the military ruin of the country.  In Egypt not only was the restoration of Philometor accomplished, but—­partly in order to put an end to the quarrel between the brothers, partly in order to weaken the still considerable power of Egypt—­Cyrene was separated from that kingdom and assigned as a provision for Euergetes.  “The Romans make kings of those whom they wish,” a Jew wrote not long after this, “and those whom they do not wish they chase away from land and people.”  But this was the last occasion—­for a long time—­on which the Roman senate came forward in the affairs of the east with that ability and energy, which it had uniformly displayed in the complications with Philip, Antiochus, and Perseus.  Though the internal decline of the government was late in affecting the treatment of foreign affairs, yet it did affect them at length.  The government became unsteady and vacillating; they allowed the reins which they had just grasped to slacken and almost to slip from their hands.  The guardian-regent of Syria was murdered at Laodicea; the rejected pretender Demetrius escaped from Rome and, setting aside the youthful prince, seized the government of his ancestral kingdom under the bold pretext that the Roman senate had fully empowered him to do so (592).  Soon afterwards war broke out between the kings of Egypt and Cyrene respecting the possession of the island of Cyprus, which the senate had assigned first to the elder, then to the younger; and in opposition to the most recent Roman decision it finally remained with Egypt.  Thus the Roman government, in the plenitude of its power and during the most profound inward and outward peace at home, had its decrees derided by the impotent kings of the east; its name was misused, its ward and its commissioner were murdered.  Seventy years before, when the Illyrians had in a similar way laid hands on Roman envoys, the senate of that day had erected a monument to the victim in the market-place, and had with an army and fleet called the murderers to account.  The senate of this period likewise ordered a monument to be raised to Gnaeus Octavius, as ancestral custom prescribed; but instead of embarking troops for Syria they recognized Demetrius as king of the land.  They were forsooth now so powerful, that it seemed superfluous to guard their own honour.  In like manner not only was Cyprus retained by Egypt in spite of the decree of the senate to the contrary, but, when after the death of Philometor (608) Euergetes succeeded him and so reunited the divided kingdom, the senate allowed this also to take place without opposition.

India, Bactria