Ptolemy Evergetes, son and successor of Ptolemy Philadelphus, availed himself of this discovery. Having provided himself amply with necessaries for his army, and ordered a fleet to coast along beside him, up the Red Sea, he penetrated quite through the country of the Shepherds into that of the Ethiopian Troglodytes, who are black and woolly-headed, and inhabit the low country quite to the mountains of Abyssinia. Nay[309], he even ascended those mountains, forced the inhabitants to submission, built a large temple at Axum, the capital of Sirè, and raised a great many obelisks, several of which are standing to this day. Afterwards proceeding to the south-east, he descended into the cinnamon and myrrh country, behind Cape Gardefan, (the Cape that terminates the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean) from this crossed over to Arabia, to the Homerites, being the same people with the Abyssinians, only on the Arabian shore. He then conquered several of the Arabian princes, who first resisted him, and had it in his power to have put an end to the trade of India there, had he not been as great a politician as he was a warrior. He used his victory, therefore, in no other manner, than to exhort and oblige these princes to protect trade, encourage strangers, and, by every means, provide for the surety of neutral intercourse, by making rigorous examples of robbers by sea and land. The reigns of the latter Ptolemies were calculated to bring this commerce to a decline, had it not been for two great events, the fall of Carthage, destroyed by Scipio, and that of Corinth, by the consul Mummius. The importance of these events to Alexandria seems to have sustained the prosperity of Egypt, even against the ravages committed in the war between Ptolemy the VI. and VII. Alexandria was then besieged, and not only deprived of its riches, but reduced to the utmost want of necessaries, and the horrid behaviour of Ptolemy VII. (had it continued) would have soon rendered that city desolate. The consequence of such a conduct, however, made a strong impression on the prince himself, who, at once recalling his unjust edicts, by which he had banished all foreign merchants from Alexandria, became on a sudden wholly addicted to commerce, the encourager of arts and sciences, and the protector of strangers.