voice was soon drowned in the loud murmurs of the
citizens; they had smarted too long under his tyranny, and were too well
acquainted with his falsehoods, to listen to anything that he could
say against his rival. Besides, Tlepolemus had the charge of supplying
Alexandria with corn, a duty which was more likely to gain friends than
the pandering to the vices of their hated tyrant. Agathocles soon saw
that his life was in danger, and he left the meeting and returned to the
palace, in doubt whether he should seek for safety in flight, or boldly
seize the power which he was craftily aiming at, and rid himself of his
enemies by their murder.

While he was wasting these precious minutes in doubt, the streets were
filled with groups of men, and of boys, who always formed a part of the
mobs of Alexandria. They sullenly but loudly gave vent to their hatred
of the minister; and if they had but found a leader they would have been
in rebellion. In a little while the crowd moved off to the tents of
the Macedonians, to learn their feelings on the matter, and then to the
quarters of the mercenaries, both of which were close to the palace, and
the mixed mob of armed and unarmed men soon told the fatal news, that
the soldiers were as angry as the citizens. But they were still without
a leader; they sent messengers to Tlepolemus, who was not in Alexandria,
and he promised that he would soon be there; but perhaps he no more knew
what to do than his guilty rival.

Agathocles, in his doubt, did nothing; he sat down to supper with
his friends, perhaps hoping that the storm might blow over of itself,
perhaps trusting to chance and to the strong walls of the palace. His
mother, OEnanthe, ran to the temple of Ceres and Proserpine, and sat
down before the altar in tears, believing that the sanctuary of the
temple would be her best safeguard; as if the laws of heaven, which had
never bound her, would bind her enemies. It was a festal day, and the
women in the temple, who knew nothing of the storm which had risen in
the forum within these few hours, came forward to comfort her; but she
answered them with curses; she knew that she was hated and would soon be
despised, and she added the savage prayer, that they might have to eat
their own children. The riot did not lessen at sunset. Men, women, and
boys were moving through the streets all night with torches. The crowds
were greatest in the stadium and in the theatre of Bacchus, but most
noisy in