The Hellenistic Jews, while suffering under severe political disabilities, had taken up a high literary position in Alexandria, and had forced their opinions into the notice of the Greeks.  The glowing earnestness of their philosophy, now put forward in a platonic dress, and heir improved style, approaching even classic elegance, laced their writings on a lofty eminence far above anything which the cold, lifeless grammarians of the museum were then producing.  Apion, who went to Rome to plead against Philo, was a native of the Great Oasis, but as he was born of Greek parents, he claimed and received the title and privileges of an Alexandrian, which he denied to the Jews who were born in the city.  He had studied under Didymus and Apollonius and Euphranor, and was one of the most laborious of the grammarians and editors of Homer.  All his writings are now lost.  Some of them were attacks upon the Jews and their religion, calling in question the truth of the Jewish history and the justice of that nation’s claim to high antiquity; and to these attacks we owe Josephus’ Answer, in which several valuable fragments of history are saved by being quoted against the pagans in support of the Old Testament.  One of his works was his AEgyptiaca, an account of what he thought most curious in Egypt.  But his learned trifling is now lost, and nothing remains of it but his account of the meeting between Androclus and the lion, which took place in the amphitheatre at Rome when Apion was there on his embassy.  Androclus was a runaway slave, who, when retaken, was brought to Rome to be thrown before an African lion for the amusement of the citizens, and as a punishment for his flight.  But the fierce and hungry beast, instead of tearing him to pieces, wagged his tail at him, and licked his feet.  It seems that the slave, when he fled from his master, had gained the friendship of the lion in the Libyan desert, first by pulling a thorn out of his foot, and then by living three years with him in a cave; and, when both were brought in chains to Rome, Androclus found a grateful friend in the amphitheatre where he thought to have met with a cruel death.

We may for a moment leave our history, to bid a last farewell to the family of the Ptolemies.  Augustus, after leading Selene, the daughter of Cleopatra and Antony, through the streets of Rome in his triumph, had given her in marriage to the younger Juba, the historian of Africa; and about the same time he gave to the husband the kingdom of Mauritania, the inheritance of his father.  His son Ptolemy succeeded him on the throne, but was soon turned out of his kingdom.  We trace the last of the Ptolemies in his travels through Greece and Asia Minor by the inscriptions remaining to his honour.  The citizens of Xanthus in Lycia set up a monument to him; and at Athens his statue was placed beside that of Philadelphus in the gymnasium of Ptolemy, near the temple of Theseus, where he was honoured as of founder’s kin.  He was put to death by Caligula.  Drusilla, another grandchild of Cleopatra and Antony, married Antonius Felix, the procurator of Judaea, after the death of his first wife, who was also named Drusilla.  These are the last notices that we meet with of the royal family of Egypt.