o unravel the hidden meaning after it had been forgotten for nearly
thirteen centuries.

The preamble of this decree tells us also that during the minority of
the king the taxes were lessened; the crown debtors were forgiven; those
who were found in prison charged with crimes against the state were
released; the allowance from government for upholding the splendour of
the temples was continued, as was the rent from land belonging to the
priests; the first-fruits, or rather the coronation money, a tax paid by
the priests to the king on the year of his coming to the throne, which
was by custom allowed to be less than what the law ordered, was not
increased; the priests were relieved from the heavy burden of making a
yearly voyage to do homage at Alexandria; there was a stop put to the
impressing men for the navy, which had been felt as a great cruelty by
an inland people, whose habits and religion alike made them hate the
sea, and this was a boon which was the more easily granted, as the
navy of Alexandria, which was built in foreign dockyards and steered by
foreign pilots, had very much fallen off in the reign of Philopator. The
duties on linen cloth, which was the chief manufacture of the kingdom,
and, after grain, the chief article exported, were lessened; the
priests, who manufactured linen for the king's own use, probably for the
clothing of the army, and the sails for the navy, were not called upon
for so large a part of what they made as before; and the royalties on
the other linen manufactories and the duties on the samples or patterns,
both of which seem to have been unpaid for the whole of the eight years
of the minority, were wisely forgiven. All the temples of Egypt, and
that of Apis at Memphis in particular, were enriched by his gifts; in
which pious actions, in grateful remembrance of their former benefactor,
and with a marked slight to Philopator, they said that he was following
the wishes of his grandfather, the god Euergetes. From this decree we
gain some little insight into the means by which the taxes were raised
under the Ptolemies; and we also learn that they were so new and foreign
that they had no Egyptian word by which they could speak of them, and
therefore borrowed the Greek word _syntaxes_.

History gives us many examples of kings who, like Epiphanes, gained
great praise for the mildness and weakness of the government during
their minorities. Aristomenes, the minister, who had governed Egypt for