XVI. Egypt, which Herodotus calls a present from the Nile, did not equal in surface a quarter of the empire of the Seleucidæ, but it formed a power much more compact. Its civilisation reached back more than three thousand years. The sciences and arts already flourished there, when Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy were still in a state of barbarism. The fertility of the valley of the Nile had permitted a numerous population to develop itself there to such a point, that under Amasis II., contemporary with Servius Tullius, twenty thousand cities were reckoned in it.[428] The skilful administration of the first of the Lagides increased considerably the resources of the country. Under Ptolemy II., the annual revenues amounted to 14,800 talents (86,150,800 francs [£3,446,032]), and a million and a half of artabi[429] of wheat.[430] Besides the Egyptian revenues, the taxes levied in the foreign possessions reached the amount of about 10,000 talents a year. Cœle-Syria, Phœnicia, and Judea, with the province of Samaria, yielded annually to Ptolemy Euergetes 8,000 talents (46 millions and a half [£1,860,000]).[431] A single feast cost Philadelphia 2,240 talents (more than 13 millions [more than half a million sterling]).[432] The sums accumulated in the treasury amounted to the sum, perhaps exaggerated, of 740,000 talents (about 4 milliards 300 millions of francs [172 millions sterling]).[433] In 527, Ptolemy Euergetes was able, without diminishing his resources too much, to send to the Rhodians 3,300 talents of silver, a thousand talents of copper, and ten millions of measures of wheat.[434] The precious metals abounded in the empire of the Pharaohs, as is attested by the traces of mining operations now exhausted, and by the multitude of objects in gold contained in their tombs. Masters for some time of the Libanus, the kings of Egypt obtained from it timber for ship-building. These riches had accumulated especially at Alexandria, which became, after Carthage, towards the commencement of the seventh century of Rome, the first commercial city in the world.[435] It was fifteen miles in circumference, had three spacious and commodious ports, which allowed the largest ships to anchor along the quay.[436] There arrived the merchandises of India, Arabia, Ethiopia, and of the coast of Africa; some brought on the backs of camels, from Myos Hormos (to the north of Cosseïr), and then transported down the Nile; others came by canals from the bottom of the Gulf of Suez, or brought from the port of Berenice, on the Red Sea.[437] The occupation of this sea by the Egyptians had put a stop to the piracies of the Arabs,[438] and led to the establishment of numerous factories. India furnished spices, muslins, and dyes; Ethiopia, gold, ivory, and ebony; Arabia, perfumes.[439] All these products were exchanged against those which came from the Pontus Euxinus and the Western Sea. The native manufacture of printed and embroidered tissues,