ved for some time in Rome. The Alexandrian prince hoped to gain the
throne of his father by means of the friendship of one who could make
and unmake kings at his pleasure; and Sulla might have thought that the
wealth of Egypt would be at his command by means of his young friend. To
these reasons Alexander added the bribe which was then becoming common
with the princes who held their thrones by the help of Rome, he made a
will, in which he named the Roman people as his heirs; and the senate
then took care that the kingdom of Egypt should be a part of the wealth
which was afterwards to be theirs by inheritance. After Berenice,
his stepmother, had been queen about six months, they sent him to
Alexandria, with orders that he should be received as king; and, to
soften the harshness of this command, he was told to marry Berenice, and
reign jointly with her.

The orders of Sulla, the Roman dictator, were of course obeyed; and the
young Alexander landed at Alexandria, as King of Egypt and the friend of
Rome. He married Berenice; and on the nineteenth day of his reign, with
a cruelty unfortunately too common in this history, he put her to death.
The marriage had been forced upon him by the Romans, who ordered all the
political affairs of the kingdom; but, as they took no part in the civil
or criminal affairs, he seems to have been at liberty to murder his
wife. But Alexander was hated by the people as a king thrust upon them
by foreign arms; and Berenice, whatever they might have before thought
of her, was regretted as the queen of their choice. Hence his crime met
with its reward. His own guards immediately rose upon him; they dragged
him from the palace to the gymnasium, and there put him to death.

Though the Romans had already seized the smaller kingdom of Cyrene under
the will of Ptolemy Apion, they could not agree among themselves upon
the wholesale robbery of taking Egypt under the will which Alexander had
made in their favour. They seized, however, a paltry sum of money which
he had left at Tyre as a place of safety; and it was a matter of debate
for many years afterwards in Rome, whether they should not claim the
kingdom of Egypt. But the nobles of Rome, who sold their patronage to
kings for sums equal to the revenues of provinces, would have lost much
by handing the kingdom over to the senate. Hence the Egyptian monarchy
was left standing for two reigns longer.

On the death of Ptolemy Alexander, the Alexandrians migh