Note 17 — NO. VIII.—ALEXANDRIA.

Some have commended Ptolemy for permitting the architect to put his name in the inscription which was fixed on the tower, instead of his own. It was very short and plain, according to the manner of the ancients. Sostratus Cnidius Dexiphanis F. Diis Servatoribus pro navigantibus, i. e., "Sostratus the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of sea-faring people." But certainly Ptolemy must have very much undervalued that kind of immortality which princes are generally very fond of, to suffer that his name should not be so much as mentioned in the inscription of an edifice so capable of immortalising him. What we read in Lucian, concerning this matter, deprives Ptolemy of a modesty, which indeed would be very ill-placed here. This author informs us that Sostratus, seeing the king determined to engross the whole glory of that noble structure to himself, caused the inscription with his own name to be carved in the marble, which he afterwards covered with lime, and thereon put the king's name. The lime soon mouldered away: and by that means, instead of procuring the king the honour with which he had flattered himself, served only to discover to future ages his unjust and ridiculous vanity.—Rollin.