ry there, because in Alexandria
the Egyptian element was too much overlaid by the Greek, and the
too splendid and important scenery and decorations might easily have
distracted the reader's attention from the dramatic interest of the
persons acting.

At that period of the Hellenic dominion which I have described, the
kings of Egypt were free to command in all that concerned the internal
affairs of their kingdom, but the rapidly-growing power of the Roman
Empire enabled her to check the extension of their dominion, just as she
chose.

Philometor himself had heartily promoted the immigration of Israelites
from Palestine, and under him the important Jewish community in
Alexandria acquired an influence almost greater than the Greek; and this
not only in the city but in the kingdom and over their royal protector,
who allowed them to build a temple to Jehovah on the shores of the
Nile, and in his own person assisted at the dogmatic discussions of the
Israelites educated in the Greek schools of the city. Euergetes II., a
highly gifted but vicious and violent man, was, on the contrary, just
as inimical to them; he persecuted them cruelly as soon as his brother's
death left him sole ruler over Egypt. His hand fell heavily even on
the members of the Great Academy--the Museum, as it was called--of
Alexandria, though he himself had been devoted to the grave labors of
science, and he compelled them to seek a new home. The exiled sons of
learning settled in various cities on the shores of the Mediterranean,
and thus contributed not a little to the diffusion of the intellectual
results of the labors in the Museum.

Aristarchus, the greatest of Philometor's learned contemporaries, has
reported for us a conversation in the king's palace at Memphis. The
verses about "the puny child of man," recited by Cleopatra in chapter
X., are not genuinely antique; but Friedrich Ritschl--the Aristarchus of
our own days, now dead--thought very highly of them and gave them to
me, some years ago, with several variations which had been added by an
anonymous hand, then still in the land of the living. I have added to
the first verse two of these, which, as I learned at the eleventh hour,
were composed by Herr H. L. von Held, who is now dead, and of whom
further particulars may be learned from Varnhagen's 'Biographisclaen
Denkmalen'. Vol. VII. I think the reader will thank me for directing
his attention to these charming lines and to the genius displaye