weight as those of Greece; but Ptolemy followed the
Egyptian standard of weight, which was that to which the Jewish shekel
was adjusted, and which was in use in the wealthy cities of Tyre and
Sidon and Beryttus. The drachma weighs fifty-five grains, making the
talent of silver worth about seven hundred and fifty dollars. Ptolemy's
bronze coins have the head of Serapis or Jupiter in the place of that of
the king, as is also the case with those of his successors; but few of
these bronze pieces bear any marks from which we can learn the reign
in which they were coined. They are of better metal than those of other
countries, as the bronze is free from lead and has more tin in it. The
historian, in his very agreeable labours, should never lose sight of the
coins. They teach us by their workmanship the state of the arts, and by
their weight, number, and purity of metal, the wealth of the country.
They also teach dates, titles, and the places where they were struck;
and even in those cases where they seem to add little to what we learn
from other sources, they are still the living witnesses to which we
appeal, to prove the truth of the authors who have told us more.

[Illustration: 083.jpg COIN OF SOTER, WITH JUPITER]

The art of engraving coins did not flourish alone in Alexandria;
painters and sculptors flocked to Egypt to enjoy the favours of Ptolemy.
Apelles, indeed, whose paintings were thought by those who had seen
them to surpass any that had been before painted, or were likely to be
painted, had quarrelled with Ptolemy, who had known him well when he
was the friend and painter of Alexander. Once when he was at Alexandria,
somebody wickedly told him that he was invited to dine at the royal
table, and when Ptolemy asked who it was that had sent his unwelcome
guest, Apelles drew the face of the mischief-maker on the wall, and he
was known to all the court by the likeness. It was, perhaps, at one
of these dinners, at which Ptolemy enjoyed the society of the men of
letters, or perhaps when visiting the philosophers in their schools,
that he asked Euclid if he could not show him a shorter and easier way
to the higher truths of mathematics than that by which he led the pupils
in the Museum; and Euclid, as if to remind him of the royal roads of
Persia, which ran by the side of the highroads, but were kept clear and
free for the king's own use, made him the well-known answer, that there
was no royal road to geometry.

Ptolemy