The Ptolemies as a family were extraordinarily callous in their estimate of the value of human life, and the history of the dynasty is marked throughout its whole length by a series of villainous murders. In this respect they showed their non-Egyptian blood; for the people of the Nile were, and now are, a kindly, pleasant folk, not predisposed to the arts of the assassin and not by any means regardless of the rights of their fellow-men. It may be of interest to record here some of the murders for which the Ptolemies are responsible. Ptolemy III., according to Justin, was murdered by his son Ptolemy IV., who also seems to have planned at one time and another the murders of his brother Magas, his uncle Lysimachus, his mother Berenice, and his wife Arsinoe. Ptolemy V. is described as a cruel and violent monarch, who seems to have indulged the habit of murdering those who offended him. Ptolemy VII. is said by Polybius to have had the Egyptian vice of riotousness, although on the whole averse to shedding blood. Ptolemy VIII. murdered his young nephew, the heir to the throne, and married the dead boy’s mother, the widowed queen Cleopatra II., who shortly afterwards presented him with a baby, Memphites, whose paternal parentage is doubtful. Ptolemy later, according to some accounts, murdered this child and sent his body in pieces to the mother. He then married his niece, Cleopatra III.; and she, on being left a widow, appears to have murdered Cleopatra II. This Cleopatra III. bore a son who later ascended the throne as Ptolemy XI., whom she afterwards attempted to murder, but the tables being turned she was murdered by him. Ptolemy X. was driven from the throne by his mother, who installed Ptolemy XI. in his place, and was promptly murdered by the new king for her pains. Ptolemy XII., having married his stepmother, murdered her, and himself was murdered shortly afterwards. Ptolemy XIII., the father of the great Cleopatra, murdered his daughter Berenice and also several other persons.