any should
be born to him by Berenice, should inherit the throne of Babylon and the
East. Philadelphus, with an equal want of feeling, and disregarding the
consequences of such a marriage, led his daughter to Pelusium on her
journey to her betrothed husband, and sent with her so large a sum of
gold and silver that he was nicknamed the "dower-giver."

The peace between the two countries lasted as long as Philadelphus
lived, and was strengthened by kindnesses which each did to the other.
Ptolemy, when in Syria, was much struck by the beauty of a statue of
Diana, and begged it of Antiochus as an ornament for Alexandria. But as
soon as the statue reached Egypt, Arsinoe fell dangerously ill, and she
dreamed that the goddess came by night, and told her that the illness
was sent to her for the wrong done to the statue by her husband; and
accordingly it was sent back with many gifts to the temple from which it
had been brought.

While Berenice and her husband lived at Antioch, Philadelphus kindly
sent there from time to time water from the sacred Nile for her use, as
the Egyptians believed that none other was so wholesome. Antiochus,
when ill, sent to Alexandria for a physician; and Cleombrotus of Cos
accordingly went, by command of Ptolemy, to Syria. He was successful
in curing the king, and on his return he received from Philadelphus a
present of one hundred talents, or seventy-five thousand dollars, as a
fee for his journey.

Philadelphus was a weak frame of body, and had delicate health; and,
though a lover of learning beyond other kings of his time, he also
surpassed them in his unmeasured luxury and love of pleasure. He had
many mistresses, Egyptian as well as Greek, and the names of some of
them have been handed down to us. He often boasted that he had found out
the way to live for ever; but, like other free-livers, he was sometimes,
by the gout in his feet, made to acknowledge that he was only a man, and
indeed to wish that he could change places with the beggar whom he saw
from his palace windows, eating the garbage on the banks of the Nile
with an appetite which he had long wanted. It was during illness that
he found most time for reading, and his mind most open to the truths of
philosophy; and he chiefly wooed the Muses when ill health left him at
leisure from his other courtships. He had a fleet of eight hundred state
barges with gilt prows and poops and scarlet awnings upon the decks,
which were used in the roya