ing a dagger into his breast. He reigned only one year. It hardly conceivable how a woman and a mother could be caable of committing so horrid and excessive a crime: but when ɔme unjust passion takes possession of the heart, it becomes he source of every kind of guilt. As gentle as it appears, it not far from arming itself with poniards, and from having ecourse to poison; because, urgent for the attainment of its nds, it has a natural tendency to destroy every thing which pposes that view.

Zebina had made himself master of part of the kingdom of yria. Three of his principal officers revolted against him, nd declared for Cleopatra. They took the city of Laodicea, nd resolved to defend that place against him; but he found leans to reconcile them. They submitted, and he pardoned em with the most uncommon clemency and greatness of soul, nd without doing them any hurt. This pretended prince had reality an exceeding good heart. He received all who ap roached him in the most affable and engaging manner, so that e acquired the love of all men, and even of those who abhored the imposture by which he had usurped the crown,

Mithridates Evergetes, king of Pontus, died this year; he vas assassinated by his own servants. His son, who succeedd him, was the famous Mithridates Eupater, who disputed so ong the empire of Asia with the Romans, and supported a war falmost 30 years duration against them. He was but 12 years age when his father died. I shall make his history a sepaate article.

f

*Cleopatra, after having killed her eldest son, believed it or her interest to make a titular king, under whose name she night conceal the authority she intended to retain entirely to erself. She rightly distinguished that a warlike people, acustomed to be governed by kings, would always regard the hrone as vacant whilst filled only by a princess, and that they vould not fail to offer it to any prince that would set up for it. he therefore caused her other son, Antiochus to return from Athens, whither she had sent him for his education, and ordered him to be declared king as soon as he arrived. But that was 10 more than an empty title. She gave him to share in the affairs of the government; and as that prince was very young, being no more than 20 years of age, he suffered her to govern for some time with patience enough. To distinguish him from other princes of the name of Antiochus, he was generally cal

VOL. VII.

A. M. 3881. Ant. J. C. 123.
D d

led by the surname of * Grypus, taken from his great nose. Josephus calls him Philometer; but that prince in his medals took the title of Epiphanes.

† Zebina having well established himself, after the death of Demetrius Nicator, in the possession of part of the Syrian empire, Physcon, who looked upon him as his creature, insisted upon his doing him homage for it. Zebina refused in direct terms to comply with that demand. Physcon resolved to throw him down as he had set him up, and having accommodated all differences with his niece Cleopatra, he sent a considerable ar my to the assistance of Grypus, and gave him his daughter Tryphena in marriage. Grypus, by the means of this aid, de feated Zebina, and obliged him to retire to Antioch. ter formed a design of plundering the temple of Jupiter, to defray the expences of the war. Upon its being discovered, the inhabitants rose and drove him out of the city. He wandered some time about the country from place to place, but was ta. ken at last, and put to death.

The lat.

After the defeat and death of Zebina, Antiochus Grypus, believing himself of sufficient years, resolved to take the go vernment upon himself. The ambitious Cleopatra, who saw her power diminished, and grandeur eclipsed by that means, could not suffer it. To render herself absolute mistress of the government of Syria again, she resolved to rid herself of Grypus, as she had already done of his brother Seleucus, and to give the crown to another of her sons by Antiochus Sidetes, un der whom, being an infant, she was in hopes of possessing the royal authority for many years, and of taking such measures as might establish her in it during her life. This wicked wo man prepared a poisoned draught for that purpose, which she presented to Grypus one day as he returned very hot from some exercise. But that prince having been apprised of her design, desired her first, by way of respect, to drink the cup herself; and upon her obstinate refusal to do it, having called in some witnesses, he gave her to understand, that the only means she had to clear herself of the suspicion conceived of her, was to drink the liquor she had presented to him. That un happy woman, who found herself without evasion or resource, swallowed the draught. The poison had its effect immediately, and delivered Syria from a monster, who by her unheard-of crimes had been so long the scourge of the state. She

*Tpuós, in Greek, signifies a man with an aquiline nose. A. M. 3882. Ant. J. C. 122%

A. M. 3884. Ant. J. C. 120.

had been the wife of three kings of Syria*, and the mother of four. She had occasioned the death of two of her husbands, and as to her children, she had murdered one with her own hands, and would have destroyed Grypus by the poison he made her drink herself. That prince afterwards applied himself with success to the affairs of the public, and reigned several years in peace and tranquillity, till his brother, Antiochus of Cyzicum, occasioned the troubles we shall relate hereafter.

Ptolemy Physcon, king of Egypt, after having reigned 29 years from the death of his brother Philometer, died at last in Alexandria. No reign was ever more tyrannical, nor abounded with more crimes than his.

SECTION VI.

PTOLEMY LATHYRUS SUCCEEDS PHYSCON, CONTINUATION OF THE WARS IN SYRIA AND EGYPT.

PHYSCON at his death left three sons. The first named Apion, was a natural son, whom he had by a concubine. The two others were legitimate, and the children of his niece Cleopatra, whom he married after having repudiated her mother. The eldest was called Lathyrus, and the other Alexander. He left the kingdom of Cyrenaica by will to Apion, and Egypt to his widow Cleopatra, and to which of his two sons she should think fit to choose. Cleopatra, believing that Alexander would be the most complaisant, resolved to choose him; but the people would not suffer the eldest to lose his right of birth, and obliged the queen to recal him from Cyprus, whither she had caused him to be banished by his father, and to associate him with her on the throne. Before she would suffer him to take possession of the crown, she obliged him to repudiate his eldest sister Cleopatra, whom he passionately loved, and to take Selena, his younger sister, for whom he had no inclination. Dispositions of this kind promise no very pacific reign.

At his coronation he took the title of Soter. Some authors

*The three kings of Syria, who had been her husbands, were Alexander Bala, Demetrius Nicator, and Antiochus Sidetes. Her four sons were Antiochus, by Alexander Bala; Seleucus and Antiochus Grypus, by Demetrius: and Antiochus the Cyzicenian, by Antiochus Sidetes.

+ Porphyr. in Græc. Euseb. Scal. Hieron. in Dan, ix.

A. M. 3887. Ant. J. C. 117. Justin. 1. xxxix c. 4, 5. Appian. in Mithrid, sub finem, et in Syr. p. 132. Strab. 1. xvii. p. 795. Plin. 1. ii. c. 67. et l. vi. c. 30. Porphyr. in Græc. Euseb. Scalig. Joseph. Antiq. l. xiii. c. 18. Diod. in Excerpt. Vales. p. 385.

give him that of Philometer; but the generality of historians distinguish him by the name of Lathyrus. However, as that is but a kind of nickname, nobody dared to give it him, in his own time.

† Antiochus Grypus, king of Syria, was making preparations for invading Judæa, when a civil war broke out to employ him, fomented by Antiochus of Cyzicum, his brother by the mo ther's side. He was the son of Antiochus Sidetes, and born whilst Demetrius was prisoner amongst the Parthians. When Demetrius returned, and repossessed himself of his dominions after the death of Antiochus Sidetes, his mother, out of regard to his safety, had sent him to Cyzicum, a city situated upon the Propontis, in Asia Minor, where he was educated by the care of a faithful eunuch, named Craterus, to whom she had intrusted him. From thence he was called the Cyzicenian. Grypus, to whom he gave umbrage, was for having him poisoned. His design was discovered, and the Cyzicenian was reduced to take up arms in his own defence, and to endeavour to make good his pretensions to the crown of Syria.

Cleopatra, whom Lathyrus had been obliged to repudiate, finding herself at her own disposal, married the Cyzicenian. She brought him an army for her dowry, to assist him against his competitor. Their forces, by that means, being very near equal, the two brothers came to a battle, in which the Cyzice. nian having the misfortune to be defeated, retired to Antioch. He left his wife for her security in that place, and went himself to raise new troops for the reinforcement of his army.

But Grypus immediately laid siege to the city, and took it, Tryphena, his wife, was very earnest with him to put Cleopa. tra his prisoner into her hands. Though her sister by father and mother, she was so excessively enraged at her for having married their enemy, and given him an army against them, that she resolved to deprive her of life. Cleopatra had taken refuge in a sanctuary, which was held inviolable; Grypus

Sabup signifies a kind of pea, called in Latin" cicer," from which came the surname of Cicero. Lathyrus must have had some very visible mark of this sort upon his face, or the name had been in consistent.

† A. M. 3890. Ant. J. C. 114.

A. M. 3891. Ant. J C. 113.

We find in the later editions of Justin the following words: ex"ercitum Grypi solicitatum, velut dotalem, ad maritum deducit ;" which shows that Cleopa ra having succeeded in corrupting part of Grypus's army, carried it to her husband. Several editions read " 'Cypri" instead of "Grypi," which implies, that Cleopatra had an army in Cyprus,

would not have a complaisance for his wife which he saw would be attended with fatal effects from the violence of her rage. He alleged to her the sanctity of the asylum where her sister had taken refuge, and represented that her death would neither be of use to them, nor of prejudice to the Cyzicenian: that in all the civil or foreign wars wherein his ancestors had been engagèd, it had never been known, after victory, that any cruelty had been exercised against the women, especially so near relations: that Cleopatra was her sister, and his near * relation that therefore he desired her to speak no more of her to him, because he could by no means consent to her being treated with any severities. † Tryphena, far from giving into his reasons, became more violent by conceiving jealousy; and imagining that it was not from the motive of compassion, but love, that her husband took the part of that unfortunate princess in such a manner; she therefore sent soldiers into the temple, who could not tear her in any other manner. from the altar, than by cutting off her hands with which she embraced it. Cleopatra expired uttering a thousand curses against the parricides who were the authors of her death, and imploring the gods, in whose sight so barbarous a cruelty was committed, to avenge her upon them.

However, the other Cleopatra, the common mother of the two sister, did not seem to be affected at all with either the fate of the one, or the crime of the other. Her heart, which was solely susceptible of ambition, was so taken up with the desire of reigning, that she had no other thoughts than of the means of supporting herself in Egypt, and of retaining an absolute authority in her own hands during her life. To strengthen herself the better, she gave the kingdom of Cyprus to Alexander her youngest son, in order to draw from him the assistance she might have occasion for, in case Lathyrus should ever dispute the authority she was determined to keep.

The death of Cleopatra in Syria, did not long remain unpunished. The Cyzicenian returned at the head of a new army, to give his brother battle a second time, defeated him, and took Tryphena, upon whom he inflicted the torments her cru elty to her sister had well deserved.

Grypus was obliged to abandon Syria to the victor. He

*Her father Physcon was the uncle of Cleopatrà, Grypus's mother. Sed quanto Grypus abnuit, tanto furor muliebri pertinacia accenditur ; rata non misericordiæ hæc verba, sed amoris esse. Justin, A. M. 3892. Ant. J. C. 112.

A. M. 3893. Ant. J. C. II.