The closing years of his reign were divided between his mistresses and the gout. During a respite from the latter he looked out of his palace window on some public holiday, and saw beneath him the natives picnicking on the sand, as they do at the feast of Shem-el-Nessem to-day. They were obscure, they were happy. “Why can I not be like them?” sighed the old king, and burst into tears. His reign had been imposing rather than beautiful and had initiated little in Alexandrian civilization beyond the somewhat equivocal item of a mystic marriage. He could endow and patronise. But, unlike Alexander, unlike his father, he could not create. He completed what they had laid down, and appropriated the praise. Ptolemy Euergetes (Well-doer) was the son of Philadelphus by his first wife. In character he resembled his grandfather. He was a sensible and successful soldier, with a taste for science. By marrying his cousin Berenice, he secured Cyrene which had lapsed—Berenice the most highly praised of all the Ptolemaic Queens, though we know nothing of her character. In their reign the power of Egypt and the splendour of Alexandria came to their height. It is now time to examine that splendour. One hundred years have passed since Alexander laid the foundations. What has been built upon them? COINS OF FIRST THREE PTOLEMIES: Museum, Room 3. INSCRIPTIONS: Museum, Rooms 6, 22. PTOLEMY EUERGETES, STATUES: Museum, Room 12. BERENICE, STATUES: Museum, Rooms 4, 12. THE PTOLEMAIC CITY. (_See Map of Ancient City p._ 98). The following were the most important buildings in the Ptolemaic city. (i). THE LIGHTHOUSE. The Egyptian coast, being mainly alluvial, is difficult to sight from the sea. It was therefore imperative to indicate, by some great monument, where the new city stood. It was desirable too to provide a guide for sailors through the limestone reefs that line the shore. For these reasons the Ptolemies built a lighthouse over four hundred feet high on the Eastern end of Pharos Island (present Fort Kait Bey). Full details are given later (p. 132); here it is enough to note that the Pharos (as it was called) was the greatest practical achievement of the Alexandrian mind and the outward expression of the mathematical studies carried on in the Mouseion; Sostratus, its architect, was contemporary with Eratosthenes and Euclid.