Though others may have been guilty of more crimes, Alexander had perhaps the fewest good qualities of any of the family of the Lagidaa.  During his idle reign of twenty years, in which the crimes ought in fairness to be laid chiefly to his mother, he was wholly given up to the lowest and worst of pleasures, by which his mind and body were alike ruined.  He was so bloated with vice and disease that he seldom walked without crutches; but at his feasts he could leap from his raised couch and dance with naked feet upon the floor with the companions of his vices.  He was blinded by flattery, ruined by debauchery, and hated by the people.

His coins are not easily known from those of the other kings, which also bore the name of “Ptolemy the king” round the eagle.  Some of the coins of his mother have the same words round the eagle on the one side, while on the other is her head, with a helmet formed like the head of an elephant, or her head with the name of “Queen Cleopatra” There are other coins with the usual head of Jupiter, and with two eagles to point out the joint sovereignty of herself and son.

Few buildings or parts of buildings mark the reign of Ptolemy Alexander; but his name is not wholly unknown among the sculptures of Upper Egypt.  On the walls of the temple of Apollinopolis Magna he is represented as making an offering to the god Horus.  There the Egyptian artist has carved a portrait of this Greek king, whom he perhaps had never seen, clothed in a dress which he never wore, and worshipping a god whom he may have hardly known by name.

History has not told us who was the first wife of Alexander, but he left a son by her named after himself Ptolemy Alexander, whom we have seen sent by his grandmother for safety to the island of Cos, the fortress of the family, and a daughter whom he carried with him in his flight to Lycia.  His second wife was Cleopatra Berenice, the daughter of his brother Lathyrus, by whom he had no children, and who is called in the hieroglyphics his queen and sister.

[Illustration:  274.jpg COIN OF CLEOPATRA AND ALEXANDER]

On the flight of Alexander, the Alexandrians sent an embassy to Cyprus to bring back Soter II., or Lathyrus, as he is called; and he entered Egypt without any opposition.  He had reigned ten years with his mother, and then eighteen years by himself in Cyprus; and during those years of banishment had shown a wisdom and good behaviour which must have won the esteem of the Alexandrians, when compared with his younger brother Alexander.  He had held his ground against the fleets and armies of his mother, but either through weakness or good feeling had never invaded Egypt.

His reign is remarkable for the rebellion and ruin of the once powerful city of Thebes.  It had long been falling in trade and in wealth, and had lost its superiority in arms; but its temples, like so many citadels, its obelisks, its colossal statues, and the tombs of its great kings still remained, and with them the memory of its glory then gone by.