dges, the
city of Alexandria was under Macedonian law. It did not form part of the
nome of Hermopolites in which it was built. It scarcely formed a part of
Egypt, but was a Greek state in its neighbourhood, holding the Egyptians
in a state of slavery. In that city no Egyptian could live without
feeling himself of a conquered race. He was not admitted to the
privileges of Macedonian citizenship, while they were at once granted to
every Greek, and soon to every Jew, who would settle there.

By the treaty just spoken of, Ptolemy, in the thirteenth year after the
death of Alexander, was left undisputed master of Egypt. During these
years he had not only gained the love of the Egyptians and Alexandrians
by his wise and just government, but had won their respect as a general
by the skill with which he had kept the war at a distance. He had lost
and won battles in Syria, in Asia Minor, in the island of Cyprus, and at
sea; but since Perdiccas marched against him, before he had a force to
defend himself with, no foreign army had drunk the sacred waters of the
Nile.

It was under the government of Ptolemy that the wonders of Upper Egypt
were first seen by any Greeks who had leisure, a love of knowledge, and
enough of literature, to examine carefully and to describe what they
saw. Loose and highly coloured accounts of the wealth of Thebes
had reached Greece even before the time of Homer, and again through
Herodotus and other travellers in the Delta; but nothing was certainly
known of it till it was visited by Hecataeus of Abdera, who, among other
works, wrote a history of the Hyperborean or northern nations, and also
a history, or rather a description of Egypt, part of which we now read
in the pages of Dio-dorus Siculus. When he travelled in Upper Egypt,
Thebes, though still a populous city, was more thought of by the
antiquary than by the statesman. Its wealth, however, was still great;
and when, under the just government of Ptolemy, it was no longer
necessary for the priests to hide their treasures, it was found that the
temples still held the very large sum of three hundred talents of gold,
and two thousand three hundred talents of silver, or above five million
dollars, which had escaped the plundering hands of the Persian satraps.
Many of the Theban tombs, which are sets of rooms tunnelled into the
hills on the Libyan side of the Nile, had even then been opened to
gratify the curiosity of the learned or the greediness of the