Euergetes that
was entering Egypt under the command of Hegelochus; but the Egyptian
army was beaten on the Syrian frontier. Marsyas was sent prisoner to
Euergetes; and the king then showed the only act of mercy which can
be mentioned to his praise, and spared the life of a prisoner whom
he thought he could make use of. Cleopatra then sent to Syria, to
her son-in-law Demetrius, to ask for help, which was at first readily
granted, but Demetrius was soon called home again by a rising in
Antioch. But great indeed must be the cruelty which a people will not
bear from their own king rather than call in a foreign master to relieve
them.

[Illustration: 249.jpg OBELISK AT HELIOPOLIS]

The return of the hated and revengeful Euergetes was not dreaded so much
by the Alexandrians as the being made a province of Syria. Cleopatra
received no help from Demetrius, but she lost the love of her people by
asking for it, and she was soon forced to fly from Alexandria. She
put her treasures on board a ship, and joined her son Ptolemy and her
son-in-law Demetrius in Syria, while Euergetes regained his throne.
As soon as Euergetes was again master of Egypt, it was his turn to
be revenged upon Demetrius; and he brought forward Zabbineus, a young
Egyptian, the son of Protarchus, a merchant, and sent him into Syria
with an army to claim the throne under the name of Alexander, the
adopted son of Antiochus. Alexander easily conquered and then put to
death Demetrius, but, when he found that he really was King of Syria, he
would no longer receive orders from Egypt; and Euergetes found that the
same plots and forces were then wanted to put down this puppet, which he
had before used to set him up. He began by making peace with his sister
Cleopatra, who was again allowed to return to Egypt; and we find her
name joined with those of Euergetes and his second queen in one of
the public acts of the priests. He then sent an army and his daughter
Tryphaena in marriage to Antiochus Grypus, one of the sons of Demetrius,
who gladly received his help, and conquered Alexander and gained the
throne of his father.

We possess a curious inscription upon an obelisk that once stood in the
island of Philae, recording, as one of the grievances that the villagers
smarted under, the necessity of finding supplies for the troops on their
marches, and also for all the government messengers and public servants,
or those who claimed to travel as such. The cost of this grie