uring the reigns of the later Ptolemies the kingdom was under the
shield, but also under the sceptre of Rome. Its kings sent to Rome
for help, sometimes against their enemies, and sometimes against their
subjects; sometimes they humbly asked the senate for advice, and at
other times were able respectfully to disobey the Roman orders. One
by one the senate seized the provinces; Coele-Syria, the coast of
Asia Minor, Cyrene, and the island of Cyprus; and lastly, though the
Ptolemies still reigned, they were counted among the clients of the
Roman patrician, to whom they looked up for patronage. From this low
state Egypt could scarcely be said to fall when it became a part of the
great empire of Augustus.

During the reigns of the Ptolemies, the sculpture, the style of
building, the religion, the writing, and the language of the Kopts in
the Thebaid were nearly the same as when their own kings were reigning
in Thebes, with even fewer changes than usually creep in through time.
They had all become less simple; and though it would be difficult, and
would want a volume by itself to trace these changes, and to show when
they came into use, yet a few of them may be pointed out. The change of
fashion must needs be slower in buildings which are only raised by the
untiring labour of years, and which when built stand for ages; but in
the later temples we find less strength as fortresses, few obelisks or
sphinxes, and no colossal statues; we no longer meet with vast caves
or pyramids. The columns in a temple have several new patterns. The
capitals which used to be copied from the papyrus plant are now formed
of lotus flowers, or palm branches. In some cases, with a sad want of
taste, the weight of the roof rests on the weak head of a woman.
The buildings, however, of the Ptolemies are such that, before the
hieroglyphics on them had been read by Doctor Young, nobody had ever
guessed that they were later than the time of Cambyses, while three or
four pillars at Alexandria were almost the only proof that the country
had ever been held by Greeks.

In the religion we find many new gods or old gods in new dresses.
Hapimou, the Nile, now pours water out of a jar like a Greek river god.
The moon, which before ornamented the heads of gods, is now a goddess
under the name of Ioh. The favourite Isis had appeared in so many
characters that she is called the goddess with ten thousand names.

[Illustration: 364.jpg GRAECO-EGYPTIAN COLUMN]

The