exported, were lessened; the priests, who manufactured linen for the king’s own use, probably for the clothing of the army, and the sails for the navy, were not called upon for so large a part of what they made as before; and the royalties on the other linen manufactories and the duties on the samples or patterns, both of which seem to have been unpaid for the whole of the eight years of the minority, were wisely forgiven.  All the temples of Egypt, and that of Apis at Memphis in particular, were enriched by his gifts; in which pious actions, in grateful remembrance of their former benefactor, and with a marked slight to Philopator, they said that he was following the wishes of his grandfather, the god Euergetes.  From this decree we gain some little insight into the means by which the taxes were raised under the Ptolemies; and we also learn that they were so new and foreign that they had no Egyptian word by which they could speak of them, and therefore borrowed the Greek word syntaxes.

History gives us many examples of kings who, like Epiphanes, gained great praise for the mildness and weakness of the government during their minorities.  Aristomenes, the minister, who had governed Egypt for Epiphanes, fully deserved that trust.  While the young king looked up to him as a father, the country was well governed, and his orders obeyed; but, as he grew older, his good feelings were weakened by the pleasures which usually beset youth and royalty.  The companions of his vices gained that power over his mind which Aristomenes lost, and it was not long before this wise tutor and counsellor was got rid of.  The king, weary perhaps with last night’s debauchery, had one day fallen asleep when he should have been listening to the speech of a foreign ambassador.  Aristomenes gently shook him and awoke him.  His flatterers, when alone with him, urged him to take this as an affront.  If, said they, it was right to blame the king for falling asleep when worn out with business and the cares of state, it should have been done in private, and not in the face of the whole court.  So Aristomenes was put to death by being ordered to drink poison.  Epiphanes then lost that love of his people which the wisdom of the minister had gained for him; and he governed the kingdom with the cruelty of a tyrant, rather than with the legal power of a king.

[Illustration:  207.jpg OUTSIDE ROSETTA]

Even Aristonicus, his favourite eunuch, who was of the same age as himself, and had been brought up as his playfellow, passed him in the manly virtues of his age, and earned the praise of the country for setting him a good example, and checking him in his career of vice.