ur drachms, while Greece had hardly seen a piece of gold
larger than the single stater. In Alexandrian accounts also the unit
of money was the silver didrachm, and thus double that in use among the
merchants of Greece.

[Illustration: 142.jpg COIN WITH THE HEADS OF SOTER, PHILADELPHUS AND
BERENICE]

Among the coins is one with the heads of Soter and Philadelphus on the
one side, and the head of Berenice, the wife of the one and mother of
the other, on the other side. This we may suppose to have been struck
during the first two years of his reign, in the lifetime of his father.
Another bears on one side the heads of Ptolemy Soter and Berenice, with
the title of "the gods," and on the other side the heads of Philadelphus
and his wife Arsinoe, with the title of "the brothers." This was struck
after the death of his parents. A third was struck by the king in honour
of his queen and sister. On the one side is the head of the queen, and
on the other is the name of "Arsinoe, the brother-loving," with the
cornucopia, or horn of Amalthea, an emblem borrowed by the queens of
Egypt from the goddess Amalthea, the wife of the Libyan Anion. This was
struck after his second marriage.

On the death of Arsinoe, Philadelphus built a tomb for her in
Alexandria, called the Arsinoeum, and set up in it an obelisk eighty
cubits high, which had been made by King Nectanebo, but had been left
plain, without carving.

[Illustration: 143.jpg COIN OF ARSINOE, SISTER OF PTOLEMY II.]

Satyrus, the architect, had the charge of moving it. He dug a canal to
it as it lay upon the ground, and moved two heavily laden barges under
it. The burdens were then taken out of the barges, and as they floated
higher they raised the obelisk off the ground. He then found it a task
as great or greater to set it up in its place; and this Greek engineer
must surely have looked back with wonder on the labour and knowledge of
mechanics which must have been used in setting up the obelisks, colossal
statues, and pyramids, which he saw scattered over the country. This
obelisk now ornaments the cathedral of the Popes on the Vatican hill at
Rome. Satyrus wrote a treatise on precious stones, and he also carved
on them with great skill; but his works are known only in the following
lines, which were written by Diodorus on his portrait of Arsinoe cut in
crystal:

E'en Zeuxis had been proud to trace
The lines within this pebble seen;
Satyrus here hath carved