A curious anecdote about Ptolemy Philadelphus is related by Niebuhr. He had reached the zenith of his glory, when suddenly he was attacked by a species of insanity, consisting of an indescribable fear of death. Chemical artifices were practised in Egypt from the earliest times; and hence Ptolemy took every imaginable pains to find the elixir of life; but it was all in vain, for his strength was rapidly decreasing. Once, like Louis XI., he was looking from a window of his palace upon the seacoast, and seriously meditated upon the subject of his longing; it must have been in winter-time, when the sand, exposed to the rays of the sun, becomes very warm. He saw some poor boys burying themselves in the warm sand and screaming with delight, and the aged king began bitterly to cry, seeing the ragged urchins enjoying their life without any apprehension of losing it; for he felt that with all his riches he could not purchase that happiness, and that his end was very near at hand. He died in the thirty-eighth year of his reign, and perhaps the sixty-first of his age. He left the kingdom as powerful and more wealthy than when it came to him from his father; and he had the happiness of having a son who would carry on, even for the third generation, the wise plans of the first Ptolemy. [Illustration: 153.jpg PAGE IMAGE] CHAPTER IV--PTOLEMY EUERGETES, PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR, AND PTOLEMY EPIPHANES. _The struggle for Syria--Decline of the dynasty--Advent of Roman control._ Ptolemy, the eldest son of Philadelphus, succeeded his father on the throne of Egypt, and after a short time was accorded the name of Euergetes. The new reign was clouded by dark occurrences, which again involved Egypt and Syria in war. It has been already related that when peace was concluded between Antiochus and Philadelphus, the latter gave to the former his daughter Berenice in marriage, stipulating that the offspring of that union should succeed to the Syrian throne, though Antiochus had, by his wife Laodice, a son, already arrived at the age of manhood. The repudiated queen murdered her husband, and placed Seleucus on the vacant throne; who, in order to remove all competition on the part of Berenice and her child, made no scruple to deprive them both of life. Euergetes could not behold such proceedings unmoved. Advancing into Syria at the head of a powerful army, he took possession of the greater part of the country, which seems not to have been defended, the majority of the cities opening their gates at his approach. The important town of Seleucia Pieria, the seaport of the capital, fell into his hands, in the neighbourhood of which he was still further gratified with the apprehension of the cruel Laodice, at whose instigation his sister and nephew lost their lives. The punishment of this unprincipled woman seems, however, to have completely satiated his resentment; for, instead of securing his conquests in Syria, and achieving the entire