gone out of cultivation with the gradual decline of Upper Egypt; and he
employed them to guard the province against invasion or rebellion. He
did not stay in Egypt longer than was necessary to give these orders,
but hastened towards the Euphrates to meet Darius. In his absence Egypt
remained quiet and happy. Peucestes soon followed him to Babylon with
some of the troops that had been left in Egypt; and Cleomenes, the
governor of Heroopolis, was then made collector of the taxes and prefect
of Egypt. Cleomenes was a bad man; he disobeyed the orders sent from
Alexander on the Indus, and he seems to have forgotten the mild feelings
which guided his master; yet, upon the whole, after the galling yoke of
the Persians, the Egyptians must have felt grateful for the blessings of
justice and good government.

At one time, when passing through the Thebaid in his barge on the Nile,
Cleomenes was wrecked, and one of his children bitten by a crocodile. On
this plea, he called together the priests, probably of Crocodilopolis,
where this animal was held sacred, and told them that he intended
to revenge himself upon the crocodiles by having them all caught
and killed; and he was only bought off from carrying his threat into
execution by the priests giving him all the treasure that they could
get together. Alexander had left orders that the great market should be
moved from Canopus to his new city of Alexandria, as soon as it should
be ready to receive it. As the building went forward, the priests and
rich traders of Canopus, in alarm at losing the advantages of their
port, gave Cleomenes a large sum of money for leave to keep their
market open. This sum he took, and, when the building at Alexandria was
finished, he again came to Canopus, and because the traders would not or
could not raise a second and larger sum, he carried Alexander's orders
into execution, and closed the market of their city.