course with the rest of the world, that
she scarcely needed any. Alexander's engineers, however, in exploring
the shore, found a point not far from the Canopic mouth of the Nile
where the water was deep, and where there was an anchorage ground
protected by an island. Alexander founded a city there, which he called
by his own name. He perfected the harbor by artificial excavations and
embankments. A lofty light-house was reared, which formed a landmark by
day, and exhibited a blazing star by night to guide the galleys of the
Mediterranean in. A canal was made to connect the port with the Nile,
and warehouses were erected to contain the stores of merchandise. In a
word, Alexandria became at once a great commercial capital. It was the
seat, for several centuries, of the magnificent government of the
Ptolemies; and so well was its situation chosen for the purposes
intended, that it still continues, after the lapse of twenty centuries
of revolution and change, one of the principal emporiums of the commerce
of the East.

CHAPTER II.

THE PTOLEMIES.

The dynasty of the Ptolemies.--The founder.--Philip of
Macedon.--Alexander.--The intrigue discovered.--Ptolemy
banished.--Accession of Alexander.--Ptolemy's elevation.--Death of
Alexander.--Ptolemy becomes King of Egypt.--Character of Ptolemy's
reign.--The Alexandrian library.--Abdication of Ptolemy.--Ptolemy
Philadelphus.--Death of Ptolemy.--Subsequent degeneracy of the
Ptolemies.--Incestuous marriages of the Ptolemy family.--Ptolemy
Physcon.--Origin of his name.--Circumstances of Physcon's
accession.--Cleopatra.--Physcon's brutal perfidity.--He marries his
wife's daughter.--Atrocities of Physcon.--His flight.--Cleopatra assumes
the government.--Her birth-day.--Barbarity of Physcon.--Grief of
Cleopatra.--General character of the Ptolemy family.--Lathyrus.
--Terrible quarrels with his mother.--Cruelties of Cleopatra.
--Alexander kills her.--Cleopatra a type of the family.--Her
two daughters.--Unnatural war.--Tryphena's hatred of her sister.--Taking
of Antioch.--Cleopatra flees to a temple.--Jealousy of Tryphena.--Her
resentment increases.--Cruel and sacrilegious murder.--The moral
condition of mankind not degenerating.

The founder of the dynasty of the Ptolemies--the ruler into whose hands
the kingdom of Egypt fell, as has already been stated, at the death of
Alexander the Great--was a Macedonian general in Alexander's army. The
circumstances of his birth, and the event