called the tower of Pharus, which hath been reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. It was a large four-square pile of building, all built of white marble, and had always fires maintained on the top of it, for the direction of seamen. It cost in the building eight hundred talents. This, if computed by Attic talents, amounts to one hundred and sixty-five thousand pounds of our sterling money; but if by Alexandrian talents, it will come to twice as much. The architect who built it was Sostratus of Cnidus, who craftily endeavoured to usurp the honour of it with posterity to himself by this fraudulent device. The inscription ordered to be set on it being, "King Ptolemy, to the gods the saviours, for the benefit of those who pass by sea; "instead of Ptolemy's name, he craftily engraved his own in the solid marble, and then, filling up the hollow of the engraved letters with mortar, wrote upon it what was directed. So the inscription, which was first read, was according as it was ordered, and truly ascribed the work to king Ptolemy, its proper founder; but in process of time, the mortar being worn off, the inscription then appeared to be thus: "Sostratus, the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the gods the saviours, for the benefit of those who pass by sea;" which, being in lasting letters deeply engraved into the marble stones, lasted as long as the tower itself. This tower hath been demolished for some ages past. There is now in its place a castle called Farillon, where a garrison is kept to defend the harbour; perchance it is some remainder of the old work. Pharus was at first wholly an island, at the distance of seven furlongs from the continent, and had no other passage to it but by sea. But it hath many ages since been turned from an island into a peninsula,2 by being joined to the land in the same manner as Tyrus was, by a bank carried through the sea to it, which was anciently called in Greek the Heptastadium, i. e. the seven-furlong bank, because seven furlongs was the length of it. This work was performed by Dexiphanes, the father of Sostratus, about the same time that Sostratus finished the tower, and seems to have been the more difficult undertaking of the two. They

Arabic author, in his book called by the Latin translator, Geographia Nubiensis. For there he tells us (Clim. 3, part 3), that this tower or light-house of Pharus, was three hundred cubits (i. e. four hundred and fifty feet) high. But both these accounts are very improbable, and the former is contradicted by what Josephus tells us of it (De Bello Judaico, lib. 6, p. 914), for, speaking of the tower of Phasaelus at Jerusalem, which he describes to be a square building of forty cubits (i. e. sixty feet) on every side, and ninety cubits (i. e. a hundred and thirty-five feet) high, saith of it, that it was like the tower of Pharus near Alexandria; τῇ περιοχῇ δὲ πολὺ μείζων ἦν, i, e. “ but as to its circumference it was much larger." And Josephus, having often seen both these

towers, could not be mistaken herein. Were the tower of Pharus of the breadth of six hundred feet on every side, and of the height of four hundred and fifty feet, it would within thirty feet be as high as the great pyramid, and stand upon altogether as much ground, in a direct perpendicular building, as that doth in a pyramidal; which would render it, beyond all other buildings in the world, very prodigious; and were it so, Josephus could not have said, in reference to it, the words above recited. But against Josephus, as to this matter, it may be objected, that if the tower of Pharus were so much less than the tower of Phasaelus at Jerusalem, how came it to be ever reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world? It would be an answer to this objection if we could say the words of Josephus, as above recited, were to be referred to the tower of Pharus, and not to that of Phasaelus, but the grammatical construction will not admit it. And Josephus in another place describeth Phasaelus to have been πύργον οὐδὲν ἐλάττω τοῦ κατὰ Tv Pápov, i. e. "a tower not less than that of Pharus," which utterly excludeth this last interpretation. See Josephus, Antiq. lib. 16, cap. 9, p. 560.

1 Thevenot's Travels, part 1, book 2, chap. 1.

Strabo, lib. 17, p. 792. Plin. lib. 5. c. 31, et lib. 13, c. 11. Cæsaris Comment. de Bello Civili, lib. 3. Pomponius Mela, lib. 2, c. 7.

being both very famous architects, were both employed by Ptolemy Soter in the works which he had projected for the beautifying, adorning, and strengthening the city of Alexandria: the father having undertaken the Heptastadium at the same time that his son did the tower, they finished both these works at the same time, that is, in the beginning of the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Those who attribute the making of the Heptastadium to Cleopatra follow Ammian Marcellinus,1 whose relation concerning it cannot be true; for it contradicts Cæsar's Commentaries, and many other authors, that are better to be credited in this matter.

Death and character of Ptolemy_Soter.-Towards the end of this year died Ptolemy Soter,2 king of Egypt, in the second year after his admitting of his son to sit on his throne with him, being, at the time of his death, eighty-four years old. He was the wisest and best of his race, and left an example of prudence, justice, and clemency behind him, which none of his successors cared to follow. During the forty years in which he governed Egypt, from the death of Alexander, he had brought that country into a very flourishing condition, which administering great plenty to his successors, this administered to as great luxury in them, in which they exceeded most that lived in their time.

Image of Serapis brought from Pontus to Alexandria.-A little before his death, this very same year, was brought out of Pontus to Alexandria the image of Serapis, after three years' sedulous endeavour made for the obtaining of it: concerning which we are told, that while Ptolemy, the first of that name that reigned in Egypt, was busying himself in fortifying Alexandria with its walls, and adorning it with temples and other public buildings, there appeared to him in a vision of the night a young man of great beauty, and more than a human shape, and commanded him to send to Pontus, and fetch from thence his image to Alexandria, promising him that his doing this should make that city famous and happy, and bring great prosperity to his whole kingdom: and then, on his saying this, ascended up into heaven, in a bright flame of fire, out of his sight. Ptolemy, being much troubled hereat, called together the Egyptian priests to advise with them about it: but they, being wholly ignorant of Pontus and all other foreign countries, could give him no answer concerning this matter: whereon, consulting one Timotheus an Athenian, then at Alexandria, he learned from him, that in Pontus there was a city called Sinope, not far from which was a temple of Jupiter, which had his image in it, with another image of a woman standing nigh him, that was taken to be Proserpina. But after a while, other matters putting this out of Ptolemy's head, so that he thought no more of it, the vision appeared to him again in a more terrible manner, and threatened destruction to him and his kingdom if his commands were not obeyed; with which Ptolemy being much terrified, immediately sent away ambassadors to the king of Sinope to obtain the image. They being ordered in the way to consult Apollo at Delphos, were commanded by him to bring away the image of his father, but to leave that of his sister. Whereon they proceeded to

1 Lib. 22, cap. 16.

s Lucianus in Macrobiis.

2 Pausanias in Atticis. Eusebii Chronicon.

Tacitus Histor. lib. 4, cap. 83, 84. Plutarchus de Iside et Osiride. Clemens Alexandrinus in Protreptico.

Sinope, there to execute their commission in the manner as directed by the oracle. But neither they, with all their solicitations, gifts, and presents, nor other ambassadors that were sent after them with greater gifts, could obtain what they were sent thither for, till this last year. But then the people of Sinope, being grievously oppressed by a famine, were content, on Ptolemy's relieving them with a fleet of corn, to part with their god for it, which they could not be induced to do before. And so the image was brought to Alexandria, and there set up in one of the suburbs of that city called Rhacotis, where it was worshipped by the name of Serapis ; and this new god had in that place a while after a very famous temple erected to him, called the Serapeum: and this was the first time that this deity was either worshipped or known in Egypt; and therefore it could not be the patriarch Joseph that was worshipped by this name, as some would have it.

Origin and character of the worship of Serapis.-For had it been Joseph that was meant under the name of Serapis, this piece of idolatry must have been much ancienter among them, and must also have had its original in Egypt itself, and not been introduced thither from a foreign country. Some of the ancients indeed had this conceit, as Julius Firmicus,' Ruffinus,2 and others; but all the reason they give for it is, that Serapis was usually represented by an image with a bushel on its head, which they think denoted the bushel wherewith Joseph measured out to the Egyptians his corn in the time of the famine; whereas it might as well denote the bushel with which Ptolemy measured out to the people of Sinope the corn with which he purchased this god of them. However, this same opinion is embraced by several learned men of the moderns,3 and for the support of it against what is objected from the late reception of Serapis among the Egyptian deities, they will have Serapis to have been an ancient Egyptian god, and the same with their Apis, and that Serapis was no other than Apis iv oóp, that is, Apis in his coffin, and for this they quote some of the ancients. Their meaning is, that while the sacred bull, which the Egyptians worshipped for their great god, was alive, he was called Apis, and that, when he was dead and salted up in his coffin, and buried, he was called Serapis, that is, Apis in soro (i. e. in his coffin); from whence they say his name was at first Soroapis, made up of the composition of these two words, Soros and Apis put together, and that by corruption from thence it came to be Serapis. But what is there that, after this rate, learned men may not tenter anything to? But the worst of it is, the ancient Egyptians did not speak Greek. The Ptolemies first brought that language among them; and, therefore, had Serapis been an ancient god worshipped in that country before the Ptolemies reigned there, his name could not have had a Greek etymology. Much more might be said to show the vanity of this conceit, were it worth the reader's while to be troubled with it. It is certain Serapis was not originally an Egyptian deity anciently worshipped in that country (as he must have been, had it been Joseph that was there worshipped under that name), but was an adventitious god, brought thither from abroad about the time which we now treat of. The anHist. lib. 2, c. 23.

In Libro de Errore Prophanarum Religionum. 3 Vossius, Ouzelius, Spencerus, aliique.

Nymphiodorus Clem, Alexandr. Euseb. Præp. Evang. lib. 10, c. 12. Ruffin. ibidem.

any

3

cient place of his station, Polybius tells us, was on the coast of the Propontis, on the Thracian side, over against Hierus, and that there Jason, when he went on the Argonautic expedition, sacrificed unto him. From thence, therefore, the people of Sinope had this piece of idolatry, and from them the Egyptians, in the manner as I have related; and till then this deity was wholly unknown among them. Had it been otherwise, Herodotus, who is so large in his account of the Egyptian gods, could not have escaped taking notice of him; but he makes not the least mention of him as worshipped in that country, neither doth other author that wrote before the times that the Ptolemies reigned in Egypt. And when his image was first set up in Alexandria, Nicocreon, then king of Cyprus, as having never heard of him before,2 sent to know what god he was, which he would not have done had he been a deity anciently worshipped by the Egyptians. For then Nicocreon, who was a very learned prince, must necessarily before that time have had full knowledge of him. And Origen, who was an Egyptian, speaks of him as a god not long before received in that country. And it is to be observed, that as he was a new god, so he brought in with him among the Egyptians a new way of worship. For, till the time of the Ptolemies, the Egyptians never offered any bloody sacrifices to their gods, but worshipped them only with their prayers and frankincense. But the tyranny of the Ptolemies having forced upon them the worship of two foreign gods, that is, Saturn and Serapis, they in this worship first brought in the use of bloody sacrifices among that people. However, they continued always so averse hereto, that they would never suffer any temple to be built to either of those gods within any of the walls of their cities; but, wherever they were in that country, they were always built without them in their suburbs. And they seem only to have been the Egyptians of the Greek original who conformed hereto, and not those of the old race. For they still retained their old usage in all their old temples, and could never be induced to offer the blood of beasts in any of them, for this was always an abomination unto them from the beginning. And therefore, when the children of Israel desired leave of Pharaoh to go three days' journey into the wilderness, to offer sacrifice unto the Lord,5 they gave this for

1 Lib. 4. P. 307.

3 Contra Celsum, lib. 5.

4

2 Macrob. Saturnal. lib. 1, c. 20.

Macrob. Saturnal. lib. 1, cap. 7. " His words are: Nunquam fas fuit Egyptiis pecudibus aut sanguine, sed precibus et thure solo placare deos. This was true of the ancient Egyptians. For, among the ancients, Porphyry tells us (De Abstinentia, lib. 2, sec. 59), that the sacrifices with which they worshipped their gods were cakes and fruits of the earth and he tells us in the same book (lib. 4, sec. 15) of the Syrians, who were next neighbours to the Egyptians, and agreed in many things with them, that they offered no living creatures in sacrifice to their gods. But this could not be true of the Egyptians in Herodotus's time. For it appears from him, that they then offered some animals in sacrifice to their gods, but those were very few; much the greatest number of them were excepted, till the Ptolemies with the Grecian gods brought in the Grecian way of worshipping them with all manner of sacrifices; and of this, perchance, may be understood what Macrobius tells us of this matter. Alexander Sardus, in his book De Moribus et Ritibus Gentium (lib. 3, cap. 15), hath these words: "Dicebat Pythagoras se aliquando concilio deorum interfuisse, et didicisse eos Egyptiorum sacrificia probare, quæ libationibus constant, thure, et laudibus; non placere animantium cædes, quæ tamen postea immolarunt Egyptii, ut Soli gallum, cygnum, taurum; Veneri columbam; et Syderibus, quæ cum Syderibu similitudinem habent." This makes fully for what I have said.' Sardus had it from some ancient authority, but doth not name his author.

Exod. viii. 26, 27.

the reason of it, that their religion obliging them to offer to their god the bloody sacrifices of sheep and oxen, and other living creatures, they durst not do this in the sight of the Egyptians, lest they should stone them, because such sort of sacrifices were an abomination to that people; and therefore they desired that they might go to the distance of three days' journey from them to perform this part of their worship unto their God, that being thus far out of their sight and observation, they might give them no offence, nor provoke them by it to any mischief against them.

Foundation of the college and library at Alexandria.-In that place, in the suburb Rhacotis, where the image of Serapis, which Ptolemy brought from Sinope, was set up, was afterwards built a very famous temple to that idol, called the Serapeum, which Ammianus Marcellinus tells us did, in the magnificence and ornaments of its buildings, exceed all other edifices in the world, next that of the Capitol at Rome. Within the verge of this temple there was also a library,3 which was of great fame in after-ages, both for the number and value of the books it was replenished with. Ptolemy Soter being a learned prince, as appeared by the history of the life of Alexander written by him (which was of great repute among the ancients, though now not extant), out of the affection he had for learning, founded at Alexandria5 a museum or college of learned men for the improving of philosophy, and all other knowledge, like that of the Royal Society at London, and the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris. And for this use he got together a library of books, which, being augmented by his successors, grew afterwards to a very great bulk. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the son of Soter, left in it at the time of his death 7 a hundred thousand volumes. Those that reigned after him of that race still added more to them, till at length they amounted to the number of seven hundred

1 The chief cause of this abomination was, that many of those living creatures which the Jews offered in sacrifice were worshipped as gods by the Egyptians, and therefore were never slain by them, nor could they bear the slaying of them by others; of which Diodorus Siculus gives us a sufficient instance (lib. 1, p. 75, edit. Hanov.), where his words are as followeth: "Such a superstition towards those sacred animals was ingenerated in their minds, and every one of them was in his affections so obstinately bent to pay honour and veneration to them, that at a time when Ptolemy their king was not yet declared a friend of the Romans, and all the people studied to court and pay observance to all that came out of Italy, out of fear of the Romans, that they might not give them any cause of displeasure, or reason for war against them, a Roman then in Egypt happening to have slain a cat, the multitude, immediately running together, beset the house where the Roman was, and neither the nobles sent by the king to deprecate their rage, nor the fear of the Romans, could withhold them from punishing this man with death, though it was by chance, and not wilfully, that he did the fact." Thus far Diodorus. But sheep and cows, which the Jews sacrificed, were in a higher degree sacred among the Egyptians than their cats; and for this reason they could not have borne the Jewish sacrifices among them.

2 Lib. 22, cap. 16, p. 343..

3 Marcellinus, ibid. Epiphanius de Ponderibus et Mensuris. Tertullianus in Apologetico, cap. 18.

Arrianus in Præfatione ad Historiam de Expeditione Alexandri. Plutarchus in Alexandro. Q. Curtius, lib. 9, c. 8.

Strabo, lib. 17, p. 793. Plutarchus in libro quo probat non posse jucunde vitam agi

ex Epicuri præceptis,

Constat ex Suida Zenodotum Ephesium præfuisse Bibliothecæ Alexandrinæ sub Ptolemæo primo. Euseb. in Chronico, p. 66. Syncellus, p. 271. Cedrenus,

8

Amm. Marcellinus, lib. 22, cap. 16. A. Gellius, lib. 6, cap. 17. Isidor. Orig. lib. 6,

cap. 3.