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However, Apion deserves to be admired for his great prudence, as
to what I am going to say, which is this," That there is a plain mark
among us, that we neither have just laws, nor worship God as we ought to
do, because we are not governors, but are rather in subjection to Gentiles,
sometimes to one nation, and sometimes to another; and that our city hath
been liable to several calamities, while their city [
Alexandria] hath been
of old time an imperial city, and not used to be in subjection to the Romans."
But now this man had better leave off this bragging, for every body but
himself would think that Apion said what he hath said against himself;
for there are very few nations that have had the good fortune to continue
many generations in the principality, but still the mutations in human
affairs have put them into subjection under others; and most nations have
been often subdued, and brought into subjection by others. Now for the
Egyptians, perhaps they are the only nation that have had this extraordinary
privilege, to have never served any of those monarchs who subdued
Asia
and
Europe, and this on account, as they pretend, that the gods fled into
their country, and saved themselves by being changed into the shapes of
wild beasts! Whereas these Egyptians
1
are the very people that appear to have never, in all the past ages, had
one day of freedom, no, not so much as from their own lords. For I will
not reproach them with relating the manner how the Persians used them,
and this not once only, but many times, when they laid their cities waste,
demolished their temples, and cut the throats of those animals whom they
esteemed to be gods; for it is not reasonable to imitate the clownish ignorance
of Apion, who hath no regard to the misfortunes of the Athenians, or of
the Lacedemonians, the latter of whom were styled by all men the most courageous,
and the former the most religious of the Grecians. I say nothing of such
kings as have been famous for piety, particularly of one of them, whose
name was Cresus, nor what calamities he met with in his life; I say nothing
of the citadel of
Athens, of the temple at
Ephesus, of that at
Delphi,
nor of ten thousand others which have been burnt down, while nobody cast
reproaches on those that were the sufferers, but on those that were the
actors therein. But now we have met with Apion, an accuser of our nation,
though one that still forgets the miseries of his own people, the Egptians;
but it is that Sesostris who was once so celebrated a king of
Egypt that
hath blinded him. Now we will not brag of our kings, David and Solomon,
though they conquered many nations; accordingly we will let them alone.
However, Apion is ignorant of what every body knows, that the Egyptians
were servants to the Persians, and afterwards to the Macedonians, when
they were lords of
Asia, and were no better than slaves, while we have
enjoyed liberty formerly; nay, more than that, have had the dominion of
the cities that lie round about us, and this nearly for a hundred and twenty
years together, until Pompeius Magnus. And when all the kings every where
were conquered by the Romans, our ancestors were the only people who continued
to be esteemed their confederates and friends, on account of their fidelity
to them.
2