a clear answer from the oracle: they were to go and bring back the image of Apollo's father but leave his sister's behind. On their arrival at Sinope they laid their presents, their 84 petition, and their king's instructions before Scydrothemis. He was in some perplexity. He was afraid of the god and yet alarmed by the threats of his subjects, who opposed the project: then, again, he often felt tempted by the envoys' presents and promises. Three years passed. Ptolemy's zeal never abated for a moment. He persisted in his petition, and kept sending more and more distinguished envoys, more ships, more gold. Then a threatening vision appeared to Scydrothemis, bidding him no longer thwart the god's design. When he still hesitated, he was beset by every kind of disease and disaster: the gods were plainly angry and their hand was heavier upon him every day. He summoned an assembly and laid before it the divine commands, his own and Ptolemy's visions, and the troubles with which they were visited. The king found the people unfavourable. They were jealous of Egypt and fearful of their own future. So they surged angrily round the temple. The story now grows stranger still. The god himself, it says, embarked unaided on one of the ships that lay beached on the shore, and by a miracle accomplished the long sea-journey and landed at Alexandria within three days. A temple worthy of so important a city was then built in the quarter called Rhacotis, on the site of an ancient temple of Serapis and Isis.[455] This is the most widely accepted account of the god's origin and arrival. Some people, I am well aware, maintain that the god was brought from the Syrian town of Seleucia during the reign of Ptolemy, the third of that name.[456] Others, again, say it was this same Ptolemy, but make the place of origin the famous town of Memphis,[457] once the bulwark of ancient Egypt. Many take the god for Aesculapius, because he cures disease: others for Osiris, the oldest of the local gods; some, again, for Jupiter, as being the sovereign lord of the world. But the majority of people, either judging by what are clearly attributes of the god or by an ingenious process of conjecture, identify him with Pluto. Domitian and Mucianus were now on their way to the Alps.[458] 85 Before reaching the mountains they received the good news of the victory over the Treviri, the truth of which was fully attested by the presence of their leader Valentinus. His courage was in no way crushed and his face still bore witness to the proud spirit he had shown. He was allowed a hearing, merely to see what he was made of, and condemned to death. At his execution some one cast it in his teeth that his country was conquered, to which he replied, 'Then I am reconciled to death.'