he body of Alexander,
and devoutly added a golden crown and a garland of flowers to the other
ornaments on the sarcophagus of the Macedonian. But he would take no
pains to please either the Alexandrians or Egyptians; he despised them
both. When asked if he would not like to see the Alexandrian monarchs
lying in their mummy-cases in the same tomb, he answered: "No, I came to
see the king, not dead men," His contempt for Cleopatra and her father
made him forget the great qualities of Ptolemy Soter. So when he was
at Memphis he refused to humour the national prejudice of two thousand
years' standing by visiting the bull Apis. Of the former conquerors,
Cambyses had stabbed the sacred bull, Alexander had sacrificed to it;
had Augustus had the violent temper of either, he would have copied
Cambyses. The Egyptians always found the treatment of the sacred bull a
foretaste of what they were themselves to receive from their sovereigns.

The Greeks of Alexandria, who had for some time past very unwillingly
yielded to the Jews the right of citizenship, now urged upon Augustus
that it should no longer be granted. Augustus, however, had received
great services from the Jews, and at once refused the prayer; and he set
up in Alexandria an inscription granting to the Jews the full privileges
of Macedonians, which they claimed and had hitherto enjoyed under
the Ptolemies. They were allowed their own magistrates and courts
of justice, with the free exercise of their own religion; and soon
afterwards, when their high priest died, they were allowed as usual
to choose his successor. The Greek Jews of Alexandria were indeed very
important, both from their numbers and their learning; they spread over
Syria and Asia Minor: they had a synagogue in Jerusalem in common with
the Jews of Cyrene and Libya; and we find that one of the chief teachers
of Christianity after the apostles was Apollos, the Alexandrian, who
preached the new religion in Ephesus, in Corinth, and in Crete.

On his return to Rome, Augustus carried with him the whole of the royal
treasure; and though perhaps there might have been less gold and silver
than usual in the palace of the Ptolemies, still it was so large a sum
that when, upon the establishment of peace over all the world, the rate
of interest upon loans fell in Rome, and the price of land rose, the
change was thought to have been caused by the money from Alexandria.
At the same time were carried away the valuable jewels