also the island of Cyprus, where he would
be near the coast of Asia Minor. He could not yet think of conquering
Cyprus, which had an important fleet. He felt that, if he annexed Syria,
either by diplomacy or by force, the organisation of the kingdom and the
territorial division of power would be changed in a tangible manner.
The Egyptian satraps already possessed some measure of authority, and he
could also depend upon the satrap of Syria joining him.

Perdiccas had bestowed this satrapy upon Laomedon, the Amphysolite,
who had taken no part in the great fight between Perdiccas and Ptolemy.
Ptolemy now informed him that he wished to possess his satrapy, but was
ready to compensate him with a sum of money. Laomedon refused this offer
with scorn. Thereupon, an army under Nicanor, one of the "friends" of
Ptolemy, marched into Palestine. Jerusalem was the only place that
held out against the Egyptian army; but Nicanor, says the historian
Agathareides, seeing that on every seventh day the garrison withdrew
from the walls, chose that day for the assault, and thus gained the
city. Without further opposition the Egyptians marched onwards. At
last he met Laomedon, took him prisoner, and brought him back to Egypt.
Egyptian sentries now guarded the strongholds of the country; Egyptian
ships took the towns along the coast. A great number of the Jews were
transported to Alexandria; they received the rights of citizenship
there.

[Illustration: 049.jpg A THEBAN BELLE]

Without altering local conditions, Syria gradually came under the sway
of the Egyptian satraps. Laomedon found means of escaping from Egypt;
he fled to Alcetas in Caria, who had just withdrawn himself to the
mountainous regions of Pisida, thence to begin the decisive war against
Antigonus.

[Illustration: 049b.jpg Prayer to Isis]

Painted by Alexander Cabanel

In the earlier times of Egyptian history, when navigation was less easy,
and when seas separated kingdoms instead of joining them, the Thebaid
enjoyed, under the Koptic kings, the trading wealth which followed the
stream of its great river, the longest piece of inland navigation
then known; but, with the improvement in navigation and ship-building,
countries began to feel their strength in the timber of their forests
and the number of their harbours; and, as timber and sea-coast were
equally unknown in the Thebaid, that country fell as Lower Egypt rose;
the wealth which before centred in Thebes was the