names of the mistresses of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and that
a flock of pheasants was kept in the palace of Alexandria. He also
wrote a commentary on Homer, of which we know nothing. When busy
upon literature, he would allow his companions to argue with him till
midnight on a point of history or a verse of poetry; but not one of them
ever uttered a word against his tyranny, or argued in favour of a less
cruel treatment of his enemies.

In this reign the schools of Alexandria, though not holding the rank
which they had gained under Philadelphus, were still highly thought of.
The king still gave public salaries to the professors; and Panaretus,
who had been a pupil of the philosopher Arcesilaus, received the very
large sum of twelve talents, or ten thousand dollars a year. Sositheus
and his rival, the younger Homer, the tragic poets of this reign, have
even been called two of the Pleiades of Alexandria; but that was a
title given to many authors of very different times, and to some of
very little merit. Such indeed was the want of merit among the poets of
Alexandria that many of their names would have been unknown to posterity
had they not been saved in the pages of the critics and grammarians, and
pieced together by the skill of nineteenth century investigators.

[Illustration: 260.jpg TEMPLE OF KOM OMBO.]

But, unfortunately, the larger number of the men of letters had in the
late wars taken part with Philome-tor against the cruel and luxurious
Euergetes. Hence, when the streets of Alexandria were flowing with the
blood of those whom he called his enemies, crowds of learned men left
Egypt, and were driven to earn a livelihood by teaching in the cities
to which they then fled. They were all Greeks, and few of them had been
born in Alexandria. They had been brought there by the wealth of the
country and the favour of the sovereign; and they now withdrew when
these advantages were taken away from them. The isles and coasts of the
Mediterranean were so filled with grammarians, philosophers, geometers,
musicians, schoolmasters, painters, and physicians from Alexandria that
the cruelty of Euergetes II., like the taking of Constantinople by the
Turks, may be said to have spread learning by the ill-treatment of its
professors.

The city which was then rising highest in arts and letters was Pergamus
in Asia Minor, which, under Eumenes and Attalus, was almost taking the
place which Alexandria had before held. Its library already