been preparing for resistance.  The royal troops laid siege to the city in due form; they surrounded it with mounds and ditches; they dammed up the bed of the river on each side of it, and, being helped by a rise in the Nile, which was that year greater than usual, they forced the rebels to surrender, on the king’s promise that they should be spared.  But Ptolemy was not bound by promises; he was as false and cruel as he was weak; the rebels were punished; and many of the troubles in his reign arose from his discontented subjects not being able to rely upon his word.

The rich island of Cyprus also, which had been left by Philopator under the command of Polyerates, showed some signs of wishing to throw off the Egyptian yoke.  But Polyerates was true to his trust; and, though the king’s ministers were almost too weak either to help the faithful or punish the treacherous, he not only saved the island for the minor, but, when he gave up his government to Ptolemy of Megalopolis, he brought to the royal treasury at Alexandria a large sum from the revenues of his province.  By this faithful conduct he gained great weight in the Alexandrian councils, till, corrupted by the poisonous habits of the place, he gave way to luxury and vice.

About the same time Scopas, who had lately led back to Alexandria his AEtolian mercenaries, so far showed signs of discontent and disobedience that the minister, Aristomenes, began to suspect him of planning resistance to the government.  Scopas was greedy of money; nothing would satisfy his avarice.

[Illustration:  201.jpg THE ROSETTA STONE (BRITISH MUSEUM)]

The other Greek generals of his rank received while in the Egyptian service a mina, or ten dollars a day, under the name of mess-money, beyond the usual military pay; and Scopas claimed and received for his services the large sum of ten minas, or one hundred and twenty-five dollars, a day for mess-money.  But even this did not content him.  Aristomenes observed that he was collecting his friends for some secret purpose, and in frequent consultation with them.  He therefore summoned him to the king’s presence, and, being prepared for his refusal, he sent a large force to fetch him.  Fearing that the mercenaries might support their general, Aristomenes had even ordered out the elephants and prepared for battle.  But, as the blow came upon Scopas unexpectedly, no resistance was made, and he was brought prisoner to the palace.  Aristomenes, however, did not immediately venture to punish him, but wisely summoned the AEtolian ambassadors and the chiefs of the mercenaries to his trial, and, as they made no objection, he then had him poisoned in prison.

No sooner was this rebellion crushed than the council took into consideration the propriety of declaring the king’s minority at an end, as the best means of re-establishing the royal authority; and they thereupon determined shortly to celebrate his Anacleteria, or the grand ceremony of exhibiting him to the people as their monarch, though he wanted some years of the legal age; and accordingly, in the ninth year of his reign, the young king was crowned with great pomp at Memphis, the ancient capital of the kingdom.