By this time the statesmen of Egypt ought to have learned the mistake in their foreign policy. By widening their frontier they always weakened it. They should have fortified the passes between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, not cities in Asia. When Antiochus entered Egypt he was met at Pelusium by the army of Philometor, which he at once routed in a pitched battle. The whole of Egypt was then in his power; he marched upon Memphis with a small force, and seized it without having to strike a blow, helped perhaps by the plea that he was acting on behalf of his nephew, Ptolemy Philometor, who then fell into his hands. On this, the younger Ptolemy, the brother of Philometor, who was with his sister Cleopatra in Alexandria, and was about fifteen years old, declared himself king, and sent ambassadors to Rome to ask for help against Antiochus; and taking the name of the most popular of his forefathers, he called himself Euergetes. He is, however, better known in history as Ptolemy Physcon, or _bloated_, a nickname which was afterwards given to him when he had grown fat and unwieldy from the diseases of luxury. Comanus and Cineas were the chief advisers of the young Euergetes; and in their alarm they proposed to send the foreign ambassadors to meet the invader on his march from Memphis, and to plead for peace. This task the ambassadors kindly undertook. There were then in Alexandria two embassies from the Achaians, one to renew the treaty of peace, and one to settle the terms of the coming wrestling match. There were there three embassies from Athens, one with gifts from the city, one about the Panathenaic games, and one about the celebration of the mysteries. There was also an embassy from Miletus, and one from Clazomenae. On the day of their arrival at Memphis, Antiochus feasted these numerous ambassadors in grand state, and on the next day gave them an audience. But their arguments for peace carried no weight with him; and he denied that his father, Antiochus the Great, had ever given Coele-Syria as a dower with his daughter Cleopatra to Epiphanes. To gain time he promised the ambassadors that he would give them an answer as soon as his own ambassadors returned from Alexandria; and in the meanwhile he carried his army down the Nile to Naucratis, and thence marched to the capital to begin the siege.