he fell into that sickness, of which he died in this confinement, after he had passed in it three years, and had lived to the fifty-fourth year of his age.

All the time of his confinement, Seleucus frequently sent him kind messages, with promises of a release from his captivity, assuring him, that as soon as Antiochus and Stratonice should be returned again to court, the articles of his restoration should be settled by them to his content. This Stratonice was the daughter of Demetrius, and had been first married to Seleucus (as hath been above related,) but was then, by an unparalleled example, become the wife of Antiochus his son. The manner how it come to pass is thus related: Stratonice being a very beautiful lady,' Antiochus fell in love with her; but not daring to own his passion, he silently languished under it, and at length, through the violence of it, fell desperately sick. Erasistratus, an eminent Greek physician, having the care of him in his sickness, soon found out what the distemper was, but to discover who was the person that had kindled this flame in him, was the difficulty; for the finding of this out, he carefully attended his patient when visited by any of the court ladies, and observing, that whenever Stratonice came into his chamber, great alterations were made in his pulse, in his countenance, in his behaviour, and in every thing else about him, which the passion of love could reach; and that nothing of this happened when any other lady came to make him a visit, he thereby fully discovered that Stratonice was the sole object of that violent love which caused his sickness; and finding that nothing else could cure him of it, but the enjoyment of the person beloved, for the bringing of this about, he thus craftily managed the matter: The next time that Seleucus inquired of him about his son's sickness, he told him that his disease was love, and that he must necessarily die of it, because he could not have the person he loved, and he could not live without her. Seleucus being surprised at this account, asked why he should not have the person he loved; "because (saith the physician) he is in love with my wife, and I cannot part with her."-"How! not part with her (replied Seleucus,) to save my beloved son's life; how then can you pretend to be my friend?"—"Sir (said the physician,) pray make it your own case: would you, I pray, part with your wife Stratonice for the sake of Antiochus? And if you, who are his most tender father, will not do it for a most beloved son, how can you expect it from any other?"-" Oh (replied Seleucus,) would to God the safety of my son were put upon this issue, I would then gladly part with Stratonice, or any thing else to effect his recovery!" "Why then (said Erasistratus,) you are the only physician that can cure him, for it is the love of Stratonice that hath cast him into this disease, which he languisheth with, and nothing can restore him but the giving of her to him to wife." Hereon Seleucus having easily enough prevailed with Stratonice to accept of a young prince for her husband instead of an old king, she was given to him to wife, after she had borne children to his father, and they being thereon crowned king and queen of Upper Asia, were sent thither to govern those provinces, and there they were all the time that Demetrius was in his confinement in Syria. And from this abominable incestuous marriage (the like whereof was not heard of among the Gentiles in St. Paul's time) sprung all that race of Syrian kings, who so grievously persecuted, vexed, and oppressed God's people in Judah and Jerusalem, as will be hereafter related.

An. 285. Ptolemy Soter 20.]-Ptolemy Soter having reigned in Egypt twenty years from the time of his assuming the title of king, and thirty-nine from the death of Alexander, placed Ptolemy Philadelphus, one of the sons which he had by Berenice, on the throne, and made him king in copartnership with him. He had several sons by other wives, one of which was Ptolemy, surnamed Ceraunus, or the Thunderer, who being born to him by Eurydice, the daughter of Antipater, and the elder of the two, expected the crown after his father, as

1 Plut. in Demetrio. Appian. in Syriacis. Valerius Maximus, lib. 5. c. 7. Lucianus de Dea Syria. Juli. anus in Misopogne.

21 Cor. v. 1.

3 Pausan. in Atticis. Justin. ib. 16. c. 2. Diog. Laert. in Demet. Phal.

due to him before the other by virtue of his birthright. But Berenice, who came first into Egypt only as companion to Eurydice, when she first married Ptolemy, having also become his wife, and by reason of her beauty been exceedingly beloved by him,' she gained hereby such an ascendant over him above all his other wives, that she carried it for her son. And therefore being now past eighty, and apprehending the day of his death not to be far off, he determined to put the crown upon his head, while he yet lived, that so there might be no war nor contention about it after his death. Whereupon Ptolemy Ceraunus, not bearing this preference of his younger brother before him, fled first to Lysimachus, whose son Agathocles had married Lysandra his sister by the same mother, and after that on the death of Agathocles went to Seleucus, who received him with great kindness, which he repaid with the most villanous treachery, as will be hereafter related.

2

An. 284. Ptolemy Philadelph. 1.]-In the first year of the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (which was the first year of the one hundred and twenty-fourth Olympiad) was finished the great tower or light-house in the island of Pharus over against Alexandria,3 commonly called the tower of Pharus, which hath been reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. It was a large foursquare pile of building, all built of white marble, and had always fires maintained on the top of it for the direction of seamen. It cost in the building eight hundred talents. This, if computed by Attic talents, amounts to one hundred and sixty-five thousand pounds of our sterling money: but if by Alexandrian talents, it will come to twice as much. The architect who built it was Sostratus of Cnidus, who craftily endeavoured to usurp the honour of it with posterity to himself by his fraudulent device. The inscription ordered to be set on it being "King Ptolemy to the gods the saviours, for the benefit of those who pass by sea," instead of Ptolemy's name he craftily engraved his own in the solid marble, and then filling up the hollow of the engraved letters with mortar, wrote upon it what was directed. So the inscription, which was first read, was according as it was ordered, and truly ascribed the work to King Ptolemy its proper founder; but in process of time, the mortar being worn off, the inscription then appeared to be thus: "Sostratus, the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the gods the saviours, for the benefit of those who pass by sea," which, being in lasting letters deeply engraved into the marble stones, lasted as long as the tower itself. This tower hath been demolished for some ages past. There is now in its place a castle called Farillon,' where a garrison is kept to defend the harbour, perchance it is some remainder of the old work. Pharus was at first wholly an island, at the distance of seven furlongs from the conti

1 Vide Theocriti Idyllium 17. 3 Plin. lib. 36. c. 12. Strabo, lib. 17. p. 791. Eustathii Comment. in Dionysii Periegesin. Suidas in @apss Eusebii Chronicon, p. 66. Stephanus Byzantinus. Geographia, Nubiensis, Vetus Scholiastes in Lucianum. This old Greek scholiast is at the end of Grævius's edition of Lucian's works, published at Amsterdam, Anno 1687. That which I quote it for, is a passage taken out of it by Nicholas Lloyd in his Geographical Lexicon, where, under the word Pharus, he tells us in the words of that scholiast, that this tower was тITY HOS σταδαίος την πλευρήν επί πολύ του αέρος ανοχών ωςτ' απόρ ορασζαν μοίλων, i. e. That it was a square of a fur long (i. e. six hundred feet) on every side, and ascended up so high into the air, that it might be seen at the distance of a hundred miles." Though this determines the breadth to a certain measure, yet it doth not the height, but in an uncertain manner. But this defect is supplied by Eben Adris, an Arabic author, in his book called, by the Latin translator, Geographia Nubiensis. For there he tells us (Clim. 3. part 3,) that this tower or light-house of Pharus, was three hundred cubits (i. e. four hundred and fifty feet) high. But both these accounts are very improbable, and the former is contradicted by what Josephus tells us of it (De Bello Judaico, lib. 6. p. 914,) for, speaking of the tower of Phasælus at Jerusalem, which he describes to be a square building of forty cubits (i. e. sixty feet,) on every side, and ninety cubits (i. e. a hundred and thirty-five feet) high, saith of it, that it was like the tower of Pharus near Alexandria; T TEPION SE TORU μsov, i. e. "But as to its circumference it was much larger." And Josephus, having often seen both these towers, could not be mistaken herein. Were the tower of Pharus of the breadth of six hundred feet on every side, and of the height of four hundred and fifty feet, it would within thirty feet be as high as the great pyramid, and stand upon altogether as much ground, in a direct perpendicular building, as that doth in a pyramidal; which would render it, beyond all other buildings in the world, very prodigious; and were it so, Josephus could not have said in reference to it the words above recited. But against Josephus, as to this matter, it may be objected, that if the tower of Pharus were so much less than the tower of Phasælus at Jerusalem, how came it ever to be reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world? It would be an answer to this objection if we could say the words of Josephus, as above recited, were to be referred to the tower of Pharus, and not to that of Phaselus, but the grammatical construction will not admit it. And Josephus in another place describeth Phaselus to have been πύργον ουδέν ελάττω του κατά την φαρν, i. e. " n tower not less than that of Pharus,” which utterly excludeth this last interpretation. See Josephus Antiq. lib. 16. cap. 9. p. 560.

2 Appian. in Syriacis. Memnonis Excerpta apud Photium.

4 Thevenot's Travels, part 1, book 2, chap. 1.

nent, and had no other passage to it but by sea. But it hath many ages since been turned from an island into a peninsula,' by being joined to the land in the same manner as Tyrus was, by a bank carried through the sea to it, which was anciently called in Greek the Heptastadium, i. e. the seven furlong bank, because seven furlongs was the length of it. This work was performed by Dexiphanes, the father of Sostratus, about the same time that Sostratus finished the tower, and seems to have been the more difficult undertaking of the two. They being both very famous architects, were both employed by Ptolemy Soter in the works which he had projected for the beautifying, adorning, and strengthening the city of Alexandria: the father having undertaken the Heptastadium at the same time that his son did the tower, they finished both these works at the same time, that in the beginning of the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Those who attribute the making of the Heptastadium to Cleopatra follow Ammianus Marcellinus, whose relation concerning it cannot be true; for it contradicts Cæsar's Commentaries, and many other authors, that are better to be credited in this matter.

3

Toward the end of this year died Ptolemy Soter, king of Egypt, in the second year after his admitting of his son to sit on his throne with him, being at the time of his death eighty-four years old. He was the wisest and best of his race, and left an example of prudence, justice, and clemency, behind him, which none of his successors cared to follow. During the forty years in which he governed Egypt, from the death of Alexander he had brought that country into a very flourishing condition, which administering great plenty to his successors, this administered to as great luxury in them, in which they exceeded most that lived in their time.

A little before his death, this very same year, was brought out of Pontus to Alexandria the image of Serapis, after three years sedulous endeavour made for the obtaining of it: concerning which we are told, that while Ptolemy, the first of that name that reigned in Egypt, was busying himself in fortifying Alexandria with its walls, and adorning it with temples and other public buildings, there appeared to him in a vision of the night a young man of great beauty, and of more than human shape, and commanded him to send to Pontus, and fetch from thence his image to Alexandria, promising him that he should make that city famous and happy, and bring great prosperity to his whole kingdom; and then, on his saying this, ascended up into heaven in a bright flame of fire out of his sight. Ptolemy, being much troubled hereat, called together the Egyptian priests to advise with them about it; but they being wholly ignorant of Pontus, and all other foreign countries, could give him no answer concerning this matter, whereon, consulting one Timotheus an Athenian, then at Alexandria, he learnt from him, that in Pontus there was a city called Sinope, not far from which was a temple of Jupiter, which had his image in it, with another image of a woman standing nigh him, that was taken to be Proserpina. But, after awhile, other matters putting this out of Ptolemy's head, so that he thought no more of it, the vision appeared to him again in a more terrible manner, and threatened destruction to him and his kingdom, if his commands were not obeyed; which Ptolemy being much terrified, immediately sent away ambassadors to the king of Sinope to obtain the image. They being ordered in their way to consult Apollo at Delphos, were commanded by him to bring away the image of his father, but to leave that of his sister. Whereon they proceeded to Sinope, there to execute their commission in the manner as directed by the oracle. But neither they, with all their solicitations, gifts, and presents, nor other ambassadors that were sent after them with greater gifts, could obtain what they were sent thither for, till this last year. But then the people of Sinope, being grievously oppressed by a famine, were content, on Ptolemy's

1 Strabo, lib. 17. p. 792. Plin. lib. 5. c. 31. et lib. 13. c. 11. Cæsaris Comment. de Bello Civili, lib. 3. Pomponius Mela, lib. 2. c. 7. 2 Lib. 22. cap. 16. 3 Pausanias in Atticis. Eusebii Chronicon. 4 Lucianus in Macrobiis.

5 Tacitus Histor. lib. 4. cap. 83, 84. Plutarchus de Iside et Osiride. Clemens Alexandrinus in Protreption. VOL. II.-3

relieving them with a fleet of corn, to part with their god for it, which they could not be induced to do before. And so the image was brought to Alexandria, and there set up in one of the suburbs of that city called Rhacotis, where it was worshipped by the name of Serapis; and this new god had in that place, awhile after, a very famous temple erected to him, called the Serapeum: and this was the first time that this deity was either worshipped or known in Egypt; and therefore it could not be the patriarch Joseph that was worshipped by this name, as some would have it. For, had it been he that was meant hereby, this piece of idolatry must have been much ancienter among them, and must also have had its original in Egypt itself, and not been introduced thither from a foreign country. Some of the ancients indeed had this conceit, as Julius Firmicus,' Ruffinus," and others; but all the reason they give for it is, that Serapis was generally represented by an image with a bushel on its head, which they think denoted the bushel wherewith Joseph measured out to the Egyptians his corn in the time of the famine; whereas it might as well denote the bushel with which Ptolemy measured out to the people of Sinope the corn with which he purchased this god of them. However, this same opinion is embraced by several learned men of the moderns, and for the support of it against what is objected from the late reception of Serapis among the Egyptian deities, they will have Serapis to have been an ancient Egyptian god, and the same with their Apis, and that Serapis was no other than Apis op, that is, Apis in his coffin, and for this they quote some of the ancients. Their meaning is, that while the sacred bull, which the Egyptians worshipped for their great god, was alive, he was called Apis, and that, when he was dead and salted up in his coffin, and buried, he was called Serapis, that is, Apis in soro (i. e. in his coffin,) from whence they say, his name was at first Soroapis, made up of the composition of these two words, Soros and Apis put together, and that, by corruption from thence it came to be Serapis. But what is there, that, after this rate, learned men may not tenter any thing to? But the worst of it is, the ancient Egyptians did not speak Greek. The Ptolemies first brought that language among them; and, therefore, had Serapis been an ancient god worshipped in that country before the Ptolemies reigned there, his name could not have had a Greek etymology. Much more might be said to show the vanity of this conceit, were it worth the reader's while to be troubled with it. It is certain Serapis was not originally an Egyptian deity anciently worshipped in that country (as he must have been, had it been Joseph that was there worshipped under that name,) but was an adventitious god, brought thither from abroad about the time which we now treat of. The ancient place of his station, Polybius tells us, was on the coast of the Propontis, on the Thracian side, over-against Hierus, and that there Jason, when he went on the Argonautic expedition, sacrificed unto him. From thence, therefore, the people of Sinope had this piece of idolatry, and from them the Egyptians, in the manner as I have related; and till then this deity was wholly unknown among them. Had it been otherwise, Herodotus, who is so large in his account of the Egyptian gods, could not have escaped taking notice of him; but he makes not the least mention of him as worshipped in that country, neither doth any other author that wrote before the times that the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt. And, when his image was first set up in Alexandria, Nicocreon, then king of Cyprus, s having never heard of him before, sent to know what god he was, which he would not have done had he been a deity anciently worshipped by the Egyptians. For then Nicocreon, who was a very learned prince, must necessarily before that time have had full knowledge of him. And Origen,' who was an Egyptian, speaks of him as a god not long before received in that country. And it is to be observed, that as he was a new god, so he brought in with him among

1 In Libro de Errore Prophanarum Religionem.

3 Vossins, Ouzelius, Spencerus, aliique.

2 Hist. lib. 2. c. 23.

4 Nymphiodorus. Clem. Alexandr. Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. 10. c. 12. Ruffin, ibidem.

5 Lib. 4. p. 307.

6 Macrob. Saturnal, lib. 1. e. 20.

7 Contra Celsum lib 5.

the Egyptians a new way of worship. For, till the time of the Ptolemies, the Egyptians' never offered any bloody sacrifices to their gods, but worshipped them only with their prayers and frankincense. But the tyranny of the Ptolemies having forced upon them the worship of the two foreign gods, that is, Saturn and Serapis, they in this worship first brought in the use of bloody sacrifices among that people. However, they continued always so averse hereto, that they would never suffer any temple to be built to either of those gods within any of the walls of their cities; but, wherever they were in that country, they were always built without them in their suburbs. And they seem only to have been the Egyptians of the Greek original who comforted hereto, and not those of the old race. For they still retained their old usage in all their old temples, and could never be induced to offer the blood of beasts in any of them; for this was always an abomination unto them from the beginning. And therefore, when the children of Israel desired leave of Pharaoh to go three days' journey into the wilderness, to offer sacrifices unto the Lord,' they gave this for the reason of it, that their religion obliging them to offer to their god the bloody sacrifices of sheep and oxen, and other living creatures, they durst not do this in the sight of the Egyptians, lest they should stone them, because such sort of sacrifices were an abomination to that people; and, therefore, they desired that they might go to the distance of three days' journey from them to perform this part of their worship unto their god, that being thus far out of their sight and observation, they might give them no offence, nor provoke them by it to any mischief against them.

5

In that place, in the suburb Rhacotis, where the image of Serapis, which Ptolemy brought from Sinope, was set up, was afterward built a very famous temple to that idol, called the Serapeum, which Ammianus Marcellinus tells us did, in the magnificence and ornaments of its buildings, exceed all other edifices in the world, next that of the capital at Rome. Within the verge of this temple there was also a library, which was of great fame in after-ages, both for the number and value of the books it was replenished with. Ptolemy Soter being a learned prince, as appeared by the History of the Life of Alexander, written by him (which was of great repute among the ancients, though not now extant,) out of the affection he had for learning; founded at Alexandria' a museum or college of learned men for the improving of philosophy, and all

1 Macrob. Saturnal, lib. 1. cap. 7. His words are: "Nunquam fas fait Ægyptiis pecudibus ant sanguine, sed precibus et thure solo placare deos." This was true of the ancient Egyptians. For, among the ancients, Porphyry tells us, (De Abstinentia, lib. 2. s. 59,) that the sacrifices with which they worshipped their gods, were cakes and fruits of the earth; and he tells us in the same book (lib. 4. s. 15,) of the Syrians, who were next neighbours to the Egyptians, and agreed in many things with them, that they offered no living creatures in sacrifice to their gods. But this could not be true of the Egyptians in Herodotus's time. For it appears from him, that they then offered some animals in sacrifices to their gods, but those were very few; much the greatest number of them were excepted, till the Ptolemies with the Grecian gods brought in the Grecian way of worshipping them with all manner of sacrifices; and of this, perchance, may be understood what Macrobius tells us of this matter. Alexander Sardus, in his book De Moribus et Ritibus Gentium, (lib. 3. cap. 15,) hath these words: "Dicebat Pythagoras se aliquando concilio deorum interfuisse, et didicisse eos Ægyptiorum sacrificia probare, quæ libationibus constant, thure, et laudibus; non placere, animantium cædes; quæ tamen postea immolarunt Ægyptii, ut soli gallum, cygnum, taurum; Veneri Columbam; et syderibus, quæ cum Sy. deribus similitudinem habent." This makes fully for what I have said. Sardus had it from ancient authority, but doth not name his author.

2 Exod. viii. 26, 27.

3 The chief cause of this abomination was, that many of those living creatures which the Jews offered in sacrifice were worshipped as gods by the Egyptians, and therefore were never slain by them, nor could they bear the slaying of them by others; of which Diodorus Siculus gives us a sufficient instance (lib. 1. p. 75. edit. Hanov.) where his words are as follow: "Such a superstition toward those sacred animals was ingenerated in their minds, and every one of them was in his affections so obstinately bent to pay honour and ve neration to them, that, at a time when Ptolemy their king was not yet declared a friend of the Romans, and all the people studied to court and pay observance to all that came out of Italy, out of fear of the Romans, that they might not give them any cause of displeasure, or reason for war against them, a Roman then in Egypt happening to have slain a cat, the multitude immediately running together, beset the house where the Roman was, and neither the nobles sent by the king to deprecate their rage, nor the fear of the Romans, could withhold them from punishing this man with death, though it was by chance, and not wilfully, that he did the fact. Thus far Diodorus. But sheep and cows, which the Jews sacrificed, were in a higher degree sacred among the Egyptians than their cats; and for this reason they could not have borne the Jewish sacrifices among them.

4 Lib. 22. cap. 16. p. 343.

5 Marcellinus, ibid. Epiphanius de Ponderibus et Mensuris. Tertullianus in Apologetico, cap. 18.

6 Arrianus in Prefatione ad Historiam de Expeditione Alexandri. Plutarchus in Alexandro. Q. Curtius, lib. 9. c. 8.

7 Strabo, lib. 17. p. 793. Plutarchus in libro quo probat non posse jucunde vitam agi ex Epicuri præceptis.