Goethe's expression; the face, altogether, of one who knew men too well
to respect them. At least, he was a man of clear enough vision. He saw
what was needed in those strange times, and he went straight to the
thing which he saw. It was his wisdom which perceived that the huge
amorphous empire of Alexander could not be kept together, and advised
its partition among the generals, taking care to obtain himself the
lion's share; not in size, indeed, but in capability. He saw, too (what
every man does not see), that the only way to keep what he had got was
to make it better, and not worse, than he found it. His first Egyptian
act was to put to death Cleomenes, Alexander's lieutenant, who had
amassed vast treasures by extortion; and who was, moreover, (for Ptolemy
was a prudent man) a dangerous partisan of his great enemy, Perdiccas.
We do not read that he refunded the treasures: but the Egyptians
surnamed him Soter, the Saviour; and on the whole he deserved the title.
Instead of the wretched misrule and slavery of the conquering Persian
dynasty, they had at least law and order, reviving commerce, and a
system of administration, we are told (I confess to speaking here quite
at second-hand), especially adapted to the peculiar caste-society, and
the religious prejudices of Egypt. But Ptolemy's political genius went
beyond such merely material and Warburtonian care for the conservation
of body and goods of his subjects. He effected with complete success a
feat which has been attempted, before and since, by very many princes
and potentates, but has always, except in Ptolemy's case, proved
somewhat of a failure, namely, the making a new deity. Mythology in
general was in a rusty state. The old Egyptian gods had grown in his
dominions very unfashionable, under the summary iconoclasm to which they
had been subjected by the Monotheist Persians--the Puritans of the old
world, as they have been well called. Indeed, all the dolls, and the
treasure of the dolls' temples too, had been carried off by Cambyses to
Babylon. And as for the Greek gods, philosophers had sublimed them away