Eubcea.
The translators then divided the work among themselves; and when each
had finished his task it wras laid before a meeting of the seventy, and
then published by authority. Thus was said to have been made the
Greek translation of the Old Testament, which, from the number of the
translators, we now call the Septuagint; but a doubt is thrown upon
the whole story by the fables which have been mingled with it to give
authority to the translation. By this translation the Bible became known
for the first time to the Greek philosophers. We do not indeed hear that
they immediately read it or noticed it, we do not find it quoted till
after the spread of Christianity; but it had a silent effect on
their opinions, which we trace in the new school of Platonists soon
afterwards rising in Alexandria.

When Aratus of Sicyon first laid a plot to free his country from its
tyrant, who reigned by the help of the King of Macedonia, he sent to
Philadelphus to beg for money. He naturally looked to the King of Egypt
for help when entering upon a struggle against their common rival; but
the king seems to have thought the plans of this young man too wild to
be countenanced. Aratus, however, soon raised Sicyon to a level with the
first states of Greece, and made himself leader of the Achaian league,
under which band and name the Greeks were then struggling for freedom
against Macedonia; and when, by his courage and success, he had shown
himself worthy of the proud name which was afterwards given him, of the
"Last of the Greeks," Philadelphus, like other patrons, gave him
the help which he less needed. Aratus, as we have seen, bought his
friendship with pictures, the gifts of all others the most welcome;
and, when he went to Egypt, Philadelphus gave him one hundred and fifty
talents, or forty-five thousand dollars, and joined the Achaian league,
on the agreement that in carrying on the war by sea and land they should
obey the orders from Alexandria.

The friendship of Philadelphus, indeed, was courted by all the
neighbouring states; the little island of Delos set up its statue to
him; and the cities of Greece vied with one another in doing him honour.
The Athenians named one of the tribes of their city and also one
of their public lecture-rooms by his name; and two hundred years
afterwards, when Cicero and his friend Atticus were learning wisdom and
eloquence from the lips of Antiochus in Athens, it was in the gymnasium
of Ptolemy.

Ph