with herself in the kingdom her eldest son, Ptolemy Lathyrus, and they were jointly sovereigns of Egypt at the time when the pilgrimage of Helon is supposed to take place. Cleopatra, jealous of Lathyrus, whom she had been compelled to take as her partner in the regal power, instead of his younger brother Alexander, (Jos. Ant. xiii. 10. 4.) gave her whole confidence to Hilkias and Ananias, sons of that Onias, by whom the temple of Leontopolis was built, gave them the command of the army, and was guided in every thing by their advice. The attachment of the Jews appears to have been the great support of Cleopatra’s power, almost all the other persons whom she employed going over to the side of Ptolemy. Thus favoured by the ruling powers, the Jews seem to have increased in population and wealth, so as to form no inconsiderable proportion of the inhabitants of Alexandria. Τῆς τῶν Αλεξανδρέων πόλεως ἁφώριστο μέγα μέρος τῷ ἔθνει τουτῷ. Strabo ap. Jos. Ant. xiv. 7. 2. Philo, Leg. ad Caium, says they were μυριάδες πόλλαι. Besides the enjoyment of their own religion, they had their own Ethnarch, who administered justice among them, according to their own law; so that, according to Strabo, they formed a sort of independent community in the bosom of the state. (Jos. Ant. xix. 5. 2.) It seemed desirable to present the reader with this connected view of the origin and state of the Jews in Egypt, as it is disclosed only gradually, and by allusion, in the work itself. Footnote 133: A tale, not very credible, is related by the author of what is called the Third Book of the Maccabees, of Ptolemy Philopater’s attempting to compel the Jews in Egypt to forsake their religion. Josephus takes no notice of it in his Antiquities; it is found in the Latin translation of the Treatise against Apion. It may have had its foundation in some persecution raised against them by that king. See Prideaux’s Connection, under the year 216 B. C.