ssors of Alexander were put an end to by
the death of Antigonus, whose overtowering ambition was among the
chief causes of quarrel. This happened at the great battle of Ipsus in
Phrygia, where they all met, with more than eighty thousand men in
each army. Antigonus, King of Asia Minor, was accompanied by his son
Demetrius, and by Pyrrhus, King of Epirus; and he was defeated by
Ptolemy, King of Egypt, Seleucus, King of Babylon, Lysimachus, King of
Thrace, and Cassander, King of Macedonia; and the old man lost his life
fighting bravely. After the battle Demetrius fled to Cyprus, and yielded
to the terms of peace which were imposed on him by the four allied
sovereigns. He sent his friend Pyrrhus as a hostage to Alexandria; and
there this young King of Epirus soon gained the friendship of Ptolemy
and afterwards his stepdaughter in marriage. Ptolemy was thus left
master of the whole of the southern coast of Asia Minor and Syria,
indeed of the whole coast of the eastern end of the Mediterranean, from
the island of Cos on the north to Cyrene on the south.

During these formidable wars with Antigonus, Ptolemy had never been
troubled with any serious rising of the conquered Egyptians; and perhaps
the wars may not have been without their use in strengthening his
throne. The first danger to a successful conqueror is from the avarice
and disappointment of his followers, who usually claim the kingdom as
their booty, and who think themselves wronged and their past services
forgotten if any limit is placed to their tyranny over the conquered.
But these foreign wars may have taught the Alexandrians that Ptolemy was
not strong enough to ill-treat the Egyptians, and may thus have saved
him from the indiscretion of his friends and from their reproaches for
ingratitude.

In the late war, the little Dorian island of Cos on the coast of Asia
Minor fell, as we have seen, under the power of Ptolemy. This island was
remarkable as being the first spot in Europe into which the manufacture
of silk was introduced, which it probably gained when under the power
of Persia before the overthrow of Darius. The luxury of the Egyptian
ladies, who affected to be overheated by any clothing that could conceal
their limbs, had long ago introduced a tight, thin dress which neither
our climate nor notions of modesty would allow, and for this dress,
silk, when it could be obtained, was much valued; and Pamphila of Cos
had the glory of having woven webs so transp