owards us; for the third of those Ptolemies, who was
called Euergetes, when he had gotten possession of all Syria by force,
did not offer his thank-offerings to the Egyptian gods for his victory,
but came to Jerusalem, and according to our own laws offered many
sacrifices to God, and dedicated to him such gifts as were suitable to
such a victory: and as for Ptolemy Philometer and his wife Cleopatra,
they committed their whole kingdom to the Jews, when Onias and
Dositheus, both Jews, whose names are laughed at by Apion, were the
generals of their whole army. But certainly, instead of reproaching
them, he ought to admire their actions, and return them thanks for
saving Alexandria, whose citizen he pretends to be; for when these
Alexandrians were making war with Cleopatra the queen, and were in
danger of being utterly ruined, these Jews brought them to terms of
agreement, and freed them from the miseries of a civil war. "But then
[says Apion] Onias brought a small army afterward upon the city at the
time when Thorruns the Roman ambassador was there present." Yes, do I
venture to say, and that he did rightly and very justly in so doing;
for that Ptolemy who was called Physco, upon the death of his brother
Philometer, came from Cyrene, and would have ejected Cleopatra as well
as her sons out of their kingdom, that he might obtain it for himself
unjustly. [5] For this cause then it was that Onias undertook a war
against him on Cleopatra's account; nor would he desert that trust the
royal family had reposed in him in their distress. Accordingly, God gave
a remarkable attestation to his righteous procedure; for when Ptolemy
Physco [6] had the presumption to fight against Onias's army, and had
caught all the Jews that were in the city [Alexandria], with their
children and wives, and exposed them naked and in bonds to his
elephants, that they might be trodden upon and destroyed, and when
he had made those elephants drunk for that purpose, the event proved
contrary to his preparations; for these elephants left the Jews who were
exposed to them, and fell violently upon Physco's friends, and slew
a great number of them; nay, after this Ptolemy saw a terrible ghost,
which prohibited his hurting those men; his very concubine, whom
he loved so well, [some call her Ithaca, and others Irene,] making
supplication to him, that he would not perpetrate so great a wickedness.
So he complied with her request, and repented of what he either had