A few years later Egypt welcomed the Macedonian Alexander as a deliverer, and recognised him as a god. The line of the Pharaohs, the incarnations of the Sun-god, had returned in him to the earth. It was not the first time that the Egyptian and the Greek had stood side by side against the common Persian foe. Greek troops had disputed the passage of Kambyses into Egypt. The first revolt of Egypt had saved Greece from the impending invasion of Darius, and postponed it to the reign of his feebler son, and during its second revolt Athenian ships had sailed up the Nile and assisted the Egyptians in the contest with the Persians. If Egypt could not be free, it was better that its master should be a Greek. Alexander was followed by the Ptolemies. They were the ablest of his successors, the earlier of them being equally great in war and in peace. Alexandria, founded by Alexander on the site of the village of Rakotis, became the commercial and literary centre of the world; thousands of books were collected in its Library, and learned professors lectured in the halls of its Museum. An elaborate fiscal system was devised and carefully superintended, and enormous revenues poured into the treasury of the king. As time passed on, the Ptolemies identified themselves more and more with their subjects; the temples were rebuilt or restored, and the Greek king assumed the attributes of a Pharaoh. The Jews flocked into the country, where special privileges were granted to them, and where many of them were raised to offices of state. A rival temple to that of Jerusalem was built at Onion near Heliopolis, the modern Tel el-Yahudîya, or "Mound of the Jews," and the books of the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek. A copy of the Septuagint, as the Greek translation was called, was needed for the Alexandrine Library. Egypt, once the house of bondage, thus became a second house of Israel. It gave the world a new version of the Hebrew Bible which largely influenced the writers of the New Testament; it gave it also a new Canon which was adopted by the early Christian Church. The prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled: "The Lord shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord."