ogues with sacred groves, which were clearly forbidden by
Moses. Though they were not guilty of worshipping images, yet they did
not think it wrong to have portraits and statues of themselves. In their
dislike of pork, in their washings, and in other Eastern customs, they
were like the Egyptians; and hence the Greeks, who thought them both
barbarians, very grudgingly yielded to them the privileges of choosing
their own magistrates, of having their own courts of justice, and
the other rights of citizenship which the policy of the Ptolemies
had granted. The Jews, on the other hand, in whose eyes religion was
everything, saw the Greeks and Egyptians worshipping the same gods and
the same sacred animals, and felt themselves as far above the Greeks in
those branches of philosophy which arise out of religion as they were
below them in that rank which is gained by success in war. Hence it was
with many heartburnings, and not without struggles which shed blood
in the streets of Alexandria, that they found themselves, in the years
which ushered in the Christian era, sinking down to the level of the
Egyptians, and losing one by one the rights of Macedonian citizenship.

During these years Auletes had been losing his friends and weakening
his government, and, at last, when he refused to quarrel with the senate
about the island of Cyprus, the Egyptians rose against him in arms, and
he was forced to fly from Alexandria. He took ship for Rome, and in his
way there he met Cato, who was at Rhodes on his voyage to Cyprus. He
sent to Cato to let him know that he was in the city, and that he wished
to see him. But the Roman sent word back that he was unwell, and that
if the king wanted to speak to him he must come himself. This was not
a time for Auletes to quarrel with a senator, when he was on his way
to Rome to beg for help against his subjects; so he was forced to go
to Cato's lodgings, who did not even rise from his seat when the king
entered the room. But this treatment was not quite new to Auletes; in
his flight from Alexandria, in disguise and without a servant, he had
had to eat brown bread in the cottage of a peasant; and he now learned
how much more irksome it was to wait upon the pleasure of a Roman
senator. Cato gave him the best advice; that, instead of going to Rome,
where he would find that all the wealth of Egypt would be thought
a bribe too small for the greediness of the senators whose votes he
wanted, he would do better