by the dread of domestic insurrection, found an asylum in Egypt, whither they carried with them the Arts which promote the general wealth of every community, and the love of Literature and Science, which are the most lasting basis of National Glory.

History.

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B. C. 323 to

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3974.

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seum ;

In connection with the Alexandrian Library, the King of Egypt was in like manner pleased to found a Muof which the main object appears to have been to supply to studious men at once the means and the encouragement to follow out their several pursuits. The members lived together and partook in common of the bounty of the Sovereign: who, in addition to the munificence of a liberal establishment, stimulated their researches by his example; animated their discussions by listening to their arguments, or by taking a side in their philosophical hypotheses; creating respect for their association by condescending to share in its labours, and to accept of its honours.†

We must rest satisfied with referring the reader to Eusebius, Strabo, and Quintilian, for a list of the Poets and Dramatists who adorned the Court of Ptolemy. It is of more consequence to mention that this renowned Prince established at Alexandria four separate Schools for the advancement of Science. The School of first of these was the School of Critics and ComCriticism. mentators; which numbered among its members the celebrated names of Eratosthenes, Aristophanes, Aristarchus, Apollodorus, and Aristodemus, and which continued to shed a light more or less constant on the annals of literature, from the period now under consideration down to the full ascendancy of Roman power in the reign of Augustus.

Of Mathematics.

Mathematics occupied the attention of the second School founded by Ptolemy. This important Science had made considerable progress at Athens, in the Academy of Plato, whose pupils carried the love and reputation of their favourite study into all the principal cities of Greece. The Alexandrian School has transmitted to posterity, in the works of Euclid, Apollonius, and Archimedes, the most satisfactory evidence of the singular success with which the abstract truths of Geometry had been pursued by the older Philosophers of Attica: accompanied, at

From A. M. 3681.

the same time, with a pleasing and most convincing Egypt. proof, that the patronage of the Egyptian King had not failed to accomplish its object. The ingenuity of modern times has added nothing to the elementary principles of Euclid; and the most successful experimenters in the most improved of the physical sciences have despaired of equalling the splendid results which were effected by the apparatus of Archimedes.*

R. C.
323.

to
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30.

The third School was devoted to the study of practical Astronomy. Of the labours of this distinguished association we have given a full account in another place, and narrated how the sages of Alexandria undertook to calculate the distances and magnitudes of the planets, the rate of their movements, and to Of Astrotrace the causes, and estimate the quantity of that nomy. apparent irregularity, which shows itself in the revolution of all the heavenly bodies. Timocharis and Aristillus first began to collect those valuable observations which were afterwards so much increased, and so ably employed by Aristarchus of Samos, and Hipparchus of Nicæa, and on which was ultimately founded the reformation of the Roman Calendar under the auspices of Julius Cæsar.†

The School of Medicine, which was the last of the Of Medifour institutions established by the King of Egypt, cine. proved of great advantage to his people. By an indulgence extremely rare in that age, the teachers of Anatomy were allowed to illustrate their lectures by the dissection of human bodies. Tertullian, in his work De Animá, assures us that Herophilus, one of the first Professors in the Alexandrian School, dissected six hundred men, in order to make himself fully acquainted with the structure and offices of the various parts of the human frame. He showed his contempt for mankind, says the venerable Father, by the means which he used to obtain a complete knowledge of their physical nature. "Herophilus ille medicus-qui hominem odüit ut nósset."‡

Though Alexandria was afterwards celebrated for Philosothe zeal with which her Philosophers recommended phical the doctrines of Plato, the Royal patronage was not liberality a confined to the tenets of that eloquent writer. On the Ptolemy. contrary, he himself appears to have inclined to the opinions of Aristotle; whilst there is no doubt that Demetrius Phalereus, his favourite Minister and literary confidant, had openly avowed his preference for the dogmas of the latter School. But whether Platonists, or Pythagoreans, or Peripatetics, all men of ingenuity and research found a safe retreat and a liberal protection at the Court of Ptolemy. He was too much a lover of Learning to yield a bigoted attachment to any one sect; and he was much more desirous to extend among his subjects the general principles of Science, than to indulge his own partiality in favour of any particular system of opinions.§

The example of Ptolemy himself would stimulate the industry of the historian. His work is unfortunately lost to Literature; but we learn from the narrative of Arrian, that the favourite General of Alexander was not less distinguished by his abilities

Pappus, Collec. Math. lib. vii. Diogenes Laertius. Proclus. Euclid, lib. ii. c. 4. Philopon. Commentar. in Analyt. Poster. Valerius Maximus, lib. viii. c. 12.

+Ptolemy, Syntag. Mag. lib. vi. c. 3. Celsus, in Præf. Fulgen.

See Galen, ut supra.

§ Diogenes Laertius, in Pythag. Athenæus, lib. iv.

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andria.

We reserve for the article EGYPT, in the MISCELLANEOUS DIVISION of our Work, an account of the improvements which the Greek Capital of that ancient kingdom owed to Ptolemy Soter, and to his son, Philadelphus. The Arts as well as the Sciences had sought a refuge in the enlightened society of Alexandria; and they never fail to repay the protection under which they are permitted to flourish. The advanced state of Egypt in regard to the fine Arts in particular, Coronation received a remarkable illustration in the Coronation of Ptolemy festival of the young Ptolemy, which was celebrated by the King two years before his death.

Philadel

phus.

B. C.

286.

This solemnity is said to have drawn to Alexandria crowds of strangers from the greater part of Asia. The native of India joined the mountaineer of Caucasus and the swarthy inhabitant of Ethiopia, to witness the magnificence of the Egyptian Princes. The pavilion in which the Ptolemies received the more illustrious of the visitors, was elevated on pillars seventy-five feet high; imitating in their form the elegance of the palm tree and the fantastic thyrsus of Bacchus. Its centre was overshadowed by a rich canopy of scarlet; the floor was adorned with the carpets of Babylon or of Persia. The hall exhibited a hundred marble figures of different kinds of animals, and a great variety of the most choice paintings of the Sicyonian masters. Two golden eagles, each above twenty feet in height, towered on the summit of this splendid edifice. It would be tedious to describe the tripods, the vases, the couches, and tables, formed of gold, and adorned with precious stones; the materials alone are said to have exceeded in value the amount of two millions sterling.

In the following details, which are translated from Callixenus of Rhodes, we use the version of Dr. Gillies. In the procession which ensued, says the Rhodian, and which lasted from morning till sun-set, the superstition of Greece was recommended to the Egyptians and Asiatics by whatever could please the fancy or soothe the senses. The image of each divinity, always of a colossal magnitude, was accompanied by his emblems, his altar, and his car of triumph: while the dramatic representation of his attendants, or paintings nearly as impressive, exhibited the labours which he had encountered, and the benefits which he had conferred. The pomp of Bacchus is described circumstantially, and this part may help the imagination to grasp the magnificence of the whole. His car, crowned with vines and ivy, was preceded and followed by troops of Satyrs, mimics, and Priests, with all the inferior votaries of that jolly God. Golden censers diffused around the most precious perfumes. Behind the image of the God followed that of his nurse Nysa; at first reclined in her chariot, but afterwards rising spontaneously and pouring forth libations of milk. Wine distilled from innumerable fountains, and particularly from a movable wine-press drawn by three hundred men, and trodden by sixty satyrs, who enlivened their work by chanting the Vintage hymn.

This procession, however, was only a prelude to one still more extraordinary, in which Bacchus appeared in his character of an Eastern conqueror; represented by an idol eighteen feet high mounted on an elephant, attended by five hundred Nymphs in purple tissues, and a proportional number of Satyrs completely armed. Twenty elephants adorned the most splendid of Roman triumphs, that of the Emperor Aurelian; but twenty-four chariots, each drawn by four of these huge animals, appeared in one scene of this gorgeous procession; in which the Ptolemies had united the rarest objects in nature with the most exquisite productions of art. It is sufficient to mention eight hundred waggons laden with spices and perfumes; Negroes bearing ebony, ivory, and gold; the natives of Hindústán displaying in captivity the elegant clothes and rich jewels of their country; birds of various plumage hovering round artificial grottoes; innumerable yokes of fierce panthers and beautiful zebras ; white oxen from India; the camelopard and rhinoceros from Ethiopia; Numidian lions and savage tigers, with Hyrcanian and Molossian dogs, rivalling in ferocity and strength those tyrants of the desert. The pageant of Bacchus was followed by that of the other Divinities. Alexander the Great, alone more Godlike than the whole hierarchy, came the last of all. His statue was of pure gold, and his car was drawn by elephants of unrivalled magnitude. Pallas and Victory attended their favourite hero.*

We have introduced this abridgement of a description, the full details of which would have fatigued the patience of the reader, in order to give some idea of the costly magnificence which illustrated the Court of the first Ptolemies, and thereby to afford the means of judging as to the condition of the Arts which ministered to that Royal display. The paintings and sculptures, which mingled with the other ornaments of this gorgeous solemnity, certainly justify the inference that coarser and more useful productions of the Arts were likewise at that period sufficiently abundant in Egypt. The perfumes, too, and the multitude of other foreign commodities which were lavished during the procession and entertainments, prove the extensive commerce which had already rewarded the wise policy of Alexander and his first Successor. In short, the Coronation festival of Ptolemy affords the most satisfactory proof that Egypt was, at the accession of Philadelphus, in a state of great prosperity; powerful in its natural resources, enriched by trade, adorned by the Arts, and secured in all its possessions by able councillors and by numerous fleets and armies.

Egypt.

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B. C. 323. to A. M. 3974.

B. C. 30.

There is one proceeding in the reign of this sagacious Removal of Prince, for which we find it somewhat difficult to the image of Serapis account, particularly when invested with the im- from portance which he chose to attach to it. We allude to Pontus to the removal of the image of Serapis from Pontus to Alexandria Alexandria; a measure which was preceded by more negociation, and accomplished with greater solemnity, than the transference of all the States which arms or Treaties had added to the Egyptian dominions. Tacitus in his History deigns to take notice of this event, and to ascribe the conduct of Ptolemy to a supernatural cause. The God appeared to him in a dream, and exhorted him to obtain from the King of Sinope the sacred emblem under which he was worshipped in

Callixen. Rhod. in Athenæo.