History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12)Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
History
History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12)
Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
Egypt -- History
The return of the hated and revengeful Euergetes was not dreaded so much
by the Alexandrians as the being made a province of Syria. Cleopatra
received no help from Demetrius, but she lost the love of her people by
asking for it, and she was soon forced to fly from Alexandria. She
put her treasures on board a ship, and joined her son Ptolemy and her
son-in-law Demetrius in Syria, while Euergetes regained his throne.
As soon as Euergetes was again master of Egypt, it was his turn to
be revenged upon Demetrius; and he brought forward Zabbineus, a young
Egyptian, the son of Protarchus, a merchant, and sent him into Syria
with an army to claim the throne under the name of Alexander, the
adopted son of Antiochus. Alexander easily conquered and then put to
death Demetrius, but, when he found that he really was King of Syria, he
would no longer receive orders from Egypt; and Euergetes found that the
same plots and forces were then wanted to put down this puppet, which he
had before used to set him up. He began by making peace with his sister
Cleopatra, who was again allowed to return to Egypt; and we find her
name joined with those of Euergetes and his second queen in one of
the public acts of the priests. He then sent an army and his daughter
Tryphaena in marriage to Antiochus Grypus, one of the sons of Demetrius,
who gladly received his help, and conquered Alexander and gained the
throne of his father.
We possess a curious inscription upon an obelisk that once stood in the
island of Philae, recording, as one of the grievances that the villagers
smarted under, the necessity of finding supplies for the troops on their
marches, and also for all the government messengers and public servants,
or those who claimed to travel as such. The cost of this grievance was
probably greater at Philae than in other places, because the traveller
was there stopped in his voyage by the cataracts on the Nile, and he had
to be supplied with labourers to carry his luggage where the navigation
was interrupted. Accordingly the priests at Philae petitioned the king
that their temple might be relieved from this heavy and vexatious
charge, which they said lessened their power of rightly performing their
appointed sacrifices; and they further begged to be allowed to set up a
monument to record the grant which they hoped for. Euergetes granted the
priests' prayer, and accordingly they set up a small obelisk; and the
petition and the king's answer were carved on the base of this monument.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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