anger of riot, which it was meant to
lessen, was every year increased.

Sosibius had made himself more hated than Agathocles; he had been the
king's ready tool in all his murders. He had been stained, or at least
reproached, with the murder of Lysimachus, the son of Philadelphus; then
of Magas, the son of Euergetes, and Berenice, the widow of Euergetes; of
Cleomenes, the Spartan; and lastly, of Arsinoe, the wife of Philopator.
For these crimes Sosibius was forced by the soldiers to give up to
Tlepolemus the king's ring, or what in modern language would be called
the great seal of the kingdom, the badge of office by which Egypt was
governed; but the world soon saw that a body of luxurious mercenaries
were as little able to choose a wise statesman as the king had been.

[Illustration: 187.jpg TEMPLE OF HATHOR.]

With all his vices, Philopator had yet inherited the love of letters
which has thrown so bright a light around the whole of the family; and
to his other luxuries he sometimes added that of the society of the
learned men of the museum. When one of the professorships was empty he
wrote to Athens, and invited to Alexandria, Sphaerus, who had been the
pupil of Zeno. One day when Sphaerus was dining with the king, he
said that a wise man should never guess, but only say what he knows.
Philopator, wishing to tease him, ordered some waxen pomegranates to be
handed to him, and when Sphaerus bit one of them he laughed at him for
guessing that it was real fruit. But the stoic answered that there are
many cases in which our actions must be guided by what seems probable.
None of the works of Sphaerus have come down to us. Eratosthenes, of
whom we have before spoken, was librarian of the museum during this
reign; and Ptolemy, the son of Agesarchus, then wrote his history of
Alexandria, a work now lost.

[Illustration: 188jpg COIN OF PTOLEMY PHILOPATER]

The want of moral feeling in Alexandria was poorly supplied by the
respect for talent. Philopator built there a shrine or temple to Homer,
in which he placed a sitting figure of the poet, and round it seven
worshippers, meant for the seven cities which claimed the honour of
giving him birth. Had Homer himself worshipped in such temples, and had
his thoughts been raised by no more lofty views, he would not have left
us an Iliad or an Odyssey. In Upper Egypt there was no such want of
religious earnestness; there the priests placed the name of Philopator
upon a small temple n