and that of glass, assumed under the Ptolemies a new development. The objects exhumed from the tombs of this period, the paintings with which they are decorated, the allusions contained in the hieroglyphic texts and Greek papyrus, prove that the most varied descriptions of industry were exercised in the kingdom of the Pharaohs, and had attained a high degree of perfection. The excellence of the products and the delicacy of the work prove the intelligence of the workmen. Under Ptolemy II., the army was composed of 200,000 footmen, 40,000 cavalry, 300 elephants, and 200 chariots; the arsenals were capable of furnishing arms for 300,000 men.[440] The Egyptian fleet, properly so called, consisted of a hundred and twelve vessels of the first class (from five to thirty ranges of oars), and two hundred and twenty-four of the second class, together with light craft; the king had, besides these, more than four thousand ships in the ports placed in subjection to him.[441] It was especially after Alexander that the Egyptian navy became greatly extended. [Sidenote: Cyrenaica.] XVII. Separating Egypt from the possessions of Carthage, Cyrenaica (_the regency of Tripoli_), formerly colonised by the Greeks and independent, had fallen into the hands of the first of the Ptolemies. It possessed commercial and rich towns, and fertile plains; its cultivation extended even into the mountains;[442] wine, oil, dates, saffron and different plants, such as the silphium (_laserpitium_),[443] were the object of considerable traffic.[444] The horses of Cyrenaica, which had all the lightness of the Arabian horses, were objects of research even in Greece,[445] and the natives of Cyrene could make no more handsome present to Alexander than to send him three hundred of their coursers.[446] Nevertheless, political revolutions had already struck at the ancient prosperity of the country,[447] which previously formed, by its navigation, its commerce, and its arts, probably the finest of the colonies founded by the Greeks. [Sidenote: Cyprus.] XVIII. The numerous islands of the Mediterranean enjoyed equal prosperity. Cyprus, colonised by the Phœnicians, and subsequently by the Greeks, passing afterwards under the dominion of the Egyptians, had a population which preserved, from its native country, the love of commerce and distant voyages. Almost all its towns were situated on the sea-coast, and furnished with excellent ports. Ptolemy Soter maintained in it an army of 30,000 Egyptians.[448] No country was richer in timber. Its fertility passed for being superior to that of Egypt.[449] To its agricultural produce were added precious stones, mines of copper worked from an early period,[450] and so rich, that this metal took its name from the island itself (_Cuprum_). In Cyprus were seen numerous sanctuaries, and especially the temple of Venus at Paphos, which contained a hundred altars.[451] [Sidenote: Crete.]