This expedition was repeated, upon the authority of Pliny, by the Egyptians _themselves_ nearly 500 years after the first expedition by the Tyrians. This second undertaking was piloted by Eudoxus, at the command and expense of Ptolemy Lathyrus. The Greco-Egyptians had, during his reign (B. C. 116), become a powerful commercial nation,--Alexandria having been founded 215 years before by the warrior whose name was given to the emporium. The Voyage by Eudoxus seems to have been but the _imitation_ of a previous one,--with this exception, viz., that the pride of the Egyptians was called into action, to equal the former glory achieved by the Tyrians; and consequently in this voyage they had their own pilots, vessels, and mariners. Even the cognomen of this Ptolemy,--viz., Lathyrus,--(by simply omitting the letter-h,--or pronouncing it hard, as in thyme,--a herb) would seem to have some hidden meaning in reference to that pride. The nomen Ptolemy was a general name possessed by a long line of Kings from the death of Alexander,--as Pharaoh had been ages before the Macedonian,--but the cognomen, or surname was placed, or used, for some great event connected with the history of the possessor. The Romans practised this custom,--as instanced in the case of Scipio,--surnamed Africanus;--one of their Emperors received the cognomen of Germanicus,--and at an earlier period, Caius Marcius received the surname of Coriolanus,--all these were given for victories in the countries, of which their names of honourable distinction were the derivatives. In reference, therefore, to the surname Lathyrus,--by the omission, or hard sound of H, or by its silence as the letter P,--in the original name,--it would read Ptolemy Latyrus, and which might be easily rendered, in direct allusion to the second great Voyage having equalled the first.--_Ptolemy the Tyrian._ Enough has been adduced in support of the Expedition, as mentioned by Herodotus, to authorize a continuation of the subject.