b--particularly here in
Alexandria.

"Envy alone can reproach them for their industry and enterprise, for the
activity of the Hellenes has improved upon the example set by them and
their Phoenician kindred.

"They thrive best in peaceful times, and since the world runs more
quietly here, under my brother and sister, than under me, they attach
themselves to them, lend my brother money, and supply my sister with cut
stones, sapphires and emeralds, selling fine stuffs and other woman's
gear for a scrap of written papyrus, which will soon be of no more value
than the feather which falls from the wing of that green screaming bird
on the perch yonder.

"It is incomprehensible to me that so keen a people cannot perceive
that there is nothing permanent but change, nothing so certain as that
nothing is certain; and that they therefore should regard their god as
the one only god, their own doctrine as absolutely and eternally true,
and that they contemn what other peoples believe.

"These darkened views make fools of them, but certainly good soldiers
too--perhaps by reason indeed of this very exalted self-consciousness
and their firm reliance on their supreme god."

"Yes, they certainly are," assented Hierax. "But they serve your brother
more willingly, and at a lower price, than us."

"I will show them," cried the king, "that their taste is a perverted and
obnoxious one. I require of the priests that they should instruct the
people to be obedient, and to bear their privations patiently; but the
Jews," and at these words his eyes rolled with an ominous glare, "the
Jews I will exterminate, when the time comes."

"That will be good for our treasury too," laughed Komanus.

"And for the temples in the country," added Euergetes, "for though I
seek to extirpate other foes I would rather win over the priests; and
I must try to win them if Philometor's kingdom falls into my hands,
for the Egyptians require that their king should be a god; and I cannot
arrive at the dignity of a real god, to whom my swarthy subjects will
pray with thorough satisfaction, and without making my life a burden to
me by continual revolts, unless I am raised to it by the suffrages of
the priests."

"And nevertheless," replied Hierax, who was the only one of Euergetes'
dependents, who dared to contradict him on important questions,
"nevertheless this very day a grave demand is to be preferred on your
account to the high-priest of Serapis. You press for