He soon
afterwards put away his wife and married her younger daughter, his
niece, Cleopatra Cocce. The divorced Cleopatra was allowed to keep her
title; and, as she was the widow of the late king, she held a rank in
the state before the wife of the reigning king. Thus, the small temple
of Hathor in the island of Philae was dedicated to the goddess in the
name of King Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra his sister, and Queen Cleopatra
his wife, designated as the gods Euergetae.

[Illustration: 241.jpg TEMPLE OF HATHOR AT PHILAE]

The Roman senate, however, felt its authority slighted by this murder
of the young Eupator, and divorce of Cleopatra, both of whom were living
under its protection. The late ambassador, Thermus, by whose treachery
or folly Euergetes had been enabled to crush his rivals and gain the
sovereign power, was on his return to Rome called to account for his
conduct. Cato the Censor, in one of his great speeches, accused him of
having been seduced from his duty by the love of Egyptian gold, and of
having betrayed the queen to the bribes of Euergetes. In the meanwhile
Scipio Africanus the younger and two other Roman ambassadors were
sent by the senate to see that the kingdom of their ally was peaceably
settled. Euergetes went to meet him with great pomp, and received him
with all the honours due to his rank; and the whole city followed him in
crowds through the streets, eager to catch a sight of the conqueror of
Carthage, of the greatest man who had been seen in Alexandria, of one
who by his virtues and his triumphs had added a new glory even to the
name of Scipio. He brought with him, as his friend and companion (in
the case of a modern ambassador we should say, as his chaplain), the
philosopher, Pansetius, the chief of the Stoics, who had gained a great
name for his three books on the "Duty of Man," which were afterwards
copied by Cicero.

[Illustration: 242b.jpg]

Euergetes showed them over the palace and the treasury; but, though the
Romans had already begun to run the down-hill race of luxury, in which
the Egyptians were so far ahead of them, yet Scipio, who held to the old
fashions and plain manners of the republic, was not dazzled by mere gold
and purple. But the trade of Alexandria, the natural harbour, the forest
of masts, and the lighthouse, the only one in the world, surpassed
anything that his well-stored mind had looked for. He went by boat to
Memphis, and saw the rich crops on either bank, and t