andria. It was earthly,
lifeless, and unpoetical, arising from the successful cultivation of
the physical sciences, not enough counteracted by the more ennobling
pursuits of poetry and the fine arts. Hence, while commerce and the arts
of production were carried to higher perfection than at any former
time, and science was made greatly to assist in the supply of our bodily
wants, the arts of civilisation, though by no means neglected, were
cultivated without any lofty aim, or any true knowledge of their
dignity.

[Illustration: 092.jpg THE CHARIOT OF ANTIPHILUS]

Antiphilus, who was born in Egypt and had studied painting under
Ctesidemus, rose to high rank as a painter in Alexandria. Among his
best-known pictures were the bearded Bacchus, the young Alexander, and
Hip-polytus, or rather his chariot-horses, frightened by the bull. His
boy, blowing up a fire with his mouth, was much praised for the mouth
of the boy, and for the light and shade of the room. His Ptolemy
hunting was also highly thought of. Antiphilus showed a mean jealousy
of Apelles, and accused him of joining in a plot against the king, for
which the painter narrowly escaped punishment; but Ptolemy, finding that
the charge was not true, sent Apelles a gift of one hundred talents to
make amends. The angry feelings of Apelles were by no means cooled by
this gift, but they boiled over in his great picture of Calumny. On the
right of the picture sat Ptolemy, holding out his hand to Calumny, who
was coming up to him. On each side of the king stood a woman who seemed
meant for Ignorance and Suspicion. Calumny was a beautiful maiden, but
with angry and deep-rooted malice in her face: in her left hand was a
lighted torch, and with her right she was dragging along by the hair
a young man, who was stretching forth his hands to heaven, and calling
upon the gods to bear witness that he was guiltless. Before her walked
Envy, a pale, hollow-eyed, diseased man, perhaps a portrait of
the accuser; and behind were two women, Craft and Deceit, who were
encouraging and supporting her. At a distance stood Repentance, in the
ragged, black garb of mourning, who was turning away her face for shame
as Truth came up to her.

Ptolemy Soter was plain in his manners, and scarcely surpassed his own
generals in the costliness of his way of life. He often dined and slept
at the houses of his friends; and his own house had so little of the
palace, that he borrowed dishes and tables of hi