He also ordered the Jews to sacrifice on the pagan altars, and many of them were sent up to Alexandria to be punished for rebelling against his decree. Their resolution, however, or, as their historian asserts, a miracle from heaven changed the king's mind. They expected to be trampled to death in the hippodrome by furious elephants; but after some delay they were released unhurt. The history of their escape, however, is more melancholy than the history of their danger. No sooner did the persecution cease than they turned with Pharisaical cruelty against their weaker brethren who had yielded to the storm; and they put to death three hundred of their countrymen, who in the hour of danger had yielded to the threats of punishment, and complied with the ceremonies required of them. The Egyptians, who, when the Persians were conquered by Alexander, could neither help nor hinder the Greek army, and who, when they formed part of the troops under the first Ptolemy, were uncounted and unvalued, had by this time been armed and disciplined like Greeks; and in the battle of Raphia the Egyptian phalanx had shown itself not an unworthy rival of the Macedonians. By this success in war, and by their hatred of their vicious and cruel king, the Egyptians were now for the first time encouraged to take arms against the Greek government. The Egyptian phalanx murmured against their Greek officers, and claimed their right to be under an Egyptian general. But history has told us nothing more of the rebellion than that it was successfully put down. The Greeks were still the better soldiers. The ships built by Philopator were more remarkable for their unwieldy size, their luxurious and costly furniture, than for their fitness for war. One was four hundred and twenty feet long and fifty-seven feet wide, with forty banks of oars. The longest oars were fifty-seven feet long, and weighted with lead at the handles that they might be the more easily moved. This huge ship was to be rowed by four thousand rowers, its sails were to be shifted by four hundred sailors, and three thousand soldiers were to stand in ranks upon deck. There were seven beaks in front, by which it was to strike and sink the ships of the enemy. The royal barge, in which the king and court moved on the quiet waters of the Nile, was nearly as large as this ship of war. It was three hundred and thirty feet long, and forty-five feet wide; it was fitted up with staterooms and private rooms, and was nearly sixty feet high to the top of the royal awning. A third ship, which even surpassed these in its fittings and ornaments, was given to Philopator by Hiero, King of Syracuse. It was built under the care of Archimedes, and its timbers would have made sixty triremes. Beside baths, and rooms for pleasures of all kinds, it had a library, and astronomical instruments, not only for navigation, as in modern ships, but for study, as in an observatory. It was a ship of war, and had eight