better than any other. It travels about from province to province
stopping in the chief towns to administer justice. When an appeal is
brought against the judgment of the court of justice belonging to any
place--over which the Epistates of the district presides--the case is
brought before the Chrematistoi, who are generally strangers alike to
the accuser and accused; by them it is tried over again, and thus the
inhabitants of the provinces are spared the journey to Alexandria or--
since the country has been divided--to Memphis, where, besides, the
supreme court is overburdened with cases.

"No former president of the Chrematistoi had ever enjoyed a higher
reputation than Philotas. Corruption no more dared approach him than a
sparrow dare go near a falcon, and he was as wise as he was just, for he
was no less deeply versed in the ancient Egyptian law than in that of the
Greeks, and many a corrupt judge reconsidered matters as soon as it
became known that he was travelling with the Chrematistoi, and passed a
just instead of an unjust sentence.

"Cleopatra, the widow of Epiphanes, while she was living and acting as
guardian of her sons Philometor and Euergetes--who now reign in Memphis
and Alexandria--held Philotas in the highest esteem and conferred on him
the rank of 'relation to the king'; but she was just dead when this
worthy man took my father's cause in hand, and procured his release from
prison.

"The scoundrel Eulaeus and his accomplice Lenaeus then stood at the
height of power, for the young king, who was not yet of age, let himself
be led by them like a child by his nurse.

"Now as my father was an honest man, no one but Eulaeus could be the