The Alexandrians, after the vices and murders of former kings, could not have been much struck by the behaviour of Euergetes towards his family; but he was not less cruel towards his people.  Alexandria, which he had entered peaceably, was handed over to the unbridled cruelty of the mercenaries, and blood flowed in every street.  The anger of Euergetes fell more particularly on the Jews for the help which they had given to Cleopatra, and he threatened them with utter destruction.  The threat was not carried into execution; but such was the Jews’ alarm, that they celebrated a yearly festival in Alexandria for several hundred years, in thankfulness for their escape from it.  The population of the city, who looked upon it less as a home than as a place of trade in which they could follow their callings with the greatest gain, seemed to quit Alexandria as easily as they had come there under Ptolemy Soter; and Euergetes, who was afraid that he should soon be left to reign over a wilderness, made new laws in favour of trade and of strangers who would settle there.

In the lifetime of Philometor he had never laid aside his claim to the throne of Egypt, but had only yielded to the commands of Rome and to his brother’s forces, and he now numbered the years of his reign from his former seizing of Alexandria.  He had reigned six years with his brother, and then eighteen years in Cyrene, and he therefore called the first year of his real reign the twenty-fifth.

In the next year he went to Memphis to be crowned; and, while the pomps and rites were there being performed, his queen and sister bore him a son, whom, from the place and to please the people, he named Memphites.  But his queen was already in disgrace; and some of those very friends who on his brother’s death had marched with him against Alexandria were publicly put to death for speaking ill of his mistress Irene.  He soon afterwards put away his wife and married her younger daughter, his niece, Cleopatra Cocce.  The divorced Cleopatra was allowed to keep her title; and, as she was the widow of the late king, she held a rank in the state before the wife of the reigning king.  Thus, the small temple of Hathor in the island of Philae was dedicated to the goddess in the name of King Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra his sister, and Queen Cleopatra his wife, designated as the gods Euergetae.

[Illustration:  241.jpg TEMPLE OF HATHOR AT PHILAE]

The Roman senate, however, felt its authority slighted by this murder of the young Eupator, and divorce of Cleopatra, both of whom were living under its protection.  The late ambassador, Thermus, by whose treachery or folly Euergetes had been enabled to crush his rivals and gain the sovereign power, was on his return to Rome called to account for his conduct.  Cato the Censor, in one of his great speeches, accused him of having been seduced from his duty by the love of Egyptian gold, and of having betrayed the queen to the bribes of Euergetes.  In the meanwhile Scipio