But, at least, he was found so pleasant and accommodating
a conscience-keeper, that he spread, with Isis, his newly-found mother,
or wife, over the whole East, and even to Rome. The Consuls there--50
years B.C.--found the pair not too respectable, and pulled down their
temples. But, so popular were they, in spite of their bad fame, that
seven years after, the Triumvirs had to build the temples up again
elsewhere; and from that time forth, Isis and Serapis, in spite, poor
things, of much persecution, were the fashionable deities of the Roman
world. Surely this Ptolemy was a man of genius!
But Ptolemy had even more important work to do than making gods. He had
to make men; for he had few or none ready made among his old veterans
from Issus and Arbela. He had no hereditary aristocracy: and he wanted
none. No aristocracy of wealth; that might grow of itself, only too
fast for his despotic power. But as a despot, he must have a knot of
men round him who would do his work. And here came out his deep insight
into fact. It had not escaped that man, what was the secret of Greek
supremacy. How had he come there? How had his great master conquered
half the world? How had the little semi-barbarous mountain tribe up
there in Pella, risen under Philip to be the master-race of the globe?
How, indeed, had Xenophon and his Ten Thousand, how had the handfuls of
Salamis and Marathon, held out triumphantly century after century,
against the vast weight of the barbarian? The simple answer was:
Because the Greek has mind, the barbarian mere brute force.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43