especial presents to his friends. And thus he wore out in wild and cruel extravagancies the remainder of his reign; the best recommendation of which was, that it was very short; for it ended after five years' time in his death, which then happened in the manner as will be hereafter related in its proper place. Simon 7. Antiochus Sidetes, after having vanquished Tryphon, and wholly broken an 1 brought under all that An. 137. were of his party, did nexts betake himself to recover to the Syrian empire, all such cities and places as had taken the advantage of the late distractions that followed upon his father's death, to revolt from it. And, having gained full success herein, he settled all things within the kingdom of Syria again, upon the same bottom on which they were before these distractions begun. Simon 8. But in Egypt all things went worse and worse. For, whether it were that Hieraxt was dead, or else, An. 136. that the madness of the prince overbore all the wisdom and prudence of the chief minister, we hear nothing of him from this time, but his barbarous cruelties, and monstrous mismanagements in all his conduct. Most" of those who were the forwardest to call him to the crown on his brother's decease, and after that to support him in it, he causelessly put to death. Most of those who had the favour of Philo metor his brother, or had been employed in his service, he either slew, or drove into banishment; and, by his foreign mercenaries, whom he let loose to commit all manner of murders and rapines as they pleased, he oppressed and terrified the Alexandrians to so great a degree, that most of them fled into other countries to avoid his cruelty, and left their city in a manner desolate. That therefore he might not reign over empty houses without inhabitants, he, by his proclamations dispersed over the neighbouring countries, invited all strangers to come thither to repeople the place. Whereon great multitudes flocking thither, he s Justin. lib. 36, c. 1. t Athenæus tells us, that Physcon did put Hierax to death, lib. 6, p. 252, but the time of his death is not said. u Justin. lib. 38, c. 8. Athenæus, lib. 4, p. 184: gave them the habitations of those that were fled; and, admitting them to all the rights, privileges, and immunities, of the former citizens, he, by this means, again replenished the city. There being, among those that fled out of Egypt on this occasion, many grammarians, philosophers, geometricians, physicians, musicians, and other masters and professors of ingenious arts and sciences, this banishment of theirs became the means of reviving learning again in Greece, Lesser Asia, and the isles, and in all other places where they went. The wars which followed after the death of Alexander, among those that succeeded him, had, in a manner, extinguished learning in all those parts; and it would have gone nigh to have been utterly lost amidst the calamities of those times, but that it found a support under the patronage of the Ptolemies at Alexandria. For the first Ptolemy having there erected a museum or college, for the maintenance and encouragement of learned men, and also a great library for their use (of both which I have already spoken,) this drew most of the learned men of Greece thither. And, the second and third Ptolemy having followed herein the same steps of their predecessor, Alexandria became the place where the liberal arts and sciences, and all other parts of learning, were preserved, and flourished in those ages, when they were almost dropped every where else; and most of its inhabitants were bred up in the knowledge of some or other of them. And hereby it came to pass, that, when they were driven into foreign parts, by the cruelty and oppression of the wicked tyrant I have mentioned, being qualified to gain themselves a maintenance by teaching, each in the places where they came, the particular professions they were skilled in; they accordingly betook themselves hereto, and erected schools for this purpose in all the countries abovementioned, through which they were dispersed; and they being, by reason of their poverty, content to teach for a small hire, this drew great numbers of scholars to them, and by this means, x Athenæus, lib. 4, p. 184. all the several branches of learning became again revived in those eastern parts, in the same manner as they were in these latter ages in the western, after the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. For, till then, most of the learning of the West was in school-divinity, and the canon-law; and, although the former of these was built more upon Aristotle than the holy Scriptures, yet they had nothing of Aristotle in those days, but in a translation at the third band. The Saracens had translated the works of that philosopher into Arabic, and from thence those Christians of the Latin church, who learned philosophy from the Saracens in Spain, translated them into Latin. And this was the only text of that author, on which, during the reign of the schoolmen, all their comments on him were made. And yet upon no better a foundation are some of those decisions in divinity built, which the Romanists hold as infallible, than what they have thus borrowed from an heathen philosopher, handed to them in a translation made by the disciples of Mahomet. But, when Constantinople was taken by the king of the Turks, in the year of our Lord 1453, and the learned men who dwelt there, and in other parts of Greece, fearing the cruelty and the barbarity of the Turks, fled into Italy, they brought thither with them their books and their learning; and there, first under the patronage of the princes of that country (especially of Lorenzo de Medices, the first founder of the greatness of his family,) propagated both. And this gave the rise to all that learning in these western parts, which hath ever since grown and flourished in them. At the same time that foreigners were flocking to Alexandria for the repeopling of that city, there came thither Publius Scipio Africanus jun. Spurius Mummius and L. Metellus, in an embassy from the Romans. It was the usage of that people, often to send out embassies to inspect the affairs of their allies, and to make up and compose what differences they should find among them; and for this purpose, this famous em y Justin. lib. 28, c. 8. Cicero in Somnio Scipionis, c. 2. Athenæus, lib. 6, p. 273, et lib. 12, p. 549. Valerius Maximus, lib. 4, c. 3, sec. 13. Diod. Sic, legat. 32. bassy, consisting of three of the most eminent men of Rome, was at this time sent from thence. Their commission was to pass through Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, to see and observe how the affairs of each kingdom and state in those countries stood, and to take an account how the leagues they had made with the Romans were kept and observed; and to set all things at rights, that they should find any where amiss among them. And this trust they every where discharged so honourably and justly, and so much to the benefit and advantage of those they were sent to, in regulating their disorders, and adjusting all differences which they found among them; that they were no sooner returned to Rome, but ambassadors followed them from all places where they had been, to thank the senate for sending such honourable persons to them, and for the great benefits they had received from them. The first place which they came to in the discharge of their commission being Alexandria in Egypt, they were there received by the king in great state. But they made their entrance thither with so little, that Scipio, who was then the greatest man in Rome, had no more than one friend, Panatius the philosopher, and five servants in his retinue. And, although they were, during their stay there, entertained with all the varieties of the most sumptuous fare, yet they would touch nothing more of it than what was useful, in the most temperate manner, for the necessary support of nature, despising all the rest, as that which corrupted the mind as well as the body, and bred vicious humours in both. Such was the moderation and temperance of the Romans at this time, and hereby it was that they at length advanced their state to so great an height; and in this height would they have still continued, could they still have retained the same virtues. But, when their prosperity, and the great wealth obtained thereby, became the occasion that they degenerated into luxury and corruption of manners, they drew decay and ruin as fast upon them as they had before victory and pros perity, till at length they were undone by it. So that the poet said justly of them, -Savior armis Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur orbem. d When the ambassadors had taken a full view of Alexandria, and the state of affairs in that city, they sailed up the Nile to see Memphis and other parts of Egypt; whereby having thoroughly informed themselves of the great number of cities, and the vast multitude of inhabitants that were in that country, and also of the strength of its situation, the fertility of its soil, and the many other excellencies and advantages of it, they observed it to be a country that wanted nothing for its being made a very potent and formidable kingdom, but a prince of capacity and application sufficient to form it thereto. And therefore, no doubt, it was to their great satisfaction that they found the present king thoroughly destitute of every qualification that was necessary for such an undertaking. For nothing could appear more despicable, than he did to them in every interview they had with him. Of his cruelty, barbarity, luxury, and other vile and vicious dispositions which he was addicted to, I have in part already spoken, and there will be occasions hereafter to give more instances of them. And the deformities of his body were no less than those of his soul. Forf he was of a most deformed countenance, of a short stature, and such a monstrous and prominent belly therewith, as no man was able to encompass with both his arms; so that, by reason of this load of flesh, acquired by his luxury, he was so unwieldy, that he never stepped abroad without a staff to lean on. And over this vile carcass he wore a garmente so thin and transparent, that there were seen through it, not only all the deformities of his body, but also those parts which it is one of the main ends of garments modestly c Diodorus Siculus, legat. 32. d Egypt, in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, had in it thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-nine cities. Theocrit. Idyl. 17. f Athenæus, lib. 12, p. 549. e Justin. lib. 38, c. 8. * Luxury came on more cruel than our arms, |