His subjects were Asiatics, that is to say, barbarians; but
he sought to maintain a Greek court about him; he recruited his army
with Greek mercenaries, his administrative officers were Greeks, he
invited to his court Greek poets, scholars, and artists.
Already in the time of the Persian kings there were many Greeks in the
empire as colonists, merchants, and especially soldiers. The Greek
kings attracted still more of these. They came in such numbers that at
last the natives adopted the costume, the religion, the manners, and
even the language of the Greeks. The Orient ceased to be Asiatic, and
became Hellenic. The Romans found here in the first century B.C. only
peoples like the Greeks and who spoke Greek.[97]
=Alexandria.=--The Greek kings of Egypt, descendants of Ptolemy,[98]
accepted the title of Pharaoh held by the ancient kings, wore the
diadem, and, like the earlier sovereigns, had themselves worshipped
as children of the Sun. But they surrounded themselves with Greeks
and founded their capital on the edge of the sea in a Greek city,
Alexandria, a new city established by the order of Alexander.
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