gn died Ptolemy Apion, King of Cyrene. He was
the half-brother of Lathyrus and Alexander, and, having been made King
of Cyrene by his father Euergetes II., he had there reigned quietly for
twenty years. Being between Egypt and Carthage, then called the Roman
province of Africa, and having no army which he could lead against the
Roman legions, he had placed himself under the guardianship of Rome; he
had bought a truce during his lifetime, by making the Roman people his
heirs in his will, so that on his death they were to have his kingdom.
Cyrene had been part of Egypt for above two hundred years, and was
usually governed by a younger son or brother of the king. But on the
death of Ptolemy Apion, the Roman senate, who had latterly been
grasping at everything within their reach, claimed his kingdom as their
inheritance, and in the flattering language of their decree by which the
country was enslaved, they declared Cyrene free. From that time forward
it was practically a province of Rome.

Ptolemy Alexander, who had been a mere tool in the hands of his mother,
was at last tired of his gilded chains; but he saw no means of throwing
them off, or of gaining that power in the state which his birth and
title, and the age which he had then reached, ought to have given him.
The army was in favour of his mother, and an unsuccessful effort would
certainly have been punished with death; so he took perhaps the only
path open to him: he left Egypt by stealth, and chose rather to quit his
throne and palace than to live surrounded by the creatures of his mother
and in daily fear for his life. Cleopatra might well doubt whether she
could keep her throne against both her sons, and she therefore sent
messengers with fair promises to Alexander, to ask him to return to
Egypt. But he knew his mother too well ever again to trust himself in
her hands; and while she was taking steps to have him put to death on
his return, he formed a plot against her life by letters. In this double
game Alexander had the advantage of his mother; her character was so
well known that he needed not to be told of what was going on; while she
perhaps thought that the son whom she had so long ruled as a child would
not dare to act as a man. Alexander's plot was of the two the best laid,
and on his reaching Egypt his mother was put to death.

But Alexander did not long enjoy the fruits of his murder. The next year
the Alexandrians rose against him in a fury. He was hate