nnibal, the great
master of that science. They saw that the phalanx could use its whole
strength only on a plain; that a wood, a bog, a hill, or a river were
difficulties which this close body of men could not always overcome. A
charge or a retreat equally lessened its force; the phalanx was meant to
stand the charge of others. The Romans, therefore, chose their own time
and their own ground; they loosened their ranks and widened their front,
avoided the charge, and attacked the Greeks at the side and in the rear;
and the fatal discovery was at last made that the Macedonian phalanx
was not unconquerable, and that closed ranks were only strong against
barbarians. This news must have been heard by every statesman of Egypt
and the East with alarm; the 'Romans were now their equals, and were
soon to be their masters.

But to return to Egypt. It was, as we have seen, a country governed by
men of a foreign race. Neither the poor who tilled the land, nor the
rich who owned the estates, had any share in the government. They had no
public duty except to pay taxes to their Greek masters, who walked among
them as superior beings, marked out for fitness to rule by greater skill
in the arts both of war and peace. The Greeks by their arms, or rather
by their military discipline, had enforced obedience for one hundred and
fifty years; and as they had at the same time checked lawless violence,
made life and property safe, and left industry to enjoy a large share of
its own earnings, this obedience had been for the most part granted to
them willingly. They had even trusted the Egyptians with arms. But none
are able to command unless they are at the same time able to obey. The
Alexandrians were now almost in rebellion against their young king
and his ministers; and the Greek government no longer gave the usual
advantages in return for the obedience which it tyrannically enforced.
Confusion increased each year during the childhood of the fifth Ptolemy,
to whom Alexandrian flattery gave the title of Epiphanes, or The
Illustrious. The Egyptian phalanx had in the last reign shown signs
of disobedience, and at length it broke out in open rebellion. The
discontented party strengthened themselves in the Busirite nome, in the
middle of the Delta, and fortified the city of Lycopolis against the
government; and a large supply of arms and warlike stores which
they there got together proved the length of time that they had been
preparing for resista