ABSTRACT
Against the Jews, who had supported Philometor and Cleopatra, Euergetes had a bitter grudge. Josephus tells of Euergetes, after his return to Alexandria, the story which 3 Maccabees attaches to Ptolemy IV., how the king tried to have a great crowd of Jews trampled upon by his elephants, and how the elephants turned, instead, upon the king's men. Euergetes was induced to give up his vendetta against the Jews, Josephus says, by the intercession of his mistress, whose name was given in one account as Ithake, in another as Irene. The Alexandrine Jews celebrated a day annually in memory of their deliverance.
