lled among the class of Egyptians.
He ordered them to have their bodies marked with pricks, in the form of
an ivy leaf, in honour of Bacchus; and those who refused to have this
done were outlawed, or forbidden to enter the courts of justice. The
king himself had an ivy leaf marked with pricks upon his forehead, from
which he received the nickname of Gallus. This custom of marking the
body had been forbidden in the Levitical law: it was not known among the
Kopts, but must always have been in use among the Lower Egyptians. It
was used by the Arab prisoners of Ramses, and is still practiced among
the Egyptian Arabs of the present day.

He also ordered the Jews to sacrifice on the pagan altars, and many of
them were sent up to Alexandria to be punished for rebelling against
his decree. Their resolution, however, or, as their historian asserts,
a miracle from heaven changed the king's mind. They expected to be
trampled to death in the hippodrome by furious elephants; but after some
delay they were released unhurt. The history of their escape, however,
is more melancholy than the history of their danger. No sooner did the
persecution cease than they turned with Pharisaical cruelty against
their weaker brethren who had yielded to the storm; and they put to
death three hundred of their countrymen, who in the hour of danger had
yielded to the threats of punishment, and complied with the ceremonies
required of them.

The Egyptians, who, when the Persians were conquered by Alexander, could
neither help nor hinder the Greek army, and who, when they formed part
of the troops under the first Ptolemy, were uncounted and unvalued, had
by this time been armed and disciplined like Greeks; and in the battle
of Raphia the Egyptian phalanx had shown itself not an unworthy rival
of the Macedonians. By this success in war, and by their hatred of
their vicious and cruel king, the Egyptians were now for the first
time encouraged to take arms against the Greek government. The Egyptian
phalanx murmured against their Greek officers, and claimed their right
to be under an Egyptian general. But history has told us nothing more
of the rebellion than that it was successfully put down. The Greeks
were still the better soldiers. The ships built by Philopator were
more remarkable for their unwieldy size, their luxurious and costly
furniture, than for their fitness for war. One was four hundred and
twenty feet long and fifty-seven feet wide, with forty b