The Egyptians had equal reason to be satisfied with their king. Among the spoils of his Syrian campaign were 2500 vases and statues of the Egyptian deities which Kambyses had carried to Persia nearly three centuries before. They were restored to the temples of Upper Egypt, from which they had been taken, with stately ceremonies and amid the rejoicing of the people, and Ptolemy was henceforth known among his subjects as Euergetês, their “Benefactor.” Euergetês, in fact, seems to have been the most Egyptian and least Greek of all the Ptolemies. Alone among them he visited Thebes and paid homage to the gods of Egypt. Their temples were rebuilt and crowded with offerings, and the priesthood naturally regarded him as a king after their own heart. He, too, like the Pharaohs of old, turned his attention to the conquest of Ethiopia, which his predecessors had been content to neglect.(9) It was under Euergetês, moreover, that the so-called Decree of Canôpus was drawn up in hieroglyphics and demotic Egyptian as well as in Greek. Its occasion was the death of Berenikê, the king’s daughter, to whom the Egyptian priests determined to grant divine honours. It is the first time that we find the old script and language of Egypt taking its place by the side of that of the Macedonian conqueror, and it is significant that the Greek transcript occupies the third place. Judah had hitherto remained tranquil and at peace under the government of the Ptolemies. The high-priests had taken the place of the kings, and their authority was undisputed. At times, indeed, the coveted dignity was the cause of family feuds. Jonathan, the father of Jaddua (Neh. xii. 11, 22), had murdered his brother Joshua, whom he suspected of trying to supplant him, and the example he set was destined to have followers. But outside his own family the high-priest ruled with almost despotic power. Simon the Just (B.C. 300), with whom ends the list of “famous men” given by Jesus the son of Sirach (iv. 1-21), repaired and fortified the temple as well as the fortress which guarded it. Jewish tradition ascribed to him the completion of the Canon of the Old Testament which had been begun by Ezra, and it was through him that the oral Mosaic tradition of Pharisaism made its way to Antigonus Socho, the first writer of the Mishna or text of the Talmud, and the teacher of the founder of Sadduceism. The grandson of Simon, Onias II., imperilled the authority his predecessors had enjoyed. His covetousness led him to withhold the tribute of £3000, due each year from the Temple to the Jewish king, and in spite of an envoy from Ptolemy and the remonstrances of his countrymen, he refused to give it up.