their service.

[Illustration: 007.jpg PLAN OF ALEXANDRIA]

Augustus visited the royal burial-place to see the body of Alexander,
and devoutly added a golden crown and a garland of flowers to the other
ornaments on the sarcophagus of the Macedonian. But he would take no
pains to please either the Alexandrians or Egyptians; he despised them
both. When asked if he would not like to see the Alexandrian monarchs
lying in their mummy-cases in the same tomb, he answered: "No, I came to
see the king, not dead men," His contempt for Cleopatra and her father
made him forget the great qualities of Ptolemy Soter. So when he was
at Memphis he refused to humour the national prejudice of two thousand
years' standing by visiting the bull Apis. Of the former conquerors,
Cambyses had stabbed the sacred bull, Alexander had sacrificed to it;
had Augustus had the violent temper of either, he would have copied
Cambyses. The Egyptians always found the treatment of the sacred bull a
foretaste of what they were themselves to receive from their sovereigns.

The Greeks of Alexandria, who had for some time past very unwillingly
yielded to the Jews the right of citizenship, now urged upon Augustus
that it should no longer be granted. Augustus, however, had received
great services from the Jews, and at once refused the prayer; and he set
up in Alexandria an inscription granting to the Jews the full privileges
of Macedonians, which they claimed and had hitherto enjoyed under
the Ptolemies. They were allowed their own magistrates and courts
of justice, with the free exercise of their own religion; and soon
afterwards, when their high priest died, they were allowed as usual
to choose his successor. The Greek Jews of Alexandria were indeed very
important, both from their numbers and their learning; they spread over