s that the stone containing the
name of Ptolemy Euergetes serves as a footstool to the throne on which
the kings of Abyssinia are crowned to this day.

[Illustration: 160b.jpg SIGNS, ARMS AND INSTRUMENTS FROM THE FIFTH TOMB]

Amid the ruins of Ascum, also, the ancient capital of that country,
various fragments of marble have been found bearing the name and title
of the same Egyptian sovereign. This empty fame, however, is the only
return that ever recompensed the toils of Euergetes among the fierce
barbarians of the south.

Euergetes, as part of his general policy of conciliating the Egyptians,
enlarged the great temple at Thebes, which is now called the temple
of Karnak, on the walls of which we see him handing an offering to
his father and mother, the brother-gods. In one place he is in a Greek
dress, which is not common on the Ptolemaic buildings, as most of the
Greek kings are carved upon the walls in the dress of the country. The
early kings had often shown their piety to a temple by enlarging the
sacred area and adding a new wall and gateway in front of the former;
and this custom Euergetes followed at Karnak. As these grand stone
sculptured gateways belonged to a wall of unbaked bricks which has long
since crumbled to pieces, they now stand apart like so many triumphal
arches. He also added to the temple at Hibe in the Great Oasis, and
began a small temple at Esne, or Latopolis, where he is drawn upon the
walls in the act of striking down the chiefs of the conquered nations,
and is followed by a tame lion.

[Illustration: 161.jpg GATE AT KARNAK]

He built a temple to Osiris at Canopus, on the mouth of the Nile; for,
notwithstanding the large number of Greeks and strangers who had settled
there, the ancient religion was not yet driven out of the Delta; and he
dedicated it to the god in a Greek inscription on a plate of gold, in
the names of himself and Berenice, whom he called his wife and sister.
She is also called the king's sister in many of the hieroglyphical
inscriptions, as are many of the other queens of the Ptolemies who were
not so related to their husbands. This custom, though it took its rise
in the Egyptian mythology, must have been strengthened by the marriages
of Philadelphus and some of his successors with their sisters. In the
hieroglyphical inscriptions he is usually called "beloved by Phtah,"
the god of Memphis, an addition to his name which was used by most of
his successors.

During this