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Updated: May 31, 2025
When we consider that this immense sum was accumulated by only two of the Ptolemies, Ptolemy Soter and Ptolemy Philadelphus, and that the latter maintained two great fleets, one in the Mediterranean, and the other in the Red Sea, besides an army of 200,000 foot, and 40,000 horse; and that he had 300 elephants, 2000 armed chariots, and an armoury at Alexandria, stocked with 300,000 complete suits of armour, and all other necessary weapons and implements of war, we shall form some idea of the extent and fruitfulness of Egyptian commerce, from which the whole, or nearly the whole, of this immense wealth must have been derived.
The legitimate male line of the Ptolemies came to an end on the death of the young Alexander II. The two natural sons of Soter II. were then the next in succession; and, as there was no other claimant, the crown fell to the elder. He was young, perhaps even a minor under the age of fourteen.
Still, when all is said, there is nothing that stirs men's imagination like the contemplation of martyrdom, and it is no wonder that the more emotional cults of antiquity vibrate with the worship of this dying Saviour, the Sôsipolis, the Sôtêr, who in so many forms dies with his world or for his world, and rises again as the world rises, triumphant through suffering over Death and the broken Tabu.
There remained only his pecuniary fine, which, according to law, could not be remitted by the people. But they found out a way to elude the law. It was a custom with them to allow a certain quantity of silver to those who were to furnish and adorn the altar for the sacrifice of Jupiter Soter.
There remained only his pecuniary fine, which, according to law, could not be remitted by the people. But they found out a way to elude the law. It was a custom with them to allow a certain quantity of silver to those who were to furnish and adorn the altar for the sacrifice of Jupiter Soter.
The legitimate descendants of Ptolemaeus son of Lagus had come to an end, when the king installed by Sulla after the death of Ptolemaeus Soter II Lathyrus Alexander II, a son of Alexander I was killed, a few days after he had ascended the throne, on occasion of a tumult in the capital . This Alexander had in his testament appointed the Roman community his heir.
This was at a time when the foreign trade had, through the faults of the government, sunk down to its lowest ebb; when not more than twenty ships sailed each year from the Red Sea to India; when the free population of the kingdom had so far fallen off that it was not more than three millions, which was only half of what it had been in the reign of Ptolemy Soter, though Alexandria alone still held three hundred thousand persons.
Osiris at that period was the great god of Egypt; Memphis was the religious centre of the cult of Apis, the representative of Osiris, and who, when living, was called Apis-Osiris, and when dead Osiris-Apis. Cambyses had killed the god or his representative: it was a bad move. Alexander made sacrifices to him: Ptolemy Soter did more.
Higher greyer and blacker ridges hemmed in the lifeless landscape; and above them, to the north and west, broad snow-fields shone luminous under the heavy folds of the clouds. We passed an old woman with bare legs and arms, returning from a söter, or summer châlet of the shepherds. She was a powerful but purely animal specimen of humanity, "beef to the heel," as Braisted said.
Soon after this we find Zenodotus of Ephesus filling the office of librarian to the museum. He was a poet, who, with others, had been employed by Soter in the education of his children.
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