the model of a well-ordered polity; but he replied that it was difficult to legislate for the Cyrenaeans while they were so prosperous.  Nothing, indeed, is more difficult to govern than a man who considers himself prosperous; and, on the other hand, there is nothing more obedient to command than a man when he is humbled by fortune.  And it was this that made the Cyrenaeans tractable to Lucullus in his legislation for them.  Sailing from Cyrene[324] to Egypt, he lost most of his vessels by an attack of pirates; but he escaped himself, and entered Alexandria in splendid style; for the whole fleet came out to meet him, as it was used to do when a king entered the port, equipped magnificently.  The young king, Ptolemaeus,[325] showed him other surprising marks of attention, and gave him a lodging and table in the palace, though no foreign general had ever before been lodged there.  He also offered him an allowance for his expenditure, not such as he used to offer to others, but four times as much; Lucullus, however, would not receive anything more than his necessities required, nor yet any present, though the king sent presents to the value of eighty talents.  It is said that Lucullus did not go up to Memphis,[326] nor make inquiry about any other of the wondrous and far-famed things in Egypt; he said that such things befitted an idle spectator, and one who had only to enjoy himself:  not a man like himself, who had left the Imperator encamped under the bare sky, and close to the enemy’s battlements.

Plutarch begins his Treatise which is intitled To an Uninstructed Prince with the same story about Plato and the Cyrenaeans (Moralia, ed.  Wyttenbach, vol. iv.).]

III.  Ptolemaeus declined the alliance, being afraid of the war; but he gave Lucullus ships to convoy him as far as Cyprus, and when he was setting sail he embraced him and paid him great attention, and presented him with an emerald set in gold, of great price.  Lucullus at first begged to be excused from taking the present; but when the king showed him that the engraving contained his royal likeness, Lucullus was afraid to refuse the present, lest, if he should be supposed to sail away at complete enmity with the king, he might be plotted against on the sea.  In his voyage along the coast Lucullus got together a number of vessels from the maritime towns except such as participated in piratical iniquities, and passed over to Cyprus, where, hearing that his enemies were lying in wait for him with their ships at the headlands, he drew up all his vessels, and wrote to the cities about winter quarters and supplies, as if he intended to stay there till the fine season.  As soon as a favourable opportunity offered for his voyage, he launched his ships and got out to sea, and by sailing during the day with his sails down and low, and putting them up at night, he got safe to Rhodes.  The Rhodians supplied him with some more ships, and he persuaded the people of Kos and Knidus to quit