ater generations. As she was childless and was not
likely to have any heirs of her own, Arsinoe adopted her predecessor's
children; and being her husband's sister, she did not disturb him in the
many amours which consumed so large a part of his time.

Arsinoe was a woman of brilliant intellectual gifts, and the union
between her and Philadelphus seems to have been of the intellectual and
spiritual kind. She proved to be an able helper in all the affairs of
government; she assisted him in the financial administration and
particularly in foreign affairs; she encouraged him in his endeavor to
make Alexandria the centre of letters and art, and her name is coupled
with his in all the great events of this period. The two were deified,
and statues were erected to them as Gods Adelphi. The marriage between
brother and sister was quite in accord with Egyptian notions, and in the
public records, for ages past, the queen had been called _sister_ of the
king, whether she was really so or not. The marriage was compared by
court poets with that of Zeus and Hera; and the couple were frequently
lauded by them for their many achievements and the splendor of their
court.

The reign of Philadelphus and Arsinoe was the brilliant epoch of
Alexandrian literature, and we may well pause at this point to see what
glimpses the poets of Alexandria give us into the feminine life of the
day. Theocritus, the famous pastoral poet, lays the scene of his
fifteenth idyl in Alexandria, and presents one of the most charming bits
of feminine life that literature affords us. The feast of Adonis,
described in an earlier chapter, was about to be celebrated at the
palace of King Ptolemy, and two ladies of Alexandria had agreed to go
together to see the image of Adonis which Queen Arsinoe "had decorated
with great magnificence, and to hear a celebrated prima donna sing the
Adonis song." The household details, the toilettes, the complaints of
the two cronies about their husbands, the admiration of a new dress and
its cost, the rough treatment of an unknown servant; then the crowd in
the streets, the terrors of the passing cavalry, the squeeze at the
entrance, the saucy rejoinder to a stranger who protests against their
incessant jabber--these and many other comic and picturesque details
have made this poem the best known among the so-called _Idyls_, and
indicate that the everyday life of woman in Ptolemaic Alexandria was
much the same as her life to-day. Gorgo,