Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Soter, succeeded to the throne of Egypt in 282 B. C. when his father retired from it in his favor, and reigned until 246 B. C. "Alexandria, founded by the great conqueror, increased and beautified by Ptolemy Soter, was now far the greatest city of Alexander's Empire. It was the first of those new foundations which are a marked feature in Hellenism; there were many others of great size and importance—above all, Antioch, then Seleucia on the Tigris, then Nicomedia, Nicæa, Apamea, which lasted; besides such as Lysimacheia, Antigoneia, and others, which early disappeared. … Alexandria was the model for all the rest. The intersection of two great principal thoroughfares, adorned with colonnades for the footways, formed the centre point, the omphalos of the city. The other streets were at right angles with these thoroughfares, so that the whole place was quite regular. Counting its old part, Rhakotis, which was still the habitation of native Egyptians, Alexandria had five quarters, one at least devoted to Jews who had originally settled there in great numbers. The mixed population there of Macedonians, Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians gave a peculiarly complex and variable character to the population. Let us not forget the vast number of strangers from all parts of the world whom trade and politics brought there. It was the great mart where the wealth of Europe and of Asia changed hands. Alexander had opened the sea-way by exploring the coasts of Media and Persia. Caravans from the head of the Persian Gulf, and ships on the Red Sea, brought all the wonders of Ceylon and China, as well as of Further India, to Alexandria. There, too, the wealth of Spain and Gaul, the produce of Italy and Macedonia, the amber of the Baltic and the salt fish of Pontus, the silver of Spain and the copper of Cyprus, the timber of Macedonia and Crete, the pottery and oil of Greece—a thousand imports from all the Mediterranean—came to be exchanged for the spices of Arabia, the splendid birds and embroideries of India and Ceylon, the gold and ivory of Africa, the antelopes, the apes, the leopards, the elephants of tropical climes. Hence the enormous wealth of the Lagidæ, for in addition to the marvellous fertility and great population—it is said to have been seven millions—of Egypt, they made all the profits of this enormous carrying trade. {38} We gain a good idea of what the splendours of the capital were by the very full account preserved to us by Athenæus of the great feast which inaugurated the reign of Philadelphus. … All this seems idle pomp, and the doing of an idle sybarite. Philadelphus was anything but that. … It was he who opened up the Egyptian trade with Italy, and made Puteoli the great port for ships from Alexandria, which it remained for centuries.