Of the insurrection in Egypt, which obliged him to return, we know no particulars, but Euergetes seems to have become convinced that Egypt was too small a basis for such an empire.  “If he had wished to retain all his conquests” relates the chronicler, “he would have been obliged to make Antioch his residence, and this would weaken the ground of his strength.  He, moreover, appears to have been well aware that the conquests had been made too quickly.”  He accordingly divided them, retaining for himself Syria as far as Euphrates, and the coast districts of Asia Minor and Thrace, so that he had a complete maritime empire.  The remaining territories he divided into two states:  the country beyond the Euphrates was given, according to St. Jerome, to one Xantippus, who is otherwise unknown, and Western Asia was left to Antiochus Hierax.  It would seem that after this he never visited those countries again.

One of the notable incidents of the war against Syria was an offer of help to Egypt from the Romans.  From the middle of the reign of Philadelphus till the fifth year of this reign, for twenty-two years, the Romans had been struggling with the Carthaginians for their very being, in the first Punic war, which they had just brought to a close, and on hearing of Ptolemy’s war in Syria, they sent to Egypt with friendly offers of help.  But their ambassadors did not reach Alexandria before peace was made, and they were sent home with many thanks.  The event serves to show the trend of the aspirations of this now important nation, which was afterwards destined to engulf the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria alike.

After Euergetes had, as he thought, established his authority in Asia, a party hostile to him came forward to oppose him.  The Rhodians, with their wise policy, who had hitherto given no decided support to either empire, now stepped forward, setting to other maritime cities the example of joining that hostile party.  The confederates formed a fleet, with the assistance of which, and supported by a general insurrection of the Asiatics, who were exasperated against the Egyptians on account of their rapacity, Seleucus Callinicus rallied again.

[Illustration:  157.jpg AN ABYSSINIAN SLAVE]

He recovered the whole of upper Asia, and for a time he was united with his brother, Antiochus Hierax.  The insurrection in Egypt must have been of a very serious nature, and Ptolemy, being pressed on all sides, concluded a truce of ten years with Seleucus on basis of uti possidetis.  Both parties seem to have retained the places which they possessed at the time, so that all the disadvantage was on the side of the Seleucidae, for the fortified town of Seleucia, for example, remained in the hands of the Egyptians, whereby the capital was placed in a dangerous position.  A part of Cilicia, the whole of Caria, the Ionian cities, the Thracian Chersonesus, and several Macedonian towns likewise continued to belong to Egypt.