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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The
+Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12), by S. Rappoport
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)
+
+Author: S. Rappoport
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2005 [EBook #17331]
+Last Updated: September 8, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF EGYPT
+
+From 330 B.C. to the Present Time
+
+
+By S. RAPPOPORT, Doctor of Philosophy, Basel; Member of the Ecole
+Langues Orientales, Paris; Russian, German, French Orientalist and
+Philologist
+
+VOL. XI.
+
+Containing over Twelve Hundred Colored Plates and Illustrations
+
+THE GROLIER SOCIETY
+
+PUBLISHERS, LONDON
+
+
+[Illustration: Spines]
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+Dam at Aswan
+
+
+[Illustration: 001.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+[Illustration: 002.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+THE ROMAN, CHRISTIAN, AND ARABIC PERIODS
+
+
+_THE ROMAN ADMINISTRATION IN EGYPT--THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY--THE ARIAN
+CONTROVERSY--THE GROWTH OF MONASTICISM--THE DECLINE OF ALEXANDRIA--THE
+ARAB INVASION AND THE SPREAD OF MUHAMMEDANISM--THE ARAB DYNASTIES._
+
+_Augustus remodels the government of Egypt--A new calendar
+introduced--Egypt surveyed--Dissension between Jews and Greeks at
+Alexandria--Strabo’s visit--The Egyptian religion at Rome--Wise
+administration of Tiberius--The rise of the Therapeutæ--Lake
+Mæris destroyed--The origin of Chemistry--The fable of the
+Phoenix--Christianity introduced--Fiscal reforms under Galba--Vespasian
+in Egypt--Fall of Jerusalem--The Nile Canal restored--Hadrian’s voyage
+up the Nile--Death of Antinous--Christians and Gnostics--Astrology and
+Astronomy--Roman roads in Egypt--Commerce and Sports--The Growth
+of Christianity--Severus visits Egypt--The massacre of the
+Alexandrians--Ammonius Saccas and the Alexandrian Platonists--The
+School of Origen--Rise of Controversy--Decline of Commerce--Zenobia
+in Syria--Growing importance of the Arabs--Revolt and recapture of
+Alexandria--Persecution of the Christians under Diocletian--Introduction
+of the Manichean heresy._
+
+_Constantine the Great converted--Privileges of the clergy--Dogmatic
+disputes--Council of Nicæa and the first Nicene Creed--Athanasian
+and Arian controversies--Founding of Constantinople--Decline
+of Alexandria--Imperial appointments in the Church--Religious
+riots--Triumphs of Athanasius--Persecution by Bishop George of
+Cappadocia--Early mission work--Development of the monastic
+system--Text of the Bible--The monks and military service--Saracenic
+encroachments--Theodosius overthrows Paganism--Destruction of the Great
+Library--Pagan and Christian literature--Story of Hypatia--The Arabs
+defeat the Romans--The Koptic New Testament--Egypt separated from
+Rome--The Council of Chalcedon--Paganism restored in Upper Egypt--The
+Henoticon--The writings of Hierocles--Relations with Persia--Inroads of
+the Arabs--Justinian’s fiscal reforms--Coinage restored--The Persians
+enter Egypt. The Life of Muhammed--Amr conquers Egypt--The legend of
+Omar and the Great Library--The founding of Fostât--The Christians
+taxed--Muhammedan oppression in Egypt--The Ommayad and Abbasid
+dynasties--Caliph Harun er-Rashid--Turkish bodyguards--Rise of the
+Tulunite Dynasty--Office of Prince of Princes--Reign of Muhammed
+el-Ikshid--War with Byzantium--Fatimite Caliphs--The Ismailians and
+Mahdism--Reign of Mustanssir--Turkish Rapacity--End of the Fatimite
+Rule._
+
+
+[Illustration: 003.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--EGYPT UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE
+
+
+_The Roman dominion on the Nile: Settlement of the Egyptian frontiers:
+Religious developments: Rebellions._
+
+
+Augustus began his reign in Egypt in B.C. 30 by ordering all the statues
+of Antony, of which there were more than fifty ornamenting the various
+public buildings of the city, to be broken to pieces; and it is said
+he had the meanness to receive a bribe of one thousand talents from
+Archibus, a friend of Cleopatra, that the queen’s statues might be
+left standing. It seems to have been part of his kingcraft to give the
+offices of greatest trust to men of low birth, who were at the same time
+well aware that they owed their employments to their seeming want of
+ambition. Thus the government of Egypt, the greatest and richest of the
+provinces, was given to Cornelius Gallus.
+
+Before the fall of the republic the senate had given the command of the
+provinces to members of their own body only; and therefore Augustus, not
+wishing to alter the law, obtained from the senate for himself all those
+governments which he meant to give to men of lower rank. By this legal
+fiction, these equestrian prefects were answerable for their conduct to
+nobody but the emperor on a petition, and they could not be sued at law
+before the senate for their misdeeds. But he made an exception in the
+case of Egypt. While on the one hand in that province he gave to the
+prefect’s edicts the force of law, on the other he allowed him to be
+cited before the senate, though appointed by himself. The power thus
+given to the senate they never ventured to use, and the prefect of Egypt
+was never punished or removed but by the emperor. Under the prefect was
+the chief justice of the province, who heard himself, or by deputy, all
+causes except those which were reserved for the decision of the emperor
+in person. These last were decided by a second judge, or in modern
+language a chancellor, as they were too numerous and too trifling to be
+taken to Rome. Under these judges were numerous freedmen of the emperor,
+and clerks entrusted with affairs of greater and less weight. Of the
+native magistrates the chief were the keeper of the records, the police
+judge, the prefect of the night, and the _Exegetes_, or interpreter of
+the Egyptian law, who was allowed to wear a purple robe like a Roman
+magistrate. But these Egyptian magistrates were never treated as
+citizens; they were barbarians, little better than slaves, and only
+raised to the rank of the emperor’s freedmen.
+
+Augustus showed not a little jealousy in the rest of the laws by which
+his new province was to be governed. While other conquered cities
+usually had a senate or municipal form of government granted to them,
+no city in Egypt was allowed that privilege, which, by teaching the
+citizens the art of governing themselves and the advantages of union,
+might have made them less at the mercy of their masters. He not only
+gave the command of the kingdom to a man below the rank of a senator,
+but ordered that no senator should even be allowed to set foot in Egypt
+without leave from himself; and centuries later, when the weakness of
+the country had led the emperors to soften some of the other stern laws
+of Augustus, this was still strictly enforced.
+
+Among other changes then brought in by the Romans was the use of a fixed
+year in all civil reckonings. The Egyptians, for all the common purposes
+of life, called the day of the heliacal rising of the dogstar, about our
+18th of July, their new year’s day, and the husbandman marked it with
+religious ceremonies as the time when the Nile began to overflow; while
+for all civil purposes, and dates of kings’ reigns, they used a year of
+three hundred and sixty-five days, which, of course, had a movable
+new year’s day. But by the orders of Augustus all public deeds were
+henceforth dated by the new year of three hundred and sixty-five days
+and a quarter, which was named, after Julius Cæsar, the Julian year. The
+years from B.C. 24 were made to begin on the 29th of August, the day
+on which the movable new year’s day then happened to fall, and were
+numbered from the year following the last of Cleopatra, as from the
+first year of the reign of Augustus. But notwithstanding the many
+advantages of the Julian year, which was used throughout Europe for
+sixteen centuries, till its faultiness was pointed out by Pope Gregory
+XIII., the Egyptian astronomers and mathematicians distrusted it from
+the first, and chose to stick to their old year, in which there could
+be no mistake about its length. Thus there were at the same time three
+years and three new year’s days in use in Egypt: one about the 18th
+of July, used by the common people; one on the 29th of August, used by
+order of the emperor; and one movable, used by the astronomers.
+
+By the conquest of Egypt, Augustus was also able to extend another of
+the plans of his late uncle. Julius Cæsar, whose powerful mind found all
+sciences within its grasp, had ordered a survey to be taken of the whole
+of the Roman provinces, and the length of all the roads to be measured
+for the use of the tax-gatherers and of the army; and Augustus was
+now able to add Egypt to the survey. Polyclitus was employed on this
+southern portion of the empire; and, after thirty-two years from its
+beginning by Julius, the measurement of nearly the whole known world was
+finished and reported to the senate.
+
+At Alexandria Augustus was visited by Herod, who hastened to beg of
+him those portions of his kingdom which Antony had given to Cleopatra.
+Augustus received him as a friend; gave him back the territory which
+Antony had taken from him, and added the province of Samaria and the
+free cities on the coast. He also gave to him the body of four hundred
+Gauls, who formed part of the Egyptian army and had been Cleopatra’s
+bodyguard. He thus removed from Alexandria the last remains of the
+Gallic mercenaries, of whom the Ptolemies had usually had a troop in
+their service.
+
+[Illustration: 007.jpg PLAN OF ALEXANDRIA]
+
+Augustus visited the royal burial-place to see the body of Alexander,
+and devoutly added a golden crown and a garland of flowers to the other
+ornaments on the sarcophagus of the Macedonian. But he would take no
+pains to please either the Alexandrians or Egyptians; he despised them
+both. When asked if he would not like to see the Alexandrian monarchs
+lying in their mummy-cases in the same tomb, he answered: “No, I came to
+see the king, not dead men,” His contempt for Cleopatra and her father
+made him forget the great qualities of Ptolemy Soter. So when he was
+at Memphis he refused to humour the national prejudice of two thousand
+years’ standing by visiting the bull Apis. Of the former conquerors,
+Cambyses had stabbed the sacred bull, Alexander had sacrificed to it;
+had Augustus had the violent temper of either, he would have copied
+Cambyses. The Egyptians always found the treatment of the sacred bull a
+foretaste of what they were themselves to receive from their sovereigns.
+
+The Greeks of Alexandria, who had for some time past very unwillingly
+yielded to the Jews the right of citizenship, now urged upon Augustus
+that it should no longer be granted. Augustus, however, had received
+great services from the Jews, and at once refused the prayer; and he set
+up in Alexandria an inscription granting to the Jews the full privileges
+of Macedonians, which they claimed and had hitherto enjoyed under
+the Ptolemies. They were allowed their own magistrates and courts
+of justice, with the free exercise of their own religion; and soon
+afterwards, when their high priest died, they were allowed as usual
+to choose his successor. The Greek Jews of Alexandria were indeed very
+important, both from their numbers and their learning; they spread over
+Syria and Asia Minor: they had a synagogue in Jerusalem in common with
+the Jews of Cyrene and Libya; and we find that one of the chief teachers
+of Christianity after the apostles was Apollos, the Alexandrian, who
+preached the new religion in Ephesus, in Corinth, and in Crete.
+
+On his return to Rome, Augustus carried with him the whole of the royal
+treasure; and though perhaps there might have been less gold and silver
+than usual in the palace of the Ptolemies, still it was so large a sum
+that when, upon the establishment of peace over all the world, the rate
+of interest upon loans fell in Rome, and the price of land rose, the
+change was thought to have been caused by the money from Alexandria.
+At the same time were carried away the valuable jewels, furniture, and
+ornaments, which had been handed down from father to son, with the
+crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. These were drawn in waggons through the
+streets of Rome in triumph; and with them were shown in chains to the
+wondering crowd Alexander Helius and Cleopatra Selene, the children of
+Cleopatra and Antony.
+
+Augustus threatened a severe punishment to the Alexandrians in the
+building of a new capital. Only four miles from the Canopic or eastern
+gate of Alexandria he laid out the plan of his new city of Meopolis, on
+the spot where he had routed Mark Antony’s forces. Here he began
+several large temples, and removed to them the public sacrifices and the
+priesthood from the temples of Alexandria. But the work was carried
+no farther, and soon abandoned; and the only change made by it in
+Alexandria was that the temple of Serapis and the other temples were for
+a time deserted.
+
+The rest of the world had long been used to see their finest works of
+art carried away by their conquerors; and the Egyptians soon learned
+that, if any of the monuments of which they were so justly proud were
+to be left to them, it would only be because they were too heavy to be
+moved by the Roman engineers. Beside many other smaller Egyptian works,
+two of the large obelisks, which even now ornament Rome, were carried
+away by Augustus, that of Thutmosis IV., which stands in the Piazza del
+Popolo, and that of Psammetichus, on Monte Citorio.
+
+Cornelius Gallus, the prefect of Egypt, seems either to have
+misunderstood, or soon forgotten, the terms of his appointment. He set
+up statues of himself in the cities of Egypt, and, copying the kings
+of the country, he carved his name and deeds upon the pyramids. On this
+Augustus recalled him, and he killed himself to avoid punishment. The
+emperor’s wish to check the tyranny of the prefects and tax-gatherers
+was strongly marked in the case of the champion fighting-cock. The
+Alexandrians bred these birds with great care, and eagerly watched their
+battles in the theatre. A powerful cock, that had hitherto slain all
+its rivals and always strutted over the table unconquered, had gained a
+great name in the city; and this bird, Eros, a tax-gatherer, roasted
+and ate. Augustus, on hearing of this insult to the people, sent for the
+man, and, on his owning what he had done, ordered him to be crucified.
+Three legions and nine cohorts were found force enough to keep this
+great kingdom in quiet obedience to their new masters; and when
+Heroopolis revolted, and afterwards when a rebellion broke out in the
+Thebaid against the Roman tax-gatherers, these risings were easily
+crushed. The spirit of the nation, both of the Greeks and Egyptians,
+seems to have been wholly broken; and Petronius, who succeeded
+Cornelius Gallus, found no difficulty in putting down a rising of the
+Alexandrians.
+
+The canals, through which the overflowing waters of the Nile were
+carried to the more distant fields, were, of course, each year more or
+less blocked up by the same mud which made the fields fruitful; and the
+clearing of these canals was one of the greatest boons that the monarch
+could bestow upon the tillers of the soil. This had often been neglected
+by the less powerful and less prudent kings of Egypt, in whose reigns
+the husbandman believed that Heaven in its displeasure withheld part
+of the wished-for overflow; but Petronius employed the leisure of his
+soldiers on this wise and benevolent work. In order better to understand
+the rise of the Nile, to fix the amount of the land-tax, and more fairly
+to regulate the overflow through the canals, the Nilometer on the Island
+of Elephantine was at this time made.
+
+[Illustration: 011.jpg THE NILOMETER AT ELEPHANTINE]
+
+It was under Ælius Gallus, the third prefect, that Egypt was visited by
+Strabo, the most careful and judicious of all the ancient travellers. He
+had come to study mathematics, astronomy, and geography in the museum,
+under the successors of Euclid, Eratosthenes, and Hipparchus. He
+accompanied the prefect in a march to Syênê (Aswan), the border town,
+and he has left us a valuable account of the state of the country at
+that time. Alexandria was the chief object that engaged his attention.
+Its two harbours held more ships than were to be seen in any other port
+in the world, and its export trade was thought greater than that of all
+Italy. The docks on each side of the causeway, and the ship canal, from
+the harbour of Eunostus to the Mareotic Lake, were full of bustle and
+activity. The palace or citadel on the promontory of Lochias on one side
+of the great harbour was as striking an object as the lighthouse on the
+other. The temples and palaces covered a space of ground equal to more
+than one-fourth part of the city, and the suburbs reached even beyond
+the Mareotic Lake. Among the chief buildings were the Soma, which held
+the bodies of Alexander and of the Ptolemies; the court of justice;
+the museum of philosophy, which had been rebuilt since the burning by
+Cæsar’s soldiers; the exchange, crowded with merchants, the temple of
+Neptune, and Mark Antony’s fortress, called the Timonium, on a point of
+land which jutted into the harbour; the Cæsarium, or new palace; and the
+great temple of Serapis, which was on the western side of the city, and
+was the largest and most ornamented of all these buildings. Farther off
+was the beautiful gymnasium for wrestlers and boxers, with its porticoes
+of a stadium in length, where the citizens used to meet in public
+assembly. From the top of the temple of Pan, which rose like a
+sugar-loaf in the middle of the city, and was mounted by a winding
+staircase, the whole of this remarkable capital might be seen spread
+out before the eye. On the east of the city was the circus, for
+chariot races, and on the west lay the public gardens and pale green
+palm-groves, and the Necropolis ornamenting the roadside with tombs for
+miles along the seashore. Other tombs were in the catacombs underground
+on the same side of the city. The banks of the Mareotic Lake were
+fringed with vineyards, which bore the famed wine of the same name,
+and which formed a pleasant contrast with the burning whiteness of the
+desert beyond. The canal from the lake to the Nile marked its course
+through the plain by the greater freshness of the green along its banks.
+In the distance were the new buildings of Augustus’ city of Nicopolis.
+The arts of Greece and the wealth of Egypt had united to adorn the
+capital of the Ptolemies. Heliopolis, the ancient seat of Egyptian
+learning, had never been wholly repaired since its siege by Cambyses,
+and was then almost a deserted city. Its schools were empty, its
+teachers silent; but the houses in which Plato and his friend Eudoxus
+were said to have dwelt and studied were pointed out to the traveller,
+to warm his love of knowledge and encourage him in the pursuit of
+virtue. Memphis was the second city in Egypt, while Thebes and Abydos,
+the former capitals, had fallen to the size and rank of villages. At
+Memphis Strabo saw the bull-fights in the circus, and was allowed to
+look at the bull Apis through a window of his stable. At Crocodilopolis
+he saw the sacred crocodile caught on the banks of the lake and fed
+with cakes and wine. Ptolemais, which was at first only an encampment of
+Greek soldiers, had risen under the sovereigns to whom it owed its name
+to be the largest city in the Thebaid, and scarcely less than Memphis.
+It was built wholly by the Greeks, and, like Alexandria, it was under
+Greek laws, while the other cities in Egypt were under Egyptian laws and
+magistrates. It was situated between Panopolis and Abydos; but, while
+the temples of Thebes, which were built so many centuries earlier, are
+still standing in awful grandeur, scarcely a trace of this Greek city
+can be found in the villages of El Menshieh and Girgeh (Cerkasoros),
+which now stand on the spot. Strabo and the Roman generals did not
+forget to visit the broken colossal statue of Amenhôthes, near Thebes,
+which sent forth its musical sounds every morning, as the sun, rising
+over the Arabian hills, first shone upon its face; but this inquiring
+traveller could not make up his mind whether the music came from the
+statue, or the base, or the people around it. He ended his tour with
+watching the sunshine at the bottom of the astronomical well at Syênê,
+which, on the longest day, is exactly under the sun’s northern edge, and
+with admiring the skill of the boatmen who shot down the cataracts in
+their wicker boats, for the amusement of the Roman generals.
+
+In the earlier periods of Egyptian history Ethiopia was peopled, or, at
+least, governed, by a race of men, whom, as they spoke the same language
+and worshipped the same gods as their neighbours of Upper Egypt, we must
+call the Kopts. But the Arabs, under the name of Troglodyte, and other
+tribes, had made an early settlement on the African side of the Red Sea.
+So numerous were they in Upper Egypt that in the time of Strabo half the
+population of the city of Koptos were Arabs; they were the camel-drivers
+and carriers for the Theban merchants in the trade across the desert.
+Some of the conquests of Ramses had been over that nation in southern
+Ethiopia, and the Arab power must have further risen after the defeat of
+the Ethiopians by Euergetes I. Ethiopia in the time of Augustus was held
+by Arabs; a race who thought peace a state of disgraceful idleness,
+and war the only employment worthy of men; and who made frequent hasty
+inroads into Nubia, and sometimes into Egypt. They fought for plunder,
+not for conquest, and usually retreated as quickly as they came,
+with such booty as they laid their hands on. To use words which were
+proverbial while the Nile swarmed with crocodiles, “They did as the dogs
+do, they drank and ran away;” and the Romans found it necessary to place
+a body of troops near the cataracts of Syênê to stop their marching
+northward and laying waste the Thebaid. While the larger part of the
+Roman legions was withdrawn into Arabia on an unsuccessful quest for
+treasure, a body of thirty thousand of these men, whom we may call
+either Arabs, from their blood and language, or Ethiopians, from their
+country, marched northward into Egypt, and overpowered the three
+Roman cohorts at Elephantine, Syênê, and Philas. Badly armed and badly
+trained, they were led on by the generals of Candace, Queen of Napata,
+to the fourth cataract. They were, however, easily driven back when
+Gallus led against them an army of ten thousand men, and drove them to
+Ethiopian Pselchis, now remaining as the modern village of Dakkeh. There
+he defeated them again, and took the city by storm. From Pselchis he
+marched across the Nubian desert two hundred and fifty miles to Premnis,
+on the northerly bend of the river, and then made himself master of
+Napata, the capital. A guard was at the moment left in the country to
+check any future inroads; but the Romans made no attempts to hold it.
+
+[Illustration: 016.jpg ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT]
+
+Of the state of the Ethiopie Arabs under Queen Candace we learn but
+little from this hasty inroad; but some of the tribes must have been
+very far from the barbarians that, from their ignorance of the arts
+of war, the Romans judged them to be. Those nearest to the Egyptian
+frontiers, the Troglodyte and Blemmyes, were unsettled, wandering, and
+plundering; but the inhabitants of Meroë were of a more civilised race.
+The Jews had settled in southern Ethiopia in large numbers, and for
+a long time; Solomon’s trade had made them acquainted with Adule and
+Auxum; some of them were employed in the highest offices, and must have
+brought with them the arts of civilised life. A few years later (Acts
+VIII. 27) we meet with a Jewish eunuch, the treasurer of Queen Candace,
+travelling with some pomp from Ethiopia to the religious festivals at
+Jerusalem. The Egyptian coins of Augustus and his successors are all
+Greek; the conquest of the country by the Romans made no change in its
+language. Though the chief part of the population spoke Koptic, it was
+still a Greek province of the Roman empire; the decrees of the prefects
+of Alexandria and of the upper provinces were written in Greek; and
+every Roman traveller, who, like a schoolboy, has scratched his name
+upon the foot of the musical statue of Amenhôthes, to let the world know
+the extent of his travels, has helped to prove that the Roman government
+of the country was carried on in the Greek language. The coins often
+bear the eagle and thunderbolt on one side, while on the other is the
+emperor’s head, with his name and titles; and, after a few years, they
+are all dated with the year of the emperor’s reign. In the earliest he
+is styled a Son of God, in imitation of the Egyptian title of Son of the
+Sun. After Egypt lost its liberty, we no longer find any gold coinage in
+the country; that metal, with everything else that was most costly, was
+carried away to pay the Roman tribute. This was chiefly taken in money,
+except, indeed, the tax on grain, which the Egyptian kings had always
+received in kind, and which was still gathered in the same way, and
+each year shipped to Rome, to be distributed among the idle poor of
+that great city. At this time it amounted to twenty millions of bushels,
+which was four times what was levied in the reign of Philadelphus.
+The trade to the east was increasing, but as yet not large. About
+one hundred and twenty small vessels sailed every year to India from
+MyosHormos, which was now the chief port on the Red Sea.
+
+No change was made in the Egyptian religion by this change of masters;
+and, though the means of the priests were lessened, they still carried
+forward the buildings which were in progress, and even began new ones.
+The small temple of Isis, at Tentyra, behind the great temple of Hâthor,
+was either built or finished in this reign, and it was dedicated to the
+goddess, and to the honour of the emperor as Jupiter Liberator, in a
+Greek inscription on the cornice, in the thirty-first year of the reign,
+when Publius Octavius was prefect of the province.
+
+[Illustration: 018.jpg A KOPTIC MAIDEN]
+
+The large temple at Talmis, in Nubia, was also then built, though not
+wholly finished; and we find the name of Augustus at Philæ, on some of
+the additions to the temple of Isis, which had been built in the reign
+of Philadelphus. In the hieroglyphical inscriptions on these temples,
+Augustus is called Autocrator Cæsar, and is styled Son of the Sun, King
+of Upper and Lower Egypt, with the other titles which had always been
+given by the priests to the Ptolemies and their own native sovereigns
+for so many centuries. These claims were evidently unknown in Rome,
+where the modesty of Augustus was almost proverbial.
+
+The Greeks had at all times been forward in owning the Egyptians as
+their teachers in religion; and in the dog Cerberus, the judge Minos,
+the boat of Charon, and the river Styx of their mythology, we see a
+clear proof that it was in Egypt that the Greeks gained their faint
+glimpse of the immortality of the soul, a day of judgment, and a future
+state of rewards and punishments; and, now that Rome was in close
+intercourse with Egypt, the Romans were equally ready to borrow thence
+their religious ceremonies. They brought to Rome the Egyptian opinions
+with the statues of the gods. They ran into the new superstition to
+avoid the painful uneasiness of believing nothing, and, though the
+Romans ridiculed their own gods, they believed in those of Egypt. So
+fashionable was the worship of Isis and Serapis becoming in Italy, that
+Augustus made a law that no Egyptian ceremonies should enter the city
+or even the suburbs of Rome. His subjects might copy the luxuries, the
+follies, and the vices of the Alexandrians, but not the gloomy devotion
+of the Egyptians. But the spread of opinions was not so checked;
+even Virgil taught the doctrine of the Egyptian millennium, or the
+resurrection from the dead when the thousand years were ended; and the
+cripple asking for alms in the streets of Rome would beg in the name of
+the holy Osiris.
+
+Egypt felt no change on the death of Augustus. The province was well
+governed during the whole of the reign of Tiberius, and the Alexandrians
+completed the beautiful temple to his honour, named the Sebaste, or
+Cæsar’s Temple. It stood by the side of the harbour, and was surrounded
+with a sacred grove. It was ornamented with porticoes, and fitted up
+with libraries, paintings, and statues, and was the most lofty building
+in the city. In front of this temple they set up two ancient obelisks,
+which had been made by Thutmosis III. and carved by Ramses II., and
+which, like the other monuments of the Theban kings, have outlived
+all the temples and palaces of their Greek and Roman successors. These
+obelisks are now generally known as “Cleopatra’s Needles.” One of them,
+in 1878, was taken to London and set up on the Thames Embankment; the
+other was soon afterward brought to New York, and is now in Central Park
+in that city. It is sixty-seven feet high to its sharpened apex, and
+seven feet, seven inches in diameter at its base. On its face are
+deeply incised inscriptions in hieroglyphic character, giving the names
+Thutmosis III., Ramses II., and Seti II.
+
+[Illustration: 022b.jpg FRAGMENTS IN WOOD PAINTED]
+
+The harsh justice with which Tiberius began his reign was at Rome soon
+changed into a cruel tyranny; but in the provinces it was only felt as
+a check to the injustice of the prefects. On one occasion, when Æmilius
+Rectus sent home from Egypt a larger amount of taxes than was usual,
+he hoped that his zeal would be praised by Tiberius. But the emperor’s
+message to the prefect was as stern as it was humane: “I should wish my
+sheep to be sheared, but not to be flayed.” On the death of one of
+the prefects, there was found among his property at Rome a statue of
+Menelaus, carved in Ethiopian obsidian, which had been used in the
+religious ceremonies in the temple of Heliopolis, and Tiberius returned
+it to the priests of that city as its rightful owners. Another proof of
+the equal justice with which this province was governed was to be seen
+in the buildings then carried on by the priests in Upper Egypt. We find
+the name of Tiberius carved in hieroglyphics on additions or repairs
+made to the temples at Thebes, at Aphroditopolis, at Berenicê, on the
+Red Sea, at Philæ, and at the Greek city of Parembole, in Nubia. The
+great portico was at this time added to the temple at Tentyra, with an
+inscription dedicating it to the goddess in Greek and in hieroglyphics.
+As a building is often the work of years, while sculpture is only the
+work of weeks, so the fashion of the former is always far less changing
+than that of the latter. The sculptures on the walls of this beautiful
+portico are crowded and graceless; while, on the other hand, the
+building itself has the same grand simplicity and massive strength that
+we find in the older temples of Upper Egypt.
+
+We cannot but admire the zeal of the Egyptians by whom this work
+was then finished. They were treated as slaves by their Greek
+fellow-countrymen; their houses were ransacked every third year by
+military authority in search of arms; they could have had no help from
+their Roman masters, who only drained the province of its wealth; and
+the temple had perhaps never been heard of by the emperor, who could
+have been little aware that the most lasting monument of his reign was
+being raised in the distant province of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 024.jpg TEMPLE AT TENTYRA, ENLARGED BY ROMAN ARCHITECTS]
+
+The priests of the other parts of the country sent gifts out of their
+poverty in aid of this pious work; and among the figures on the walls
+we see those of forty cities, from Semneh, at the second cataract, to
+Memphis and Saïs, in the Delta, each presenting an offering to the god
+of the temple.
+
+In the third year of this reign Germanicus Cæsar, who, much against his
+will, had been sent into the East as governor, found time to leave his
+own province, and to snatch a hasty view of the time-honoured buildings
+of Egypt. Descending the river to Thebes, and, while gazing on the
+huge remains of the temples, he asked the priests to read to him the
+hieroglyphical writing on the walls. He was told that it recounted the
+greatness of the country in the time of King Ramses, when there were
+seven hundred thousand Egyptians of an age to bear arms; and that
+with these troops Ramses had conquered the Libyans, Ethiopians, Medes,
+Persians, Bactrians, Scythians, Syrians, Armenians, Cappadocians,
+Bithynians, and Lycians. He was also told the tributes laid upon each
+of those nations; the weight of gold and silver, the number of chariots
+and horses, the gifts of ivory and scents for the temples, and the
+quantity of grain which the conquered provinces sent to feed the
+population of Thebes. After listening to the musical statue of
+Amenhothes, Germanicus went on to Elephantine and Syênê; and, on his
+return, he turned aside to the pyramids and the Lake of Mceris, which
+regulated the overflow of the Nile on the neighbouring fields. At
+Memphis, Germanicus consulted the sacred bull Apis as to his future
+fortune, and met with an unfavourable answer. The manner of consulting
+Apis was for the visitor to hold out some food in his hand, and the
+answer was understood to be favourable if the bull turned his head
+to eat, but unfavourable if he looked another way. When Germanicus
+accordingly held out a handful of grain, the well-fed animal turned his
+head sullenly towards the other side of his stall; and on the death of
+this young prince, which shortly followed, the Egyptians did not
+forget to praise the bull’s foresight. This blameless and seemingly
+praiseworthy visit of Germanicus did not, however, escape the notice
+of the jealous Tiberius. He had been guilty of gaining the love of the
+people by walking about without guards, in a plain Greek dress, and of
+lowering the price of grain in a famine by opening the public granaries;
+and Tiberius sternly reproached him with breaking the known law of
+Augustus, by which no Roman citizen of consular or even of equestrian
+rank might enter Alexandria without leave from the emperor.
+
+There were at this time about a million of Jews in Egypt. In Alexandria
+they seem to have been about one-third of the population, as they
+formed the majority in two wards out of the five into which the city was
+divided. They lived under their own elders and Sanhedrim, going up at
+their solemn feasts to worship in their own temple at Onion; but, from
+their mixing with the Greeks, they had become less strict than their
+Hebrew brethren in their observance of the traditions. Some few of them,
+however, held themselves in obedience to the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem, and
+looked upon the temple of Jerusalem as the only Jewish temple; and these
+men were in the habit of sending an embassy on the stated solemn feasts
+of the nation to offer the appointed sacrifices and prayers to Jahveh
+in the holy city on their behalf. But though the decree by Cæsar, which
+declared that the Jews were Alexandrian citizens, was engraved on a
+pillar in the city, yet they were by no means treated as such, either by
+the government, or by the Greeks, or by the Egyptians.
+
+[Illustration: 027.jpg ON THE BANKS OF THE NILE.]
+
+When, during the famine, the public granaries seemed unable to supply
+the whole city with food, even the humane Germanicus ordered that the
+Jews, like the Egyptians, should have no share of the gift. They were
+despised even by the Egyptians themselves, who, to insult them, said
+that the wicked god Typhon had two sons, Hierosolymus and Judæus, and
+that from these the Jews were descended.
+
+In the neighbourhood of Alexandria, on a hill near the shores of the
+Lake Mareotis, was a little colony of Jews, who, joining their own
+religion with the mystical opinions and gloomy habits of the Egyptians,
+have left us one of the earliest known examples of the monastic life.
+They bore the name of Therapeutæ. They had left, says Philo, their
+worldly wealth to their families or friends; they had forsaken wives,
+children, brethren, parents, and the society of men, to bury themselves
+in solitude and pass their lives in the contemplation of the divine
+essence. Seized by this heavenly love, they were eager to enter upon the
+next world, as though they were already dead to this. Every one, whether
+man or woman, lived alone in his cell or monastery, caring for neither
+food nor raiment, but having his thoughts wholly turned to the Law and
+the Prophets, or to sacred hymns of their own composing. They had their
+God always in their thoughts, and even the broken sentences which they
+uttered in their dreams were treasures of religious wisdom. They prayed
+every morning at sunrise, and then spent the day in turning over the
+sacred volumes, and the commentaries, which explained the allegories,
+or pointed out a secondary meaning as hidden beneath the surface of even
+the historical books of the Old Testament. At sunset they again prayed,
+and then tasted their first and only meal. Selfdenial indeed was the
+foundation of all their virtues. Some made only three meals in the week,
+that their meditations might be more free; while others even attempted
+to prolong their fast to the sixth day. During six days of the week they
+saw nobody, not even one another. On the seventh day they met together
+in the synagogue. Here they sat, each according to his age; the women
+separated from the men. Each wore a plain, modest robe, which covered
+the arms and hands, and they sat in silence while one of the elders
+preached. As they studied the mystic powers of numbers, they thought the
+number seven was a holy number, and that seven times seven made a great
+week, and hence they kept the fiftieth day as a solemn festival. On that
+day they dined together, the men on one side and the women on the other.
+The rushy papyrus formed the couches; bread was their only meat, water
+their drink, salt the seasoning, and cresses the delicacy. They would
+keep no slaves, saying that all men were born equal. Nobody spoke,
+unless it was to propose a question out of the Old Testament, or to
+answer the question of another. The feast ended with a hymn of praise.
+
+[Illustration: 029.jpg BEDOUIN TENT IN THE DESERT]
+
+The ascetic Jews of Palestine, the Essenes on the banks of the Dead Sea,
+by no means, according to Philo, thus quitted the active duties of life;
+and it would seem that the Therapeutas rather borrowed their customs
+from the country in which they had settled, than from any sects of the
+Jewish nation. Some classes of the Egyptian priesthood had always held
+the same views of their religious duties. These Egyptian monks slept on
+a hard bed of palm branches, with a still harder wooden pillow for the
+head; they were plain in their dress, slow in walking, spare in diet,
+and scarcely allowed themselves to smile. They washed thrice a day, and
+prayed as often; at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset. They often fasted
+from animal food, and at all times refused many meats as unclean.
+They passed their lives alone, either in study or wrapped in religious
+thought. They never met one another but at set times, and were seldom
+seen by strangers. Thus, leaving to others the pleasures, wealth, and
+lesser prizes of this life, they received from them in return what most
+men value higher, namely, honour, fame, and power.
+
+The Romans, like the Greeks, feeling but little partiality in favour
+of their own gods, were rarely guilty of intolerance against those of
+others; and would hardly have checked the introduction of a new religion
+unless it made its followers worse citizens. But in Rome, where
+every act of its civil or military authorities was accompanied with a
+religious rite, any slight towards the gods was a slight towards the
+magistrate; many devout Romans had begun to keep holy the seventh day;
+and Egypt was now so closely joined to Italy that the Roman senate made
+a new law against the Egyptian and Jewish superstitions, and, in A.D.
+19, banished to Sardinia four thousand men who were found guilty of
+being Jews.
+
+Egypt had lost with its liberties its gold coinage, and it was now
+made to feel a further proof of being a conquered country in having its
+silver much alloyed with copper. But Tiberius, in the tenth year of his
+reign, altogether stopped the Alexandrian mint, as well as those of the
+other cities which occasionally coined; and after this year we find no
+more coins, but the few with the head and name of Augustus Cæsar, which
+seem hardly to have been meant for money, but to commemorate on some
+peculiar occasions the emperor’s adoption by his stepfather. The Nubian
+gold mines were probably by this time wholly deserted; they had been so
+far worked out as to be no longer profitable. For fifteen hundred years,
+ever since Ethiopia was conquered by Thebes, wages and prices had been
+higher in Egypt than in the neighbouring countries. But this was now no
+longer the case. Egypt had been getting poorer during the reigns of the
+latter Ptolemies; and by this time it is probable that both wages and
+prices were higher in Rome.
+
+It seems to have been usual to change the prefect of Egypt every few
+years, and the prefect-elect was often sent to Alexandria to wait
+till his predecessor’s term of years had ended. Thus in this reign of
+twenty-three years Æmilius Rectus was succeeded by Vetrasius Pollio;
+and on his death Tiberius gave the government to his freedman Iberus.
+During the last five years Egypt was under the able but stern government
+of Flaccus Avillius, whose name is carved on the temple of Tentyra with
+that of the emperor. He was a man who united all those qualities of
+prudent forethought, with prompt execution and attention to business,
+which was so necessary in controlling the irritable Alexandrians, who
+were liable to be fired into rebellion by the smallest spark. Justice
+was administered fairly; the great were not allowed to tyrannise over
+the poor, nor the people to meet in tumultuous mobs; and the legions
+were regularly paid, so that they had no excuse for plundering the
+Egyptians.
+
+On the death of Tiberius, in A.D. 37, the old quarrel again broke out
+between Jews and Greeks. The Alexandrians were not slow in learning the
+feelings of his successor, Caius, or Caligula, towards the Jews, nor
+in turning against them the new law that the emperor’s statue should
+be honoured in every temple of the empire. They had very unwillingly
+yielded a half-obedience to the law of Augustus that the Jews should
+still be allowed the privileges of citizenship; and, as soon as they
+heard that Caligula was to be worshipped in every temple of the empire,
+they denounced the Jews as traitors and rebels, who refused so to honour
+the emperor in their synagogues. It happened, unfortunately, that their
+countryman, King Agrippa, at this time came to Alexandria. He had full
+leave from the emperor to touch there, as being the quickest and most
+certain way of making the voyage from Rome to the seat of his own
+government. Indeed, the Alexandrian voyage had another merit in the eyes
+of a Jew; for, whereas wooden water-vessels were declared by the Law to
+be unclean, an exception was made by their tradition in favour of the
+larger size of the water-wells in the Alexandrian ships. Agrippa had
+seen Egypt before, on his way to Rome, and he meant to make no stay
+there; but, though he landed purposely after dark, and with no pomp or
+show, he seems to have raised the anger of the prefect Flaccus, who felt
+jealous at any man of higher rank than himself coming into his province.
+The Greeks fell into the prefect’s humour, and during the stay of
+Agrippa in Alexandria they lampooned him in songs and ballads, of which
+the raillery was not of the most delicate kind. They mocked him by
+leading about the streets a poor idiot dressed up with a paper crown and
+a reed for a sceptre, in ridicule of his rather doubtful right to the
+style of royalty.
+
+As these insults towards the emperor’s friend passed wholly unchecked
+by the prefect, the Greeks next assaulted the Jews in the streets and
+market-place, attacked their houses, rooted up the groves of trees
+around their synagogues, and tore down the decree by which the
+privileges of citizenship had been confirmed to them. The Greeks then
+proceeded to set up by force a statue of the emperor in each Jewish
+synagogue, as if the new decree had included those places of worship
+among the temples, and, not finding statues enough, they made use of the
+statues of the Ptolemies, which they carried away from the gymnasium
+for that purpose. During the last reign, under the stern government
+of Tiberius, Flaccus had governed with justice and prudence, but under
+Caligula he seemed to have lost all judgment in his zeal against the
+Jews. When the riots in the streets could no longer be overlooked,
+instead of defending the injured party, he issued a decree in which
+he styled the Jews foreigners; thus at one word robbing them of their
+privileges and condemning them unheard. By this the Greeks were hurried
+forward into further acts of injustice, and the Jews of resistance. But
+the Jews were the weaker party: they were overpowered, and all driven
+into one ward, and four hundred of their houses in the other wards were
+plundered, and the spoil divided as if taken in war. They were stoned,
+and even burnt in the streets, if they ventured forth to buy food for
+their families. Flaccus seized and scourged in the theatre thirty-eight
+of their venerable councillors, and, to show them that they were no
+longer citizens, the punishment was inflicted by the hands of Egyptian
+executioners. While the city was in this state of riot, the Greeks gave
+out that the Jews were concealing arms; and Flaccus, to give them a
+fresh proof that they had lost the rights of citizenship, ordered that
+their houses should be forcibly entered and searched by a centurion and
+a band of soldiers.
+
+During their troubles the Jews had not been allowed to complain to the
+emperor, or to send an embassy to Rome to make known their grievances.
+But the Jewish King Agrippa, who was on his way from Rome to his
+kingdom, forwarded to Caligula the complaints of his countrymen, the
+Jews, with an account of the rebellious state of Alexandria. The riots,
+it is true, had been wholly raised by the prefect’s zeal in setting up
+the emperor’s statue in the synagogues to be worshipped by the Jews, and
+in carrying into effect the emperor’s decree; but, as he had not been
+able to keep his province quiet, it was necessary that he should
+be recalled, and punished for his want of success. To have found it
+necessary to call out the troops was of course a fault in a governor;
+but doubly so at a time and in a province where a successful general
+might so easily become a formidable rebel. Accordingly, a centurion,
+with a trusty cohort of soldiers, was sent from Rome for the recall
+of the prefect. On approaching the flat coast of Egypt, they kept
+the vessel in deep water till sunset, and then entered the harbour of
+Alexandria in the dark. The centurion, on landing, met with a freedman
+of the emperor, from whom he learned that the prefect was then at
+supper, entertaining a large company of friends. The freedman led the
+cohort quietly into the palace, into the very room where Flaccus was
+sitting at table; and the first tidings that he heard of his government
+being disapproved of in Rome was his finding himself a prisoner in his
+own palace. The friends stood motionless with surprise, the centurion
+produced the emperor’s order for what he was doing, and as no resistance
+was attempted all passed off quietly; Flaccus was hurried on board the
+vessel then at anchor in the harbour on the same evening and immediately
+taken to Rome.
+
+It so happened that on the night that Flaccus was seized, the Jews
+had met together to celebrate their autumnal feast, the feast of the
+Tabernacles: not as in former years with joy and pomp, but in fear,
+in grief, and in prayer. Their chief men were in prison, their nation
+smarting under its wrongs and in daily fear of fresh cruelties; and it
+was not without alarm that they heard the noise of soldiers moving to
+and fro through the city, and the heavy tread of the guards marching by
+torchlight from the camp to the palace. But their fear was soon turned
+into joy when they heard that Flaccus, the author of all their wrongs,
+was already a prisoner on board the vessel in the harbour; and they
+gave glory to God, not, says Philo, that their enemy was going to be
+punished, but because their own sufferings were at an end.
+
+The Jews then, having had leave given them by the prefect, sent
+an embassy to Rome, at the head of which was Philo, the platonic
+philosopher, who was to lay their grievances before the emperor, and to
+beg for redress. The Greeks also at the same time sent their embassy,
+at the head of which was the learned grammarian Apion, who was to accuse
+the Jews of not worshipping the statue of the emperor, and to argue that
+they had no right to the same privileges of citizenship with those who
+boasted of their Macedonian blood. But, as the Jews did not deny the
+charge that was brought against them, Caligula would hear nothing that
+they had to say; and Philo withdrew with the remark, “Though the emperor
+is against us, God will be our friend.”
+
+We learn the sad tale of the Jews’ suffering under Caligula from the
+pages of their own historian only. But though Philo may have felt and
+written as one of the sufferers, his truth is undoubted. He was a man
+of unblemished character, and the writer of greatest learning and of the
+greatest note at that time in Alexandria; being also of a great age, he
+well deserved the honour of being sent on the embassy to Caligula. He
+was in religion a Jew, in his philosophy a platonist, and by birth an
+Egyptian: and in his numerous writings we may trace the three sources
+from which he drew his opinions. He is always devotional and in earnest,
+full of pure and lofty thoughts, and often eloquent. His fondness for
+the mystical properties of numbers, and for finding an allegory or
+secondary meaning in the plainest narrative, seems borrowed from the
+Egyptians. According to the Eastern proverb every word in a wise book
+has seventy-two meanings; and this mode of interpretation was called
+into use by the necessity which the Jews felt of making the Old
+Testament speak a meaning more agreeable to their modern views of
+religion. In Philo’s speculative theology he seems to have borrowed less
+from Moses than from the abstractions of Plato, whose shadowy hints he
+has embodied in a more solid form. He was the first Jewish writer
+that applied to the Deity the mystical notion of the Egyptians, that
+everything perfect was of three parts. Philo’s writings are valuable as
+showing the steps by which the philosophy of Greece may be traced
+from the writings of Plato to those of Justin Martyr and Clemens
+Alexandrinus. They give us the earliest example of how the mystical
+interpretation of the Scriptures was formed into a system, by which
+every text was made to unfold some important philosophic or religious
+truth to the learned student, at the same time that to the unlearned
+reader it conveyed only the simple historic fact.
+
+The Hellenistic Jews, while suffering under severe political
+disabilities, had taken up a high literary position in Alexandria, and
+had forced their opinions into the notice of the Greeks. The glowing
+earnestness of their philosophy, now put forward in a platonic dress,
+and heir improved style, approaching even classic elegance, laced their
+writings on a lofty eminence far above anything which the cold, lifeless
+grammarians of the museum were then producing. Apion, who went to Rome
+to plead against Philo, was a native of the Great Oasis, but as he was
+born of Greek parents, he claimed and received the title and privileges
+of an Alexandrian, which he denied to the Jews who were born in the
+city. He had studied under Didymus and Apollonius and Euphranor, and was
+one of the most laborious of the grammarians and editors of Homer. All
+his writings are now lost. Some of them were attacks upon the Jews and
+their religion, calling in question the truth of the Jewish history
+and the justice of that nation’s claim to high antiquity; and to these
+attacks we owe Josephus’ _Answer_, in which several valuable fragments
+of history are saved by being quoted against the pagans in support of
+the Old Testament. One of his works was his _Ægyptiaca_, an account of
+what he thought most curious in Egypt. But his learned trifling is now
+lost, and nothing remains of it but his account of the meeting between
+Androclus and the lion, which took place in the amphitheatre at Rome
+when Apion was there on his embassy. Androclus was a runaway slave, who,
+when retaken, was brought to Rome to be thrown before an African lion
+for the amusement of the citizens, and as a punishment for his flight.
+But the fierce and hungry beast, instead of tearing him to pieces,
+wagged his tail at him, and licked his feet. It seems that the slave,
+when he fled from his master, had gained the friendship of the lion in
+the Libyan desert, first by pulling a thorn out of his foot, and then
+by living three years with him in a cave; and, when both were brought
+in chains to Rome, Androclus found a grateful friend in the amphitheatre
+where he thought to have met with a cruel death.
+
+We may for a moment leave our history, to bid a last farewell to the
+family of the Ptolemies. Augustus, after leading Selene, the daughter
+of Cleopatra and Antony, through the streets of Rome in his triumph, had
+given her in marriage to the younger Juba, the historian of Africa; and
+about the same time he gave to the husband the kingdom of Mauritania,
+the inheritance of his father. His son Ptolemy succeeded him on the
+throne, but was soon turned out of his kingdom. We trace the last of
+the Ptolemies in his travels through Greece and Asia Minor by the
+inscriptions remaining to his honour. The citizens of Xanthus in Lycia
+set up a monument to him; and at Athens his statue was placed beside
+that of Philadelphus in the gymnasium of Ptolemy, near the temple of
+Theseus, where he was honoured as of founder’s kin. He was put to death
+by Caligula. Drusilla, another grandchild of Cleopatra and Antony,
+married Antonius Felix, the procurator of Judæa, after the death of his
+first wife, who was also named Drusilla. These are the last notices that
+we meet with of the royal family of Egypt.
+
+As soon as the news of Caligula’s death (A.D. 41) reached Egypt, the
+joy of the Jews knew no bounds. They at once flew to arms to revenge
+themselves on the Alexandrians, whose streets were again the seat of
+civil war. The governor did what he could to quiet both parties, but
+was not wholly successful till the decree of the new emperor reached
+Alexandria. In this Claudius granted to the Jews the full rights of
+citizenship, which they had enjoyed under the Ptolemies, and which had
+been allowed by Augustus; he left them to choose their own high priest,
+to enjoy their own religion without hindrance, and he repealed the laws
+of Caligula under which they had been groaning. At this time the Jewish
+alabarch in Egypt was Demetrius, a man of wealth and high birth, who had
+married Mariamne, the daughter of the elder Agrippa.
+
+[Illustration: 041.jpg EGYPTIAN THRESHING-MACHINE]
+
+The government under Claudius was mild and just, at least as far as
+a government could be in which every tax-gatherer, every military
+governor, and every sub-prefect was supposed to enrich himself by his
+appointment. Every Roman officer, from the general down to the lowest
+tribune, claimed the right of travelling through the country free of
+expense, and seizing the carts and cattle of the villagers to carry him
+forward to the next town, under the pretence of being a courier on the
+public service. But we have a decree of the ninth year of this reign,
+carved on the temple in the Great Oasis, in which Cneius Capito, the
+prefect of Egypt, endeavours to put a stop to this injustice. He orders
+that no traveller shall have the privilege of a courier unless he has a
+proper warrant, and that then he shall only claim a free lodging; that
+clerks in the villages shall keep a register of all that is taken on
+account of the public service; and that if anybody make an unjust claim
+he shall pay four times the amount to the informer and six times the
+amount to the emperor. But royal decrees could do little or nothing
+where there were no judges to enforce them; and the people of Upper
+Egypt must have felt this law as a cruel insult when they were told that
+they might take up their complaints to Basilides, at Alexandria. The
+employment of the informer is a full acknowledgment of the weakness
+of this absolute government, and that the prefect had not the power
+to enforce his own decrees; and, when we compare this law with that
+of Alexander on his conquest of the country, we have no difficulty in
+seeing why Egypt rose under the Ptolemies and sunk under the selfish
+policy of Augustus.
+
+Claudius was somewhat of a scholar and an author; he wrote several
+volumes both in Greek and in Latin. The former he might perhaps think
+would be chiefly valued in Alexandria; and when he founded a new college
+in that city, called after himself the Claudian Museum, he ordered that
+on given days every year his history of Carthage should be publicly
+read in one museum, and his history of Italy in the other; thus securing
+during his reign an attention to his writings which their merits alone
+would not have gained.
+
+Under the government of Claudius the Egyptians were again allowed to
+coin money; and in his first year begins that historically important
+series in which every coin is dated with the year of the emperor’s
+reign. The coins of the Ptolemies were strictly Greek in their
+workmanship, and the few Egyptian characters that we see upon them are
+so much altered by the classic taste of the die-engraver that we hardly
+know them again. But it is far otherwise with the coins of the emperors,
+which are covered with the ornaments, characters, and religious
+ceremonies of the native Egyptians; and, though the style of art is
+often bad, they are scarcely equalled by any series of coins whatever in
+the service they render to the historian.
+
+It was in this reign that the route through Egypt to India first became
+really known to the Greeks and Romans. The historian Pliny, who died in
+79 A.D., has left us a contemporary account of these early voyages. “It
+will not be amiss,” he says in his _Natural History_, “to set forth the
+whole of the route from Egypt, which has been stated to us of late, upon
+information on which reliance may be placed and is here published for
+the first time. The subject is one well worthy of our notice, seeing
+that in no year does India drain our empire of less than five hundred
+and fifty millions of sesterces [or two million dollars], giving back
+her own wares in exchange, which are sold among us at fully one hundred
+times their cost price.
+
+“Two miles distant from Alexandria is the town of Heliopolis. The
+distance thence to Koptos, up the Nile, is three hundred and eight
+miles; the voyage is performed, when the Etesian winds are blowing, in
+twelve days. From Koptos the journey is made with the aid of camels,
+stations being arranged at intervals for the supply of fresh water. The
+first of these stations is called Hydreuma, and is distant twenty-two
+miles; the second is situate on a mountain at a distance of one day’s
+journey from the last; the third is at a second Hydreuma, distant from
+Koptos ninety-five miles; the fourth is on a mountain; the next to that
+is another Hydreuma, that of Apollo, and is distant from Koptos one
+hundred and eighty-four miles; after which there is another on a
+mountain; there is then another station at a place called the New
+Hydreuma, distant from Koptos two hundred and thirty miles; and next
+to it there is another called the Old Hydreuma, where a detachment
+is always on guard, with a caravansary that affords lodging for two
+thousand persons. The last is distant from the New Hydreuma seven
+miles. After leaving it, we come to the city of Berenicê, situate upon
+a harbour of the Red Sea, and distant from Koptos two hundred and
+fifty-seven miles. The greater part of this distance is generally
+travelled by night, on account of the extreme heat, the day being spent
+at the stations; in consequence of which it takes twelve days to perform
+the whole journey from Koptos to Berenicê.
+
+“Passengers generally set sail at midsummer before the rising of the
+Dog-star, or else immediately after, and in about thirty days arrive
+at Ocelis in Arabia, or else at Cane, in the region which bears
+frankincense. To those who are bound for India, Ocelis is the best place
+for embarkation. If the wind called Hippolus happens to be blowing,
+it is possible to arrive in forty days at the nearest mart of India,
+Muziris by name [the modern Mangalore]. This, however, is not a very
+desirable place for disembarkation, on account of the pirates which
+frequent its vicinity, where they occupy a place, Mtrias; nor, in fact,
+is it very rich in articles of merchandise. Besides, the roadstead for
+shipping is a considerable distance from the shore, and the cargoes
+have to be conveyed in boats, either for loading or discharging. At the
+moment that I am writing these pages,” continues Pliny, “the name of
+the king of the place is Cælobotras. Another part, and a much more
+convenient one, is that which lies in the territory of the people called
+Neacyndi, Barace by name. Here King Pandian used to reign, dwelling at a
+considerable distance from the mart in the interior, at a city known
+as Modiera. The district from which pepper is carried down to Barace
+in boats hollowed out of a single tree, is known as Cottonara. None of
+these names of nations, ports, and cities are to be found in any of
+the former writers, from which circumstance it would appear that the
+localities have since changed their names. Travellers set sail from
+India on their return to Europe, at the beginning of the Egyptian month
+Tybus, which is our December, or, at all events, before the sixth day of
+the Egyptian month Mechir, the same as our ides of January: if they do
+this, they can go and return in the same year. They set sail from
+India with a south-east wind, and, upon entering the Red Sea, catch the
+south-west or south.”
+
+The places on the Indian coast which the Egyptian merchant vessels then
+reached are verified from the coins found there; and as we know the
+course of the trade-wind by which they arrived, we also know the part of
+Africa where they left the shore and braved the dangers of the ocean.
+A hoard of Roman gold coins of these reigns has been dug up in our own
+days near Calicut, under the roots of a banyan-tree. It had been there
+buried by an Alexandrian merchant on his arrival from this voyage, and
+left safe under the cover of the sacred tree to await his return from a
+second journey. But he died before his return, and his secret died with
+him. The products of the Indian trade were chiefly silk, diamonds, and
+other precious stones, ginger, spices, and some scents. The state of
+Ethiopia was then such that no trade came down the Nile to Syênê;
+and the produce of southern Africa was brought by coasting vessels to
+Berenicê. These products were ivory, rhinoceros teeth, hippopotamus
+skins, tortoise shell, apes, monkeys, and slaves, a list which throws
+a sidelight both on the pursuits of the natives and the tastes of the
+ultimate purchasers.
+
+[Illustration: 047.jpg AN ARAB GIRL]
+
+The Romans in most cases collected the revenues of a province by means
+of a publican or farmer, to whom the taxes were let by auction; but such
+was the importance of Egypt that the same jealousy which made them think
+its government too great to be trusted to a man of high rank, made them
+think its revenues too large to be trusted to one farmer. The smaller
+branches of the Egyptian revenue were, however, let out as usual, and
+even the collection of the customs of the whole of the Red Sea was not
+thought too much to trust to one citizen. Annius Plocamus, who farmed
+them in this reign, had a little fleet under his command to collect them
+with; and, tempted either by trade or plunder, his ships were sometimes
+as far out as the south coast of Arabia. On one occasion one of his
+freedmen in the command of a vessel was carried by a north wind into
+the open ocean, and after being fifteen days at sea found himself on the
+coast of Ceylon. This island was not then wholly new to the geographers
+of Egypt and Europe. It had been heard of by the pilots in the voyage of
+Alexander the Great; Eratosthenes had given it a place in his map; and
+it had often been reached from Africa by the sailors of the Red Sea in
+wickerwork boats made of papyrus; but this was the first time it had
+been visited by a European.
+
+In the neighbourhood of the above-mentioned road from Koptos to Berenicê
+were the porphyritic quarries and the emerald mines, which were briskly
+worked under the Emperor Claudius. The mountain was now named the
+Claudian Mountain.
+
+As this route for trade became known, the geographers began to
+understand the wide space that separates India from Africa. Hitherto,
+notwithstanding a few voyages of discovery, it had been the common
+opinion that Persia was in the neighbourhood of Ethiopia. The Greeks had
+thought that the Nile rose in India, in opposition to the Jews, who said
+that it was the river Gibon of the garden of Eden, which made a circuit
+round the whole of the land of Cush, or Ethiopia. The names of these
+countries got misused accordingly; and even after the mistake was
+cleared up we sometimes find Ethiopia called India.
+
+The Egyptian chemists were able to produce very bright dyes by methods
+then unknown to Greece or Rome. They dipped the cloth first into a
+liquid of one colour, called a mordant, to prepare it, and then into
+a liquid of a second colour; and it came out dyed of a third colour,
+unlike either of the former. The ink with which they wrote the name of
+a deceased person on the mummy-cloth, like our own marking-ink, was made
+with nitrate of silver. Their knowledge of chemistry was far greater
+than that of their neighbours, and the science is even now named from
+the country of its birth. The later Arabs called it Alchemia, _the
+Egyptian art_, and hence our words alchemy and chemistry. So also
+Naphtha, or _rock oil_, from the coast of the Red Sea; and Anthracite,
+or _rock fuel_, from the coast of Syria, both bear Egyptian names.
+To some Egyptian stones the Romans gave their own names; as the black
+glassy obsidian from Nubia they called after Obsidius, who found it;
+the black Tiberian marble with white spots, and the Augustan marble with
+regular wavy veins, were both named after the emperors. Porphyry was
+now used for statues for the first time, and sometimes to make a kind of
+patchwork figure, in which the clothed parts were of the coloured stone,
+while the head, hands, and feet were of white marble. And it was thought
+that diamonds were nowhere to be found but in the Ethiopian gold mines.
+
+Several kinds of wine were made in Egypt; some in the Arsinoïte nome on
+the banks of the lake Mceris; and a poor Libyan wine at Antiplme on the
+coast, a hundred miles from Alexandria. Wine had also been made in
+Upper Egypt in small quantities a very long time, as we learn from the
+monuments; but it was produced with difficulty and cost and was not
+good; it was not valued by the Greeks. It was poor and thin, and drunk
+only by those who were feverish and afraid of anything stronger. That
+of Anthylla, to the east of Alexandria, was very much better. But better
+still were the thick luscious Tæniotic and the mild delicate Mareotic
+wines. This last was first grown at Plinthine, but afterwards on all the
+banks of the lake Mareotis. The Mareotic wine was white and sweet and
+thin, and very little heating or intoxicating. Horace had carelessly
+said of Cleopatra that she was drunk with Mareotic wine; but Lucan, who
+better knew its quality, says that the headstrong lady drank wine far
+stronger than the Mareotic. Near Sebennytus three kinds of wine were
+made; one bitter named Peuce, a second sparkling named Æthalon, and
+the third Thasian, from a vine imported from Thasus. But none of these
+Egyptian wines was thought equal to those of Greece and Italy. Nor were
+they made in quantities large enough or cheap enough for the poor; and
+here, as in other countries, the common people for their intoxicating
+drink used beer or spirits made from barley.
+
+[Illustration: 051.jpg FARMING IN EGYPT]
+
+The Egyptian sour wine, however, made very good vinegar, and it was then
+exported for sale in Rome. During this half-century that great national
+work, the lake of Moeris, by which thousands of acres had been flooded
+and made fertile, and the watering of the lower country regulated, was,
+through the neglect of the embankments, at once destroyed. The latest
+traveller who mentions it is Strabo, and the latest geographer Pomponius
+Mela. By its means the province of Arsinoë was made one of the most
+fruitful and beautiful spots in Egypt. Here only does the olive grow
+wild. Here the vine will grow. And by the help of this embanked lake the
+province was made yet more fruitful. But before Pliny wrote, the bank
+had given way, the pentup waters had made for themselves a channel into
+the lake now called Birket el Kurun, and the two small pyramids, which
+had hitherto been surrounded by water, then stood on dry ground. Thus
+was the country slowly going to ruin by the faults of the government,
+and ignorance in the foreign rulers. But, on the other hand, the
+beautiful temple of Latopolis, which had been begun under the Ptolemies,
+was finished in this reign; and bears the name of Claudius with those of
+some later emperors on its portico and walls.
+
+In the Egyptian language the word for a year is _Bait_, which is also
+the name of a bird. In hieroglyphics this word is spelt by a palm-branch
+_Bai_ and the letter T, followed sometimes by a circle as a picture of
+the year. Hence arose among a people fond of mystery and allegory a mode
+of speaking of the year under the name of a palm-branch or of a bird;
+and they formed a fable out of a mere confusion of words. The Greeks,
+who were not slow to copy Egyptian mysticism, called this fabulous bird
+the _Phoenix_ from their own name for the palm-tree. The end of any long
+period of time they called the return of the phonix to earth. The Romans
+borrowed the fable, though perhaps without understanding the allegory;
+and in the seventh year of this reign, when the emperor celebrated the
+secular games at Rome, at the end of the eighth century since the city
+was built, it was said that the phoenix had come to Egypt and was thence
+brought to Rome. This was in the consulship of Plautius and Vitellius;
+and it would seem to be only from mistakes in the name that Pliny
+places the event eleven years earlier, in the consulship of Plautius
+and Papinius, and that Tacitus places it thirteen years earlier in the
+consulship of Fabius and Vitellius. This fable is connected with some
+of the remarkable epochs in Egyptian history. The story lost nothing by
+travelling to a distance. In Rome it was said that this wonderful bird
+was a native of Arabia, where it lived for five hundred years, that on
+its death a grub came out of its body which in due time became a perfect
+bird; and that the new phonix brought to Egypt the bones of its parent
+in the nest of spices in which it had died, and laid them on the altar
+in the temple of the sun in Heliopolis. It then returned to Arabia to
+live in its turn for five hundred years, and die and give life again
+to another as before. The Christians saw in this story a type of the
+resurrection; and Clement, Bishop of Rome, quotes it as such in his
+Epistle to the Corinthians.
+
+We find the name of Claudius on several of the temples of Upper Egypt,
+particularly on that of Apollinopolis Magna, and on the portico of the
+great temples of Latopolis, which were being built in this reign.
+
+In the beginning of the reign of Nero, 55 A.D., an Egyptian Jew,
+who claimed to be listened to as a prophet, raised the minds of his
+countrymen into a ferment of religious zeal by preaching about the
+sufferings of their brethren in Judæa; and he was able to get together
+a body of men, called in reproach the Sicarii, or _ruffians_, whose
+numbers are variously stated at four thousand and thirty thousand,
+whom he led out of Egypt to free the holy city from the bondage of the
+heathen. But Felix, the Roman governor, led against them the garrison of
+Jerusalem, and easily scattered the half-armed rabble. By such acts of
+religious zeal on the part of the Jews they were again brought to blows
+with the Greeks of Alexandria. The Macedonians, as the latter still
+called themselves, had met in public assembly to send an embassy to
+Rome, and some Jews who entered the meeting, which as citizens they had
+a full right to do, were seized and ill-treated by them as spies. They
+would perhaps have even been put to death if a large body of their
+countrymen had not run to their rescue. The Jews attacked the assembled
+Greeks with stones and lighted torches, and would have burned the
+amphitheatre and all that were in it, if the prefect, Tiberius
+Alexander, had not sent some of the elders of their own nation to calm
+their angry feelings. But, though the mischief was stopped for a time,
+it soon broke out again; and the prefect was forced to call out the
+garrison of two Roman legions and five thousand Libyans before he
+could re-establish peace in the city. The Jews were always the greatest
+sufferers in these civil broils; and Josephus says that fifty thousand
+of his countrymen were left dead in the streets of Alexandria. But this
+number is very improbable, as the prefect was a friend to the Jewish
+nation, and as the Roman legions were not withdrawn to the camp till
+they had guarded the Jews in carrying away and burying the bodies of
+their friends.
+
+It was a natural policy on the part of the emperors to change a prefect
+whenever his province was disturbed by rebellion, as we have seen in the
+case of Flaccus, who was recalled by Caligula. It was easier to send a
+new governor than to inquire into a wrong or to redress a grievance; and
+accordingly in the next year C. Balbillus was sent from Rome as prefect
+of Egypt. He reached Alexandria on the sixth day after leaving the
+Straits of Sicily, which was spoken of as the quickest voyage known. The
+Alexandrian ships were better built and better manned than any others,
+and, as a greater number of vessels sailed every year between that port
+and Puteoli on the coast of Italy than between any other two places, no
+voyage was better understood or more quickly performed. They were out of
+sight of land for five hundred miles between Syracuse and Cyrene. Hence
+we see that the quickest rate of sailing, with a fair wind, was at that
+time about one hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours. But
+these ships had very little power of bearing up against the wind; and
+if it were contrary the voyage became tedious. If the captain on sailing
+out of the port of Alexandria found the wind westerly, and was unable to
+creep along the African coast to Cyrene, he stood over to the coast of
+Asia Minor, in hopes of there finding a more favourable wind. If a storm
+arose, he ran into the nearest port, perhaps in Crete, perhaps in Malta,
+there to wait the return of fair weather. If winter then came on, he had
+to lie by till spring. Thus a vessel laden with Egyptian wheat, leaving
+Alexandria in September, after the harvest had been brought down to the
+coast, would sometimes spend five months on its voyage from that port to
+Puteoli. Such was the case with the ship bearing the children of Jove
+as its figurehead, which picked up the Apostle Paul and the historian
+Josephus when they had been wrecked together on the island of Malta; and
+such perhaps would have been the case with the ship which they before
+found on the coast of Lycia, had it been able to reach a safe harbour,
+and not been wrecked at Malta.
+
+[Illustration: 056.jpg EGYPTIAN THRESHING MACHINE]
+
+The rocky island of Malta, with the largest and safest harbour in
+the Mediterranean, was a natural place for ships to touch at between
+Alexandria and Italy. Its population was made up of those races which
+had sailed upon its waters first from Carthage and then from Alexandria;
+it was a mixture of Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Græco-Egyptians. To
+judge from the skulls turned up in the burial-places, the Egyptians
+were the most numerous, and here as elsewhere the Egyptian superstitions
+conquered and put down all the other superstitions. While the island was
+under the Phoenicians, the coins had the head of the Sicilian goddess
+on one side, and on the other the Egyptian trinity of Isis, Osiris, and
+Nepthys. When it was under the Greek rule the head on the coins received
+an Egyptian head-dress, and became that of the goddess Isis, and on the
+other side of the coin was a winged figure of Osiris. It was at
+this time governed by a Roman governor. The large temple, built with
+barbarian rudeness, and ornamented with the Phoenician palm-branch, was
+on somewhat of a Roman plan, with a circular end to every room. But it
+was dedicated to the chief god of Egypt, and is even yet called by its
+Greek name Hagia Chem, _the temple of Chem_. The little neighbouring
+island of Cossyra, between Sicily and Carthage, also shows upon its
+coins clear traces of its taste for Egyptian customs.
+
+[Illustration: 057.jpg MALTESE COIN]
+
+The first five years of this reign, the _quinquennium Neronis_, while
+the emperor was under the tutorship of the philosopher Seneca, became in
+Rome proverbial for good government, and on the coinage we see marks of
+Egypt being equally well treated. In the third year we see on a coin the
+queen sitting on a throne with the word _agreement_, as if to praise
+the young emperor’s good feeling in following the advice of his mother
+Agrippina. On another the emperor is styled the young good genius, and
+he is represented by the sacred basilisk crowned with the double crown
+of Egypt. The new prefect, Balbillus, was an Asiatic Greek, and no doubt
+received his Roman names of Tiberius Claudius on being made a freedman
+of the late emperor. He governed the country mildly and justly; and
+the grateful inhabitants declared that under him the Nile was more than
+usually bountiful, and that its waters always rose to their just height.
+But in the latter part of the reign the Egyptians smarted severely under
+that cruel principle of a despotic monarchy that every prefect, every
+sub-prefect, and even every deputy tax-gatherer, might be equally
+despotic in his own department.
+
+[Illustration: 058.jpg COIN OF COSSYRA]
+
+On a coin of the thirteenth year of the reign of this ruler, we see a
+ship with the word _emperor-bearer_, being that in which he then sailed
+into Greece, or in which the Alexandrians thought that he would visit
+their city. But if they had really hoped for his visit as a pleasure,
+they must have thought it a danger escaped when they learned his
+character; they must have been undeceived when the prefect Cæcinna
+Tuscus was punished with banishment for venturing to bathe in the bath
+which was meant for the emperor’s use if he had come on his projected
+visit.
+
+During the first century and a half of Roman sway in Egypt the school
+of Alexandria was nearly silent. We have a few poems by Leonides of
+Alexandria, one of which is addressed to the Empress Poppæa, as the wife
+of Jupiter, on his presenting a celestial globe to her on her birthday.
+Pamphila wrote a miscellaneous history of entertaining stories, and her
+lively, simple style makes us very much regret its loss. Chæremon, a
+Stoic philosopher, had been, during the last reign, at the head of the
+Alexandrian library, but he was removed to Rome as one of the tutors to
+the young Nero.
+
+[Illustration: 059.jpg COIN OF NERO]
+
+He is ridiculed by Martial for writing in praise of death, when, from
+age and poverty, he was less able to enjoy life. We still possess a
+most curious though short account by him of the monastic habits of the
+ancient Egyptians. He also wrote on hieroglyphics, and a small fragment
+containing his opinion of the meanings of nineteen characters still
+remains to us. But he is not always right; he thinks the characters were
+used allegorically for thoughts, not for sounds; and fancies that the
+priests used them to keep secret the real nature of the gods.
+
+He was succeeded at the museum by his pupil Dionysius, who had the
+charge of the library till the reign of Trajan. Dionysius was also
+employed by the prefect as a secretary of state, or, in the language of
+the day, secretary to the embassies, epistles, and answers. He was the
+author of the _Periegesis_, and aimed at the rank of a poet by writing
+a treatise on geography in heroic verse. From this work he is named
+Dionysius Periegetes. While careful to remind us that his birthplace
+Alexandria was a Macedonian city, he gives due honour to Egypt and the
+Egyptians. There is no river, says he, equal to the Nile for carrying
+fertility and adding to the happiness of the land. It divides Asia from
+Libya, falling between rocks at Syênê, and then passing by the old and
+famous city of Thebes, where Memnon every morning salutes his beloved
+Aurora as she rises. On its banks dwells a rich and glorious race of
+men, who were the first to cultivate the arts of life; the first to make
+trial of the plough and sow their seed in a straight furrow; and the
+first to map the heavens and trace the sloping path of the sun.
+
+According to the traditions of the church, it was in this reign that
+Christianity was first brought into Egypt by the Evangelist Mark, the
+disciple of the Apostle Peter. Many were already craving for religious
+food more real than the old superstitions. The Egyptian had been shaken
+in his attachment to the sacred animals by Greek ridicule. The Greek had
+been weakened in his belief of old Homer’s gods by living with men
+who had never heard of them. Both were dissatisfied with the scheme of
+explaining the actions of their gods by means of allegory. The crumbling
+away of the old opinions left men more fitted to receive the new
+religion from Galilee. Mark’s preaching converted crowds in Alexandria;
+but, after a short stay, he returned to Rome, in about the eleventh
+year of this reign, leaving Annianus to watch over the growing church.
+Annianus is usually called the first bishop of Alexandria; and Eusebius,
+who lived two hundred years later, has given us the names of his
+successors in an unbroken chain. If we would inquire whether the early
+converts to Christianity in Alexandria were Jews, Greeks, or Egyptians,
+we have nothing to guide us but the names of these bishops. Annianus,
+or Annaniah, as his name was written by the Arabic historians, was very
+likely a Jew; indeed, the Evangelist Mark would begin by addressing
+himself to the Jews, and would leave the care of the infant church to
+one of his own nation. In the platonic Jews, Christianity found soil
+so exactly suited to its reception that it is only by he dates that the
+Thérapeute of Alexandria and their historian Philo are proved not to be
+Christian; and, again, it was in the close union between the platonic
+Jews and the platonists that Christianity found its easiest path to the
+ears and hearts of the pagans. The bishops that followed seem to have
+been Greek converts. Before the death of Annaniah, Jerusalem had been
+destroyed by the Roman armies, and the Jews sunk in their own eyes
+and in those of their fellow-citizens throughout the empire; hence the
+second bishop of Alexandria was less likely to be of Hebrew blood; and
+it was long before any Egyptians aimed at rank in the church. But though
+the spread of Christianity was rapid, both among the Greeks and the
+Egyptians, we must not hope to find any early traces of it in the
+historians. It was at first embraced by the unlearned and the poor,
+whose deeds and opinions are seldom mentioned in history; and we may
+readily believe the scornful reproach of the unbelievers, that it was
+chiefly received by the unfortunate, the unhappy, the despised, and the
+sinful. When the white-robed priestesses of Ceres carried the sacred
+basket through the streets of Alexandria, they cried out, “Sinners away,
+or keep your eyes to the ground; keep your eyes to the ground!” When
+the crier, standing on the steps of the portico in front of the great
+temple, called upon the pagans to come near and join in the celebration
+of their mysteries, he cried out, “All ye who are clean of hands and
+pure of heart, come to the sacrifice; all ye who are guiltless in
+thought and deed, come to the sacrifice.”
+
+But many a repentant sinner and humble spirit must have drawn back in
+distrust from a summons which to him was so forbidding, and been glad
+to hear the good tidings of mercy offered by Christianity to those who
+labour and are heavy laden, and to the broken-hearted who would turn
+away from their wickedness. While such were the chief followers of the
+gospel, it was not likely to be much noticed by the historians; and we
+must wait till it forced its way into the schools and the palace before
+we shall find many traces of the rapidity with which it was spreading.
+
+[Illustration: 063.jpg ETHIOPIAN ARABS]
+
+During these reigns the Ethiopian Arabs kept up their irregular warfare
+against the southern frontier. The tribe most dreaded were the Blemmyes,
+an uncivilised people, described by the affrighted neighbours as having
+no heads, but with eyes and mouth on the breast; and it was under that
+name that the Arabs spread during each century farther and farther into
+Egypt, separating the province from the more cultivated tribes of Upper
+Ethiopia or Meroë. The cities along the banks of the Nile in Lower
+Ethiopia, between Nubia and Meroë, were ruined by being in the debatable
+land between the two nations. The early Greek travellers had counted
+about twenty cities on each side of the Nile between Syênê and Meroë;
+but when, in a moment of leisure, the Roman government proposed to
+punish and stop the inroads of these troublesome neighbours, and sent
+forward a tribune with a guard of soldiers, he reported on his return
+that the whole country was a desert, and that there was scarcely a
+city inhabited on either side of the Nile beyond Nubia. But he had not
+marched very far. The interior of Africa was little known; and to seek
+for the fountain of the Nile was another name for an impossible or
+chimerical undertaking.
+
+But Egypt itself was so quiet as not to need the presence of so large
+a Roman force as usual to keep it in obedience; and when Vespasian, who
+commanded Nero’s armies in Syria, found the Jews more obstinate in their
+rebellion and less easily crushed than he expected, the emperor sent the
+young Titus to Alexandria, to lead to his father’s assistance all the
+troops that could be spared. Titus led into Palestine through Arabia two
+legions, the Fifth and the Tenth, which were then in Egypt.
+
+We find a temple of this reign in the oasis of Dakleh, or the Western
+Oasis, which seems to have been a more flourishing spot in the time
+of the Romans than when Egypt itself was better governed. It is so far
+removed from the cities in the valley of the Nile that its position, and
+even existence, was long unknown to Europeans, and to such hiding-places
+as this many of the Egyptians fled, to be farther from the tyranny of
+the Roman tax-gatherers.
+
+Hitherto the Roman empire had descended for just one hundred years
+through five emperors like a family inheritance; but, on the death of
+Nero, the Julian and Claudian families were at an end, and Galba, who
+was raised to the purple by the choice of the soldiers, endeavoured to
+persuade the Romans and their dependent provinces that they had regained
+their liberties. The Egyptians may have been puzzled by the word
+_freedom_, then struck upon the coins by their foreign masters, but must
+have been pleased to find it accompanied with a redress of grievances.
+
+Galba began his reign with the praiseworthy endeavour of repairing the
+injustice done by his cruel predecessor. He at once recalled the prefect
+of Egypt, and appointed in his place Tiberius Julius Alexander, an
+Alexandrian, a son of the former prefect of that name; and thus Egypt
+was under the government of a native prefect. The peaceable situation of
+the Great Oasis has saved a long Greek inscription of the decree which
+was now issued in redress of the grievances suffered under Nero. It is
+a proclamation by Julius Demetrius, the commander of the Oasis, quoting
+the decree of Tiberius Julius Alexander, the new prefect of Egypt.
+
+The prefect acknowledges that the loud complaints with which he was met
+on entering upon his government were well founded, and he promises that
+the unjust taxes shall cease; that nobody shall be forced to act as a
+provincial tax-gatherer; that no debts shall be cancelled or sales made
+void under the plea of money owing to the revenue; that no freeman shall
+be thrown into prison for debt, unless it be a debt due to the
+royal revenue, and that no private debt shall be made over to the
+tax-gatherer, to be by him collected as a public debt; that no property
+settled on the wife at marriage shall be seized for taxes due from the
+husband; and that all new charges and claims which had grown up within
+the last five years shall be repealed. In order to discourage informers,
+whom the prefects had much employed, and by whom the families in
+Alexandria were much harassed, and to whom he laid the great falling off
+in the population of that city, he orders, that if anybody should
+make three charges and fail in proving them, he shall forfeit half his
+property and lose the right of bringing an action at law. The land had
+always paid a tax in proportion to the number of acres overflowed and
+manured by the waters of the Nile; and the husbandmen had latterly been
+frightened by the double threat of a new measurement of the land, and of
+making it at the same time pay according to the ancient registers of the
+overflow when the canals had been more open and more acres flooded; but
+the prefect promises that there shall be no new measurements, and that
+they shall only be taxed according to the actual overflow. In 69 A.D.
+Galba was murdered, after a reign of seven months. Some of his coins,
+however, are dated in the second year of his reign, according to the
+Alexandrian custom of counting the years. They called the 29th of
+August, the first new year’s day after the sovereign came to the throne,
+the first day of his second year.
+
+Otho was then acknowledged as emperor by Rome and the East, while the
+hardy legions of Germany thought themselves entitled to choose for
+themselves. They set up their own general, Vitellius. The two legions in
+Egypt sided with the four legions in Syria under Mucianus, and the
+three legions which, under Vespasian, were carrying on the memorable
+war against the Jews; and all took the oaths to Otho. We find no
+hieroglyphical inscriptions during this short reign of a few weeks, but
+there are many Alexandrian coins to prove the truth of the historian;
+and some of them, like those of Galba, bear the unlooked-for word
+_freedom_. In the few weeks which then passed between the news of Otho’s
+death and of Vespasian being raised to the purple in Syria, Vitellius
+was acknowledged in Egypt; and the Alexandrian mint struck a few coins
+in his name with the figure of Victory. But as soon as the legions of
+Egypt heard that the Syrian army had made choice of another emperor,
+they withdrew their allegiance from Vitellius, and promised it to his
+Syrian rival.
+
+Vespasian was at Cæsarea, in command of the army employed in the Jewish
+war, when the news reached him that Otho was dead, and that Vitellius
+had been raised to the purple by the German legions, and acknowledged
+at Rome; and, without wasting more time in refusing the honour than was
+necessary to prove that his soldiers were in earnest in offering it, he
+allowed himself to be proclaimed emperor, as the successor of Otho.
+He would not, however, then risk a march upon Rome, but he sent to
+Alexandria to tell Tiberius Alexander, the governor of Egypt, what he
+had done; he ordered him to claim in his name the allegiance of that
+great province, and added that he should soon be there himself. The two
+Roman legions in Egypt much preferred the choice of the Eastern to
+that of the Western army, and the Alexandrians, who had only just
+acknowledged Vitellius, readily took the oath to be faithful to
+Vespasian. This made it less necessary for him to hasten thither, and he
+only reached Alexandria in time to hear that Vitellius had been murdered
+after a reign of eight months, and that he himself had been acknowledged
+as emperor by Rome and the Western legions. His Egyptian coins in the
+first year of his reign, by the word _peace_, point to the end of the
+civil war.
+
+When Vespasian entered Alexandria, he was met by the philosophers and
+magistrates in great pomp. The philosophers, indeed, in a city where,
+beside the officers of government, talent formed the only aristocracy,
+were a very important body; and Dion, Euphrates, and Apollonius had been
+useful in securing for Vespasian the allegiance of the Alexandrians.
+Dion was an orator, who had been professor of rhetoric, but he had given
+up that study for philosophy. His orations, or declamations, gained for
+him the name of Chrysostom, or _golden-mouthed_. Euphrates, his friend,
+was a platonist, who afterwards married the daughter of the prefect of
+Syria, and removed to Rome. Apollonius of Tyana, the most celebrated of
+these philosophers, was one of the first who gained his eminence from
+the study of Eastern philosophy, which was then rising in the opinions
+of the Greeks as highly worth their notice. He had been travelling in
+the East; and, boasting that he was already master of all the fabled
+wisdom of the Magi of Babylon and of the Gymnosophists of India, he was
+come to Egypt to compare this mystic philosophy with that of the hermits
+of Ethiopia and the Thebaid. Addressing himself as a pupil to the
+priests, he willingly yielded his belief to their mystic claims; and,
+whether from being deceived or as a deceiver, whether as an enthusiast
+or as a cheat, he pretended to have learned all the supernatural
+knowledge which they pretended to teach. By the Egyptians he was
+looked upon as the favourite of Heaven; he claimed the power of working
+miracles by his magical arts, and of foretelling events by his knowledge
+of astrology. In the Thebaid he was so far honoured that at the bidding
+of the priests one of the sacred trees spoke to him, as had been their
+custom from of old with favourites, and in a clear and rather womanly
+voice addressed him as a teacher from heaven.
+
+It was to witness such practices as these, and to learn the art of
+deceiving their followers, that the Egyptian priests were now consulted
+by the Greeks. The oracle at Delphi was silent, but the oracle of Ammon
+continued to return an answer. The mystic philosophy of the East had
+come into fashion in Alexandria, and the priests were more celebrated as
+magicians than as philosophers. They would tell a man’s fortune and the
+year that he was to die by examining the lines of his forehead. Some of
+them even undertook, for a sum of money, to raise the dead to life, or,
+rather, to recall for a time to earth the unwilling spirits, and make
+them answer any questions that might be put to them. Ventriloquism was
+an art often practised in Egypt, and perhaps invented there. By this the
+priests gained a power over the minds of the listeners, and could make
+them believe that a tree, a statue, or a dead body, was speaking to
+them.
+
+The Alexandrian men of letters seldom erred by wrapping themselves up in
+pride to avoid the fault of meanness; they usually cringed to the great.
+Apollonius was wholly at the service of Vespasian, and the emperor
+repaid the philosopher by flattery as well as by more solid favours.
+He kept him always by his side during his stay in Egypt; he acknowledged
+his rank as a prophet, and tried to make further use of him in
+persuading the Egyptians of his own divine right to the throne.
+Vespasian begged him to make use of his prayers that he might obtain
+from God the empire which he had as yet hardly grasped; but Apollonius,
+claiming even a higher mission from Heaven than Vespasian was granting
+to him, answered, with as much arrogance as flattery, “I have myself
+already made you emperor.” With the intimacy between Vespasian and
+Apollonius begins the use of gnostic emblems on the Alexandrian coins.
+The imperial pupil was not slow in learning from such a master; and
+the people were as ready to believe in the emperor’s miracles as in
+the philosopher’s. As Vespasian was walking through the streets of
+Alexandria, a man well known as having a disease in his eyes threw
+himself at his feet and begged of him to heal his blindness. He had been
+told by the god Serapis that he should regain his sight if the emperor
+would but deign to spit upon his eyelids. Another man, who had lost the
+use of a hand, had been told by the same god that he should be healed if
+the emperor would but trample on him with his feet. Vespasian at first
+laughed at them and thrust them off; but at last he so far yielded
+to their prayers, and to the flattery of his friends, as to have the
+physicians of Alexandria consulted whether it was in his power to heal
+these unfortunate men. The physicians, like good courtiers, were not so
+unwise as to think it impossible; besides, it seemed meant by the god as
+a public proof of Vespasian’s right to the throne; if he were successful
+the glory would be his, and if he failed the laugh would be against the
+cripples. The two men were therefore brought before him, and in the face
+of the assembled citizens he trampled on one and spit on the other; and
+his flatterers declared that he had healed the maimed and given sight to
+the blind.
+
+Vespasian met with further wonders when he entered the temple of Serapis
+to consult the god as to the state and fortunes of the empire. He went
+into the inner sanctuary alone, and, to his surprise, there he beheld
+the old Basilides, the freedman of Claudius, one of the chief men of
+Alexandria, whom he knew was then lying dangerously ill, and several
+days’ journey from the city. He inquired of the priests whether
+Basilides had been in the temple, and was assured that he had not. He
+then asked whether he had been in Alexandria; but nobody had seen him
+there. Lastly, on sending messengers, he learned that he was on his
+death-bed eighty miles off. With this miracle before his eyes, he could
+not distrust the answers which the priests gave to his questions.
+
+From Alexandria Vespasian sent back Titus to finish the siege of
+Jerusalem. The Jewish writer Joseph, the son of Matthias, or Flavius
+Josephus, as he called himself when he entered the service of the
+emperor, was then in Alexandria. He had been taken prisoner by
+Vespasian, but had gained his freedom by the betrayal of his country’s
+cause. He joined the army of Titus and marched to the overthrow of
+Jerusalem. Notwithstanding the obstinate and heroic struggles of the
+Jews, Judæa was wholly conquered by the Romans, and Jerusalem and its
+other fortresses either received Roman garrisons or were dismantled.
+The Temple was overthrown in the month of September, A.D. 70. Titus made
+slaves of ninety-seven thousand men, many of whom he led with him into
+Egypt, and then sent them to work in the mines. These were soon followed
+by a crowd of other brave Jews, who chose rather to quit their homes
+and live as wanderers in Egypt than to own Vespasian as their king. They
+knew no lord but Jahveh; to take the oaths or to pay tribute to Cæsar
+was to renounce the faith of their fathers. But they found no safety in
+Egypt. Their Greek brethren turned against them, and handed six hundred
+of them up to Lupus, the governor of Egypt, to be punished; and their
+countryman Josephus brands them all with the name of Sicarii. They tried
+to hide themselves in Thebes and other cities less under the eyes of the
+Roman governor. They were, however, followed and taken, and the courage
+with which the boys and mere children bore their sufferings, sooner than
+acknowledge Vespasian for their king, drew forth the praise of even the
+time-serving Josephus.
+
+The Greek Jews of Egypt gained nothing by this treachery towards
+their Hebrew brethren; they were themselves looked down upon by the
+Alexandrians, and distrusted by the Romans. The emperor ordered Lupus to
+shut up the temple at Onion, near Heliopolis, in which, during the last
+three hundred years, they had been allowed to have an altar, in rivalry
+to the Temple of Jerusalem. Even Josephus, whose betrayal of his
+countrymen might have saved him from their enemies, was sent with many
+others in chains to Rome, and was only set free on his making himself
+known to Titus. Indeed, when the Hebrew Jews lost their capital and
+their rank as a nation, their brethren felt lowered in the eyes of their
+fellow-citizens, in whatever city they dwelt, and in Alexandria they
+lost all hope of keeping their privileges; although the emperor refused
+to repeal the edict which granted them their citizenship, an edict to
+which they always appealed for protection, but often with very little
+success.
+
+The Alexandrians were sadly disappointed in Vespasian. They had been
+among the first to acknowledge him as emperor while his power was yet
+doubtful, and they looked for a sum of money as a largess; but to their
+sorrow he increased the taxes, and re-established some which had fallen
+into disuse. They had a joke against him, about his claiming from one of
+his friends the trifling debt of six oboli; and, upon hearing of their
+witticisms, he was so angry that he ordered this sum of six oboli to be
+levied as a poll-tax upon every man in the city, and he only remitted
+the tax at the request of his son Titus. He went to Rome, carrying with
+him the nickname of Cybiosactes, _the scullion_, which the Alexandrians
+gave him for his stinginess and greediness, and which they had before
+given to Seleucus, who robbed the tomb of Alexander the Great, at
+Alexandria, of its famous golden sarcophagus.
+
+Titus saw the importance of pleasing the people; and his wish to humour
+their ancient prejudices, at the ceremony of consecrating a new bull
+as Apis, brought some blame upon him. He there, as became the occasion,
+wore the state crown, and dazzled the people of Memphis with his regal
+pomp; but, while thus endeavouring to strengthen his father’s throne, he
+was by some accused of grasping at it for himself.
+
+The great temple of Kneph, at Latopolis, which had been the work of many
+reigns and perhaps many centuries, was finished under Vespasian. It is
+a building worthy of the best times of Egyptian architecture. It has a
+grand portico, upheld by four rows of massive columns, with capitals in
+the form of papyrus flowers. On the ceiling is a zodiac, like that at
+Tentyra; and, though many other kings’ names are carved on the walls,
+that of Vespasian is in the dedication over the entrance.
+
+Of the reign of Titus in Egypt we find no trace beyond his coins struck
+each year at Alexandria, and his name carved on one or two temples which
+had been built in former reigns.
+
+Of the reign of Domitian (81--96 A.D.) we learn something from the poet
+Juvenal, who then held a military post in the province; and he gives
+us a sad account of the state of lawlessness in which the troops lived
+under his commands. All quarrels between soldiers and citizens were
+tried by the officers according to martial law; and justice was very
+far from being even-handed between the Roman and the poor Egyptian.
+No witness was bold enough to come forward and say anything against a
+soldier, while everybody was believed who spoke on his behalf. Juvenal
+was at a great age when he was sent into Egypt; and he felt that the
+command of a cohort on the very borders of the desert was a cruel
+banishment from the literary society of Rome. His death in the camp was
+hastened by his wish to return home. As what Juvenal chiefly aimed at
+in his writings was to lash the follies of the age, he, of course, found
+plenty of amusement in the superstitions and sacred animals of Egypt.
+But he sometimes takes a poet’s liberty, and when he tells us that man’s
+was almost the only flesh that they ate without sinning, we need not
+believe him to the letter. He gives a lively picture of a fight which he
+saw between the citizens of two towns. The towns of Ombos and Tentyra,
+though about a hundred miles apart, had a long-standing quarrel
+about their gods. At Ombos they worshipped the crocodile and the
+crocodile-headed god Savak, while at Tentyra they worshipped the goddess
+Hâthor, and were celebrated for their skill in catching and killing
+crocodiles. So, taking advantage of a feast or holiday, they marched out
+for a fight. The men of Ombos Avere beaten and put to flight; but one of
+them, stumbling as he ran away, was caught and torn to pieces, and,
+as Juvenal adds, eaten by the men of Tentyra. Their worship of beasts,
+birds, and fishes, and even growing their gods in the garden, are
+pleasantly hit off by him; they left nothing, said he, without worship,
+but the goddess of chastity. The mother goddess, Isis, the queen of
+heaven, was the deity to whom they bowed with the most tender devotion,
+and to swear by Isis was their favourite oath; and hence the leek, in
+their own language named Isi, was no doubt the vegetable called a god by
+the satiric Juvenal.
+
+At the same time also the towns of Oxyrrhynchos and Cynopolis, in
+the Heptanomos, had a little civil war about the animals which
+they worshipped. Somebody at Cynopolis was said to have caught an
+oxyrrhynchus fish in the Nile and eaten it; and so the people of
+Oxyrrhynchos, in revenge, made an attack upon the dogs, the gods of
+Cynopolis. They caught a number of them, killed them in sacrifice to
+their offended fish-god, and ate them. The two parties then flew to arms
+and fought several battles; they sacked one another’s cities in turns,
+and the war was not stopped till the Roman troops marched to the spot
+and punished them both.
+
+But we gain a more agreeable and most likely a more true notion of the
+mystical religion and philosophy of the Egyptians in these days from the
+serious enquiries of Plutarch, who, instead of looking for what he could
+laugh at, was only too ready to believe that he saw wisdom hidden
+under an allegory in all their superstitions. Many of the habits of
+the priests, such as shaving the whole body, wearing linen instead of
+cotton, and refusing some meats as impure, seem to have arisen from a
+love of cleanliness; their religion ordered what was useful. And it
+also forbade what was hurtful; so to stir the fire with a sword was
+displeasing to the gods, because it spoilt the temper of the metal.
+None but the vulgar now looked upon the animals and statues as gods; the
+priests believed that the unseen gods, who acted with one mind and with
+one providence, were the authors of all good; and though these, like the
+sun and moon, were called in each country by a different name, yet, like
+those luminaries, they were the same over all the world.
+
+[Illustration: 078b.jpg SCENE IN A SEPUUCHRAL CHAMBER]
+
+Outward ceremonies in religion were no longer thought enough without a
+good life; and, as the Greeks said, that beard and cloak did not make a
+philosopher, so the Egyptians said that white linen and a tonsure
+would not make a follower of Isis. All the sacrifices to the gods had a
+secondary meaning, or, at least, they tried to join a moral aim to the
+outward act; as on the twentieth day of the month, when they ate honey
+and figs in honour of Thot, they sang “Sweet is truth.” The Egyptians,
+like most other Eastern polytheists, held the doctrine which was
+afterwards called Manicheism; they believed in a good and in a wicked
+god, who governed the world between them. Of these the former made
+himself threefold, because three is a perfect number, and they adopted
+into their religion that curious metaphysical opinion that everything
+divine is formed of three parts; and accordingly, on the Theban
+monuments we often see the gods in groups of three. They worshipped
+Osiris, Isis, and Horus under the form of a right-angled triangle, in
+which Horus was the side opposite to the right angle. The favourite
+part of their mythology was the lamentation of Isis for the death of
+her husband Osiris. By another change the god Horus, who used to be a
+crowned king of manly stature, was now a child holding a finger to his
+mouth, and thereby marking that he had not yet learned to talk. The
+Romans, who did not understand this Egyptian symbol for youthfulness,
+thought that in this character he was commanding silence; and they gave
+the name of Harpocrates, _Horus the powerful_, to a god of silence.
+Horus was also often placed as a child in the arms of his mother Isis;
+and thus by the loving nature of the group were awakened the more tender
+feelings of the worshipper. The Egyptians, like the Greeks, had always
+been loud in declaring that they were beloved by their gods; but they
+received their favours with little gratitude, and hardly professed that
+they felt any love towards the gods in return. But after the time of the
+Christian era, we meet with more kindly feelings even among the pagans.
+We find from the Greek names of persons that they at least had begun to
+think their gods deserving of love, and in this group of the mother and
+child, such a favourite also in Christian art, we see in what direction
+these more kindly feelings found an entrance into the Egyptian religion.
+As fast as opinion was raising the great god Serapis above his fellows
+and making the wrathful judge into the ruler of the world, so fast was
+the same opinion creating for itself a harbour of refuge in the child
+Horus and its mother.
+
+[Illustration: 080.jpg HARPOCRATES]
+
+The deep earnestness of the Egyptians in the belief of their own
+religion was the chief cause of its being adopted by others. The Greeks
+had borrowed much from it. Though in Rome it had been forbidden by law,
+it was much cultivated there in private; and the engraved rings on the
+fingers of the wealthy Romans which bore the figures of Harpocrates and
+other Egyptian gods easily escaped the notice of the magistrate. But the
+superstitious Domitian, who was in the habit of consulting astrologers
+and Chaldæan fortune-tellers, allowed the Egyptian worship. He built
+at Rome a temple to Isis, and another to Serapis; and such was the
+eagerness of the citizens for pictures of the mother goddess with her
+child in her arms that, according to Juvenal, the Roman painters all
+lived upon the goddess Isis. For her temple in the Campus Martius, holy
+water was even brought from the Nile to purify the building and the
+votaries; and a regular college of priests was maintained there by their
+zeal and at their cost, with a splendour worthy of the Roman capital.
+Domitian, also, was somewhat of a scholar, and he sent to Alexandria for
+copies of their books, to restore the public library at Rome which had
+been lately burnt; while his garden on the banks of the Tiber was
+richer in the Egyptian winter rose than even the gardens of Memphis and
+Alexandria.
+
+During this century the coinage continues one of the subjects of chief
+interest to the antiquary. In 92 A.D., in the eleventh year of his
+reign, when Domitian took upon himself the tribunitian power at Rome
+for a second period of ten years, the event was celebrated in Alexandria
+with a triumphal procession and games in the hippodrome, of all which we
+see clear traces on the Egyptian coins.
+
+[Illustration: 081.jpg COINS OF DOMITIAN]
+
+The coinage is almost the only trace of Nerva (96--98 A.D.) having
+reigned in Egypt; but it is at the same time enough to prove the
+mildness of his government. The Jews who by their own law were of old
+required to pay half a shekel, or a didrachm, to the service of their
+temple, had on their conquest been made to pay that sum as a yearly
+tribute to the Ptolemies, and afterwards to the emperors. It was a
+poll-tax levied on every Jew throughout the empire. But Nerva had the
+humanity to relieve them from this insulting tribute, and well did he
+deserve the honour of having it recorded on the coins struck in his
+reign.
+
+The coinage of the eleventh year of his successor, Trajan (98-117
+A.D.), is very remarkable for its beauty, its technical skill, and
+variety, even more so than that of the eleventh year of Domitian.
+
+[Illustration: 082.jpg COIN OF NERVA]
+
+The coins have hitherto proclaimed, in a manner unmistakably plain to
+those who study numismatics, the games and conquests of the emperors,
+the bountiful overflow of the Nile, and sometimes the worship of
+Serapis; but we now enter upon the most brilliant and most important
+period of the Egyptian coinage, and find a rich variety of fables taken
+both from Egyptian and Greek mythology. The coins of Rome in this and
+the following reigns show the wealth, good taste, and learning of the
+nation, but they are surpassed by the coins of Egypt. While history
+is nearly silent, and the buildings and other proofs of Roman good
+government have perished, the coins alone are quite enough to prove
+the well-being of the people. Among the Egyptian coins those of Trajan,
+Hadrian, and the Antonines equal in number those of all the other
+emperors together, while in beauty they far surpass them. They are
+mostly of copper, of a small size, and thick, weighing about one hundred
+and ten grains, and some larger of two hundred and twenty grains; the
+silver coins are less common, and of mixed metal.
+
+Though the Romans, while admiring and copying everything that was Greek,
+affected to look upon the Egyptians as savages, who were only known to
+be human beings by their power of speech, still the Egyptian physicians
+were held by them in the highest repute. The more wealthy Romans often
+sailed to Alexandria for the benefit of their advice. Pliny the Elder,
+however, thought that of the invalids who went to Egypt for their
+health more were cured by the sea voyage than by the physicians on their
+arrival.
+
+[Illustration: 083.jpg TRINITY OF ISIS, HORUS AND NEPHTHYS]
+
+One of Cicero’s physicians was an Egyptian. Pliny the Younger repaid his
+Egyptian oculist, Harpocrates, by getting a rescript from the emperor
+to make him a Roman citizen. But the statesman did not know under what
+harsh laws his friend was born, for the grant was void in the case of an
+Egyptian, the emperor’s rescript was bad as being against the law; and
+Pliny had again to beg the greater favour that the Egyptian might first
+be made a citizen of Alexandria, without which the former favour was
+useless. Thus, even in Alexandria, a conquered province governed by
+the despotic will of a military emperor, there were still some laws or
+principles which the emperor found it not easy to break. The courts of
+justice, those to whom the edicts were addressed and by whom they were
+to be explained and carried into effect, claimed a power in some cases
+above the emperor; and the first article in the Roman code was that an
+imperial rescript, by whomsoever or howsoever obtained, was void if it
+was against the law. As the lawyers and magistrates formed part of the
+body of citizens, the Alexandrians had so far a share in the government
+of their own affairs; but this was an advantage that the Egyptians lost
+by being under the power of the Greek magistrates.
+
+[Illustration: 084.jpg COINS OF TRAJAN]
+
+Trajan always kept in the public granaries of Rome a supply of Egyptian
+grain equal to seven times the _canon_, or yearly gift to the poor
+citizens; and in this prudent course he was followed by all his
+successors, until the store was squandered by the worthless Elagabalus.
+One year, when the Nile did not rise to its usual height, and much of
+the grain land of the Delta, instead of being moistened by its waters
+and enriched by its mud, was left a dry, sandy plain, the granaries of
+Rome were unlocked to feed the city of Alexandria. The Alexandrians then
+saw the unusual sight of ships unloading their cargoes of wheat in their
+harbour, and the Romans boasted that they took the Egyptian tribute
+in grain, not because they could not feed themselves, but because the
+Egyptians had nothing else to send them.
+
+Alexandria under the Romans was still the centre of the trading world,
+not only having its own great trade in grain, but being the port through
+which the trade of India and Arabia passed to Europe, and at which the
+Syrian vessels touched in their way to Italy. The harbour was crowded
+with masts and strange prows and uncouth sails, and the quays always
+busy with loading and unloading; while in the streets might be seen men
+of all languages and all dresses, copper-coloured Egyptians, swarthy
+Jews, lively, bustling Greeks, and haughty Italians, with Asiatics from
+the neighbouring coasts of Syria and Cilicia, and even dark Ethiopians,
+painted Arabs, Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and Indians, all gay with
+their national costumes. Alexandria was a spot in which Europe met Asia,
+and each wondered at the strangeness of the other.
+
+Of the Alexandrians themselves we receive a very unfavourable account
+from their countryman, Dion Chrysostom. With their wealth, they
+had those vices which usually follow or cause the loss of national
+independence. They were eager for nothing but food and horse-races. They
+were grave and quiet in their sacrifices and listless in business, but
+in the theatre or in the stadium men, women, and children were alike
+heated into passion, and overcome with eagerness and warmth of feeling.
+A scurrilous song or a horse-race would so rouse them into a quarrel
+that they could not hear for their own noise, nor see for the dust
+raised by their own bustle in the hippodrome; while all those acts of
+their rulers, which in a more wholesome state of society would have
+called for notice, passed by unheeded.
+
+[Illustration: 086.jpg EGYPTIAN WIG (BRITISH MUSEUM)]
+
+They cared more for the tumble of a favourite charioteer than for the
+sinking state of the nation. The ready employment of ridicule in the
+place of argument, of wit instead of graver reason, of nicknames
+as their most powerful weapon, was one of the worst points in the
+Alexandrian character. Frankness and manliness are hardly to be looked
+for under a despotic government where men are forbidden to speak their
+minds openly; and the Alexandrians made use of such checks upon their
+rulers as the law allowed them. They lived under an absolute monarchy
+tempered only by ridicule. Though their city was four hundred years old,
+they were still colonists and without a mother-country. They had very
+little faith in anything great or good, whether human or divine. They
+had few cherished prejudices, no honoured traditions, sadly little love
+of fame, and they wrote no histories. But in luxury and delicacy they
+set the fashion to their conquerors. The wealthy Alexandrian walked
+about Rome in a scarlet robe, in summer fanning himself with gold, and
+displaying on his fingers rings carefully suited to the season; as his
+hands were too delicate to carry his heavier jewels in the warm weather.
+At the supper tables of the rich, the Alexandrian singing boys were
+much valued; the smart young Roman walked along the Via Sacra humming
+an Alexandrian tune; the favourite comic actor, the delight of the
+city, whose jokes set the theatre in a roar, was an Alexandrian; the
+Retiarius, who, with no weapon but a net, fought against an armed
+gladiator in the Roman forum, and came off conqueror in twenty-six such
+battles, was an Alexandrian; and no breed of fighting-cocks was thought
+equal to those reared in the suburbs of Alexandria.
+
+In the reign of Augustus the Roman generals had been defeated in their
+attacks on Arabia; but under Trajan, when the Romans were masters of all
+the countries which surround Arabia Nabatæa, and when Egypt was so
+far quiet that the legions could be withdrawn without danger to the
+provinces, the Arabs could hold out no longer, and the rocky fastness
+of Petra was forced to receive a Roman garrison. The event was as usual
+commemorated on the coins of Rome; and for the next four hundred years
+that remarkable Arab city formed part of the Roman empire; and Europeans
+now travelling through the desert from Mount Sinai to Jerusalem are
+agreeably surprised at coming upon temples, carved out of the solid
+rock, ornamented with Corinthian columns of the age of the Antonines.
+
+In the twelfth year of this reign, when Lucius Sulpicius Simius was
+prefect, some additions which had been made to the temple at Panopolis
+in the Thebaid were dedicated in the name of the emperor; and in the
+nineteenth year, when Marcus Rutilius Lupus was prefect, a new portico
+in the oasis of Thebes was in the same manner dedicated to Serapis and
+Isis. A small temple, which had been before built at Denderah, near the
+great temple of Venus, was in the first year of this reign dedicated to
+the Empress Plotina, under the name of the great goddess, the Younger
+Venus.
+
+The canal from the Nile near Bubastis to the Bitter Lakes, which had
+been first made by Necho, had been either finished or a second time
+made by Philadelphus; and in this reign that great undertaking was again
+renewed. But the stream of the Nile was deserting the Bubastite branch,
+which was less navigable than formerly; and the engineers now changed
+the greater part of the canal’s bed. They thought it wiser to bring
+water from a higher part of the Nile, so that the current in the canal
+might run into the Red Sea instead of out, and its waters might still
+be fresh and useful to agriculture. It now began at Babylon opposite
+Memphis and entered the Red Sea at a town which, taking its name from
+the locks, was called Clysmon, about ten miles to the south of Arsinoë.
+This latter town was no longer a port, having been separated from the
+sea by the continual advance of the sands. We have no knowledge of how
+long the care of the imperial prefects kept this new canal open and in
+use. It was perhaps one of the first of the Roman works that went to
+decay; and, when we find the Christian pilgrims sailing along it seven
+centuries later, on their way from England to the holy sepulchre, it had
+been again opened by the Muhammedan conquerors of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 089.jpg ANTONINIAN TEMPLE NEAR SINAI]
+
+Writings which some now regard as literary forgeries appeared in
+Alexandria about this time. They prophesied the re-establishment of
+the Jews at Jerusalem, and, as the wished-for time drew near, all the
+eastern provinces of the Roman empire were disturbed by rebellious
+risings of the Jews. Moved by the religious enthusiasm which gave birth
+to the writings, the Jews of Egypt in the eighteenth year of this
+reign (116 A.D.) were again roused into a quarrel with their Greek
+fellow-citizens; and in the next year, the last of the reign, they rose
+against their Roman governors in open rebellion, and they were not put
+down till the prefect Lupus had brought his forces against them. After
+this the Jews of Cyrene marched through the desert into Egypt, under the
+command of Lucuas, to help their brethren; and the rebellion took the
+regular form of a civil war, with all its usual horrors. The emperor
+sent against the Jews an army followed by a fleet, which, after numerous
+skirmishes and battles, routed them with great slaughter, and drove
+numbers of them back into the desert, whence they harassed the village
+as robbers. By these unsuccessful appeals to force, the Jews lost all
+right to those privileges of citizenship which they always claimed, and
+which had been granted by the emperors, though usually refused by the
+Alexandrians. The despair and disappointment of the Jews seem in many
+cases to have turned their minds to the Christian view of the Old
+Testament prophecies; henceforth, says Eusebius, the Jews embraced the
+Christian religion more readily and in greater numbers.
+
+In A.D. 122, the sixth year of the reign of Hadrian, Egypt was honoured
+by a visit from the emperor. He was led to Egypt at that time by some
+riots of a character more serious than usual, which had arisen between
+two cities, probably Memphis and Heliopolis, about a bull, as to whether
+it was to be Apis or Mnevis. Egypt had been for some years without a
+sacred bull; and when at length the priests found one, marked with the
+mystic spots, the inhabitants of those two cities flew to arms, and
+the peace of the province was disturbed by their religious zeal, each
+claiming the bull as their own.
+
+Hadrian also undertook a voyage up the Nile from Alexandria in order to
+explore the wonders of Egypt. This was the fashion then, for the ancient
+monuments and the banks of this mysterious river offered just as many
+attractions at that time as they have done to all nations since
+the expedition of Napoleon. That animal-worship, which had remained
+unchanged for centuries, a riddle of human religion, was bound to excite
+the curiosity of strangers. In this divinisation of animals lay the
+greatest contempt for human understanding, and it was a bitter satire
+on the apotheosis of kings and emperors. For what was the divinity
+of Sesostris, of Alexander, of Augustus, or Hadrian compared with
+the heavenly majesty of the ox Apis, or the holy cats, dogs, kites,
+crocodiles, and god-apes? Egypt was at this epoch already a museum of
+the Pharaoh-time and its enbalamed culture. Strange buildings, rare
+sculptures, hieroglyphics, and pictures still filled the ancient towns,
+even though these had lost their splendour. Memphis and Heliopolis,
+Bubastis, Abydos, Saïs, Tanis, and the hundred-gated Thebes had long
+fallen into ruin, although still inhabited.
+
+The emperor’s escort must have been an extraordinary sight as it steered
+up the stream on a fleet of dahabiehs. The emperor was accompanied by
+students of the museum, interpreters, priests, and astrologers. Amongst
+his followers were Verus and the beautiful Antinous.
+
+The Empress Sabina also accompanied him; she had the poetess Julia
+Balbilla amongst her court ladies. They landed wherever there was
+anything of interest to be seen, and there was more in those days than
+there is now. They admired the great pyramids, the colossal sphinx, and
+the sacred town of Memphis. This city, the ancient royal seat of the
+Pharaohs, and even in Strabo’s time the second town in Egypt, was not
+yet buried under the sand of the desert; its disappearance had, however,
+already begun. Under the Ptolemies it had given much of the material of
+her temples and palaces for the building of Alexandria. The great palace
+of the Pharaohs had long been destroyed, but there still remained
+many notable monuments, such as the temple of Phtah, the pyramids, the
+necropolis, and the Serapeum, and they retained their ancient cult.
+The town was still the chief seat of the Egyptian hierarchy and the
+residence of Apis; for this very reason the Roman government had
+destined it to be one of her strong military stations, for here a legion
+was quartered. The emperor could walk through the time-worn avenues of
+sphinxes which led to the wonderful vaults where the long succession of
+divine animals was buried, each like a Pharaoh, in a magnificent granite
+sarcophagus. Hadrian could admire the beautifully sculptured tomb of Di,
+an Egyptian officer of the fifth dynasty, with less trouble than we
+must experience now; for now the palaces, the pictures of the gods,
+and almost all the pyramids are swallowed up in sand. Miserable Arab
+villages, such as Saqqâra, have fixed themselves in the ruins of
+Memphis, and from a thick palm grove one can look with astonishment
+upon the torso of the powerful Ramses II. lying solitary there, the last
+witness to the glory of the temple of Phtah, before which this colossus
+once had its stand. In the neighbourhood of Memphis lay Heliopolis, the
+town of the sun-god, with its ancient temple, and a school of Egyptian
+wisdom, in which Plato is supposed to have studied.
+
+In Heliopolis the worship of the god Ra was preserved, the centre of
+which was the holy animal Mnevis, a rival or comrade of Apis. Cambyses
+had partly destroyed the temple and even the obelisks which the Pharaohs
+had in the course of centuries erected to the sun-god; nowhere in Egypt
+existed so many of these monuments as here and in Thebes. Hadrian saw
+many of them lying half-burnt on the ground just as Strabo had done.
+On the site of Heliopolis, now green with wheat-fields, only a single
+obelisk has remained upright, which is considered as the oldest of all,
+and was erected in the twelfth dynasty by Usirtasen I.
+
+The royal assemblage had arrived in the course of their journey at Besa,
+a place on the right bank of the river, opposite Hermopolis, when a
+strange event occurred. This was the death of Hadrian’s favourite,
+Antinous, a young Greek from Claudiopolis, who had been degraded to the
+position of Ganymede to the emperor on account of his beauty. It is not
+known where the emperor first came across the youth; possibly in his
+native land, Bithynia. Not till he came to Egypt did he become his
+inseparable companion, and this must have been a deep offence to
+his wife. The unfortunate queen was delivered in Besa from his hated
+presence, for Antinous was drowned there in the Nile.
+
+His death was surrounded by mystery. Was it accident? Was he a victim?
+Hadrian’s humanity protects him from the suspicion that he sacrificed
+his victim in cold blood, as Tiberius had once sacrificed the beautiful
+Hypatus in Capri. Had the fantastic youth sacrificed himself of his own
+free will to the death divinities in order to save the emperor’s life?
+Had the Egyptian priests foreseen in the stars some danger threatening
+Hadrian, only to be averted by the death of his favourite? Such an idea
+commended itself to the superstition of the time, especially in
+this land and by the mysterious Nile. It corresponded, too, with the
+emperor’s astrological arts. Was Antinous certain when he plunged into
+the waves of the Nile that he would arise from them as a god? Hadrian
+asserts in his memoirs that it was an accident, but no one believed him.
+The divine honours which he paid to the dead youth lead us to suppose
+that they formed the reward of a self-sacrifice, which, according to the
+custom of those times, constituted a highly moral action, and was looked
+upon as heroic devotion. At any rate, we will assume that this sacrifice
+sank into the Nile without Hadrian’s will. Hadrian mourned for Antinous
+with unspeakable pain and “womanly tears.” Now he was Achilles by the
+corpse of Patroklus, or Alexander by the pyre of the dead Hephaistus.
+He had the youth splendidly buried in Besa. This most extraordinary
+intermezzo of all Nile journeys supplied dying heathendom with a new
+god, and art with its last ideal form. Probably, also, during the
+burial, far-sighted courtiers already saw the star of Antinous shining
+in Egypt’s midnight sky, and then Hadrian saw it himself.
+
+In the mystical land of Egypt, life might still be poetical even in the
+clear daylight of Roman universal history in the reign of Hadrian. The
+death of the young Bithynian seems to have occurred in October, 130.
+The emperor continued his journey as soon as he had given orders for
+a splendid town to be erected on the site of Besa, in honour of his
+friend. In November, 130, the royal company is to be found amongst the
+ruins of Thebes.
+
+Thebes, the oldest town in Egypt, had been first put in the shade
+by Memphis, and then destroyed by Cambyses. Since the time of the
+Ptolemies, it had been called Diospolis, and Ptolemais had taken its
+place as capital of the Thebaid. Already in Strabo’s time it was split
+up. It formed on either side of the Nile groups of gigantic temples and
+palaces, monuments, and royal graves similar to those scattered to-day
+amongst Luxor, Karnak, Medinet-Habu, Deir-el-Bahari, and Kurna.
+
+[Illustration: 095.jpg COMMEMORATIVE COIN OF ANTINOUS]
+
+In Hadrian’s time the Rameseum, the so-called grave of Osymandias, on
+the western bank of the Nile, the wonderful building of Ramses II.,
+must still have been in good repair. These pylons, pillars, arcades, and
+courts, these splendid halls with their sculpture-covered walls, appear
+even to have influenced the Roman art in the time of the emperors. Their
+reflex influence has been even seen in Trajan’s forum, in which the
+chief thing was the emperor’s tomb.
+
+In Alexandria the emperor mixed freely with the professors of the
+museum, asking them questions and answering theirs in return; and he
+dropped his tear of pity on the tomb of the great Pompey, in the form of
+a Greek epigram, though with very little point. He laid out large sums
+of money in building and ornamenting the city, and the Alexandrians were
+much pleased with his behaviour. Among other honours that they paid
+him, they changed the name of the month December, calling it the month
+Hadrian; but as they were not followed by the rest of the empire the
+name soon went out of use. The emperor’s patronage of philosophy was
+rather at the cost of the Alexandrian museum, for he enrolled among its
+paid professors men who were teaching from school to school in Italy and
+Asia Minor. Thus Polemon of Laodicea, who taught oratory and philosophy
+at Rome, Laodicea, and Smyrna, and had the right of a free passage for
+himself and his servants in any of the public ships whenever he chose to
+move from city to city for the purposes of study or teaching, had at
+the same time a salary from the Alexandrian museum. Dionysius of Miletus
+also received his salary as a professor in the museum while teaching
+philosophy and mnemonicsat Miletus and Ephesus. Pancrates, the
+Alexandrian poet, gained his salary in the museum by the easy task of a
+little flattery. On Hadrian’s return to Alexandria from the Thebaid, the
+poet presented to him a rose-coloured lotus, a flower well known in
+India, though less common in Egypt than either the blue or white lotus,
+and assured him that it had sprung out of the blood of the lion slain by
+his royal javelin at a lion-hunt in Libya.
+
+[Illustration: 097.jpg ROSE-COLOURED LOTUS]
+
+The emperor was pleased with the compliment, and gave him a place in the
+museum; and Pancrates in return named the plant the lotus of Antinous.
+Pancrates was a warm admirer of the mystical opinions of the Egyptians
+which were then coming into note in Alexandria. He was said to have
+lived underground in holy solitude or converse with the gods for
+twenty-three years, and during that time to have been taught magic by
+the goddess Isis, and thus to have gained the power of working miracles.
+He learned to call upon the queen of darkness by her Egyptian name
+Hecate, and when driving out evil spirits to speak to them in the
+Egyptian language. Whether these Greek students of the Eastern mysticism
+were deceivers or deceived, whether they were led by a love of notoriety
+or of knowledge, is in most cases doubtful, but they were surrounded by
+a crowd of credulous admirers, who formed a strange contrast with the
+sceptics and critics of the museum.
+
+Among the Alexandrian grammarians of this reign was Apollonius Dyscolus,
+so called perhaps from a moroseness of manner, who wrote largely on
+rhetoric, on the Greek dialects, on accents, prosody, and on other
+branches of grammar. In the few pages that remain of his numerous
+writings, we trace the love of the marvellous which was then growing
+among some of the philosophers. He tells us many remarkable stories,
+which he collected rather as a judicious inquirer than as a credulous
+believer; such as of second sight; an account of a lad who fell asleep
+in the field while watching his sheep, and then slept for fifty-seven
+years, and awoke to wonder at the strangeness of the changes that had
+taken place in the meanwhile; and of a man who after death used from
+time to time to leave his body, and wander over the earth as a spirit,
+till his wife, tired of his coming back again so often, put a stop to it
+by having his mummy burnt. He gives us for the first time Eastern tales
+in a Greek dress, and we thus learn the source from which Europe gained
+much of its literature in the Middle Ages. The Alexandrian author of
+greatest note at this time was the historian Appian, who tells us that
+he had spent some years in Rome practising as a lawyer, and returned to
+Egypt on being appointed to a high post in the government of his native
+city. There he wrote his Roman history.
+
+In this reign the Jews, forgetful of what they had just suffered under
+Trajan, again rose against the power of Rome; and, when Judæa rebelled
+against its prefect, Tinnius Rufus, a little army of Jews marched out of
+Egypt and Libya, to help their brethren and to free the holy land
+(130 A.D.). But they were everywhere routed and put down with resolute
+slaughter.
+
+[Illustration: 099.jpg VOCAL STATUE OF AMENHOTHES]
+
+Travellers, on reaching a distant point of a journey, or on viewing any
+remarkable object of their curiosity, have at all times been fond of
+carving or scribbling their names on the spot, to boast of their
+prowess to after-comers; and never had any place been more favoured with
+memorials of this kind than the great statue of Amenhôthes at Thebes.
+This colossal statue, fifty-three feet high, was famed, as long as
+the Egyptian priesthood lasted, for sending forth musical sounds
+every morning at sunrise, when first touched by the sun’s rays; and no
+traveller ever visited Thebes without listening for these remarkable
+notes. The journey through Upper Egypt was at this time perfectly open
+and safe, and the legs and feet of the statue are covered with names,
+and inscriptions in prose and verse, of travellers who had visited it
+at sunrise during the reigns of Hadrian and the Antonines. From these
+curious memorials we learn that Hadrian visited Thebes a second time
+with his queen, Sabina, in the fifteenth year of his reign. When the
+empress first visited the statue she was disappointed at not hearing
+the musical sounds; but, on her hinting threats of the emperor’s
+displeasure, her curiosity was gratified on the following morning.
+This gigantic statue of hard gritstone had formerly been broken in half
+across the waist, and the upper part thrown to the ground, either by the
+shock of an earthquake or the ruder shock of Persian zeal against the
+Egyptian religion; and for some centuries past the musical notes had
+issued from the broken fragments. Such was its fallen state when
+the Empress Sabina saw it, and when Strabo and Juvenal and Pausanias
+listened to its sounds; and it was not till after the reign of Hadrian
+that it was again raised upright like its companion, as travellers now
+see it.
+
+[Illustration: 100b..jpg The Slumber Song]
+
+     From the painting by P. Grot. Johann
+
+From this second visit, and a longer acquaintance, Hadrian seems to have
+formed a very poor opinion of the Egyptians and Egyptian Jews; and the
+following curious letter, written in 134 A.D. to his friend Servianus,
+throws much light upon their religion as worshippers of Serapis, at
+the same time that it proves how numerous the Christians had become in
+Alexandria, even within seventy years of the period during which the
+evangelist Mark is believed to have preached there:
+
+“Hadrian Augustus to Servianus, the consul, greeting:
+
+“As for Egypt, which you were praising to me, dearest Servianus, I have
+found its people wholly light, wavering, and flying after every breath
+of a report. Those who worship Serapis are Christians, and those who
+call themselves bishops of Christ are devoted to Serapis. There is
+no ruler of a Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no presbyter of the
+Christians, who is not a mathematician, an augur, and a soothsayer. The
+very patriarch himself, when he came into Egypt, was by some said to
+worship Serapis, and by others to worship Christ. As a race of men, they
+are seditious, vain, and spiteful; as a body, wealthy and prosperous,
+of whom nobody lives in idleness. Some blow glass, some make paper, and
+others linen. There is work for the lame and work for the blind; even
+those who have lost the use of their hands do not live in idleness.
+Their one god is nothing; Christians, Jews, and all nations worship him.
+I wish this body of men was better behaved, and worthy of their number;
+for as for that they ought to hold the chief place in Egypt. I have
+granted everything unto them; I have restored their old privileges, and
+have made them grateful by adding new ones.”
+
+
+Among the crowd of gods that had formerly been worshipped in Egypt,
+Serapis had latterly been rising above the rest. He was the god of
+the dead, who in the next world was to reward the good and punish the
+wicked; and in the growing worship of this one all-seeing judge we
+cannot but trace the downfall of some of the evils of polytheism. A
+plurality in unity was another method now used to explain away the
+polytheism.
+
+[Illustration: 102.jpg EGYPTIAN ORACLE]
+
+The oracle when consulted about the divine nature had answered, “I am
+Ra, and Horus, and Osiris;” or, as the Greeks translated it, Apollo,
+and Lord, and Bacchus; “I rule the hours and the seasons, the wind and
+the storms, the day and the night; I am king of the stars and myself an
+immortal fire.” Hence arose the opinion which seems to have been given
+to Hadrian, that the Egyptians had only one god, and his mistake in
+thinking that the worshippers of Serapis were Christians. The emperor,
+indeed, himself, though a polytheist, was very little of an idolater;
+for, though he wished to add Christ to the number of the Roman gods,
+he on the other hand ordered that the temples built in his reign should
+have no images for worship; and in after ages it was common to call
+all temples without statues Hadrian’s temples. But there were other and
+stronger reasons for Hadrian’s classing the Christians with the Egyptian
+astrologers. A Christian heresy was then rising into notice in Egypt in
+that very form, taking its opinions from the philosophy on which it was
+engrafted. Before Christianity was preached in Alexandria, there were
+already three religions or forms of philosophy belonging to the three
+races of men who peopled that busy city; first, the Greek philosophy;
+which was chiefly platonism; secondly, the mysticism of the Egyptians;
+and lastly, the religion of the Jews. These were often more or less
+mixed, as we see them all united in the works of Philo-Judæ; and in
+the writings of the early converts we usually find Christianity clothed
+in one or other of these forms, according to the opinions held by the
+writers before their conversion. The first Christian teachers, the
+apostolic fathers as they are called, because they had been hearers of
+the apostles themselves, were mostly Jews; but among the Egyptians and
+Greeks of Alexandria their religion lost much of its purely moral caste,
+and became, with the former, an astrological mysticism, and with the
+latter an abstract speculative theology. It is of the Egyptian Jews that
+Hadrian speaks in his letter just quoted; many of them had been already
+converted to Christianity, and their religion had taken the form of
+Gnosticism.
+
+Gnosticism, or Science, for the name means no more, was not then new
+in Alexandria, nor were its followers originally Christians. It was the
+proud name claimed for their opinions by those who studied the Eastern
+philosophy of the Magi; and Egypt seems to have been as much its native
+soil as India. The name of Gnostic, says Weber, was generally given to
+those who distinguished between belief on authority and gnosis, i.e.,
+between the ordinary comprehension and a higher knowledge only granted
+to a few gifted or chosen ones. They were split up into different sects,
+according as they approached more nearly the Eastern theosophy or the
+platonic philosophy; but in general the Eastern conception, with its
+symbols and unlimited fantasy, remained dominant. The “creed of those
+who know” never reached actual monotheism, the conception of one
+personal god, who created everything according to his own free will and
+rules over everything with unlimited wisdom and love. The god of
+the Gnostics is a dark, mysterious being which can only arrive at a
+consciousness of itself through a manifold descending scale of forces,
+which flow from the god himself. The visible world was created out of
+dead and evil matter by Demiurgos, the divine work-master, a production
+and subordinate of the highest god. Man, too, is a production of this
+subordinate creator, a production subject to a blind fate, and a prey to
+those powers which rule between heaven and earth, without free-will,
+the only thing which makes the ideas of sin and responsibility possible.
+Matter is the seat of evil, and as long as man stands under the
+influence of this matter, he is in the hands of evil and knows no
+freedom. Redemption can only reach him through those higher beings of
+light, which free man from the power of matter and translate him into
+the kingdom of light. According to the Gnostic teaching, Christ is
+one of these beings of light; he is one of the highest who appeared on
+earth, and is transformed into a mythical, allegorical being, with
+his human nature, his sufferings and death completely suppressed. The
+redeemed soul is then as a kind of angel, or ideal being, brought in
+triumph into the idealistic realm of light as soon as it has purified
+itself to the nature of a spirit, by means of penitence, chastisements,
+and finally the death of the physical body. Hence the Gnostics attached
+little importance to the means of mercy in the Church, to the Bible, or
+the sacraments; they allowed the Church teaching to exist as a necessary
+conception for the people, but they placed their own teachings far above
+it as mysterious or secret teachings. As regards their morals and
+mode of life, the Gnostics generally went to extremes. It was due to
+Gnosticism that art and science found an entrance into the Church. It
+preserved the Church from becoming stereotyped in form; but, built up
+entirely on ideas and not on historical facts, it died from its own
+hollowness and eccentricity.
+
+We still possess the traces of the Gnostic astrology in a number of
+amulets and engraved gems, with the word _Abraxas_ or rather _Abrasax_
+and other emblems of their superstition, which they kept as charms
+against diseases and evil spirits. The word _Abrasax_ may be translated
+_Hurt me not_. To their mystic rites we may trace many of the reproaches
+thrown upon Christianity, such as that the Christians worshipped the
+head of an ass, using the animal’s Koptic name _Eeo_, to represent the
+name of IAn, or Jahveh. To the same source we may also trace some of
+the peculiarities of the Christian fathers, such as St. Ambrose calling
+Jesus “the good scarabæus, who rolled up before him the hitherto
+un-shapen mud of our bodies;” a thought which seems to have been
+borrowed as much from the hieroglyphics as from the insect’s habits; and
+perhaps from the Egyptian priests in some cases, using the scarabous
+to denote the god Horus-Ra, and sometimes the word _only begotten_. We
+trace this thought on the Gnostic gems where Ave see a winged griffin
+rolling before him a wheel, the emblem of eternity. He sits like a
+conqueror on horseback, trampling under foot the serpent of old, the
+spirit of sin and death. His horse is in the form of a ram, with an
+eagle’s head and the crowned asp or basilisk for its tail. Before him
+stands the figure of victory giving him a crown; above are written the
+words Alpha and Omega, and below perhaps the word [IAH], Jahveh.
+
+So far we have seen the form which Christianity at first took among the
+Egyptians; but, as few writings by these Gnostics have come down to
+our time, we chiefly know their opinions from the reproaches of their
+enemies. It was not till the second generation of Gnostic teachers were
+spreading their heresies that the Greek philosophers began to embrace
+Christianity, or the Christians to study Greek literature; but as soon
+as that was the case we have an unbroken chain of writings, in which
+we find Christianity more or less mixed with the Alexandrian form of
+platonism.
+
+[Illustration: 106.jpg KOPTIC CHARM AND SCARABEUS]
+
+The philosopher Justin, after those who had talked with the apostles,
+is the earliest Christian writer whose works have reached us. He was a
+Greek, born in Samaria; but he studied many years in Alexandria under
+philosophers of all opinions. He did not, however, at once find in
+the schools the wisdom he was in search for. The Stoic could teach him
+nothing about God; the Peripatetic wished to be paid for his lessons
+before he gave them; and the Pythagorean proposed to begin with music
+and mathematics.
+
+[Illustration: 107.jpg GNOSTIC GEM]
+
+Not content with these, Justin turned to the platonist, whose purer
+philosophy seemed to add wings to his thoughts, and taught him to mount
+aloft towards true wisdom. While turning over in his mind what he had
+thus learned in the several schools, dissatisfied with the philosopher’s
+views, he chanced one day to meet with an old man walking on the
+seashore near Alexandria, to whom he unbosomed his thoughts, and by whom
+he was converted to Christianity. Justin tells us that there were no
+people, whether Greeks or barbarians, or even dwellers in tent and
+waggons, among whom prayers were not offered up to the heavenly father
+in the name of the crucified Jesus. The Christians met every Sunday for
+public worship, which began with a reading from the prophets, or from
+the memoirs of the apostles called the gospels. This was followed by
+a sermon, a prayer, the bread and wine, and a second prayer. Justin’s
+quotations prove that he is speaking of the New Testament, which within
+a hundred years of the crucifixion wras read in all the principal cities
+in which Greek was spoken. Justin died as a martyr in 163 A.D.
+
+The platonic professorship in Alexandria had usually been held by an
+Athenian, and for a short time Athenagoras of Athens taught that branch
+of philosophy in the museum; but he afterwards embraced the Christian
+religion, and then taught Christianity openly in Alexandria. He enjoys
+with Justin the honour of being one of the first men of learning who
+were converted, and, like Justin, his chief work is an apology for the
+Christians, addressed to the emperor, Marcus Aurelius.
+
+[Illustration: 108.jpg GEMS SHOWING SYMBOL OF DEATH AND THE WORD [ÎAH]
+JAVEH]
+
+Athenagoras confines himself in his defence to the resurrection from
+the dead and the unity of the Deity, the points chiefly attacked by the
+pagans.
+
+Hadrian’s Egyptian coins are remarkable both for number and variety. In
+the sixth year of the reign we see a ship with spread sails, most likely
+in gratitude for the emperor’s safe arrival in Egypt. In the eighth year
+we see the head of the favourite Antinous, who had been placed among the
+gods of the country. In the eleventh year, when the emperor took up the
+tribunitial power at Rome for a second period of ten years, we find a
+series of coins, each bearing the name of the nome or district in which
+it was coined. This indeed is the most remarkable year of the most
+remarkable reign in the whole history of coinage; we have numerous coins
+for every year of this reign, and, in this year, for nearly every nome
+in Egypt. Some coins are strongly marked with the favourite opinion of
+the Gnostics as to the opposition between good and evil.
+
+[Illustration: 109.jpg Hadrian’s Egyptian coins]
+
+On one we have the war between the serpent of good and the serpent of
+evil, distinguished by their different forms and by the emblems of Isis
+and Serapis; on others the heads of Isis and Serapis, the principles of
+love and fear; while on a third these two are united into a trinity by
+Horus, who is standing on an eagle instead of having an eagle’s head, as
+represented on previous coins.
+
+The beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138) was remarkable
+as being the end of the Sothic period of one thousand four hundred and
+sixty years; the movable new year’s day of the calendar had come round
+to the place in the natural year from which it first began to move in
+the reign of Menophres or Thûtmosis III.; it had come round to the day
+when the dog-star rose heliacally. If the years had been counted from
+the beginning of this great year, there could have been no doubt when it
+came to an end, as from the want of a leap year the new year’s day
+must have been always moving one day in four years; but no satisfactory
+reckoning of the years had been kept, and, as the end of the period was
+only known by observation, there was some little doubt about the exact
+year. Indeed, among the Greek astronomers, Dositheus said the dog-star
+rises heliacally twenty-three days after midsummer, Meton twenty-eight
+days, and Euctemon thirty-one days; they thus left a doubt of thirty-two
+years as to when the period should end, but the statesmen placed it in
+the first year of the reign of Antoninus. This end of the Sothic period
+Avas called the return to the phoenix, and had been looked forward to by
+the Egyptians for many years, and is well marked on the coins of this
+reign. The coins for the first eight years teem with astronomy. There
+are several with the goddess Isis in a boat, which we know, from the
+zodiac in the Memnonium at Thebes, was meant for the heliacal rising of
+the dog-star. In the second and in the sixth year we find on the coins
+the remarkable word aion, _the age_ or _period_, and an ibis with a
+glory of rays round its head, meant for the bird phoenix. In the seventh
+year we see Orpheus playing on his lyre while all the animals of the
+forest are listening, thus pointing out the return of the golden age.
+In the eighth year we have the head of Serapis circled by the seven
+planets, and the whole within the twelve signs of the zodiac; and on
+another coin we have the sun and moon within the signs of the zodiac. A
+series of twelve coins for the same year tells us that the house of the
+sun, in the language of the astrologers, is in the lion, that of the
+moon in the crab, the houses of Venus in the scales and the bull, those
+of Mars in the scorpion and the ram, those of Jupiter in the archer
+and the fishes, those of Saturn in the sea-goat and aquarius, those of
+Mercury in the virgin and the twins. On the coins of the same year we
+have the eagle and thunderbolt, the sphinx, the bull Apis, the Nile and
+crocodile, Isis nursing the child Horus, the hawk-headed Aroëris, and
+the winged sun. On coins of other years we have a camelopard, Horus
+sitting on the lotus-flower, and a sacrifice to Isis, which was
+celebrated on the last day of the year.
+
+The coins also tell us of the bountiful overflow of the Nile, and of
+the goodness of the harvests that followed; thus, in the ninth, tenth,
+thirteenth, and seventeenth years, we see the river Nile in the form
+of an old man leaning on a crocodile, pouring corn and fruit out of a
+cornucopia, while a child by his side, with the figures 36, tells
+us that in those years the waters of the Nile rose at Memphis to the
+wished-for height of sixteen cubits. From these latter coins it would
+seem that but little change had taken place in the soil of the Delta by
+the yearly deposit of mud; Herodotus says that sixteen cubits was the
+wished-for rise of the Nile at Memphis when he was there. And we should
+almost think that the seasons were more favourable to the husbandman
+during the reign of an Antonine than of a Caligula, did we not set it
+down to the canals being better cleansed by the care of the prefect, and
+to the mildness of the government leaving the people at liberty to enjoy
+the bounties of nature, and at the same time making them more grateful
+in acknowledging them.
+
+[Illustration: 112.jpg COINS OF ANTONINUS PIUS.]
+
+The mystic emblems on the coins are only what we might look for from the
+spread of the Gnostic opinions, and the eagerness with which the Greeks
+were copying the superstitions of the Egyptians; and, while astrology
+was thus countenanced by the state, of course it was not less followed
+by the people. The poor Jews took to it as a trade. In Alexandria the
+Jewess, half beggar, half fortune-teller, would stop people in the
+streets and interpret dreams by the help of the Bible, or sit under a
+sacred tree like a sibyl, and promise wealth to those who consulted her,
+duly proportioned to the size of the coin by which she was paid. We find
+among the Theban ruins pieces of papyrus with inscriptions, describing
+the positions of the heavens at particular hours in this reign, for the
+astrologers therewith to calculate the nativities of the persons then
+born. On one is a complete horoscope, containing the places of the sun,
+moon, and every planet, noted down on the zodiac in degrees and minutes
+of a degree; and with these particulars the mathematician undertook to
+foretell the marriage, fortune, and death of the person who had been
+born at the instant when the heavenly bodies were so situated; and, as
+the horoscope was buried in the tomb with the mummy, we must suppose
+that it was thought that the prognostication would hold good even in the
+next world.
+
+But astrology was not the only end to which mathematics were then
+turned. Claudius Ptolemy, the astronomer and geographer, was at that
+time the ornament of the mathematical school of Alexandria. In his
+writings he treats of the earth as the centre of the heavens, and the
+sun, moon, and planets as moving in circles and epicycles round it. This
+had been the opinion of some of the early astronomers; but since this
+theory of the heavens received the stamp of his authority, it is now
+always called the Ptolemaic system.
+
+In this reign was made a new survey of all the military roads in the
+Roman empire, called the _Itinerary of Antoninus_. It included the
+great roads of Egypt, which were only six in number. One was from
+Contra-Pselcis in Nubia along the east bank of the Nile, to Babylon
+opposite Memphis, and there turning eastward through Heliopolis and the
+district of the Jews to Clysmon, where Trajan’s canal entered the Red
+Sea. A second, from Memphis to Pelusium, made use of this for
+about thirty miles, joining it at Babylon, and leaving it at Scense
+Veteranorum. By these two roads a traveller could go from Pelusium to
+the head of the Red Sea; but there was a shorter road through the desert
+which joined the first at Serapion, about fifty miles from Clysmon,
+instead of at Sceno Veteranorum, which was therefore about a hundred
+miles shorter. A fourth was along the west bank of the Nile from Hiera
+Sycaminon in Nubia to Alexandria, leaving the river at Andropolis,
+about sixty miles from the latter city. A fifth was from Palestine to
+Alexandria, running along the coast of the Mediterranean from Raphia to
+Pelusium, and thence, leaving the coast to avoid the flat country, which
+was under water during the inundation; it joined the last at Andropolis.
+The sixth road was from Koptos on the Nile to Berenicê on the Red Sea.
+These six were probably the only roads under the care of the prefect.
+Though Syênê was the boundary of the province of Egypt, the Roman power
+was felt for about one hundred miles into Nubia, and we find the names
+of the emperors on several temples between Syênê and Hiera Sycaminon.
+But beyond this, though we find inscriptions left by Roman travellers,
+the emperors seem never to have aimed at making military roads, or
+holding any cities against the inroads of the Blemmyes and other Arabs.
+
+To this survey we must add the valuable geographical knowledge given
+by Arrian in his voyage round the shores of the Red Sea, which has come
+down to us in an interesting document, wherein he mentions the several
+seaports and their distances, with the tribes and cities near the
+coast. The trade of Egypt to India, Ethiopia, and Arabia was then most
+valuable, and carried on with great activity; but, as the merchandise
+was in each case carried only for short distances from city to city, the
+traveller could gain but little knowledge of where it came from, or even
+sometimes of where it was going.
+
+[Illustration: 115.jpg STATUE OF THE NILE]
+
+The Egyptians sent coarse linen, glass bottles, brazen vessels, brass
+for money, and iron for weapons of war and hunting; and they received
+back ivory, rhinoceros’ teeth, Indian steel, Indian ink, silks, slaves,
+tortoise-shell, myrrh, and other scents, with many other Eastern
+articles of high price and little weight. The presents which the
+merchants made to the petty kings of Arabia were chiefly horses, mules,
+and gold and silver vases. Beside this, the ports on the Red Sea carried
+on a brisk trade among themselves in grain, expressed oil, wicker
+boats, and sugar. Of sugar, or honey from the cane, this is perhaps
+the earliest mention found in history; but Arrian does not speak of
+the sugar-cane as then new, nor does he tell us where it was grown. Had
+sugar been then seen for the first time he would certainly have said
+so; it must have been an article well known in the Indian trade. While
+passing through Egypt on his travels, or while living there and holding
+some post under the prefect, the historian Arrian has left us his name
+and a few lines of poetry carved on the foot of the great sphinx near
+the pyramids.
+
+At this time also the travellers continued to carve their names and
+their feelings of wonder on the foot of the musical statue at Thebes and
+in the deep empty tombs of the Theban kings. These inscriptions are full
+of curious information. For example, it has been doubted whether the
+Roman army was provided with medical officers. Their writers have not
+mentioned them. But part of the Second Legion was at this time stationed
+at Thebes; and one Asclepiades, while cutting his name in a tomb which
+once held some old Theban, has cleared up the doubt for us, by saying
+that he was physician to the Second Legion.
+
+Antoninus made a hippodrome, or race-course, for the amusement of the
+citizens of Alexandria, and built two gates to the city, called the gate
+of the sun and the gate of the moon, the former fronting the harbour and
+the latter fronting the lake Mareotis, and joined by the great street
+which ran across the whole width of the city. But this reign was not
+wholly without trouble; there was a rebellion in which the prefect
+Dinarchus lost his life, and for which the Alexandrians were severely
+punished by the emperor.
+
+[Illustration: 117.jpg COINS OF MARCUS AURELIUS]
+
+The coins of Marcus Aurelius, the successor of Antoninus Pius, have a
+rich variety of subjects, falling not far short of those of the last
+reign. On those of the fifth year, the bountiful overflow of the Nile is
+gratefully acknowledged by the figure of the god holding a cornucopia,
+and a troop of sixteen children playing round him. It had been not
+unusual in hieroglyphical writing to express a thought by means of a
+figure which in the Koptic language had nearly the same sound; and we
+have seen this copied on the coins in the case of a Greek word, when the
+bird phoenix was used for the palm-branch phoenix, or the hieroglyphical
+word _year_; and a striking instance may be noticed in the case of a
+Latin word, as the sixteen children or _cupids_ mean sixteen _cubits_,
+the wished-for height of the Nile’s overflow. The statue of the Nile,
+which had been carried by Vespasian to Rome and placed in the temple of
+Peace, was surrounded by the same sixteen children. On the coins of his
+twelfth year the sail held up by the goddess Isis is blown towards the
+Pharos lighthouse, as if in that year the emperor had been expected in
+Alexandria.
+
+We find no coins in the eleventh or fourteenth years of this reign,
+which makes it probable that it was in the eleventh year (A.D. 172) that
+the rebellion of the native soldiers took place. These were very likely
+Arabs who had been admitted into the ranks of the legions, but having
+withdrawn to the desert they now harassed the towns with their marauding
+inroads, and a considerable time elapsed before they were wholly put
+down by Avidius Cassius at the head of the legions. But Cassius himself
+was unable to resist the temptations which always beset a successful
+general, and after this victory he allowed himself to be declared
+emperor by the legions of Egypt; and this seems to have been the cause
+of no coins being struck in Alexandria in the fourteenth year of the
+reign. Cassius left his son Moecianus in Alexandria with the title of
+Pretorian Prefect, while he himself marched into Syria to secure that
+province. There the legions followed the example of their brethren in
+Egypt, and the Syrians were glad to acknowledge a general of the Eastern
+armies as their sovereign. But on Marcus leading an army into Syria he
+was met with the news that the rebels had repented, and had put Cassius
+to death, and he then moved his forces towards Egypt; but before his
+arrival the Egyptian legions had in the same manner put Moecianus to
+death, and all had returned to their allegiance.
+
+When Marcus arrived in Alexandria the citizens were agreeably surprised
+by the mildness of his conduct. He at once forgave his enemies; and
+no offenders were put to death for having joined in the rebellion. The
+severest punishment, even to the children of Cassius, was banishment
+from the province, but without restraint, and with the forfeiture of
+less than half their patrimony. In Alexandria the emperor laid aside the
+severity of the soldier, and mingled with the people as a fellow-citizen
+in the temples and public places; while with the professors in the
+museum he was a philosopher, joining them in their studies in the
+schools.
+
+Borne and Athens at this time alike looked upon Alexandria as the centre
+of the world’s learning. The library was then in its greatest glory;
+the readers were numerous, and Christianity had as yet raised no doubts
+about the value of its pagan treasures. All the wisdom of Greece,
+written on rolls of brittle papyrus or tough parchment, was ranged in
+boxes on the shelves. Of these writings the few that have been saved
+from the wreck of time are no doubt some of the best, and they are
+perhaps enough to guide our less simple taste towards the unornamented
+grace of the Greek model. But we often fancy those treasures most
+valuable that are beyond our reach, and hence when we run over the names
+of the authors in this library we think perhaps too much of those which
+are now missing. The student in the museum could have read the lyric
+poems of Alcæus and Stersichorus, which in matter and style were
+excellent enough to be judged not quite so good as Homer; the tender
+lamentations of Simonides; the warm breathings of Sappho, the tenth
+muse; the pithy iambics of Archilochus, full of noble flights and
+brave irregularities; the comedies of Menander, containing every kind
+of excellence; those of Eupolis and Cratinus, which were equal to
+Aristophanes; the histories of Theopompus, which in the speeches were
+as good as Thucydides; the lively, agreeable orations of Hyperides, the
+accuser of Demosthenes; with the books of travels, chronologies, and
+countless others of less merit for style and genius, but which, if they
+had been saved, would not have left Egypt wholly without a history.
+
+[Illustration: 120.jpg ALEXANDRIAN FORMS OF WRITING]
+
+The trade of writing and making copies of the old authors employed
+a great many hands in the neighbourhood of the museum. Two kinds of
+handwriting were in use. One was a running hand, with the letters joined
+together in rather a slovenly manner; and the other a neat, regular
+hand, with the letters square and larger, written more slowly but read
+more easily. Those that wrote the first were called _quick-writers_,
+those that wrote the second were called _book-writers_. If an author was
+not skilled in the use of the pen, he employed a _quickwriter_ to write
+down his words as he delivered them. But in order that his work might be
+published it was handed over to the _book-writers_ to be copied out more
+neatly; and numbers of young women, skilled in penmanship, were employed
+in the trade of copying books for sale. For this purpose parchment
+was coming into use, though the old papyrus was still used, as an
+inexpensive though less lasting writing material.
+
+Athenæus, if we may judge from Iris writings, was then the brightest of
+the Alexandrian wits and men of learning. We learn from his own pages
+that he was born at Naucratis, and was the friend of Pancrates, who
+lived under Hadrian, and also of Oppian, who died in the reign of
+Caracalla. His _Deipnosophist_, or table-talk of the philosophers, is a
+large work full of pleasing anecdotes and curious information, gathered
+from comic writers and authors without number that have long since been
+lost. But it is put together with very little skill. His industry and
+memory are more remarkable than his judgment or good taste; and the
+table-talk is too often turned towards eating and drinking. His amusing
+work is a picture of society in Alexandria, where everything frivolous
+was treated as grave, and everything serious was laughed at. The wit
+sinks into scandal, the humour is at the cost of morality, and the
+numerous quotations are chosen for their point, not for any lofty
+thoughts or noble feeling. Alexandria was then as much the seat of
+literary wit as it was of dry criticism; and Martial, the lively author
+of the _Epigrams_, had fifty years before remarked that there were few
+places in the world where he would more wish his verses to be repeated
+than on the banks of the Nile.
+
+Nothing could be lower than the poetic taste in Alexandria at this time.
+The museum was giving birth to a race of poets who, instead of bringing
+forth thoughts out of their own minds, found them in the storehouse of
+the memory only. They wrote their patchwork poems by the help of Homer’s
+lines, which they picked from all parts of the Iliad and Odyssey and
+so put together as to make them tell a new tale. They called themselves
+Homeric poets.
+
+Lucian, the author of the _Dialogues_, was at that time secretary to the
+prefect of Egypt, and this philosopher found a broad mark for his
+humour in the religion of the Egyptians, their worship of animals and
+water-jars, their love of magic, the general mourning through the land
+on the death of the bull Apis, their funeral ceremonies, their placing
+of their mummies round the dinner-table as so many guests, and pawning a
+father or a brother when in want of money.
+
+[Illustration: 122.jpg A SNAKE-CHARMER]
+
+So little had the customs changed that the young Egyptians of high birth
+still wore their long hair tied in one lock, and hanging over the right
+ear, as we see on the Theban sculptures fifteen centuries earlier. It
+was then a mark of royalty, but had since been adopted by many families
+of high rank, and continues to be used even in the twentieth century.
+
+[Illustration: 123.jpg THE SIGN OF NOBILITY]
+
+Before the end of this reign we meet with a strong proof of the spread
+of Christianity in Egypt. The number of believers made it necessary for
+the Bishop of Alexandria to appoint three bishops under him, to look
+after the churches in three other cities; and accordingly Demetrius, who
+then held that office, took upon himself the rank, if not the name, of
+Patriarch of Alexandria. A second proof of the spread of Christianity
+is the pagan philosophers thinking it necessary to write against it.
+Celsus, an Epicurean of Alexandria, was one of the first to attack it.
+Origen answered the several arguments of Celsus with skill and candour.
+He challenges his readers to a comparison between the Christians and
+pagans in point of morals, in Alexandria or in any other city. He
+argues in the most forcible way that Christianity had overcome all
+difficulties, and had spread itself far and wide against the power of
+kings and emperors, and he says that nobody but a Christian ever died
+a martyr to the truth of his religion. He makes good use of the Jewish
+prophecies; but he brings forward no proofs in support of the truth of
+the gospel history; they were not wanted, as Celsus and the pagans had
+not considered it necessary to call it into question.
+
+Another proof of the number of Egyptian Christians is seen in the
+literary frauds of which their writers were guilty, most likely to
+satisfy the minds of those pagan converts that they had already made
+rather than from a wish to make new believers. About this time was
+written by an unknown Christian author a poem in eight books, named the
+_Sibylline Verses_ which must not be mistaken for the pagan fragments
+of the same name. It is written in the form of a prophecy, in the style
+used by the Gnostics, and is full of dark sentences and half-expressed
+hints.
+
+Another spurious Christian work of about the same time is the
+_Clementina_, or the _Recognitions of Clemens_, Bishop of Rome. It is
+an account of the travels of the Apostle Peter and his conversation with
+Simon Magus; but the author’s knowledge of the Egyptian mythology, of
+the opinions of the Greek philosophers, and of the astrological rules by
+which fortunes are foretold from the planets’ places, amply prove that
+he was an Egyptian or an Alexandrian. No name ranked higher among the
+Christians than that of Clemens Romanus; and this is only one out of
+several cases of Christian authors who wished to give weight to their
+own opinions by passing them upon the world as his writings.
+
+Marcus Aurelius, who died in 181 A.D., had pardoned the children of the
+rebel general Avidius Cassius, but Commodus began his reign by putting
+them to death; and, while thus disregarding the example and advice of
+his father, he paid his memory the idle compliment of continuing his
+series of dates on his own coins. But the Egyptian coinage of Commodus
+clearly betrays the sad change that was gradually taking place in the
+arts of the country; we no longer see the former beauty and variety of
+subjects; and the silver, which had before been very much mixed with
+copper, was under Commodus hardly to be known from brass.
+
+[Illustration: 125.jpg CARTOUCHE OF COMMODUS]
+
+Commodus was very partial to the Egyptian superstitions, and he adopted
+the tonsure, and had his head shaven like a priest of Isis, that he
+might more properly carry an Anubis staff in sacred processions, which
+continued to be a feature of the religious activities of the age. Upper
+Egypt had latterly been falling off in population. It had been drained
+of all its hoarded wealth. Its carrying trade through Koptos to the Red
+Sea was much lessened. Any tribute that its temples received from the
+piety of the neighbourhood was small. Nubia was a desert; and a few
+soldiers at Syênê were enough to guard the poverty of the Thebaid
+from the inroads of the Blemmyes. It was no longer necessary to
+send criminals to the Oasis; it was enough to banish them to the
+neighbourhood of Thebes. Hence we learn but little of the state of
+the country. Now and then a traveller, after measuring the pyramids of
+Memphis and the underground tombs of Thebes, might venture as far as the
+cataracts, and watch the sun at noon on the longest day shining to the
+bottom of the sacred well at Syênê, like the orator Aristides and his
+friend Dion. But such travellers were few; the majority of those who
+made this journey have left the fact on record.
+
+The celebrated museum, which had held the vast library of the Ptolemies,
+had been burnt by the soldiers of Julius Cæsar in one of their battles
+with the Egyptian army in the streets of Alexandria; but the loss had
+been in part repaired by Mark Antony’s gift of the library from Pergamus
+to the temple of Serapis. The new library, however, would seem to have
+been placed in a building somewhat separated from the temple, as when
+the temple of Serapis was burnt in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and
+again when it was in part destroyed by fire in the second year of this
+reign we hear of no loss of books; and two hundred years later the
+library of the Serapium, it is said, had risen to the number of seven
+hundred thousand volumes. The temple-keeper to the great god Serapis, or
+one of the temple-keepers, at this time was Asclepiades, a noted boxer
+and wrestler, who had been made chief of the wrestling-ground and had
+received the high rank of the emperor’s freedman. He set up a statue to
+his father Demetrius, an equally noted boxer and wrestler, who had been
+chief priest of the wrestling-ground and of the emperor’s baths in the
+last reign.
+
+[Illustration: 126.jpg THE ANUBIS STAFF]
+
+Another favourite in the theatre was Apolaustus of Memphis, who removed
+to Rome, where he was crowned as conqueror in the games, and as a reward
+made priest to Apollo and emperor’s freedman.
+
+The city of Canopus was still a large mart for merchandise, as the
+shallow but safe entrance to its harbour made it a favourite with pilots
+of the small trading vessels, who rather dreaded the rocks at the mouth
+of the harbour of Alexandria. A temple of Serapis which had lately been
+built at Canopus was dedicated to the god in the name of the Emperor
+Commodus; and there some of the grosser superstitions of the polytheists
+fled before the spread of Christianity and platonism in Alexandria. The
+Canopic jars, which held those parts of the body that could not be made
+solid in the mummy, and which had the heads of the four lesser gods
+of the dead on their lids, received their name from this city. The
+sculptures on the beautiful temples of Contra-Latopolis were also
+finished in this reign, and the emperor’s names and titles were carved
+on the walls in hieroglyphics, with those of the Ptolemies, under whom
+the temple itself had been built. Commodus may perhaps not have been
+the last emperor whose name and praises were carved in hieroglyphics;
+but all the great buildings in the Thebaid, which add such value to the
+early history of Egypt, had ceased before his reign. Other buildings of
+a less lasting form were no doubt being built, such as the Greek temples
+at Antinoopolis and Ptolemais, which have long since been swept away;
+but the Egyptian priests, with their gigantic undertakings, their noble
+plan of working for after ages rather than for themselves, were nearly
+ruined, and we find no ancient building now standing in Egypt that was
+raised after the time of the dynasty of the Antonines.
+
+[Illustration: 128.jpg CANOPIC JARS]
+
+But the poverty of the Egyptians was not the only cause why they built
+no more temples. Though the colossal statue of Amenhôthes uttered
+its musical notes every morning at sunrise, still tuneful amid the
+desolation with which it was surrounded, and the Nile was still
+worshipped at midsummer by the husbandman to secure its fertilising
+overflow; nevertheless, the religion itself for which the temples had
+been built was fast giving way before the silent spread of Christianity.
+The religion of the Egyptians, unlike that of the Greeks, was no
+longer upheld by the magistrate; it rested solely on the belief of its
+followers, and it may have merged into Christianity the faster for the
+greater number of truths which were contained in it than in the paganism
+of other nations. The scanty hieroglyphical records tell us little
+of thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Indeed that cumbersome mode of
+writing, which alone was used in religious matters, was little fitted
+for anything beyond the most material parts of their mythology. Hence
+we must not believe that the Egyptian polytheism was quite so gross as
+would appear from the sculptures; and indeed we there learn that they
+believed, even at the earliest times, in a resurrection from the tomb, a
+day of judgment, and a future state of rewards and punishments.
+
+The priests made a great boast of their learning and philosophy, and
+could each repeat by heart those books of Thot which belonged to his own
+order. The singer, who walked first in the sacred processions, bearing
+the symbols of music, could repeat the books of hymns and the rules for
+the king’s life. The soothsayer, who followed, carrying a clock and a
+palm-branch, the emblem of the year, could repeat the four astrological
+books; one on the moon’s phases, one on the fixed stars, and two on
+their heliacal risings. The scribe, who walked next, carrying a book
+and the flat rule which held the ink and pen, was acquainted with the
+geography of the world and of the Nile, and with those books which
+describe the motions of the sun, moon, and planets, and the furniture
+of the temple and consecrated places. The master of the robes understood
+the ten books relating to education, to the marks on the sacred
+heifers, and to the worship of the gods, embracing the sacrifices, the
+first-fruits, the hymns, the prayers, the processions, and festivals.
+The prophet or preacher, who walked last, carrying in his arms the
+great water-pot, was the president of the temple, and learned in the ten
+books, called hieratic, relating to the laws, the gods, the management
+of the temples, and the revenue. Thus, of the forty-two chief books of
+Thot, thirty-six were learned by these priests, while the remaining
+six on the body, its diseases, and medicines, were learned by the
+Pastophori, priests who carried the image of the god in a small shrine.
+These books had been written at various times: some may have been very
+old, but some were undoubtedly new; they together formed the Egyptian
+bible. Apollonius, or Apollonides Horapis, an Egyptian priest, had
+lately published a work on these matters in his own language, named
+Shomenuthi, _the book of the gods_.
+
+[Illustration: 130.jpg RELIGIOUS PROCESSION]
+
+But the priests were no longer the earnest, sincere teachers as of
+old; they had invented a system of secondary meanings, by which they
+explained away the coarse religion of their statues and sacred animals.
+
+They had two religions, one for the many and one for the few; one,
+material and visible, for the crowds in the outer courtyards, in which
+the hero was made a god and every attribute of deity was made a person;
+and another, spiritual and intellectual, for the learned in the schools
+and sacred colleges. Even if we were not told, we could have no doubt
+but the main point of secret knowledge among the learned was a disbelief
+in those very doctrines which they were teaching to the vulgar, and
+which they now explained among themselves by saying that they had a
+second meaning. This, perhaps, was part of the great secret of the
+goddess Isis, the secret of Abydos, the betrayer of which was more
+guilty than he who should try to stop the _baris_ or sacred barge in the
+procession on the Nile. The worship of gods, before whose statues the
+nation had bowed with unchanging devotion for at least two thousand
+years was now drawing to a close. Hitherto the priests had been able to
+resist all new opinions.
+
+[Illustration: 131.jpg SHRINE]
+
+The name of Amon-Ra had at one time been cut out from the Theban
+monuments to make way for a god from Lower Egypt; but it had been cut in
+again when the storm passed by. The Jewish monotheism had left the
+crowd of gods unlessened. The Persian efforts had overthrown statues and
+broken open temples, but had not been able to introduce their worship of
+the sun. The Greek conquerors had yielded to the Egyptian mind without
+a struggle; and Alexander had humbly begged at the door of the temple
+to be acknowledged as a son of Amon. But in the fulness of time
+these opinions, which seemed as firmly based as the monuments which
+represented them, sunk before a religion which set up no new statues,
+and could command no force to break open temples.
+
+The Egyptian priests, who had been proud of the superiority of their own
+doctrines over the paganism of their neighbours, mourned the overthrow
+of their national religion. “Our land,” says the author of Hermes
+Trismegistus, “is the temple of the world; but, as wise men should
+foresee all things, you should know that a time is coming when it will
+seem that the Egyptians have by an unfailing piety served God in
+vain. For when strangers shall possess this kingdom religion will
+be neglected, and laws made against piety and divine worship, with
+punishment on those who favour it. Then this holy seat will be full of
+idolatry, idols’ temples, and dead men’s tombs. O Egypt, Egypt, there
+shall remain of thy religion but vague stories which posterity will
+refuse to believe, and words graven in stone recounting thy piety. The
+Scythian, the Indian, or some other barbarous neighbour shall dwell in
+Egypt. The Divinity shall reascend into the heaven; and Egypt shall be a
+desert, widowed of men and gods.”
+
+The spread of Christianity among the Egyptians was such that their
+teachers found it necessary to supply them with a life of Jesus, written
+in their own language, that they might the more readily explain to
+them his claim to be obeyed, and the nature of his commands. The Gospel
+according to the Egyptians, for such was the name this work bore, has
+long since been lost, and was little quoted by the Alexandrians. It was
+most likely a translation from one of the four gospels, though it had
+some different readings suited to its own church, and contained some
+praise of celibacy not found in the New Testament; but it was not valued
+by the Greeks, and was lost on the spread of the Koptic translation of
+the whole New Testament.
+
+The grave, serious Christians of Upper Egypt were very unlike the lively
+Alexandrians. But though the difference arose from peculiarities of
+national character, it was only spoken of as a difference of opinion.
+The Egyptians formed an ascetic sect in the church, who were called
+heretics by the Alexandrians, and named Docetas, because they taught
+that the Saviour was a god, and did not really suffer on the cross, but
+was crucified only _in appearance_. They of necessity used the Gospel
+according to the Egyptians, which is quoted by Cassianus, one of their
+writers; many of them renounced marriage with, the other pleasures
+and duties of social life, and placed their chief virtue in painful
+self-denial; and out of them sprang that remarkable class of hermits,
+monks, and fathers of the desert who in a few centuries covered Europe
+with monasteries.
+
+It is remarkable that the translation of a gospel into Koptic introduced
+a Greek alphabet into the Koptic language. Though for all religious
+purposes the scribes continued to use the ancient hieroglyphics, in
+which we trace the first steps by which pictures are made to represent
+words and syllables rather than letters, yet for the common purposes of
+writing they had long since made use of the _enchorial_ or common hand,
+in which the earlier system of writing is improved by the characters
+representing only letters, though sadly too numerous for each to have a
+fixed and well-known force. But, as the hieroglyphics were also always
+used for carved writing on all subjects, and the common hand only used
+on papyrus with a reed pen, the latter became wholly an indistinct
+running hand; it lost that beauty and regularity which the
+hieroglyphics, like the Greek and Roman characters, kept by being carved
+on stone, and hence it would seem arose the want of a new alphabet for
+the New Testament. This was made by merely adding to the Greek alphabet
+six new letters borrowed from the hieroglyphics for those sounds which
+the Greeks did not use; and the writing was then written from left to
+right like a European language instead of in either direction according
+to the skill or fancy of the scribe.
+
+It was only upon the ancient hieroglyphics thus falling into disuse that
+the Greeks of Alexandria, almost for the first time, had the
+curiosity to study the principles on which they were written. Clemens
+Alexandrinus, who thought no branch of knowledge unworthy of his
+attention, gives a slight account of them, nearly agreeing with the
+results of our modern discoveries. He mentions the three kinds of
+writing; first, the _hieroglyphic_; secondly, the _hieratic_, which is
+nearly the same, but written with a pen, and less ornamental than
+the carved figures; and thirdly, the _demotic_, or common alphabetic
+writing. He then divides the hieroglyphic into the alphabetic and
+the symbolic; and lastly, he divides the symbolic characters into the
+imitative, the figurative, and those formed like riddles. As instances
+of these last we may quote, for the first, the three zigzag lines which
+by simple imitation mean “water;” for the second, the oval which mean
+“a name,” because kings’ names were written within ovals; and for the
+third, a cup with three anvils, which mean “Lord of Battles,” because
+“cup” and “lord” have nearly the same sound _neb_, and “anvils” and
+“battles” have nearly the same sound _meshe_.
+
+In this reign Pantonus of Athens, a Stoic philosopher, held the first
+place among the Christians of Alexandria. He is celebrated for uniting
+the study of heathen learning with a religious zeal which led him to
+preach Christianity in Abyssinia.
+
+[Illustration: 135.jpg HIEROGLYPHIC, HIERATIC, AND DEMOTIC WRITING]
+
+He introduced a taste for philosophy among the Christians; and, though
+Athenagoras rather deserves that honour, he was called the founder
+of the catechetical school which gave birth to the series of learned
+Christian writers that flourished in Alexandria for the next century. To
+have been a learned man and a Christian, and to have encouraged learning
+among the catechists in his schools may seem deserving of no great
+praise. Was the religion of Jesus to spread ignorance and darkness over
+the world? But we must remember that a new religion cannot be introduced
+without some danger that learning and science may get forbidden,
+together with the ancient superstitions which had been taught in the
+same schools; we shall hereafter see that in the quarrels between pagans
+and Christians, and again between the several sects of Christians,
+learning was often reproached with being unfavourable to true religion;
+and then it will be granted that it was no small merit to have founded
+a school in which learning and Christianity went hand in hand for nearly
+two centuries. Pantænus has left no writings of his own, and is best
+known through his pupil or fellow-student, Clemens. He is said to have
+brought with him to Alexandria, from the Jewish Christians that he met
+with on his travels, a copy of St. Matthew’s Gospel in the original
+Hebrew, a work now unfortunately lost, which, if we possessed it, would
+settle for us the disputed point, whether or no it contained all that
+now bears that Apostle’s name in the Greek translation.
+
+The learned, industrious, and pious Clemens, who, to distinguish him
+from Clemens of Rome, is usually called Clemens Alexandrinus, succeeded
+Pantænus in the catechetical school, and was at the same time a
+voluminous writer. He was in his philosophy a platonist, though
+sometimes called of the Eclectic school. He has left an Address to the
+Gentiles, a treatise on Christian behaviour called Pedagogus, and eight
+books of Stromata, or _collections_, which he wrote to describe the
+perfect Christian or Gnostic, to furnish the believer with a model for
+his imitation, and to save him from being led astray by the sects of
+Gnostics “falsely so called.” By his advice, and by the imitation of
+Christ, the Christian is to step forward from faith, through love, to
+knowledge; from being a slave, he is to become a faithful servant and
+then a son; he is to become at last a god walking in the flesh.
+
+Clemens was not wholly free from the mysticism which was the chief mark
+of the Gnostic sect. He thought much of the sacred power of numbers.
+Abraham had three hundred and eighteen servants when he rescued Lot,
+which, when written in Greek numerals thus, IHT formed the sacred sign
+for the name of Jesus. Ten was a perfect number, and is that of the
+commandments given to Moses. Seven was a glorious number, and there
+are seven Pleiades, seven planets, seven days in the week; and the
+two fishes and five barley loaves, with which the multitude were
+miraculously fed, together make the number of years of plenty in Egypt
+under Joseph. Clemens also quotes several lines in praise of the seventh
+day, which he says were from Homer, Hesiod, and Callimachus; but here
+there is reason to believe that he was deceived by the pious fraud of
+some zealous Jew or Christian, as no such lines are now to be found in
+the pagan poets.
+
+During the reign of Pertinax, which lasted only three months (194 A.D.),
+we find no trace of his power in Egypt, except the money which the
+Alexandrians coined in his name. It seems to have been the duty of the
+prefect of the mint, as soon as he heard of an emperor’s death, to lose
+no time in issuing coins in the name of his successor. It was one of the
+means to proclaim and secure the allegiance of the province for the new
+emperor.
+
+During the reign of Commodus, Pescennius Niger had been at the head of
+the legion that was employed in Upper Egypt in stopping the inroads of
+their troublesome neighbours, who already sometimes bore the name of
+Saracens. He was a hardy soldier, and strict in his discipline, while he
+shared the labours of the field and of the camp with the men under him.
+He would not allow them the use of wine; and once, when the troops that
+guarded the frontier at Syênê (Aswan) sent to ask for it, he bluntly
+answered, “You have got the Nile to drink, and cannot possibly want
+more.” Once, when a cohort had been routed by the Saracens, the men
+complained that they could not fight without wine; but he would not
+relax in his discipline. “Those who have just now beaten you,” said
+Niger, “drink nothing but water.” He gained the love and thanks of the
+people of Upper Egypt by thus bridling the lawlessness of the troops;
+and they gave him his statue cut in black basalt, in allusion to his
+name Niger. This statue was placed in his Roman villa.
+
+[Illustration: 138b.jpg A NATIVE OF ASWAN]
+
+But on the death of Pertinax, when Septimus Severus declared himself
+emperor in Pannonia, Niger, who was then in the province of Syria, did
+the same. Egypt and the Egyptian legions readily and heartily joined
+his party, which made it unnecessary for him to stay in that part of
+the empire; so he marched upon Greece, Thrace, and Macedonia. But there,
+after a few months, he was met by the army of his rival, who also sent
+a second army into Egypt; and he was defeated and slain at Cyzicus in
+Mysia, after having been acknowledged as emperor in Egypt and Syria for
+perhaps a year and a few months.
+
+[Illustration: 139b.jpg PAINTING AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE FIFTH TOMB]
+
+We find no Alexandrian coins of Niger, although we cannot allow a
+shorter space of time to his reign than one whole year, together with
+a few months of the preceding and following years. Within that time
+Severus had to march upon Rome against his first rival, Julian, to
+punish the praetorian guards, and afterwards to conquer Niger.
+
+After the death of his rival, when Severus was the undisputed master of
+the empire, and was no longer wanted in the other provinces, he found
+leisure, in A.D. 196, to visit Egypt; and, like other active-minded
+travellers, he examined the pyramids of Memphis and the temples at
+Thebes, and laughed at the worship of Serapis and the Egyptian animals.
+His visit to Alexandria wras marked by many new laws. Now that the
+Greeks of that city, crushed beneath two centuries of foreign rule, had
+lost any remains of courage or of pride that could make them feared by
+their Roman master, he relaxed part of the strict policy of Augustus. He
+gave them a senate and a municipal form of government, a privilege that
+had hitherto been refused in distrust to that great city, though freely
+granted in other provinces where rebellion was less dreaded. He also
+ornamented the city with a temple to Rhea, and with a public bath, which
+was named after himself the Bath of Severus.
+
+Severus made a law, says the pagan historian, forbidding anybody, under
+a severe punishment, from becoming Jew or Christian. But he who gives
+the blow is likely to speak of it more lightly than he who smarts under
+it; and we learn from the historian of the Church that, in the tenth
+year of this reign, the Christians suffered persecution from their
+governors and their fellow-citizens. Among others who then lost their
+lives for their religion was Leonides, the father of Origen. He left
+seven orphan children, of whom the eldest, that justly celebrated
+writer, was only sixteen years old, but was already deeply read in
+the Scriptures, and in the great writers of Greece. As the property of
+Leonides was forfeited, his children were left in poverty; but the young
+Origen was adopted by a wealthy lady, zealous for the new religion,
+by whose help he was enabled to continue his studies under Clemens. In
+order to read the Old Testament in the original, he made himself master
+of Hebrew, which was a study then very unusual among the Greeks, whether
+Jews or Christians.
+
+In this persecution of the Church all public worship was forbidden to
+the Christians; and Tertullian of Carthage eloquently complains that,
+while the emperor allowed the Egyptians to worship cows, goats, or
+crocodiles, or indeed any animal they chose, he only punished those that
+bowed down before the Creator and Governor of the world. Of course,
+at this time of trouble the catechetical school was broken up and
+scattered, so that there was no public teaching of Christianity in
+Alexandria. But Origen ventured to do that privately which was forbidden
+to be done openly; and, when the storm had blown over, Demetrius, the
+bishop, appointed him to that office at the head of the school which he
+had already so bravely taken upon himself in the hour of danger. Origen
+could boast of several pupils who added their names to the noble list of
+martyrs who lost their lives for Christianity, among whom the best known
+was Plutarch, the brother of Heraclas. Origen afterwards removed for a
+time to Palestine, and fell under the displeasure of his own bishop for
+being there ordained a presbyter.
+
+In Egypt Severus seems to have dated the years of his reign from the
+death of Niger, though he had reigned in Rome since the deaths of
+Pertinax and Julian. His Egyptian coins are either copper, or brass
+plated with a little silver; and after a few reigns even those last
+traces of a silver coinage are lost in this falling country. In tracing
+the history of a word’s meaning we often throw a light upon the customs
+of a nation. Thus, in Rome, gold was so far common that avarice was
+called the love of gold; while in Greece, where silver was the metal
+most in use, money was called _argurion_. In the same way it is
+curiously shown that silver was no longer used in Egypt by our finding
+that the brass coin of one hundred and ten grains weight, as being the
+only piece of money seen in circulation, was named an _argurion_.
+
+The latter years of the reign of Caracalla were spent in visiting the
+provinces of his wide empire; and, after he had passed through Thrace
+and Asia Minor, Egypt had the misfortune to be honoured by a visit from
+its emperor. The satirical Alexandrians, who in the midst of their own
+follies and vices were always clever in lashing those of their rulers,
+had latterly been turning their unseemly jokes against Caracalla. They
+had laughed at his dressing like Achilles and Alexander the Great, while
+in his person he was below the usual height; and they had not forgotten
+his murder of his brother, and his talking of marrying his own mother.
+Some of these dangerous witticisms had reached his ears at Rome, and
+they were not forgotten. But Caracalla never showed his displeasure;
+and, as he passed through Antioch, he gave out that he was going to
+visit the city founded by Alexander the Great, and to consult the oracle
+in the temple of Serapis.
+
+The Alexandrians in their joy got ready the hecatombs for his
+sacrifices; and the emperor entered their city through rows of torches
+to the sound of soft music, while the air was sweetened with costly
+scents, and the road scattered with flowers. After a few days he
+sacrificed in the temple of Serapis, and then visited the tomb of
+Alexander, where he took off his scarlet cloak, his rings, and his
+girdle covered with precious stones, and dutifully laid them on the
+sarcophagus of the hero. The Alexandrians were delighted with their
+visitor; and crowds flocked into the city to witness the daily and
+nightly shows, little aware of the unforgiving malice that was lurking
+in his mind.
+
+The emperor then issued a decree that all the youths of Alexandria of an
+age to enter the army should meet him in a plain on the outside of the
+city; they had already a Macedonian and a Spartan phalanx, and he was
+going to make an Alexandrian phalanx. Accordingly the plain was filled
+with thousands of young men, who were ranged in bodies according to
+their height, their age, and their fitness for bearing arms, while their
+friends and relations came in equal numbers to be witnesses of their
+honour.
+
+The emperor moved through their ranks, and was loudly greeted with their
+cheers, while the army which encircled the whole plain was gradually
+closing round the crowd and lessening the circle. When the ring was
+formed, Caracalla withdrew with his guards and gave the looked-for
+signal. The soldiers then lowered their spears and charged on the
+unarmed crowd, of whom a part were butchered and part driven headlong
+into the ditches and canals; and such was the slaughter that the waters
+of the Nile, which at midsummer are always red with the mud from the
+upper country, were said to have flowed coloured to the sea with
+the blood of the sufferers. Caracalla then returned to Antioch,
+congratulating himself on the revenge that he had taken on the
+Alexandrians for their jokes; not however till he had consecrated in the
+temple of Serapis the sword with which he boasted that he had slain his
+brother Geta.
+
+Caracalla also punished the Alexandrians by stopping the public games
+and the allowance of grain to the citizens; and, to lessen the danger of
+their rebelling, he had the fortifications carried between the rest
+of the city and the great palace-quarter, the Bruchium, thus dividing
+Alexandria into two fortified cities, with towers on the walls
+between them. Hitherto, under the Romans as under the Ptolemies, the
+Alexandrians had been the trusted favourites of their rulers, who made
+use of them to keep the Egyptians in bondage. But under Caracalla that
+policy was changed; the Alexandrians were treated as enemies; and we see
+for the first time Egyptians taking their seat in the Roman senate, and
+the Egyptian religion openly cultivated by the emperor, who then built a
+temple in Rome to the goddess Isis.
+
+On the murder of Caracalla in A.D. 217, Macrinus, who was thought to be
+the author of his death, was acknowledged as emperor; and though he only
+reigned for about two months, yet, as the Egyptian new year’s day fell
+within that time, we find Alexandrian coins for the first and second
+years of his reign. The Egyptians pretended that the death of Caracalla
+had been foretold by signs from heaven; that a ball of fire had fallen
+on the temple of Serapis, which destroyed nothing but the sword with
+which Caracalla had slain his brother; and that an Egyptian named
+Serapion, who had been thrown into a lion’s den for naming Macrinus as
+the future emperor, had escaped unhurt by the wild beasts.
+
+Macrinus recalled from Alexandria Julian, the prefect of Egypt, and
+appointed to that post his friend Basilianus, with Marius Secundus, a
+senator, as second in command, who was the first senator that had ever
+held command in Egypt. He was himself at Antioch when Bassianus, a
+Syrian, pretending to be the son of Caracalla, offered himself to the
+legions as that emperor’s successor. When the news reached Alexandria
+that the Syrian troops had joined the pretended Antoninus, the prefect
+Basilianus at once put to death the public couriers that brought the
+unwelcome tidings. But when, a few days afterwards, it was known that
+Macrinus had been defeated and killed, the doubts about his successor
+led to serious struggles between the troops and the Alexandrians. The
+Alexandrians could have had no love for a son of Caracalla; Basilianus
+and Secundus had before declared against him; but, on the other hand,
+the choice of the soldiers was guided by their brethren in Syria. The
+citizens flew to arms, and day after day was the battle fought in the
+streets of Alexandria between two parties, neither of whom was strong
+enough, even if successful, to have any weight in settling the fate of
+the Roman empire. Marius Secundus lost his life in the struggle. The
+prefect Basilianus fled to Italy to escape from his own soldiers; and
+the province of Egypt then followed the example of the rest of the East
+in acknowledging the new emperor.
+
+For four years Rome was disgraced by the sovereignty of Elagabalus,
+the pretended son of Caracalla, and we find his coins each year in
+Alexandria. He was succeeded by the young Alexander, whose amiable
+virtues, however, could not gain for him the respect which he lost
+by the weakness of his government. The Alexandrians, always ready to
+lampoon their rulers, laughed at his wish to be thought a Roman; they
+called him the Syrian, the high priest, and the ruler of the synagogue.
+And well might they think slightly of his government, when a prefect of
+Egypt owed his appointment to the emperor’s want of power to punish him.
+Epagathus had headed a mutiny of the prætorian guards in Rome, in which
+their general Ulpian was killed; and Alexander, afraid to punish the
+murderers, made the ringleader of the rebels prefect of Egypt in order
+to send him out of the way; so little did it then seem necessary to
+follow the cautious policy of Augustus, or to fear a rebellion in that
+province. But after a short time, when Epagathus had been forgotten by
+the Roman legion, he was removed to the government of Crete, and then at
+last punished with death.
+
+In this reign Ammonius Saccas became the founder of a new and most
+important school of philosophy, that of the Alexandrian platonists. He
+is only known to us through his pupils, in whose writings we trace the
+mind and system of the teacher. The most celebrated of these pupils were
+Plotinus, Herennius, and Origen, a pagan writer, together with Longinus,
+the great master of the “sublime,” who owns him his teacher in elegant
+literature. Ammonius was unequalled in the variety and depth of his
+knowledge, and was by his followers called heaven-taught. He aimed at
+putting an end to the triflings and quarrels of the philosophers by
+showing that all the great truths were the same in each system, and
+by pointing out where Plato and Aristotle agreed instead of where
+they differed; or rather by culling opinions out of both schools of
+philosophy, and by gathering together the scattered limbs of Truth,
+whose lovely form had been hewn to pieces and thrown to the four winds
+like the mangled body of Osiris.
+
+Origen in the tenth year of this reign (A.D. 231) withdrew to Cæsarea,
+on finding himself made uncomfortable at Alexandria by the displeasure
+of Demetrius the bishop; and he left the care of the Christian school to
+Heraclas, who had been one of his pupils. Origen’s opinions met with no
+blame in Cæsarea, where Christianity was not yet so far removed from its
+early simplicity as in Egypt.
+
+The Christians of Syria and Palestine highly prized his teaching when
+it was no longer valued in Alexandria. He died at Tyre in the reign of
+Gallus.
+
+[Illustration: 149.jpg A MODERN SCRIBE]
+
+On the death of Demetrius, Heraclas, who had just before succeeded
+Origen in the charge of the Christian school, was chosen Bishop of
+Alexandria; and Christianity had by that time so far spread through the
+cities of Upper and Lower Egypt that he found it necessary to ordain
+twenty bishops under him, while three had been found enough by his
+predecessor. From his being the head of the bishops, who were all styled
+fathers, Heraclas received the title of _Papa_, pope or grandfather, the
+title afterwards used by the bishops of Rome.
+
+Among the presbyters ordained by Heraclas was Ammonius Saccas, the
+founder of the platonic school; but he afterwards forsook the religion
+of Jesus; and we must not mistake him for a second Alexandrian Christian
+of the name of Ammonius, who can hardly have been the same person as
+the former, for he never changed his religion, and was the author of
+the _Evangelical Canons_, a work afterwards continued by Eusebius of
+Cæsarea.
+
+On the death of the Emperor Alexander, in A.D. 235, while Italy was
+torn to pieces by civil wars and by its generals’ rival claims for the
+purple, the Alexandrians seem to have taken no part in the struggles,
+but to have acknowledged each emperor as soon as the news reached them
+that he had taken the title. In one year we find Alexandrian coins of
+Maximin and his son Maximus, with those of the two Gordians, who for a
+few weeks reigned in Carthage, and in the next year we again have coins
+of Maximin and Maximus, with those of Balbinus and Pupienus, and of
+Gordianus Pius.
+
+The Persians, taking advantage of the weakness in the empire caused by
+these civil wars, had latterly been harassing the eastern frontier; and
+it soon became the duty of the young Gordian to march against them
+in person. Hitherto the Roman armies had usually been successful; but
+unfortunately the Persians, or, rather, their Syrian and Arab allies,
+had latterly risen as much as the Romans had fallen off in courage and
+warlike skill. The army of Gordian was routed, and the emperor himself
+slain, either by traitors or by the enemy. Hereafter we shall see the
+Romans paying the just penalty for the example that they had set to
+the surrounding nations. They had taught them that conquest should be
+a people’s chief aim, that the great use of strength was to crush
+a neighbour; and it was not long before Egypt and the other Eastern
+provinces suffered under the same treatment. So little had defeat
+been expected that the philosopher Plotinus had left his studies in
+Alexandria to join the army, in hopes of gaining for himself an insight
+into the Eastern philosophy that was so much talked of in Egypt. After
+the rout of the army he with difficulty escaped to Antioch, and thence
+he removed to Rome, where he taught the new platonism to scholars of all
+nations, including Serapion, the celebrated rhetorician, and Eustochius,
+the physician, from Alexandria.
+
+[Illustration: 151.jpg SYMBOL OF EGYPT]
+
+Philip, who is accused by the historians of being the author of
+Gordian’s death, succeeded him on the throne in 244; but he is only
+known in the history of Egypt by his Alexandrian coins, which we find
+with the dates of each of the seven years of his reign, and these seem
+to prove that for one year he had been associated with Gordian in the
+purple. In the reign of Decius, which began in 249, the Christians of
+Egypt were again harassed by the zeal with which the laws against
+their religion were put in force. The persecution began by their
+fellow-citizens informing against them; but in the next year it was
+followed up by the prefect Æmilianus; and several Christians were
+summoned before the magistrate and put to death. Many fled for safety
+to the desert and to Mount Sinai, where they fell into a danger of a
+different kind; they were taken prisoners by the Saracens and carried
+away as slaves. Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria, himself fled from
+the storm, and was then banished to the village of Cephro in the desert.
+But his flight was not without some scandal to the Church, as there were
+not a few who thought that he was called upon by his rank at least to
+await, if not to court, the pains of martyrdom. Indeed, the persecution
+was less remarkable for the sufferings of the Christians than for the
+numbers who failed in their courage, and renounced Christianity under
+the threats of the magistrate. Dionysius, the bishop, who had shown no
+courage himself, was willing to pardon their weakness, and after fit
+proof of sorrow again to receive them as brethren. But his humanity
+offended the zeal of many whose distance from the danger had saved them
+from temptation; and it was found necessary to summon a council at Rome
+to settle the dispute. In this assembly the moderate party prevailed;
+and some who refused to receive back those who had once fallen away from
+the faith were themselves turned out of the Church.
+
+Dionysius had succeeded Heraclas in the bishopric, having before
+succeeded him as head of the catechetical school. He was the author of
+several works, written in defence of the trinitarian opinions, on the
+one hand against the Egyptian Gnostics, who said that there were eight,
+and even thirty, persons in the Godhead, and, on the other hand, against
+the Syrian bishop, Paul of Samosata, on the Euphrates, who said that
+Jesus was a man, and that the Word and Holy Spirit were not persons, but
+attributes, of God.
+
+But while Dionysius was thus engaged in a controversy with such opposite
+opinions, Egypt and Libya were giving birth to a new view of the
+trinity. Sabellius, Bishop of Ptolemais, near Cyrene, was putting forth
+the opinion that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were only three names
+for the one God, and that the creator of the world had himself appeared
+upon earth in the form of Jesus. Against this opinion Dionysius again
+engaged in controversy, arguing against Sabellius that Jesus was not the
+creator, but the first of created beings.
+
+The Christians were thus each generation changing more and more,
+sometimes leaning towards Greek polytheism and sometimes towards
+Egyptian mysticism. As in each quarrel the most mysterious opinions
+were thought the most sacred, each generation added new mysteries to
+its religion; and the progress was rapid, from a practical piety, to a
+profession of opinions which they did not pretend to understand.
+
+During the reigns of Gallus, of Æmilius Æmilianus, and of Valerian (A.D.
+251-260), the Alexandrians coined money in the name of each emperor as
+soon as the news reached Egypt that he had made Italy acknowledge his
+title. Gallus and his son reigned two years and four months; Æmilianus,
+who rebelled in Pannonia, reigned three months; and Valerian reigned
+about six years.
+
+Egypt, as a trading country, now suffered severely from the want
+of order and quiet government; and in particular since the reign
+of Alexander Severus it had been kept in a fever by rebellions,
+persecutions, and this unceasing change of rulers. Change brings the
+fear of change; and this fear checks trade, throws the labourer out of
+employment, and leaves the poor of the cities without wages and without
+food. Famine is followed by disease; and Egypt and Alexandria were
+visited in the reign of Gallus by a dreadful plague, one of those
+scourges that force themselves on the notice of the historian. It was
+probably the same disease that in a less frightful form had been not
+uncommon in that country and in the lower parts of Syria. The physician
+Aretæus describes it under the name of ulcers on the tonsils. It seems
+by the letters of Bishop Dionysius that in Alexandria the population had
+so much fallen off that the inhabitants between the ages of fourteen
+and eighty were not more than those between forty and seventy had been
+formerly, as appeared by old records then existing. The misery that the
+city had suffered may be measured by its lessened numbers.
+
+During these latter years the eastern half of the empire was chiefly
+guarded by Odenathus of Palmyra, the brave and faithful ally of Rome,
+under whose wise rule his country for a short time held a rank among the
+empires of the world, which it never could have gained but for an union
+of many favourable circumstances. The city and little state of Palmyra
+is situated about midway between the cities of Damascus and Babylon.
+Separated from the rest of the world, between the Roman and the Parthian
+empires, Palmyra had long kept its freedom, while each of those great
+rival powers rather courted its friendship than aimed at conquering it.
+But, as the cause of Rome grew weaker, Odenathus wisely threw his weight
+into the lighter scale; and latterly, without aiming at conquest, he
+found himself almost the sovereign of those provinces of the Roman
+empire which were in danger of being overrun by the Persians. Valerian
+himself was conquered, taken prisoner, and put to death by Sapor, King
+of Persia; and Gallienus, his son, who was idling away his life in
+disgraceful pleasures in the West, wisely gave the title of emperor to
+Odenathus, and declared him his colleague on the throne.
+
+[Illustration: 155.jpg A HAREM WINDOW]
+
+No sooner was Valerian taken prisoner than every province of the Roman
+empire, feeling the sword powerless in the weak hands of Gallienus,
+declared its own general emperor; and when Macrianus, who had been
+left in command in Syria, gathered together the scattered forces of the
+Eastern army, and made himself emperor of the East, the Egyptians owned
+him as their sovereign. As Macrianus found his age too great for the
+activity required of a rebel emperor, he made his two sons, Macrianus,
+junior, and Quietus, his colleagues; and we find their names on the
+coins of Alexandria, dated the first and second years of their reign.
+But Macrianus was defeated by Dominitianus at the head of a part of the
+army of Aureolus, who had made himself emperor in Illyricum, and he lost
+his life, together with one of his sons, while the other soon afterwards
+met with the same fate from Odenathus.
+
+After this, Egypt was governed for a short time in the name of
+Gallienus; but the fickle Alexandrians soon made a rebel emperor for
+themselves. The Roman republic, says the historian, was often in
+danger from the headstrong giddiness of the Alexandrians. Any civility
+forgotten, a place in the baths not yielded, a heap of rubbish, or even
+a pair of old shoes in the streets, was often enough to throw the state
+into the greatest danger, and make it necessary to call out the troops
+to put down the riots. Thus, one day, one of the prefect’s slaves was
+beaten by the soldiers, for saying that his shoes were better than
+theirs. On this a riotous crowd gathered round the house of Æmilianus to
+complain of the conduct of his soldiers. He was attacked with stones and
+such weapons as are usually within the reach of a mob. He had no choice
+but to call out the troops, who, when they had quieted the city and were
+intoxicated with their success, saluted him with the title of emperor;
+and hatred of Gallienus made the rest of the Egyptian army agree to
+their choice.
+
+This was in the year 265. The new emperor called himself Alexander, and
+was even thought to deserve the name. He governed Egypt during his short
+reign with great vigour. He led his army through the Thebaid, and drove
+back the barbarians with a courage and activity which had latterly been
+uncommon in the Egyptian army. Alexandria then sent no tribute to Rome.
+“Well! cannot we live without Egyptian linen?” was the forced joke of
+Gallienus, when the Romans were in alarm at the loss of the usual supply
+of grain. But Æmilianus was soon beaten by Theodotus, the general of
+Gallienus, who besieged him in the strong quarter of Alexandria called
+the Bruchium, and then took him prisoner and strangled him.
+
+During this siege the ministers of Christianity were able to lessen some
+of the horrors of war by persuading the besiegers to allow the useless
+mouths to quit the blockaded fortress. Eusebius, afterwards Bishop of
+Laodicea, was without the trenches trying to lessen the cruelties of the
+siege; and Anatolius, the Christian peripatetic, was within the walls,
+endeavouring to persuade the rebels to surrender. Gallienus in gratitude
+to his general would have granted him the honour of a proconsular
+triumph, to dazzle the eyes of the Alexandrians; but the policy of
+Augustus was not wholly forgotten, and the emperor was reminded by
+the priests that it was unlawful for the consular fasces to enter
+Alexandria.
+
+The late Emperor Valerian had begun his reign with mild treatment of
+the Christians; but he was overpersuaded by the Alexandrians. He then
+allowed the power of the magistrate to be used, in order to check the
+Christian religion. But in this weakness of the empire Gallienus could
+no longer with safety allow the Christians to be persecuted for their
+religion. Both their numbers and their station made it dangerous to
+treat them as enemies; and the emperor ordered all persecution to be
+stopped. The imperial rescript for that purpose was even addressed to
+“Dionysius, Pinna, Demetrius, and the other bishops;” it grants them
+full indulgence in the exercise of their religion, and by its very
+address almost acknowledges their rank in the state. By this edict of
+Gallienus the Christians were put on a better footing than at any time
+since their numbers brought them under the notice of the magistrate.
+
+[Illustration: 158b.jpg EGYPTIAN SLAVE]
+
+     From the painting by Siefèrt
+
+When the bishop Dionysius returned to Alexandria, he found the place
+sadly ruined by the late siege. The middle of the city was a vast waste.
+It was easier, he says, to go from one end of Egypt to the other than to
+cross the main street which divided the Bruchium from the western end
+of Alexandria. The place was still marked with all the horrors of last
+week’s battle. Then, as usual, disease and famine followed upon war. Not
+a house was without a funeral. Death was everywhere to be seen in its
+most ghastly form. Bodies were left un-buried in the streets to be eaten
+by the dogs. Men ran away from their sickening friends in fear. As the
+sun set they felt in doubt whether they should be alive to see it
+rise in the morning. Cowards hid their alarms in noisy amusements and
+laughter. Not a few in very despair rushed into riot and vice. But the
+Christians clung to one another in brotherly love; they visited the
+sick; they laid out and buried their dead; and many of them thereby
+caught the disease themselves, and died as martyrs to the strength of
+their faith and love.
+
+As long as Odenathus lived, the victories of the Palmyrenes were always
+over the enemies of Rome; but on his assassination, together with his
+son Herodes, though the armies of Palmyra were still led to battle
+with equal courage, its counsels were no longer guided with the same
+moderation.
+
+[Illustraton: 159.jpg COINS OF ZENOBIA]
+
+Zenobia, the widow of Odenathus, seized the command of the army for
+herself and her infant sons, Herennius and Timolaus; and her masculine
+courage and stern virtues well qualified her for the bold task that she
+had undertaken. She threw off the friendship of Rome, and routed the
+armies which Gallienus sent against her; and, claiming to be descended
+from Cleopatra, she marched upon Egypt, in 268 A.D., to seize the throne
+of her ancestors, and to add that kingdom to Syria and Asia Minor, which
+she already possessed.
+
+Zenobia’s army was led by her general, Zabda, who was joined by an
+Egyptian named Timogenes; and, with seventy thousand Palmyrenes,
+Syrians, and other barbarians, they routed the Roman army of fifty
+thousand Egyptians under Probatus. The unfortunate Roman general put an
+end to his own life; but nevertheless the Palmyrenes were unsuccessful,
+and Egypt followed the example of Rome, and took the oaths to Claudius.
+For three years the coins of Alexandria bear the name of that emperor.
+
+On the death of Claudius, his brother Quintillus assumed the purple in
+Europe (A.D. 270); and though he only reigned for seventeen days the
+Alexandrian mint found time to engrave new dies and to issue coined
+money in his name.
+
+On the death of Claudius, also, the Palmyrenes renewed their attacks
+upon Egypt, and this second time with success. The whole kingdom
+acknowledged Zenobia as their queen; and in the fourth and fifth years
+of her reign in Palmyra we find her name on the Alexandrian coins. The
+Greeks, who had been masters of Egypt for six hundred years, either in
+their own name or in that of the Roman emperors, were then for the first
+time governed by an Asiatic. Palmyra in the desert was then ornamented
+with the spoils of Egypt; and travellers yet admire the remains of eight
+large columns of red porphyry, each thirty feet high, which stood in
+front of the two gates to the great temple. They speak for themselves,
+and tell their own history. From their material and form and size we
+must suppose that these columns were quarried between Thebes and the Red
+Sea, were cut into shape by Egyptian workmen under the guidance of Greek
+artists in the service of the Roman emperors; and were thence carried
+away by the Syrian queen to the oasis-city in the desert between
+Damascus and Babylon.
+
+[Illustration: 161.jpg COIN OF ATHENODORUS]
+
+Zenobia was a handsome woman of a dark complexion, with an aquiline
+nose, quick, piercing eyes, and a masculine voice. She had the
+commanding qualities of Cleopatra, from whom her flatterers traced her
+descent, and she was without her vices. While Syriac was her native
+tongue, she was not ignorant of Latin, which she was careful to have
+taught to her children; she carried on her government in Greek, and
+could speak Koptic with the Egyptians, whose history she had studied
+and written upon. In her dress and manners she joined the pomp of the
+Persian court to the self-denial and military virtues of a camp. With
+these qualities, followed by a success in arms which they seemed to
+deserve, the world could not help remarking, that while Gallienus was
+wasting his time with fiddlers and players, in idleness that would have
+disgraced a woman, Zenobia was governing her half of the empire like a
+man.
+
+Zenobia made Antioch and Palmyra the capitals of her empire, and Egypt
+became for the time a province of Syria. Her religion like her language
+was Syriac. The name of her husband, Odenathus, means sacred to the
+goddess Adoneth, and that of her son, Vaballathus, means sacred to the
+goddess Baaleth. But as her troops were many of them Saracens or Arabs,
+a people nearly the same as the Blemmyes, who already formed part of the
+people of Upper Egypt, this conquest gave a new rank to that part of
+the population; and had the further result, important in after years,
+of causing them to be less quiet in their slavery to the Greeks of
+Alexandria.
+
+But the sceptre of Rome had lately been grasped by the firmer hand of
+Aurelian, and the reign of Zenobia drew to a close. Aurelian at first
+granted her the title of his colleague in the empire, and we find
+Alexandrian coins with her head on one side and his on the other. But
+he lost no time in leading his forces into Syria, and, after routing
+Zenobia’s army in one or two battles, he took her prisoner at Emessa.
+He then led her to Rome, where, after being made the ornament of his
+triumph, she was allowed to spend the rest of her days in quiet, having
+reigned for four years in Palmyra, though only for a few months in
+Egypt.
+
+On the defeat of Zenobia it would seem that Egypt and Syria were
+still left under the government of one of her sons, with the title of
+colleague of Aurelian. The Alexandrian coins are then dated in the first
+year of Aurelian and the fourth of Vaballathus, or, according to the
+Greek translation of this name, of Athenodorus, who counted his years
+from the death of Odenathus.
+
+The young Herodes, who had been killed with his father Odenathus, was
+not the son of Zenobia, but of a former wife, and Zenobia always
+acted towards him with the unkindness unfortunately too common in a
+stepmother. She had claimed the throne for her infant sons, Herennius
+and Timolaus; and we are left in doubt by the historians about
+Vaballathus; Vopiscus, who calls him the son of Zenobia, does not tell
+us who was his father. We know but little of him beyond his coins; but
+from these we learn that, after reigning one year with Aurelian, he
+aimed at reigning alone, took the title of Augustus, and dropped the
+name of Aurelian from his coins. This step was very likely the cause of
+his overthrow and death, which happened in the year 271.
+
+On the overthrow of Zenobia’s family, Egypt, which had been so fruitful
+in rebels, submitted to the Emperor Aurelian, but it was only for a few
+months. The Greeks of Alexandria, now lessened in numbers, were found to
+be no longer masters of the kingdom. Former rebellions in Egypt had
+been caused by the two Roman legions and the Greek mercenaries sometimes
+claiming the right to appoint an emperor to the Roman world; but
+Zenobia’s conquest had raised the Egyptian and Arab population in
+their own opinion, and they were no longer willing to be governed by an
+Alexandrian or European master. In 272 A.D. they set up Firmus, a native
+of Seleucia, who took the title of emperor; and, resting his power
+on that part of the population that had been treated as slaves
+or barbarians for six hundred years, he aimed at the conquest of
+Alexandria.
+
+Firmus was a man of great size and bodily strength, and, of course,
+barbarian manners. He had gained great riches by trade with India; and
+had a paper trade so profitable that he used to boast that he could feed
+an army on papyrus and glue. His house was furnished with glass windows,
+a luxury then but little known, and the squares of glass were fastened
+into the frames by means of bitumen. His chief strength was in the Arabs
+or Blemmyes of Upper Egypt, and in the Saracens who had lately been
+fighting against Rome under the standard of Zenobia. Firmus fixed his
+government at Koptos and Ptolemais, and held all Upper Egypt; but he
+either never conquered Alexandria, or did not hold it for many months,
+as for every year that he reigned in the Thebaid we find Alexandrian
+coins bearing the name of Aurelian. Firmus was at last conquered by
+Aurelian in person, who took him prisoner, and had him tortured and then
+put to death. During these troubles Rome had been thrown into alarm at
+the thoughts of losing the usual supply of Egyptian grain, as since the
+reign of Elagabalus the Roman granaries had never held more than was
+wanted for the year; but Aurelian hastened to send word to the Roman
+people that the country was again quiet, and that the yearly supplies,
+which had been delayed by the wickedness of Firmus, would soon arrive.
+Had Firmus raised the Roman legions in rebellion, he would have been
+honoured with the title of a rebel emperor; but, as his power rested on
+the Egyptians and Arabs, Aurelian only boasted that he had rid the world
+of a robber.
+
+[Illustration: 164.jpg STREET VENDORS IN METAL WARE]
+
+Another rebel emperor about this time was Domitius Domitiamis; but we
+have no certain knowledge of the year in which he rebelled, nor, indeed,
+without the help of the coins should we know in what province of the
+whole Roman empire he had assumed the purple. The historian only tells
+us that in the reign of Aurelian the general Domitianus was put to
+death for aiming at a change. We learn, however, from the coins that he
+reigned for part of a first and a second year in Egypt; but the subject
+of his reign is not without its difficulties, as we find Alexandrian
+coins of Domitianus with Latin inscriptions, and dated in the third year
+of his reign. The Latin language had not at this time been used on the
+coins of Alexandria; and he could not have held Alexandria for any
+one whole year, as the series of Aurelian’s coins is not broken. It is
+possible that the Latin coins of Domitianus may belong to a second and
+later usurper of the same name.
+
+Aurelian had reigned in Rome from the death of Claudius; and,
+notwithstanding the four rebels to whom we have given the title of
+sovereigns of Egypt, money was coined in Alexandria in his name during
+each of those years. His coinage, however, reminds us of the troubled
+and fallen state of the country; and from this time forward copper, or,
+rather, brass, is the only metal used.
+
+Aurelian left Probus in the command of the Egyptian army, and that
+general’s skill and activity found full employment in driving back the
+barbarians who pressed upon the province on each of the three sides on
+which it was open to attack.
+
+[Illustration: 165.jpg COIN OF DOMITIANUS WITH LATIN INSCRIPTION]
+
+His first battles were against the Africans and Marmaridæ, who were
+in arms on the side of Cyrene, and he next took the field against the
+Palmyrenes and Saracens, who still claimed Egypt in the name of the
+family of Zenobia. He employed the leisure of his soldiers in many
+useful works; in repairing bridges, temples, and porticoes, and more
+particularly in widening the trenches and keeping open the canals, and
+in such other works as were of use in raising and forwarding the yearly
+supply of grain to Rome. Aurelian increased the amount of the Egyptian
+tribute, which was paid in glass, paper, linen, hemp, and grain; the
+latter he increased by one-twelfth part, and he placed a larger number
+of ships on the voyage to make the supply certain.
+
+The Christians were well treated during this reign, and their patriarch
+Nero so far took courage as to build the Church of St. Mary in
+Alexandria. This was probably the first church that was built in Egypt
+for the public service of Christianity, which for two hundred years had
+been preached in private rooms, and very often in secret. The service
+was in Greek, as, indeed, it was in all parts of Egypt: for it does
+not appear that Christian prayers were publicly read in the Egyptian
+language before the quarrel between the two churches made the Kopts
+unwilling to use Greek prayers. The liturgy there read was probably very
+nearly the same as that afterwards known as the _Liturgy of St. Mark_.
+This is among the oldest of the Christian liturgies, and it shows its
+country by the prayer that the waters of the river may rise to their
+just measure, and that rain may be sent from heaven to the countries
+that need it.
+
+We learn from the historians that eight months were allowed to pass
+between the death of Aurelian and the choice of a successor; and during
+this time the power rested in the hands of his widow. The sway of a
+woman was never openly acknowledged in Rome, but the Alexandrians and
+Egyptians were used to female rule, and from contemporary coins we learn
+that in Egypt the government was carried on in the name of the Empress
+Severina. The last coins of Aurelian bear the date of the sixth year of
+his reign, and the coins of Severina are dated in the sixth and seventh
+years. But after Tacitus was chosen emperor by his colleagues of the
+Roman senate, and during his short reign of six months (A.D. 276), his
+authority was obeyed by the Egyptian legions under Probus, as is fully
+proved by the Alexandrian coins bearing his name, all dated in the first
+year of his reign.
+
+[Illustration: 167.jpg COIN OF SEVERINA]
+
+On the death of Tacitus, his brother Florian hoped to succeed to the
+imperial power, and was acknowledged in the same year by the senate and
+troops of Rome. But when the news reached Egypt it was at once felt by
+the legions that Probus, both by his own personal qualities and by the
+high state of discipline of the army under his command, and by his
+success against the Egyptian rebels, had a better claim to the purple
+than any other general. At first the opinion ran round the camp in a
+whisper, and at last the army spoke the general wish aloud; they
+snatched a purple cloak from a statue in one of the temples to throw
+over him, they placed him on an earthen mound as a tribunal, and against
+his will saluted him with the title of emperor. The choice of the
+Egyptian legions was soon approved of by Asia Minor, Syria, and Italy;
+Florian was put to death, and Probus shortly afterwards marched into
+Gaul and Germany, to quiet those provinces.
+
+After a year or two, Probus was recalled into Egypt by hearing that the
+Blemmyes had risen in arms, and that Upper Egypt was again independent
+of the Roman power. Not only Koptos, which had for centuries been an
+Arab city, but even Ptolemais, the Greek capital of the Thebaid, was now
+peopled by those barbarians, and they had to be reconquered by Probus
+as foreign cities, and kept in obedience by Roman garrisons; and on his
+return to Rome he thought his victories over the Blemmyes of Upper Egypt
+not unworthy of a triumph.
+
+By these unceasing wars, the Egyptian legions had lately been brought
+into a high state of discipline, and, confident in their strength, and
+in the success with which they had made their late general emperor of
+the Roman world, they now attempted to raise up a rival to him in the
+person of their present general Saturninus. Saturninus had been made
+general of the Eastern frontier by Aurelian, who had given him strict
+orders never to enter Egypt. “The Egyptians,” says the historian,
+meaning, however, the Alexandrians, “are boastful, vain, spiteful,
+licentious, fond of change, clever in making songs and epigrams against
+their rulers, and much given to soothsaying and augury.” Aurelian well
+knew that the loyalty of a successful general was not to be trusted in
+Egypt, and during his lifetime Saturninus never entered that province.
+But after his death, when Probus was called away to the other parts of
+the empire, the government of Egypt was added to the other duties of
+Saturninus; and no sooner was he seen there, at the head of an army that
+seemed strong enough to enforce his wishes, than the fickle Alexandrians
+saluted him with the title of emperor and Augustus. But Saturninus was
+a wise man, and shunned the dangerous honour; he had hitherto fought
+always for his country; he had saved the provinces of Spain, Gaul, and
+Africa from the enemy or from rebellion; and he knew the value of his
+rank and character too well to fling it away for a bauble. To escape
+from further difficulties he withdrew from Egypt, and moved his
+headquarters into Palestine. But the treasonable cheers of the
+Alexandrians could neither be forgotten by himself nor by his troops;
+he had withstood the calls of ambition, but he yielded at last to his
+fears; he became a rebel for fear of being thought one, and he declared
+himself emperor as the safest mode of escaping punishment. But he
+was soon afterwards defeated and strangled, against the will of the
+forgiving Probus.
+
+On the death of Probus, in A.D. 283, the empire fell to Carus and his
+sons, Numerianus and Carinus, whose names are found on the Alexandrian
+coins, but whose short reigns have left no other trace in Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 169.jpg COIN OF TRAJAN’S SECOND LEGION]
+
+At this time also we find upon the coins the name of Trajan’s second
+Egyptian legion, which was at all times stationed in Egypt, and which,
+acting upon an authority that was usually granted to the Roman legions
+in the various provinces, coined money of several kinds for their own
+pay.
+
+The reign of Diocletian, beginning in A.D. 285, was one of suffering to
+the Egyptians; and in the fourth year the people rose against the Roman
+government, and gave the title of emperor to Achilleus, their leader
+in the rebellion. Galerius, the Roman general, led an army against the
+rebels, and marched through the whole of the Thebaid; but, though the
+Egyptians were routed whenever they were bold enough to meet the legions
+in battle, yet the rebellion was not very easily crushed. The Romans
+were scarcely obeyed beyond the spot on which their army was encamped.
+In the fourth year of the rebellion, A.D. 292, Diocletian came to Egypt,
+and the cities of Koptos and Busiris were besieged by the emperor in
+person, and wholly destroyed after a regular siege.
+
+When Diocletian reached the southern limits of Egypt he was able to
+judge of the difficulty, and indeed the uselessness, of trying to hold
+any part of Ethiopia; and he found that the tribute levied there was
+less than the cost of the troops required to collect it. He therefore
+made a new treaty with the Nobatæ, as the people between the first and
+second cataracts were now called. He gave up to them the whole of Lower
+Ethiopia, or the province called Nubia. The valley for seventy miles
+above Syênê, which bore the name of the Dodecaschonos, had been held by
+Augustus and his successors, and this was now given up to the original
+inhabitants. Diocletian strengthened the fortifications on the isle
+of Elephantine, to guard what was thenceforth the uttermost point of
+defence, and agreed to pay to the Nobatae and Blemmyes a yearly sum of
+gold on the latter promising no longer to harass Upper Egypt with their
+marauding inroads, and on the former promising to forbid the Blemmyes
+from doing so. What remains of the Roman wall built against the inroads
+of these troublesome neighbours runs along the edge of the cultivated
+land on the east side of the river for some distance to the north of the
+cataract. But so much was the strength of the Greek party lessened, and
+so deeply rooted among the Egyptians was their hatred of their rulers
+and the belief that they should then be able to throw off the yoke,
+that soon afterwards Alexandria declared in favour of Achilleus, and
+Diocletian was again called to Egypt to regain the capital. Such was
+the strength of the rebels that the city could not be taken without
+a regular siege. Diocletian surrounded it with a ditch and wall, and
+turned aside the canals that supplied the citizens with water. After a
+tedious siege of eight months, Alexandria was at last taken by storm in
+297, and Achilleus was put to death. A large part of the city was burnt
+at the storming, nor would the punishment of the citizens have there
+ended, but for Diocletian’s humane interpretation of an accident. The
+horse on which he sat stumbled as he entered the city with his troops,
+and he had the humanity to understand it as a command from heaven that
+he should stop the pillage of the city; and the citizens in gratitude
+erected near the spot a bronze statue of the horse to which they owed so
+much. This statue has long since been lost, but we cannot be mistaken in
+the place where it stood. The lofty column in the centre of the temple
+of Serapis, now well known by the name of Pompey’s Pillar,* once held a
+statue on the top, and on the base it still bears the inscription of
+the grateful citizens, “To the most honoured emperor, the saviour of
+Alexandria, the unconquerable Diocletian.”
+
+     * See Volume X., page 317.
+
+This rebellion had lasted more than nine years, and the Egyptians seemed
+never in want of money for the purposes of the war. Diocletian was
+struck with their riches, and he ordered a careful search to be made
+through Egypt for all writings on alchemy, an art which the Egyptians
+studied together with magic and astrology. These books he ordered to be
+burnt, under a belief that they were the great sources of the riches by
+which his own power had been resisted. Want and misery no doubt caused
+this rebellion, but the rebellion certainly caused more want and misery.
+The navigation of the Nile was stopped, the canals were no longer kept
+cleared, the fields were badly tilled, trade and manufactures were
+ruined. Since the rebellions against the Persians, Egypt had never
+suffered so much. It had been sadly changed by the troubles of the last
+sixty years, during which it had been six times in arms against Rome;
+and when the rebellion was put down by Diocletian, it was no longer
+the same country that it had been under the Antonines. The framework of
+society had been shaken, the Greeks had lessened in numbers, and still
+more in weight. The fall of the Ptolemies, and the conquest by Rome, did
+not make so great a change. The bright days of Egypt as a Greek
+kingdom began with the building of Alexandria, and they ended with
+the rebellions against Gallienus, Aurelian and Diocletian. The native
+Egyptians, both Kopts and Arabs, now rise into more notice, as the Greek
+civilisation sinks around them. And soon the upper classes among the
+Kopts, to avoid the duty of maintaining a family of children in such
+troubled times, rush by thousands into monasteries and convents, and
+further lessen the population by their religious vows of celibacy. In
+the twelfth year of the reign, that in which Alexandria rebelled and
+the siege was begun, the Egyptian coinage for the most part ceased.
+Henceforth, though money was often coined in Alexandria as in every
+other great city of the empire, the inscriptions were usually in Latin,
+and the designs the same as those on the coins of Rome. In taking leave
+of this long and valuable series of coins with dates, which has been
+our guide in the chronology of these reigns, we must not forget to
+acknowledge how much we owe to the labours of the learned Zoega. In
+his _Numi Ægypti Imperatorii_, the mere descriptions, almost without a
+remark, speak the very words of history.
+
+The reign of Diocletian is chiefly remarkable for the new law which was
+then made against the Christians, and for the cruel severity with which
+it was put into force. The issuing of this edict in 304 A.D., which was
+to root out Christianity from the world, took place in the twentieth
+year of the reign, according to the Alexandrians, or in the nineteenth
+year after the emperor’s first installation as consul, as years were
+reckoned in the other parts of the empire. The churches, which since
+the reign of Gallienus had been everywhere rising, were ordered to be
+destroyed and the Bibles to be burnt, while banishment, slavery, and
+death were the punishments threatened against those who obstinately
+clung to their religion. In no province of the empire was the
+persecution more severe than in Egypt; and many Christians fled to
+Syria, where the law, though the same, was more mildly carried into
+execution. But the Christians were too numerous to fly and too few
+to resist. The ecclesiastical writers present us with a sad tale of
+tortures and of death borne by those who refused to renounce their
+faith,--a tale which is only made less sad by the doubt how far
+the writers’ feelings may have misled their judgment, and made them
+overstate the numbers.
+
+But we may safely rely upon the account which Eusebius gives us of what
+he himself saw in Egypt. Many were put to death on the same day, some
+beheaded and some burnt. The executioners were tired, and the hearts of
+the pagan judges melted by the unflinching firmness of the Christians.
+Many who were eminent for wealth, rank, and learning chose to lay down
+their lives rather than throw a few grains of wheat upon the altar, or
+comply with any ceremony that was required of them as a religious test.
+The judges begged them to think of their wives and children, and pointed
+out that they were the cause of their own death; but the Christians were
+usually firm, and were beheaded for the refusal to take the test.
+Among the most celebrated of the Egyptian martyrs were Peter, Bishop of
+Alexandria, with Faustus, Dius, and Ammonius, presbyters under him;
+the learned Phileas, Bishop of Thmuis, Hesychius, the editor of the
+Septuagint, and the Bishops Pachomius and Theodorus; though the pagans
+must have been still more surprised at Philoromus, the receiver-general
+of the taxes at Alexandria. This man, after the prefect of Egypt and
+the general of the troops, was perhaps the highest Roman officer in the
+province. He sat in public as a judge in Alexandria, surrounded by a
+guard of soldiers, daily deciding all causes relating to the taxes of
+Egypt. He was accused of no crime but that of being a Christian, which
+he was earnestly entreated to deny, and was at liberty indirectly to
+disprove by joining in some pagan sacrifice. The Bishops of Alexandria
+and Thmuis may have been strengthened under their trials by their rank
+in the church, by having themselves urged others to do their duty in the
+same case, but the receiver-general of the taxes could have had nothing
+to encourage him but the strength of his faith and a noble scorn of
+falsehood; he was reproached or ridiculed by all around him, but he
+refused to deny his religion, and was beheaded as a common criminal.
+
+The ready ministers of this persecution were Culeianus, the prefect of
+the Thebaid, and Hierocles, the prefect of Alexandria. The latter
+was peculiarly well chosen for the task; he added the zeal of the
+theologian to the ready obedience of the soldier. He had written against
+the Christians a work named _Philalethes_ (the lover of truth), which we
+now know only in the answer by Eusebius of Cæsarea. In this he denounced
+the apostles as impostors, and the Christian miracles as trifling; and,
+comparing them with the pretended miracles of Apollonius of Tyana,
+he pronounced the latter more numerous, more important, and better
+authenticated than the former by the evangelists; and he ridiculed
+the Christians for calling Jesus a god, while the pagans did not raise
+Apollonius higher than a man beloved by the gods.
+
+This persecution under Diocletian was one of the most severe that the
+Christians ever underwent from the Romans. It did not, however, wholly
+stop the religious services, nor break up the regular government of the
+Church. In the catechetical school, Pierius, whom we have before spoken
+of as a man of learning, was succeeded by Theognostus and then by
+Serapion, whose name reminds us that the Egyptian party was gaining
+weight in the Alexandrian church. It can hardly have been for his
+superior learning, it may have been because his opinions were becoming
+more popular than those of the Greeks, that a professor with an Egyptian
+name was placed at the head of the catechetical school. Serapion was
+succeeded by Peter, who afterwards gained the bishopric of Alexandria
+and a martyr’s crown. But these men were little known beyond their
+lecture-room. In the twentieth year of the reign, on the death of Peter,
+the Bishop of Alexandria, who lost his life as a martyr, the presbyters
+of the church met to choose a successor. Among their number was Arius,
+whose name afterwards became so famous in ecclesiastical history, and
+who had already, even before he was ordained a priest, offended many by
+the bold manner in which he stated his religious opinions. But upon him,
+if we may believe a partial historian, the majority of votes fell in
+the choice of a patriarch of Alexandria, and had he not himself modestly
+given way to the more ambitious Alexander, he might perhaps have been
+saved from the treatment which he afterwards suffered from his rival.
+
+When, in the year 305, Diocletian and his colleague, Valerius Maximian,
+resigned the purple, Egypt with the rest of the East was given to
+Galerius, who had also as Cæsar been named Maximian on his Egyptian
+coins, while Constantius Chlorus ruled the West. Galerius in 307 granted
+some slight indulgence to the Christians without wholly stopping
+the persecution. But all favour was again withdrawn from them by his
+successor Maximin, who had indeed misgoverned Egypt for some years,
+under the title of Cæsar, before the rank of Augustus was granted to
+him. He encouraged private informers, he set townsman against townsman;
+and, as the wishes of the emperor are quickly understood by all under
+him, those who wished for his favour courted it by giving him an excuse
+for his cruelties. The cities sent up petitions to him, begging that the
+Christians might not be allowed to have churches within their walls. The
+history of these reigns indeed is little more than the history of the
+persecutions; and when the Alexandrian astronomers, dropping the era of
+Augustus, began to date from the first year of Diocletian, the Christian
+writers in the same way dated from the Era of the Martyrs.
+
+It can be no matter of surprise to us that, in a persecution which
+threatened all classes of society, there should have been many who, when
+they were accused of being Christians, wanted the courage to undergo
+the pains of martyrdom, and escaped the punishment by joining in a pagan
+sacrifice. When the storm was blown over, these men again asked to be
+received into the Church, and their conduct gave rise to the very
+same quarrel that had divided the Christians in the reign of Decius.
+Meletius, a bishop of the Thebaid, was at the head of the party who
+would make no allowance for the weakness of their brethren, and who
+refused to grant to the repentant the forgiveness that they asked for.
+He had himself borne the same trials without bending, he had been
+sent as a criminal to work in the Egyptian mines, and had returned to
+Alexandria from his banishment, proud of his sufferings and furious
+against those who had escaped through cowardice. But the larger part of
+the bishops were of a more forgiving nature; they could not all boast of
+the same constancy, and the repentant Christians were re-admitted
+into communion with the faithful, while the followers of Meletius were
+branded with the name of heretics.
+
+In Alexandria, Meletius soon found another and, as it proved, a more
+memorable occasion for the display of his zeal. He has the unenviable
+honour of being the author of the great Arian quarrel, by accusing of
+heresy Arius, at that time a presbyter of the church of Baucala near
+Alexandria, and by calling upon Alexander, the bishop, to inquire into
+his belief, and to condemn it if found unsound. Arius frankly and openly
+acknowledged his opinions: he thought Jesus a created being, and would
+speak of him in no higher terms than those used in the New Testament
+and Apostles’ Creed, and defended his opinions by an appeal to the
+Scriptures. But he soon found that his defence was thought weak,
+and, without waiting to be condemned, he withdrew before the storm to
+Palestine, where he remained till summoned before the council of Nicæa
+in the coming reign.
+
+It was during these reigns of trouble, about which history is sadly
+silent, when Greek learning was sinking, and after the country had
+been for a year or two in the power of the Syrians, that the worship of
+Mithra was brought into Alexandria, where superstitious ceremonies and
+philosophical subtleties were equally welcome. Mithra was the Persian
+god of the sun; and in the system of two gods, one good and the other
+wicked, he was the god of goodness.
+
+[Illustration: 179.jpg SYMBOL OF MITHRA]
+
+The chief symbol in his worship was the figure of a young hero in
+Phrygian cap and trousers, mounted on a sinking bull, and stabbing it
+in sacrifice to the god. In a deserted part of Alexandria, called the
+Mithrium, his rites were celebrated among ruins and rubbish; and his
+ignorant followers were as ignorantly accused of there slaying their
+fellow-citizens on his altars.
+
+It was about the same time that the eastern doctrine of Manicheism was
+said to have been brought into Egypt by Papus, and Thomas or Hernias.
+This sect, if sect it may be called, owed its origin to a certain
+Majus Mani, banished from Persia under the Sassanides; this Mani was
+a talented man, highly civilised through his studies and voyages in
+distant lands. In his exile he conceived the idea of putting himself
+forward as the reformer of the religions of all the peoples he had
+visited, and of reducing them all to one universal religion. Banished by
+the Christians, to whom he represented himself as the divinely inspired
+apostle of Jesus, in whom the Comforter had appeared, he returned to
+Persia, taking with him a book of the Gospels adorned by extraordinary
+paintings. Here he obtained at first the favour of the king and the
+people, till finally, after many changes of fortune, he was pursued by
+the magi, and convicted in a solemn disputation of falsifying religion;
+he was condemned to the terrible punishment of being flayed alive, after
+which his skin was to be stuffed and hung up over the gates of the
+royal city. His teaching consisted in a mixture of Persian and
+Christian-Gnostic views; its middle final point was the dualism of good
+and evil which rules in the world and in the human breast.
+
+According to Mani’s creed, there were originally two principles, God in
+His kingdom of light, and the demon with his kingdom of darkness, and
+these two principles existed independently of each other. The powers
+of evil fell into strife with each other, until, hurled away by their
+inward confusion, they reached the outermost edge of their own kingdom,
+and from there beheld the kingdom of light in all its glory. Now they
+ceased their strife among themselves and united to do battle to the
+kingdom of light. To meet them, God created the “original man” who,
+armed with the five pure elements, light, fire, air, water, and earth,
+advanced to meet the hostile powers. He was defeated, though finally
+saved; but a part of his light had thus made its way into the realm of
+darkness. In order gradually to regain this light, God caused the mother
+of life to create the visible world, in which that light lies hidden as
+a living power or world-soul awaiting its deliverance from the bonds of
+matter. In order to accomplish this redemption, two new beings of light
+proceed from God, viz.: Christ and the Holy Ghost, of whom the former,
+Christus Mithras, has his abode in the sun and moon, the latter in the
+ether diffused around the entire world. Both attract the powers of light
+which have sunk into the material world in order to lead them back,
+finally, into the everlasting realm of light. To oppose them, however,
+the demons created a new being, viz.: man, after the example of the
+“original man,” and united in him the clearest light and the darkness
+peculiar to themselves, in order that the great strife might be renewed
+in his breast, and so man became the point of union of all the forces in
+the universe, the microcosm in which two principles ever strive for the
+mastery. Through the enticements of the material and the illusions
+of the demon, the soul of light was held in bondage in spite of its
+indwelling capacity for freedom, so that in heathenism and Judaism the
+“son of everlasting light,” as the soul of the universe, was chained
+to matter. In order to accomplish this work of redemption more quickly,
+Christ finally leaves his throne at God’s right hand, and appears
+on earth, truly in human form, but only with an apparent body; his
+suffering and death on the cross are but illusions for the multitude,
+although historical facts, and they serve at the same time as a symbol
+of the light imprisoned in matter, and as a typical expression of
+the suffering, poured out over the whole of nature (especially in the
+plant-world), of the great physical _weltschmerz_. Christ, through his
+teaching and power of attraction, began the deliverance of the light,
+so that one can truly say that the salvation of the world proceeds
+from rays which stream from the Cross; as, however, his teachings
+were conceived by the apostles in a Jewish sense, and the Gospels
+were disfigured, Mani appeared as the comforter promised by Christ
+to accomplish the victory. In his writings only is the pure truth
+preserved. Finally there will be a complete separation of the light from
+the darkness, and then the powers of darkness will fall upon each other
+again.
+
+The ignorant in all ages of Christianity seem to have held nearly the
+same opinion in one form or other, thinking that sin has arisen either
+from a wicked being or from the wickedness of the flesh itself. The Jews
+alone proclaimed that God created good and God created evil. But we know
+of few writers who have ever owned themselves Manicheans, though many
+have been reproached as such; their doctrine is now known only in the
+works written against it. Of all heresies among the Christians this is
+the one most denounced by the ecclesiastical writers, and most severely
+threatened by the laws when the law makers became Christian; and of
+all the accusations of the angry controversialists this was the most
+reproachful. We might almost think that the numerous fathers who have
+written against the Manicheans must have had an easy victory when the
+enemy never appeared in the field, when their writings were scarcely
+answered, or their arguments denied; but perhaps a juster view would
+lead us to remark how much the writers, as well as the readers, must
+have felt the difficulty of accounting for the origin of evil, since men
+have run into such wild opinions to explain it.
+
+Another heresy, which for a time made even as much noise as the last,
+was that of Hieracas of Leontopolis. Even in Egypt, where for two
+thousand years it had been the custom to make the bodies of the dead
+into mummies, to embalm them against the day of resurrection, a custom
+which had been usually practised by the Christians, this native Egyptian
+ventured to teach that nothing but the soul would rise from the dead,
+and that we must look forward to only a spiritual resurrection. Hieracas
+was a man of some learning, and, much to the vexation of those who
+opposed his arguments, he could repeat nearly the whole Bible by heart.
+
+The Bishop Hesychius, the martyr in the late persecution, was one of
+the learned men of the time. He had published a new edition of the
+Septuagint Old Testament, and also of the New Testament. This edition
+was valued and chiefly used in Egypt, while that by Lucianus,
+who suffered in the same persecution, was read in Asia Minor from
+Constantinople to Antioch, and the older edition by Origen remained in
+use in Palestine. But such was the credit of Alexandria, as the chief
+seat of Christian learning, that distant churches sent there for
+copies of the Scriptures, foreign translations were mostly made from
+Alexandrian copies, and the greater number of Christians even now read
+the Bible according to the edition by Hesychius. We must, however, fear
+that these editors were by no means judicious in their labours.
+
+[Illustration: 184.jpg DOME PALM OF UPPER EGYPT]
+
+From the text itself we can learn that the early copiers of the Bible
+thought those manuscripts most valuable which were most full. Many a
+gloss and marginal note got written into the text. Their devotional
+feelings blinded their critical judgment; and they never ventured to put
+aside a modern addition as spurious. This mistaken view of their
+duty had of old guided the Hebrew copiers in Jerusalem; and though in
+Alexandria a juster criticism had been applied to the copies of Homer,
+it was not thought proper to use the same good sense when making copies
+of the Bible. So strong was the habit of grafting the additions into
+the text that the Greek translation became more copious than the Hebrew
+original, as the Latin soon afterwards became more copious than the
+Greek.
+
+It was about this time, at least after Theodotion’s translation of
+Daniel had received the sanction of the Alexandrian church, and when the
+teachers of Christianity found willing hearers in every city of Egypt,
+that the Bible was translated into the language of the country. We have
+now parts of several Koptic versions. They are translated closely, and
+nearly word by word from the Greek; and, being meant for a people among
+whom that language had been spoken for centuries, about one word in five
+is Greek. The Thebaic and Bashmuric versions may have been translated
+from the edition by Hesychius; but the Koptic version seems older, and
+its value to the Biblical critic is very great, as it helps us, with
+the quotations in Origen and Clemens, to distinguish the edition of
+the sacred text which was then used in Alexandria, and is shown in the
+celebrated Vatican manuscript, from the later editions used afterwards
+in Constantinople and Italy, when Christian literature flourished in
+those countries.
+
+The Emperor Maximin died at Tarsus in A.D. 313, after being defeated by
+Licinius, who like himself had been raised to the rank of Augustus by
+Galerius, and to whom the empire of Egypt and the East then fell,
+while Constantine, the son of Constantius, governed Italy and the West.
+Licinius held his empire for ten years against the growing strength of
+his colleague and rival; but the ambition of Constantine increased with
+his power, and Licinius was at last forced to gather together his army
+in Thrace, to defend himself from an attack. His forces consisted of
+one hundred and fifty thousand foot, fifteen thousand horse, and three
+hundred and fifty triremes, of which Egypt furnished eighty. He was
+defeated near Adrianople; and then, upon a promise that his life should
+be spared, he surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia. But the promise
+was forgotten and Licinius hanged, and the Roman world was once more
+governed by a single emperor. The growing strength of his colleague and
+rival; but the ambition of Constantine increased with his power, and
+Licinius was at last forced to gather together his army in Thrace, to
+defend himself from an attack. His forces consisted of one hundred and
+fifty thousand foot, fifteen thousand horse, and three hundred and
+fifty triremes, of which Egypt furnished eighty. He was defeated near
+Adrianople; and then, upon a promise that his life should be spared, he
+surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia. But the promise was forgotten
+and Licinius hanged, and the Roman world was once more governed by a
+single emperor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--THE CHRISTIAN PERIOD IN EGYPT
+
+
+_The Ascendency of the new religion: The Arian controversies: The
+Zenith of monasticism: The final struggle of Paganism: The decline of
+Alexandria._
+
+
+Coming under the Roman sway, the Greek world underwent, not only
+politically but also intellectually, a complete change. As the
+Roman conquest had worn away all political differences and national
+divergences, and, by uniting the various races under the rule of the
+empire was bringing to its consummation the work begun by the Macedonian
+conqueror, it could not fail to influence the train of thought. On the
+one hand the political and ideal structure of Greek life was crumbling
+and bringing down the support and guiding principle supplied by the
+duties of citizenship and the devotion to the commonwealth. Man was
+thrown upon himself to find the principles of conduct. The customary
+morality and religion had been shaken in their foundations. The
+belief in the old gods and the old religion was undermined. Philosophy
+endeavoured to occupy the place left vacant by the gradual decay of the
+national religion. The individual, seeking for support and spiritual
+guidance, found it, or at least imagined he had found it, in philosophy.
+The conduct of life became the fundamental problem, and philosophy
+assumed a practical aspect. It aimed at finding a complete art of
+living. It had a thoroughly ethical stamp, and became more and more a
+rival of and opposed to religion. Such were the tendencies of the Stoic
+and Epicurean schools. The Roman rule was greatly favourable to such
+a development of thought. The Romans were a practical nation, had no
+conception of nor appreciation for purely theoretical problems, and
+demanded practical lessons and philosophical investigations which would
+serve as a guide for life. Thus the political tendency of the time
+towards practical wisdom had imparted a new direction to philosophical
+thought. Yet, as time went on, a deep feeling of dissatisfaction seized
+the ancient world in the midst of all the glories of the Roman rule.
+This huge empire could offer to the peoples, which it had welded
+into one mighty unit, no compensation for the loss of their national
+independence; it offered them no inner worth nor outer fortune. There
+was a complete discord running through the entire civilisation of the
+Græco-Roman world. The social condition of the empire had brought with
+it extreme contrasts in the daily life. The contrasts had become more
+pronounced. Abundance and luxury existed side by side with misery
+and starvation. Millions were excluded from the very necessaries of
+existence. With the sense of injustice and revolt against the
+existing inequality of the state of society, the hope for some future
+compensation arose. The millions excluded from the worldly possessions
+turned longingly to a better world. The thoughts of man were turned
+to something beyond terrestrial life, to heaven instead of earth.
+Philosophy, too, had failed to give complete satisfaction. Man had
+realised his utter inability to find knowledge in himself by his
+unaided efforts. He despaired to arrive at it without the help of some
+transcendental power and its kind assistance. Salvation was not to be
+found in man’s own nature, but in a world beyond that of the senses.
+Philosophy could not satisfy the cultured man by the presentation of its
+ethical ideal of life, could not secure for him the promised happiness.
+Philosophy, therefore, turned to religion for help. At Alexandria,
+where, in the active work of its museum, all treasures of Grecian
+culture were garnered, all religions and forms of worship crowded
+together in the great throng of the commercial metropolis to seek a
+scientific clarification of the feelings that surged and stormed within
+them. The cosmopolitan spirit and broad-mindedness which had brought
+nations together under the Egyptian government, which had gathered
+scholars from all parts in the library and the museum, was favourable
+also to the fusion and reconciliation in the evolution of thought.
+
+If Alexandria was the birthplace of that intellectual movement which has
+been described, this was not only the result of the prevailing spirit of
+the age, but was due to the influence of ideas; salvation could only be
+found in the reconciliation of ideas. The geographical centre of this
+movement of fusion and reconciliation was, however, in Alexandria.
+After having been the town of the museum and the library, of criticism
+and literary erudition, Alexandria became once again the meeting-place
+of philosophical schools and religious sects; communication had become
+easier, and various fundamentally different inhabitants belonging to
+distinct social groups met on the banks of the Nile. Not only goods and
+products of the soil were exchanged, but also ideas and thoughts. The
+mental horizon was widened, comparisons ensued, and new ideas were
+suggested and formed. This mixture of ideas necessarily created a
+complex spirit where two currents of thought, of critical scepticism and
+superstitious credulity, mixed and mingled. Another powerful factor was
+the close contact in which Occidentalism or Greek culture found itself
+with Orientalism. Here it was where the Greek and Oriental spirit mixed
+and mingled, producing doctrines and religious systems containing germs
+of tradition and science, of inspiration and reflection. Images and
+formulas, method and ecstasy, were interwoven and intertwined. The
+brilliant qualities of the Greek spirit, its sagacity and subtlety of
+intelligence, its lucidity and facility of expression, were animated and
+vivified by the Oriental spark, and gained new life and vigour. On
+the other hand, the contemplative spirit of the Orient, which is
+characterised by its aspiration towards the invisible and mysterious,
+would never have produced a coherent system or theory had it not been
+aided by Greek science. It was the latter that arranged and explained
+the Oriental traditions, loosed their tongues, and produced those
+religious doctrines and philosophical systems which culminated in
+Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, the Judaism of Philo, and the Polytheism of
+Julian the Apostate.
+
+It was the contemplative Oriental mind, with its tendency towards the
+supernatural and miraculous, with its mysticism and religion, and Greece
+with her subtle scrutinising and investigating spirit, which gave rise
+to the peculiar phase of thought prevalent in Alexandria during the
+first centuries of our era. It was tinctured with idealistic, mystic,
+and yet speculative and scientific colours. Hence the religious spirit
+in philosophy and the philosophic tendency in the religious system that
+are the characteristic features. “East and West,” says Baldwin,* “met
+at Alexandria.” The co-operative ideas of civilisations, cultures,
+and religions of Rome, Greece, Palestine, and the farther East found
+themselves in juxtaposition. Hence arose a new problem, developed partly
+by Occidental thought, partly by Oriental aspiration. Religion and
+philosophy became inextricably mixed, and the resultant doctrines
+consequently belong to neither sphere proper, but are rather witnesses
+of an attempt at combining both.
+
+     * Baldwin: Dictionary of Philosophy.
+
+These efforts naturally came from two sides. On the one hand, the Jews
+tried to accommodate their faith to the results of Western culture, in
+which Greek culture predominated. On the other hand, thinkers whose
+main impulse came from Greek philosophy attempted to accommodate their
+doctrines to the distinctively religious problems which the Eastern
+nations had brought with them. From whichever side the consequences be
+viewed, they are to be characterised as theosophical rather than purely
+philosophical, purely religious, or purely theological.
+
+The reign of Constantine the Great, who became sole ruler of the East
+and West in 323, after ten years’ joint government with Licinius, is
+remarkable for the change which was then wrought in the religion and
+philosophy of the empire by the emperor’s embracing the Christian
+faith. His conversion occurred in 312, and on his coming to the united
+sovereignty the Christians were at once released from every punishment
+and disability on account of their religion, which was then more than
+tolerated; they were put upon a nearly equal footing with the pagans,
+and every minister of the Church was released from the burden of
+civil and military duties. Whether the emperor’s conversion arose from
+education, from conviction, or from state policy, we have no means of
+knowing; but Christianity did not reach the throne before it was the
+religion of a most important class of his subjects, and the Egyptian
+Christians soon found themselves numerous enough to call the Greek
+Christians heretics, as the Greek Christians had already begun to
+designate the Jewish.
+
+The Greeks of Alexandria had formed rather a school of philosophy than
+a religious sect. Before Alexander’s conquest the Greek settlers
+at Naucratis had thought it necessary to have their own temples and
+sacrifices; but since the building of Alexandria they had been smitten
+with the love of Eastern mysticism, and content to worship in the
+temples of Serapis and Mithra, and to receive instruction from the
+Egyptian priests. They had supported the religion of the conquered
+Egyptians without wholly believing it; and had shaken by their ridicule
+the respect for the very ceremonies which they upheld by law. Polytheism
+among the Greeks had been further shaken by the platonists; and
+Christianity spread in about equal proportions among the Greeks and the
+Egyptians. Before the conversion of Constantine the Egyptian church
+had already spread into every city of the province, and had a regular
+episcopal government. Till the time of Heraclas and Dionysius, the
+bishops had been always chosen by the votes of the presbyters, as the
+archdeacons were by the deacons. Dionysius in his public epistles joins
+with himself his fellow-presbyters as if he were only the first among
+equals; but after that time some irregularities had crept into the
+elections, and latterly the Church had become more monarchical. There
+was a patriarch in Alexandria, with a bishop in every other large city,
+each assisted by a body of priests and deacons. They had been clad in
+faith, holiness, humility, and charity; but Constantine robed them in
+honour, wealth, and power; and to this many of them soon added pride,
+avarice, and ambition.
+
+This reign is no less remarkable for the religious quarrel which then
+divided the Christians, which set church against church and bishop
+against bishop, as soon as they lost that great bond of union, the fear
+of the pagans. Jesus of Nazareth was acknowledged by Constantine as
+a divine person; and, in the attempt then made by the Alexandrians to
+arrive at a more exact definition of his nature, while the emperor was
+willing to be guided by the bishops in his theological opinions, he
+was able to instruct them all in the more valuable lessons of mutual
+toleration and forbearance. The followers of early religions held
+different opinions, but distinguished themselves apart only by outward
+modes of worship, such as by sacrifices among the Greeks and Romans,
+and among the Jews and Egyptians by circumcision, and abstinence from
+certain meats. When Jesus of Nazareth introduced his spiritual religion
+of repentance and amendment of life, he taught that the test by which
+his disciples wrere to be known was their love to one another. After
+his death, however, the Christians gave more importance to opinions
+in religion, and towards the end of the third century they proposed to
+distinguish their fellow-worshippers in a mode hitherto unknown to the
+world, namely, by the profession of belief in certain opinions; for as
+yet there was no difference in their belief of historic facts. This gave
+rise to numerous metaphysical discussions, particularly among the more
+speculative and mystical.
+
+At about this time the chief controversy was as to whether Christ was
+of the _same_, or of _similar_ substance with God the Father, this being
+the dispute which divided Christendom for centuries. This dispute and
+others not quite so metaphysical were brought to the ears of the emperor
+by Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and Arius, the presbyter. The bishop
+had been enquiring into the belief of the presbyter, and the latter
+had argued against his superior and against the doctrine of the
+_consubstantiality_ of the Father and the Son. The emperor’s letter
+to the theologians, in this first ecclesiastical quarrel that was ever
+brought before a Christian monarch, is addressed to Alexander and Arius,
+and he therein tells them that they are raising useless questions, which
+it is not necessary to settle, and which, though a good exercise for the
+understanding, only breed ill-will, and should be kept by each man in
+his own breast. He regrets the religious madness which has seized all
+Egypt; and lastly he orders the bishop not to question the priest as
+to his belief, and orders the priest, if questioned, not to return an
+answer. But this wise letter had no weight with the Alexandrian divines.
+The quarrel gained in importance from being noticed by the emperor; the
+civil government of the country was clogged; and Constantine, after
+having once interfered, was persuaded to call a council of bishops to
+settle the Christian faith for the future. Nicæa in Bithynia was chosen
+as the spot most convenient for Eastern Christendom to meet in; and two
+hundred and fifty bishops, followed by crowds of priests, there met
+in council from Greece, Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and
+Libya, with one or two from Western Europe.
+
+At this synod, held in the year 325, Athanasius, a young deacon in the
+Alexandrian church, came for the first time into notice as the champion
+of Alexander against Arius, who was then placed upon his trial. All the
+authority, eloquence, and charity of the emperor were needed to quell
+the tumultuous passions of the assembly. It ended its stormy labours by
+voting what was called the Homoousian doctrine, that Jesus was of one
+substance with God. They put forth to the world the celebrated creed,
+named, from the city in which they met, the Nicene creed, and they
+excommunicated Arius and his followers, who were then all banished by
+the emperor. The meeting had afterwards less difficulty in coming to
+an agreement about the true time of Easter, and in excommunicating the
+Jews; and all except the Egyptians returned home with a wish that the
+quarrel should be forgotten and forgiven.
+
+This first attempt among the Christians at settling the true faith by
+putting fetters on the mind, by drawing up a creed and punishing those
+that disbelieved it, was but the beginning of theological difficulties.
+These in Egypt arose as much from the difference of blood and language
+of the races that inhabited the country as from their religious belief;
+and Constantine must soon have seen that if as a theologian he had
+decided right, yet as a statesman he had been helping the Egyptians
+against the friends of his own Greek government in Alexandria.
+
+After a reasonable delay, Arius addressed to the emperor a letter either
+of explanation or apology, asserting his full belief in Christianity,
+explaining his faith by using the words of the Apostles’ Creed, and
+begging to be re-admitted into the Church. The emperor, either from a
+readiness to forgive, or from a change of policy, or from an ignorance
+of the theological controversy, was satisfied with the apology, and
+thereupon wrote a mild conciliatory letter to Athanasius, who had in
+the meantime been made Bishop of Alexandria, expressing his wish
+that forgiveness should at all times be offered to the repentant, and
+ordering him to re-admit Arius to his rank in the Church. But the young
+Athanasius, who had gained his favour with the Egyptian clergy, and had
+been raised to his high seat by his zeal shown against Arius, refused
+to obey the commands of the emperor, alleging that it was unlawful
+to re-admit into the Church anybody who had once been excommunicated.
+Constantine could hardly be expected to listen to this excuse, or
+to overlook this direct refusal to obey his orders. The rebellious
+Athanasius was ordered into the emperor’s presence at Constantinople,
+and soon afterwards, in 335, called before a council of bishops at Tyre,
+where he was deposed and banished. At the same council, in the thirtieth
+year of this reign, Arius was re-admitted into communion with the
+Church, and after a few months he was allowed to return to Alexandria,
+to the indignation of the popular party in that city, while Athanasius
+remained in banishment during the rest of the reign, as a punishment for
+his disobedience.
+
+This practice of judging and condemning opinions gave power in the
+Church to men who would otherwise have been least entitled to weight and
+influence. Athanasius rose to his high rank over the heads of the elder
+presbyters by his fitness for the harsher duties then required of an
+archbishop. Theological opinions became the watchwords of two contending
+parties; religion lost much of its empire over the heart; and the
+mild spirit of Christianity gave way to angry quarrels and cruel
+persecutions.
+
+Another remarkable event of this reign was the foundation of the new
+city of Constantinople, to which the emperor removed the seat of his
+government. Rome lost much by the building of the new capital, although
+the emperors had for some time past ceased to live in Italy; but
+Alexandria lost the rank which it had long held as the centre of Greek
+learning and Greek thought, and it felt a blow from which Rome was saved
+by the difference of language. The patriarch of Alexandria was no longer
+the head of Greek Christendom. That rank was granted to the bishop of
+the imperial city; many of the philosophers who hung round the palace
+at Constantinople would otherwise have studied and taught in the museum;
+and the Greeks, by whose superiority Egypt had so long been kept in
+subjection, gradually became the weaker party. In the opinion of the
+historian, as in the map of the geographer, Alexandria had formerly been
+a Greek state on the borders of Egypt; but since the rebellion in the
+reign of Diocletian it was becoming more and more an Egyptian city; and
+those who in religion and politics thought and felt as Egyptians soon
+formed the larger half of the Alexandrians. The climate of Egypt was
+hardly fitted for the Greek race. Their numbers never could have been
+kept up by births alone, and they now began to lessen as the attraction
+to newcomers ceased. The pure Greek names henceforth become less common;
+and among the monks and writers we now meet with those named after the
+old gods of the country.
+
+[Illustration: 199.jpg THE ISLAND OF RHODHA]
+
+Constantine removed an obelisk from Egypt for the ornament of his new
+city, and he brought down another from Heliopolis to Alexandria; but he
+died before the second left the country, and it was afterwards taken
+by his son to Rome. These obelisks were covered with hieroglyphics,
+as usual, and we have a translation said to be made from the latter by
+Hermapion, an Egyptian priest. In order to take away its pagan character
+from the religious ceremony with which the yearly rise of the Nile wras
+celebrated in Alexandria, Constantine removed the sacred cubit from the
+temple of Serapis to one of the Christian churches; and nothwithstanding
+the gloomy forebodings of the people, the Nile rose as usual, and the
+clergy afterwards celebrated the time of its overflow as a Christian
+festival.
+
+The pagan philosophers under Constantine had but few pupils and met
+with but little encouragement. Alypius of Alexandria and his friend
+Iamblichus, however, still taught the philosophy of Ammonius
+and Plotinus. The only writings by Alypius now remaining are his
+_Introduction to Music_; in which he explains the notation of the
+fifteen modes or tones in their respective kinds of diatonic, chromatic,
+and enharmonic. His signs are said to be Pythagorean. They are in pairs,
+of which one is thought to represent the note struck on the lyre, and
+the other the tone of the voice to be sung thereto. They thus imply
+accord or harmony. The same signs are found in some manuscripts written
+over the syllables of ancient poems; and thereby scholars, learned at
+once in the Greek language, in the art of deciphering signs, and in the
+science of music, now chant the odes of Pindar in strains not dissimilar
+to modern cathedral psalmody.
+
+Sopator succeeded Iamblichus as professor of platonism in Alexandria,
+with the proud title of successor to Plato, For some time he enjoyed the
+friendship of Constantine; but, when religion made a quarrel between
+the friends, the philosopher was put to death by the emperor. The pagan
+account of the quarrel was that, when Constantine had killed his son, he
+applied to Sopator to be purified from his guilt; and when the platonist
+answered that he knew of no ceremony that could absolve a man from such
+a crime, the emperor applied to the Christians for baptism. This
+story may not be true, and the ecclesiastical historian remarks that
+Constantine had professed Christianity several years before the murder
+of his son; but then, as after his conversion he had got Sopator to
+consecrate his new city with a variety of pagan ceremonies, he may in
+the same way have asked him to absolve him from the guilt of murder.
+
+On the death of Constantine, in 337, his three sons, without entirely
+dismembering the empire, divided the provinces of the Roman world into
+three shares. Constantine II., the eldest son, who succeeded to the
+throne of his father in Constantinople, and Constans, the youngest,
+who dwelt in Rome, divided Europe between them; while Constantius,
+the second son, held Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Egypt, of which
+possessions Antioch on the Orontes was at that time the capital. Thus
+Alexandria was doomed to a further fall. When governed by Rome it had
+still been the first of Greek cities; afterwards, when the seat of the
+empire was fixed at Constantinople, it became the second; but on this
+division of the Roman world, when the seat of government came still
+nearer to Egypt, and Antioch rose as the capital of the East, Alexandria
+fell to be the third among Greek cities. Egypt quietly received its
+political orders from Antioch. Its opinions also in some cases followed
+those of the capital, and it is curious to remark that the Alexandrian
+writers, when dating by the era of the creation, were now willing to
+consider the world ten years less old than they used, because it was so
+thought at Antioch. But it was not so with their religious opinions,
+and as long as Antioch and its emperor undertook to govern the Egyptian
+church there was little peace in the province.
+
+The three emperors did not take the same side in the quarrel which under
+the name of religion was then unsettling the obedience of the Egyptians,
+and even in some degree troubling the rest of the empire. Constantius
+held the Arian opinions of Syria; but Constantine II. and Constans
+openly gave their countenance to the party of the rebellious Athanasius,
+who under their favour ventured to return to Alexandria, where, after
+an absence of two years and four months, he was received in the warmest
+manner by his admiring flock. But on the death of Constantine II.,
+who was shortly afterwards killed in battle by his brother Constans,
+Constantius felt himself more master of his own kingdom; he deposed
+Athanasius, and summoned a council of bishops at Antioch to elect a new
+patriarch of Alexandria. Christian bishops, though they had latterly
+owed their ordination to the authority of their equals, had always
+received their bishoprics by the choice of their presbyters or of their
+flocks; and though they were glad to receive the support of the emperor,
+they were not willing to acknowledge him as their head. Hence, when the
+council at Antioch first elected Eusebius of Æmisa into the bishopric of
+Alexandria, he chose to refuse the honour which they had only a doubtful
+right to bestow, rather than to venture into the city in the face of his
+popular rival. The council then elected Gregory, whose greater courage
+and ambition led him to accept the office.
+
+The council of Antioch then made some changes in the creed. A few years
+later, a second council met in the same place, and drew up a creed more
+near to what we now call the Athanasian; but it was firmly rejected by
+the Egyptian and Roman churches. Gregory was no sooner elected to the
+bishopric than he issued his commands as bishop, though, if he had
+the courage, he had not at the time the power to enter Alexandria.
+But Syrianus, the general of the Egyptian troops, was soon afterwards
+ordered by the emperor to place him on his episcopal throne; and he led
+him into the city, surrounded by the spears of five thousand soldiers,
+and followed by the small body of Alexandrians that after this invasion
+of their acknowledged rights still called themselves Arians. Gregory
+entered Alexandria in the evening, meaning to take his seat in the
+church on the next day; but the people in their zeal did not wait
+quietly for the dreaded morning. They ran at once to the church, and
+passed the night there with Athanasius in the greatest anxiety. In
+the morning, when Gregory arrived at the church, accompanied with the
+troops, he found the doors barricaded and the building full of men and
+women, denouncing the sacrilege, and threatening resistance. But the
+general gave orders that the church should be stormed, and the new
+bishop carried in by force of arms; and Athanasius, seeing that all
+resistance was useless, ordered the deacons to give out a psalm, and
+they all marched out at the opposite door singing. After these acts of
+violence on the part of the troops, and of resistance on the part of the
+people, the whole city was thrown into an uproar, and the prefect was
+hardly strong enough to carry on the government; the regular supply of
+grain for the poor citizens of Alexandria, and for Constantinople, was
+stopped; and the blame of the whole thrown upon Athanasius. He was a
+second time obliged to leave Egypt, and he fled to Rome, where he was
+warmly received by the Emperor Constans and the Roman bishop. But the
+zeal of the Athanasian party would not allow Gregory to keep possession
+of the church which he had gained only by force; they soon afterwards
+set fire to it and burned it to the ground, choosing that there should
+be no church at all rather than that it should be in the hands of the
+Arians; and the Arian clergy and bishops, though supported by the favour
+of the emperor and the troops of the prefect, were everywhere throughout
+Egypt driven from their churches and monasteries. During this quarrel it
+seems to have been felt by both parties that the choice of the people,
+or at least of the clergy, was necessary to make a bishop, and that
+Gregory had very little claim to that rank in Alexandria. Julius, the
+Bishop of Rome, warmly espoused the cause of Athanasius, and he wrote a
+letter to the Alexandrian church, praising their zeal for their bishop,
+and ordering them to re-admit him to his former rank, from which he
+had been deposed by the council of Antioch, but to which he had been
+restored by the Western bishops. Athanasius was also warmly supported
+by Constans, the emperor of the West, who at the same time wrote to his
+brother Constantius, begging him to replace the Alexandrian bishop,
+and making the additional threat that if he would not reinstate him he
+should be made to do so by force of arms.
+
+Constantius, after taking the advice of his own bishops, thought it
+wisest to yield to the wishes or rather the commands of his brother
+Constans, and he wrote to Athanasius, calling him into his presence
+in Constantinople. But the rebellious bishop was not willing to trust
+himself within the reach of his offended sovereign; and it was not till
+after a second and a third letter, pressing him to come and promising
+him his safety, that he ventured within the limits of the Eastern
+empire. Strong in his high character for learning, firmness, and
+political skill, carrying with him the allegiance of the Egyptian
+nation, which was yielded to him much rather than to the emperor, and
+backed by the threats of Constans, Athanasius was at least a match
+for Constantius. At Constantinople the emperor and his subject, the
+Alexandrian bishop, made a formal treaty, by which it was agreed
+that, if Constantius would allow the Homoousian clergy throughout his
+dominions to return to their churches, Athanasius would in the same
+way throughout Egypt restore the Arian clergy; and upon this agreement
+Athanasius himself returned to Alexandria.
+
+Among the followers of Athanasius was that important mixed race with
+whom the Egyptian civilisation chiefly rested, a race that may be called
+Koptic, but half Greek and half Egyptian in their language and religion
+as in their forefathers. But in feelings they were wholly opposed to the
+Greeks of Alexandria. Never since the last Nectanebo was conquered by
+the Persians, eight hundred years earlier, did the Egyptians seem so
+near to throwing off the foreign yoke and rising again as an independent
+nation. But the Greeks, who had taught them so much, had not taught them
+the arts of war; and the nation remained enslaved to those who could
+wield the sword. The return of Athanasius, however, was only the signal
+for a fresh uproar, and the Arians complained that Egypt was kept in a
+constant turmoil by his zealous activity. Nor were the Arians his only
+enemies. He had offended many others of his clergy by his overbearing
+manners, and more particularly by his following in the steps of
+Alexander, the late bishop, in claiming new and higher powers for
+the office of patriarch than had ever been yielded to the bishops of
+Alexandria before their spiritual rank had been changed into civil rank
+by the emperor’s adoption of their religion. Meletius headed a strong
+party of bishops, priests, and deacons in opposing the new claims of the
+archiepiscopal see of Alexandria. His followers differed in no point of
+doctrine from the Athanasian party, but as they sided with the Arians
+they were usually called heretics.
+
+By this time the statesmen and magistrates had gained a clear view of
+the change which had come over the political state of the empire, first
+by the spread of Christianity, and secondly by the emperor’s embracing
+it. By supporting Christianity the emperors gave rank in the state to
+an organised and well-trained body, which immediately found itself in
+possession of all the civil power. A bishopric, which a few years before
+was a post of danger, was now a place of great profit, and secured to
+its possessor every worldly advantage of wealth, honour, and power.
+An archbishop in the capital, obeyed by a bishop in every city, with
+numerous priests and deacons under them, was usually of more weight than
+the prefect. While Athanasius was at the height of his popularity
+in Egypt, and was supported by the Emperor of the West, the Emperor
+Constantius was very far from being his master. But on the death of
+Constans, when Constantius became sovereign of the whole empire, he once
+more tried to make Alexandria and the Egyptian church obedient to
+his wishes. He was, however, still doubtful how far it was prudent to
+measure his strength against that of the bishop, and he chose rather
+to begin privately with threats before using his power openly. He first
+wrote word to Athanasius, as if in answer to a request from the bishop,
+that he was at liberty, if he wished, to visit Italy; but he sent the
+letter by the hands of the notary Diogenes, who added, by word of
+mouth, that the permission was meant for a command, and that it was the
+emperor’s pleasure that he should immediately quit his bishopric and the
+province. But this underhand conduct of the emperor only showed his own
+weakness. Athanasius steadily refused to obey any unwritten orders, and
+held his bishopric for upwards of two years longer, before Constantius
+felt strong enough to enforce his wishes. Towards the end of that time,
+Syrianus, the general of the Egyptian army, to whom this delicate task
+was entrusted, gathered together from other parts of the province a
+body of five thousand chosen men, and with these he marched quietly into
+Alexandria, to overawe, if possible, the rebellious bishop. He gave
+out no reason for his conduct; but the Arians, who were in the secret,
+openly boasted that it would soon be their turn to possess the churches.
+Syrianus then sent for Athanasius, and in the presence of Maximus the
+prefect again delivered to him the command of Constantius, that he
+should quit Egypt and retire into banishment, and he threatened to carry
+this command into execution by the help of the troops if he met with any
+resistance. Athanasius, without refusing to obey, begged to be shown the
+emperor’s orders in writing; but this reasonable request was refused. He
+then entreated them even to give him, in their own handwriting, an order
+for his banishment; but this was also refused, and the citizens,
+who were made acquainted with the emperor’s wishes and the bishop’s
+firmness, waited in dreadful anxiety to see whether the prefect and the
+general would venture to enforce their orders. The presbytery of the
+church and the corporation of the city went up to Syrianus in solemn
+procession to beg him either to show a written authority for the
+banishment of their bishop, or to write to Constantinople to learn the
+emperor’s pleasure. To this request Syrianus at last yielded, and gave
+his word to the friends of Athanasius that he would take no further
+steps till the return of the messengers which he then sent to
+Constantinople.
+
+But Syrianus had before received his orders, which were, if possible, to
+frighten Athanasius into obedience, and, if that could not be done, then
+to employ force, but not to expose the emperor’s written commands to the
+danger of being successfully resisted. He therefore only waited for an
+opportunity of carrying them into effect; and at midnight, on the ninth
+of February, A.D. 356, twenty-three days after the promise had been
+given, Syrianus, at the head of his troops, armed for the assault,
+surrounded the church where Athanasius and a crowded assembly were at
+prayers. The doors were forcibly and suddenly broken open, the armed
+soldiers rushed forward to seize the bishop, and numbers of his faithful
+friends were slain in their efforts to save him. Athanasius, however,
+escaped in the tumult; but though the general was unsuccessful, the
+bodies of the slain and the arms of the soldiers found scattered through
+the church in the morning were full proofs of his unholy attempt. The
+friends of the bishop drew up and signed a public declaration describing
+the outrage, and Syrianus sent to Constantinople a counter-protest
+declaring that there had been no disturbance in the city.
+
+Athanasius, with nearly the whole of the nation for his friends, easily
+escaped the vengeance of the emperor; and, withdrawing for a third time
+from public life, he passed the remainder of this reign in concealment.
+He did not, however, neglect the interests of his flock. He encouraged
+them with his letters, and even privately visited his friends in
+Alexandria. As the greater part of the population was eager to befriend
+him, he was there able to hide himself for six years. Disregarding
+the scandal that might arise from it, he lived in the house of a young
+woman, who concealed him in her chamber, and waited on him with untiring
+zeal. She was then in the flower of her youth, only twenty years of age;
+and fifty years afterwards, in the reign of Theodosius II., when the
+name of the archbishop ranked with those of the apostles, this woman
+used to boast among the monks of Alexandria that in her youth she had
+for six years concealed the great Athanasius.
+
+But though the general was not wholly successful, yet the Athanasian
+party was for the time crushed. Sebastianus, the new prefect, was sent
+into Egypt with orders to seize Athanasius dead or alive, wherever he
+should be found within the province; and under his protection the Arian
+party in Alexandria again ventured to meet in public, and proceeded
+to choose a bishop. They elected to this high position the celebrated
+George of Cappadocia, a man who, while he equalled his more popular
+rival in learning and in ambition, fell far behind him in coolness of
+judgment, and in that political skill which is as much wanted in the
+guidance of a religious party as in the government of an empire.
+
+George was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, and was the son of a clothier,
+but his ambition led him into the Church, as being at that time the
+fairest field for the display of talent; and he rose from one station
+to another till he reached the high post of Bishop of Alexandria. The
+fickle, irritable Alexandrians needed no such firebrand to light up the
+flames of discontent. George took no pains to conceal the fact that he
+held his bishopric by the favour of the emperor and the power of the
+army against the wishes of his flock. To support his authority, he
+opened his doors to informers of the worst description; anybody who
+stood in the way of his grasp at power was accused of being an enemy
+to the emperor. He proposed to the emperor to lay a house-tax on
+Alexandria, thereby to repay the expense incurred by Alexander the Great
+in building the city; and he made the imperial government more unpopular
+than it had ever been since Augustus landed in Egypt. He used the army
+as the means of terrifying the Homoousians into an acknowledgment of the
+Arian opinions. He banished fifteen bishops to the Great Oasis,
+besides others of lower rank. He beat, tortured, and put to death; the
+persecution was more cruel than any suffered from the pagans, except
+perhaps that in the reign of Diocletian; and thirty Egyptian bishops are
+said to have lost their lives while George was patriarch of Alexandria.
+Most of these accusations, however, are from the pens of his enemies. At
+this time the countries at the southern end of the Red Sea were becoming
+a little more known to Alexandria. Meropius, travelling in the reign of
+Constantine for curiosity and the sake of knowledge, had visited Auxum,
+the capital of the Hexumito, in Abyssinia. His companion Frumentius
+undertook to convert the people to Christianity and persuade them
+to trade with Egypt; and, as he found them willing to listen to his
+arguments, he came home to Alexandria to tell of his success and ask
+for support. Athanasius readily entered into a plan for spreading the
+blessings of Christianity and the power of the Alexandrian church. To
+increase the missionary’s weight he consecrated him a bishop, and sent
+him back to Auxum to continue his good work. His progress, however, was
+somewhat checked by sectarian jealousy; for, when Athanasius was deposed
+by Constantius, Frumentius was recalled to receive again his orders and
+his opinions from the new patriarch. Constantius also sent an embassy to
+the Homeritse on the opposite coast of Arabia, under Theophilus, a monk
+and deacon in the Church. The Homerito were of Jewish blood though of
+gentile faith, and were readily converted, if not to Christianity, at
+least to friendship with the emperor. After consecrating their churches,
+Theophilus crossed over to the African coast, to the Hexumito, to carry
+on the work which Frumentius had begun. There he was equally successful
+in the object of his embassy. Both in trade and in religion the
+Hexumito, who were also of Jewish blood, were eager to be connected with
+the Europeans, from whom they were cut off by Arabs of a wilder race. He
+found also a little to the south of Auxum a settlement of Syrians, who
+were said to have been placed there by Alexander the Great. These tribes
+spoke the language called Ethiopie, a dialect of Arabic which was not
+used in the country which we have hitherto called Ethiopia.
+
+[Illustration: 213.jpg TEMPLE OF ABU SIMBEL IN NUBIA]
+
+The Ethiopie version of the Bible was about this time made for their
+use. It was translated out of the Greek from the Alexandrian copies,
+as the Greek version was held in such value that it was not thought
+necessary to look to the Hebrew original of the Old Testament. But these
+well-meant efforts did little at the time towards making the Hexumitæ
+Christians. Distance and the Blemmyes checked their intercourse with
+Alexandria. It was not till two hundred years later that they could be
+said in the slightest sense to be converted to Christianity.
+
+Though the origin of monastic life has sometimes been claimed for the
+Essenes on the shores of the Dead Sea, yet it was in Egypt that it was
+framed into a system, and became the model for the Christian world. It
+took its rise in the serious and gloomy views of religion which always
+formed part of the Egyptian polytheism, and which the Greeks remarked as
+very unlike their own gay and tasteful modes of worship, and which were
+readily engrafted by the Egyptian converts into their own Christian
+belief. In the reigns of Constantine and his sons, hundreds of
+Christians, both men and women, quitting the pleasures and trials of
+the busy world, withdrew one by one into the Egyptian desert, where the
+sands are as boundless as the ocean, where the sunshine is less cheerful
+than darkness, to spend their lonely days and watchful nights in
+religious meditation and in prayer. They were led by a gloomy view
+of their duty towards God, and by a want of fellow-feeling for their
+neighbour; and they seemed to think that pain and misery in this world
+would save them from punishment hereafter. The lives of many of these
+Fathers of the Desert were written by the Christians who lived at the
+same time; but a full account of the miracles which were said to have
+been worked in their favour, or by their means, would now only call
+forth a smile of pity, or perhaps even of ridicule.
+
+“Prosperity and peace,” says Gibbon, “introduced the distinction of the
+vulgar and the ascetic Christians. The loose and imperfect practice
+of religion satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or
+magistrate, soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal, and
+implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of
+their interest, and the indulgence of their passions; but the ascetics,
+who obeyed and abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired
+by the severe enthusiasm which represents man as a criminal and God as
+a tyrant. They seriously renounced the business and the pleasures of the
+age; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage, chastised their
+body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as
+the price of eternal happiness. The ascetics fled from a profane and
+degenerate world to perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the
+first Christians of Jerusalem, they resigned the use, or the property,
+of their temporal possessions; established regular communities of the
+same sex and a similar disposition, and assumed the names of hermits,
+monks, or anchorites, expressive of their lonely retreat in a natural
+or artificial desert. They soon acquired the respect of the world, which
+they despised, and the loudest applause was bestowed on this divine
+philosophy, which surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the
+laborious virtues of the Grecian schools. The monks might indeed contend
+with the Stoics in the contempt of fortune, of pain, and of death;
+the Pythagorean silence and submission were revived in their servile
+discipline; and they disdained, as firmly as the Cynics themselves,
+all the forms and decencies of civil society. But the votaries of this
+divine philosophy aspired to imitate a purer and more perfect model.
+They trod in the footsteps of the prophets, who had retired to the
+desert; and they restored the devout and contemplative life, which
+had been instituted by the Essenians, in Palestine and Egypt. The
+philosophic eye of Pliny had surveyed with astonishment a solitary
+people who dwelt among the palm trees near the Dead Sea; who subsisted
+without money, who were propagated without women, and who derived from
+the disgust and repentance of mankind a perpetual supply of voluntary
+associates. Antony, an illiterate youth of the lower part of The-baid,
+distributed his patrimony, deserted his family and native home, and
+executed his monastic penance with original and intrepid fanaticism.
+After a long and painful novitiate among the tombs and in a ruined
+tower, he boldly advanced into the desert three days’ journey to the
+eastward of the Nile; discovered a lonely spot, which possessed the
+advantages of shade and water, and fixed his last residence on Mount
+Colzim near the Red Sea, where an ancient monastery still preserves the
+name and memory of the saint. The curious devotion of the Christians
+pursued him to the desert; and, when he was obliged to appear at
+Alexandria, in the face of mankind, he supported his fame with
+discretion and dignity. He enjoyed the friendship of Athanasius, whose
+doctrine he approved; and the Egyptian peasant respectfully declined
+a respectful invitation from the Emperor Constantine. The venerable
+patriarch (for Antony attained the age of 105 years) beheld the numerous
+progeny which had been formed by his example and his lessons. The
+prolific colonies of monks multiplied on the sands of Libya, upon the
+rocks of the Thebaid, and in the cities of the Nile. To the south of
+Alexandria, the mountain and adjacent desert of Nitria were peopled by
+five thousand anchorites; and the traveller may still investigate the
+ruins of fifty monasteries, which were planted in that barren soil by
+the disciples of Antony. In the Upper Thebaid, the vacant island of
+Tabenna was occupied by Pachomius and fourteen hundred of his brethren.
+That holy abbot successively founded nine monasteries of men and one
+of women; and the festival of Easter sometimes collected fifty thousand
+religious persons, who followed his angelic rules of discipline.
+The stately and populous city of Oxyrrhynchos, the seat of Christian
+orthodoxy, had devoted the temples, the public edifices, and even the
+ramparts, to pious and charitable uses, and the bishop, who might preach
+in twelve churches, computed ten thousand females and twenty thousand
+males of the monastic profession.”
+
+The monks borrowed many of their customs from the old Egyptian priests,
+such as shaving the head; and Athanasius in his charge to them orders
+them not to adopt the tonsure on the head, nor to shave the beard. He
+forbids their employing magic or incantations to assist their prayers.
+He endeavours to stop their emulation in fasting, and orders those whose
+strength of body enabled them to fast longest not to boast of it. But he
+orders them not even to speak to a woman, and wishes them not to bathe,
+as being an immodest act. The early Christians, as being a sect of Jews,
+had followed many Jewish customs, such as observing the Sabbath as well
+as the Lord’s day; but latterly the line between the two religions had
+been growing wider, and Athanasius orders the monks not to keep holy the
+Jewish Sabbath. After a few years their religious duties were clearly
+laid down for them in several well-drawn codes.
+
+One of the earliest of these ascetics was Amnion, who on the morning of
+his marriage is said to have persuaded his young wife of the superior
+holiness of a single life, and to have agreed with her that they should
+devote themselves apart to the honour of God in the desert. But, in thus
+avoiding the pleasures, the duties, and the temptations of the world,
+Amnion lost many of the virtues and even the decencies of society; he
+never washed himself, or changed his garments, because he thought it
+wrong for a religious man even to see himself undressed; and when he had
+occasion to cross a canal, his biographer tells us that attendant angels
+carried him over the water in their arms, lest, while keeping his vows,
+he should be troubled by wet clothes.
+
+In the religious controversies, whether pagan or Christian, Rome had
+often looked to Egypt for its opinions; Constans, when wanting copies
+of the Greek Scriptures for Rome, had lately sent to Alexandria, and
+had received the approved text from Athanasius. The two countries held
+nearly the same opinions and had the same dislike of the Greeks; so
+when Jerome visited Egypt he found the Church holding, he said, the true
+Roman faith as taught by the apostles. Under Didymus, who was then the
+head of the catechetical school, Jerome pursued his studies, having
+the same religious opinions with the Egyptian, and the same dislike
+to Arianism. But no dread of heresy stopped Jerome in his search for
+knowledge and for books. He obtained copies of the whole of Origen’s
+works, and read them with the greatest admiration. It is true that he
+finds fault with many of his opinions; but no admirer of Origen could
+speak in higher terms of praise of his virtues and his learning, of
+the qualities of his head and of his heart, than Jerome uses while he
+timidly pretends to think that he has done wrong in reading his works.
+
+At this time--the end of the eleventh century after the building of the
+city--the emperor himself did not refuse to mark on his Roman coins the
+_happy renewal of the years_ by the old Egyptian astrological fable of
+the return of the phoenix.
+
+From the treatise of Julius Fermicus against the pagan superstitions, it
+would seem that the sacred animals of the Egyptians were no longer kept
+in the several cities in which they used to be worshipped, and that many
+of the old gods had been gradually dropped from the mythology, which was
+then chiefly confined to the worship of Isis and Osiris. The great week
+of the year was the feast of Isis, when the priests joined the goddess
+in her grief for the loss of the good Osiris, who had been killed
+through jealousy by the wicked Typhon. The priests shaved their heads,
+beat their breasts, tore the skin off their arms, and opened up the old
+wounds of former years, in grief for the death of Osiris, and in honour
+of the widowed Isis. The river Nile was also still worshipped for the
+blessings which it scatters along its banks, but we hear no more of
+Amon-Ra, Chem, Horus, Aroëris, and the other gods of the Thebaid, whose
+worship ceased with the fall of that part of the country.
+
+[Illustration: 220.jpg COIN OF CONSTANTIUS]
+
+But great changes often take place with very little improvement; the
+fall of idolatry only made way for the rise of magic and astrology.
+Abydos in Upper Egypt had latterly gained great renown for the temple of
+Bîsû, whose oracle was much consulted, not only by the Egyptians but by
+Greek strangers, and by others who sent their questions in writing.
+Some of these letters on parchment had been taken from the temple by
+informers, and carried to the emperor, whose ears were never deaf to a
+charge against the pagans. On this accusation numbers of all ranks were
+dragged out of Egypt, to be tried and punished in Syria, with torture
+and forfeiture of goods. Such indeed was the nation’s belief in these
+oracles and prophecies that it gave to the priests a greater power than
+it was safe to trust them with. By prophesying that a man was to be an
+emperor, they could make him a traitor, and perhaps raise a village in
+rebellion. As the devotedness of their followers made it dangerous for
+the magistrates to punish the mischief-makers, they had no choice but to
+punish those who consulted them. Without forbidding the divine oracle to
+answer, they forbade anybody to question it. Parnasius, who had been
+a prefect of Egypt, a man of spotless character, was banished for thus
+illegally seeking a knowledge of the future; and Demetrius Cythras, an
+aged philosopher, was put to the rack on a charge of having sacrificed
+to the god, and only released because he persisted through his tortures
+in asserting that he sacrificed in gratitude and not from a wish thus to
+learn his future fate.
+
+In the falling state of the empire the towns and villages of Egypt found
+their rulers too weak either to guard them or to tyrannise over them,
+and they sometimes formed themselves into small societies, and took
+means for their own defence. The law had so far allowed this as in some
+cases to grant a corporate constitution to a city. But in other cases a
+city kept in its pay a courtier or government servant powerful enough to
+guard it against the extortions of the provincial tax-gatherer, or would
+put itself under the patronage of a neighbour rich enough and strong
+enough to guard it. This, however, could not be allowed, even if not
+used as the means of throwing off the authority of the provincial
+government; and accordingly at this time we begin to find laws against
+the new crime of _patronage_. These associations gave a place of refuge
+to criminals, they stopped the worshipper in his way to the temple, and
+the tax-gatherer in collecting the tribute. But new laws have little
+weight when there is no power to enforce them, and the orders from
+Constantinople were little heeded in Upper Egypt.
+
+But this _patronage_ which the emperor wished to put down was weak
+compared to that of the bishops and clergy, which the law allowed and
+even upheld, and which was the great check to the tyranny of the civil
+governor. While the emperor at a distance gave orders through his
+prefect, the people looked up to the bishop as their head; and hence the
+power of each was checked by the other. The emperors had not yet made
+the terrors of religion a tool in the hands of the magistrate; nor had
+they yet learned from the pontifex and augurs of pagan Rome the secret
+that civil power is never so strong as when based on that of the
+Church.
+
+On the death of Constantius, in 361, Julian was at once acknowledged as
+emperor, and the Roman world was again, but for the last time, governed
+by a pagan. The Christians had been in power for fifty-five years under
+Constantine and his sons, during which time the pagans had been made
+to feel that their enemies had got the upper hand of them. But on the
+accession of Julian their places were again changed; and the Egyptians
+among others crowded to Constantinople to complain of injustice done by
+the Christian prefect and bishop, and to pray for a redress of wrongs.
+They were, however, sadly disappointed in their emperor; he put them off
+with an unfeeling joke; he ordered them to meet him at Chalcedon on the
+other side of the straits of Constantinople, and, instead of following
+them according to his promise, he gave orders that no vessel should
+bring an Egyptian from Chalcedon to the capital; and the Egyptians,
+after wasting their time and money, returned home in despair. But though
+their complaints were laughed at, they were not overlooked, and the
+author of their grievances was punished; Artemius, the prefect of Egypt,
+was summoned to Chalcedon, and not being able to disprove the crimes
+laid to his charge by the Alexandrians, he paid his life as the forfeit
+for his mis-government during the last reign.
+
+While Artemius was on his trial the pagans of Alexandria remained quiet,
+and in daily fear of his return to power, for after their treatment
+at Chalcedon they by no means felt sure of what would be the emperor’s
+policy in matters of religion; but they no sooner heard of the death of
+Artemius than they took it as a sign that they had full leave to revenge
+themselves on the Christians. The mob rose first against the Bishop
+George, who had lately been careless or wanton enough publicly to
+declare his regret that any of their temples should be allowed to stand;
+and they seized him in the streets and trampled him to death. They next
+slew Dracontius, the prefect of the Alexandrian mint, whom they accused
+of overturning a pagan altar within that building. Their anger was then
+turned against Diodorus, who was employed in building a church on a
+waste spot of ground that had once been sacred to the worship of Mithra,
+but had since been given by the Emperor Constantius to the Christians.
+In clearing the ground, the workmen had turned up a number of human
+bones that had been buried there in former ages, and these had been
+brought forward by the Christians in reproach against the pagans as so
+many proofs of human sacrifices. In his Christian zeal, Diodorus also
+had wounded at the same time their pride and superstition by cutting off
+the single lock from the heads of the young Egyptians. This lock had
+in the time of Ramses been the mark of youthful royalty; under the
+Ptolemies the mark of high rank; but was now common to all. Diodorus
+treated it as an offence against his religion. For this he was attacked
+and killed, with George and Dracontius. The mob carried the bodies of
+the three murdered men upon camels to the side of the lake, and there
+burned them, and threw the ashes into the water, for fear, as they said,
+that a church should be built over their remains, as had been sometimes
+done, even at that early date, over the bodies of martyrs.
+
+[Illustration: 225.jpg A YOUNG EGYPTIAN WEARING THE ROYAL LOCK]
+
+When the news of this outrage against the laws was brought to the
+philosophical emperor, he contented himself with threatening by an
+imperial edict that if the offence were repeated, he would visit it with
+severe punishment. But in every act of Julian we trace the scholar
+and the lover of learning. George had employed his wealth in getting
+together a large library, rich in historians, rhetoricians, and
+philosophers of all sects; and, on the murder of the bishop, Julian
+wrote letter after letter to Alexandria, to beg the prefect and
+his friend Porphyrius to save these books, and send them to him in
+Cappadocia. He promised freedom to the librarian if he gave them up, and
+torture if he hid them; and further begged that no books in favour of
+Christianity should be destroyed, lest other and better books should be
+lost with them.
+
+There is too much reason to believe that the friends of Athanasius
+were not displeased at the murder of the Bishop George and their Arian
+fellow-Christians; at any rate they made no effort to save them, and the
+same mob that had put to death George as an enemy to paganism now joined
+his rival, Athanasius, in a triumphal entry into the city, when, with
+the other Egyptian bishops, he was allowed to return from banishment.
+Athanasius could brook no rival to his power; the civil force of the
+city was completely overpowered by his party, and the Arian clergy were
+forced to hide themselves, as the only means of saving their lives. But,
+while thus in danger from their enemies, the Arians pro-hooded to elect
+a successor to their murdered bishop, and they chose Lucius to that post
+of honour, but of danger. Athanasius, however, in reality and openly
+filled the office of bishop; and he summoned a synod at Alexandria, at
+which he re-admitted into the church Lucifer and Eusebius, two bishops
+who had been banished to the Thebaid, and he again decreed that the
+three persons in the Trinity were of one substance.
+
+Though the Emperor Julian thought that George, the late bishop, had
+deserved all that he suffered, as having been zealous in favour of
+Christianity, and forward in putting down paganism and in closing
+the temples, yet he was still more opposed to Athanasius. That able
+churchman held his power as a rebel by the help of the Egyptian mob,
+against the wishes of the Greeks of Alexandria and against the orders of
+the late emperor; and Julian made an edict, ordering that he should be
+driven out of the city within twenty-four hours of the command reaching
+Alexandria. The prefect of Egypt was at first unable, or unwilling, to
+enforce these orders against the wish of the inhabitants; and Athanasius
+was not driven into banishment till Julian wrote word that, if the
+rebellious bishop were to be found in any part of Egypt after a day then
+named, he would fine the prefect and the officers under him one hundred
+pounds weight of gold. Thus Athanasius was for the fourth time banished
+from Alexandria.
+
+Though the Christians were out of favour with the emperor, and never
+were employed in any office of trust, yet they were too numerous for him
+to venture on a persecution. But Julian allowed them to be ill-treated
+by his prefects, and took no notice of their complaints. He made a law,
+forbidding any Christians being educated in pagan literature, believing
+that ignorance would stop the spread of their religion. In the churches
+of Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria, this was felt as a heavy grievance;
+but it was less thought of in Egypt. Science and learning were less
+cultivated by the Christians in Alexandria since the overthrow of the
+Arian party; and a little later, to charge a writer with Grascizing was
+the same as saying that he wanted orthodoxy.
+
+Julian was a warm friend to learning and philosophy among the pagans.
+He recalled to Alexandria the physician Zeno, who in the last reign had
+fled from the Georgian faction, as the Christians were then called. He
+founded in the same city a college for music, and ordered the Prefect
+Ecdicius to look out for some young men of skill in that science,
+particularly from among the pupils of Dioscorus; and he allotted them
+a maintenance from the treasury, with rewards for the most skilful. At
+Canopus, a pagan philosopher, Antoninus, the son of Eustathius, taking
+advantage of the turn in public opinion, and copying the Christian monks
+of the The-baid, drew round him a crowd of followers by his self-denial
+and painful torture of the body. The Alexandrians flocked in crowds to
+his dwelling; and such was his character for holiness that his death, in
+the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, was thought by the Egyptians
+to be the cause of the overthrow of paganism.
+
+But Egyptian paganism, which had slumbered for fifty years under the
+Christian emperors, was not again to be awaked to its former life.
+Though the wars between the several cities for the honour of their gods,
+the bull, the crocodile, or the fish, had never ceased, all reverence
+for those gods was dead. The sacred animals, in particular the bulls
+Apis and Mnevis, were again waited upon by their priests as of old; but
+it was a vain attempt. Not only was the Egyptian religion overthrown,
+but the Thebaid, the country of that religion, was fallen too low to
+be raised again. The people of Upper Egypt had lost all heart, not more
+from the tyranny of the Roman government in the north than from the
+attacks and settlement of the Arabs in the south. All changes in the
+country, whether for the better or the worse, were laid to the charge
+of these latter unwelcome neighbours; and when the inquiring traveller
+asked to be shown the crocodile, the river-horse, and the other animals
+for which Egypt had once been noted, he was told with a sigh that they
+were seldom to be seen in the Delta since the Thebaid had been peopled
+with the Blemmyes. Falsehood, the usual vice of slaves, had taken a deep
+hold on the Egyptian character. A denial of their wealth was the means
+by which they usually tried to save it from the Roman tax-gatherer; and
+an Egyptian was ashamed of himself as a coward if he could not show
+a back covered with stripes gained in the attempt to save his money.
+Peculiarities of character often descend unchanged in a nation for many
+centuries; and, after fourteen hundred years of the same slavery, the
+same stripes from the lash of the tax-gatherer still used to be the
+boast of the Egyptian peasant. Cyrene was already a desert; the only
+cities of note in Upper Egypt were Koptos, Hermopolis, and Antinoopolis;
+but Alexandria was still the queen of cities, though the large quarter
+called the Bruchium had not been rebuilt; and the Serapeum, with its
+library of seven hundred thousand volumes, was, after the capitol of
+Rome, the chief building in the world.
+
+This temple of Serapis was situated on a rising ground at the west end
+of the city, and, though not built like a fortification, was sometimes
+called the citadel of Alexandria. It was entered by two roads; that on
+one side was a slope for carriages, and on the other a grand flight of a
+hundred steps from the street, with each step wider than that below
+it. At the top of this flight of steps was a portico, in the form of a
+circular roof, upheld by four columns.
+
+[Illustration: 231.jpg AN EGYPTIAN WATER-CARRIER]
+
+Through this was the entrance into the great courtyard, in the middle
+of which stood the roofless hall or temple, surrounded by columns and
+porticoes, inside and out. In some of the inner porticoes were the
+bookcases for the library which made Alexandria the very temple of
+science and learning, while other porticoes were dedicated to the
+service of the ancient religion. The roofs were ornamented with gilding,
+the capitals of the columns were of copper gilt, and the walls were
+covered with paintings. In the middle of the inner area stood one lofty
+column, which could be seen by all the country round, and even from
+ships some distance out at sea. The great statue of Serapis, which had
+been made under the Ptolemies, having perhaps marble feet, but for the
+rest built of wood, clothed with drapery, and glittering with gold and
+silver, stood in one of the covered chambers, which had a small window
+so contrived as to let the sun’s rays kiss the lips of the statue on the
+appointed occasions. This was one of the tricks employed in the sacred
+mysteries, to dazzle the worshipper by the sudden blaze of light which
+on the proper occasions was let into the dark room. The temple itself,
+with its fountain, its two obelisks, and its gilt ornaments, has long
+since been destroyed; and the column in the centre, under the name of
+Pompey’s Pillar, alone remains to mark the spot where it stood, and is
+one of the few works of Greek art which in size and strength vie with
+the old Egyptian monuments.
+
+The reign of Julian, instead of raising paganism to its former strength,
+had only shown that its life was spent; and under Jovian (A.D. 363--364)
+the Christians were again brought into power. A Christian emperor,
+however, would have been but little welcome to the Egyptians if, like
+Constantius, and even Constantine in his latter years, he had leaned
+to the Arian party; but Jovian soon showed his attachment to the Nicene
+creed, and he re-appointed Athanasius to the bishopric of Alexandria.
+But though Athanasius regained his rank, yet the Arian bishop Lucius
+was not deposed. Each party in Alexandria had its own bishop; those who
+thought that the Son was of the same substance with the Father looked up
+to Athanasius, while those who gave to Jesus the lower rank of being of
+a similar substance to the Creator obeyed Lucius.
+
+This curious metaphysical proposition was not, however, the only cause
+of the quarrel which divided Egypt into such angry parties. The creeds
+were made use of as the watchwords in a political struggle. Blood,
+language, and geographical boundaries divided the parties; and religious
+opinions seldom cross these unchanging and inflexible lines.
+
+Every Egyptian believed in the Nicene creed and the incorruptibility
+of the body of Jesus, and hated the Alexandrian Greeks; while the more
+refined Greeks were as united in explaining away the Nicene creed by
+the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, and in despising the ignorant
+Egyptians. Christianity, which speaks so forcibly to the poor, the
+unlearned, and the slave, had educated the Egyptian population,
+had raised them in their own eyes; and, as the popular party gained
+strength, the Arians lost ground in Alexandria. At the same time the
+Greeks were falling off: in learning and in science, and in all those
+arts of civilisation which had given them the superiority. Like other
+great political changes, this may not have been understood at the time;
+but in less than a hundred years it was found that the Egyptians were no
+longer the slaves, nor the Greeks the masters.
+
+On the death of Jovian, when Valentinian divided the Roman empire with
+his brother, he took Italy and the West for his own kingdom, and gave to
+Valens Egypt and the Eastern provinces, in which Greek was the language
+of the government. Each emperor adopted the religion of his capital;
+Valentinian held the Nicene faith, and Valens the Arian faith; and
+unhappy Egypt was the only part of the empire whose religion differed
+from that of its rulers. Had the creeds marked the limits of the
+two empires, Egypt would have belonged to Rome; but, as geographical
+boundaries and language form yet stronger ties, Egypt was given to
+Constantinople, or rather to Antioch, the nearer of the two Eastern
+capitals.
+
+By Valens, Athanasius was forced for the fifth time to fly from
+Alexandria, to avoid the displeasure which his disobedience again drew
+down upon him. But his flock again rose in rebellion in favour of their
+popular bishop; and the emperor was either persuaded or frightened
+into allowing him to return to his bishopric, where he spent the few
+remaining years of his life in peace. Athanasius died at an advanced
+age, leaving a name more famous than that of any one of the emperors
+under whom he lived. He taught the Christian world that there was a
+power greater than that of kings, namely the Church. He was often beaten
+in the struggle, but every victory over him was followed by the defeat
+of the civil power; he was five times banished, but five times he
+returned in triumph. The temporal power of the Church was in its
+infancy; it only rose upon the conversion of Constantine, and it was
+weak compared to what it became in after ages; but, when the Emperor
+of Germany did penance barefoot before Pope Hildebrand, and a king of
+England was whipped at Becket’s tomb, we only witness the full-grown
+strength of the infant power that was being reared by the Bishop of
+Alexandria. His writings are numerous and wholly controversial, chiefly
+against the Arians. The Athanasian creed seems to have been so named
+only because it was thought to contain his opinions, as it is known to
+be by a later author.
+
+On the death of Athanasius, the Homoousian party chose Peter as his
+successor in the bishopric, overlooking Lucius, the Arian bishop, whose
+election had been approved by the emperors Julian, Jovian, and Valens.
+But as the Egyptian church had lost its great champion, the emperor
+ventured to re-assert his authority. He sent Peter to prison, and
+ordered all the churches to be given up to the Arians, threatening with
+banishment from Egypt whoever disobeyed his edict. The persecution
+which the Homoousian party throughout Upper Egypt then suffered from the
+Arians equalled, says the ecclesiastical historian, anything that they
+had before suffered from the pagans. Every monastery in Egypt was broken
+open by Lucius at the head of an armed force, and the cruelty of
+the bishop surpassed that of the soldiers. The breaking open of the
+monasteries seems to have been for the purpose of making the inmates
+bear their share in the military service of the state, rather than
+for any religious reasons. When Constantine embraced Christianity, he
+immediately recognised all the religious scruples of its professors;
+and not only bishops and presbyters but all laymen who had entered the
+monastic orders were freed from the duty of serving in the army. But
+under the growing dislike of military service, and the difficulty of
+finding soldiers, when to escape from the army many called themselves
+Christian monks, this excuse could no longer be listened to, and Valens
+made a law that monastic vows should not save a man from enlistment.
+But this law was not easily carried into force in the monasteries on
+the borders of the desert, which were often well-built and well-guarded
+fortresses; and on Mount Nitria, in particular, many monks lost
+their lives in their resistance to the troops that were sent to fetch
+recruits.
+
+[Illustration: 237.jpg REMAINS OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE TEMPLE OF
+LUXOR]
+
+The monastic institutions of Egypt had already reached their
+full growth. They were acknowledged by the laws of the empire as
+ecclesiastical corporations, and allowed to hold property; and by a new
+law of this reign, if a monk or nun died without a will or any known
+kindred, the property went to the monastery as heir at law. One of the
+most celebrated of these monasteries was on Tabenna, where Pachomius
+had gathered round him thirteen hundred followers, who owned him as the
+founder of their order, and gave him credit for the gift of prophecy.
+His disciples in the other monasteries of Upper Egypt amounted to six
+thousand more. Anuph was at the head of another order of monks, and he
+boasted that he could by prayer obtain from heaven whatever he wished.
+Hor was at the head of another monastery, where, though wholly unable
+to read or write, he spent his life in singing psalms, and, as his
+followers and perhaps he himself believed, in working miracles.
+Sera-pion was at the head of a thousand monks in the Ar-sinoïte nome,
+who raised their food by their own labour, and shared it with their
+poorer neighbours. Near Nitria, a place in the Mareotic nome which gave
+its name to the nitre springs, there were as many as fifty cells; but
+those who aimed at greater solitude and severer mortification withdrew
+farther into the desert, to Scetis in the same nome, a spot already
+sanctified by the trials and triumphs of St. Anthony. Here, in a
+monastery surrounded by the sands, by the side of a lake whose waters
+are Salter than the brine of the ocean, with no grass or trees to rest
+the aching eye, where the dazzling sky is seldom relieved with a
+cloud, where the breezes are too often laden with dry dust, these monks
+cultivated a gloomy religion, with hearts painfully attuned to the
+scenery around them. Here dwelt Moses, who in his youth had been a
+remarkable sinner, and in his old age became even more remarkable as a
+saint. It was said that for six years he spent every night in prayer,
+without once closing his eyes in sleep; and that one night, when his
+cell was attacked by four robbers, he carried them all off at once on
+his back to the neighbouring monastery to be punished, because he would
+himself hurt no man. Benjamin also dwelt at Scetis; he consecrated oil
+to heal the diseases of those who washed with it, and during the eight
+months that he was himself dying of a dropsy, he touched for their
+diseases all who came to the door of his cell to be healed. Hellas
+carried fire in his bosom without burning his clothes. Elias spent
+seventy years in solitude on the borders of the Arabian desert near
+Antinoopolis. Apelles was a blacksmith near Achoris; he was tempted
+by the devil in the form of a beautiful woman, but he scorched the
+tempter’s face with a red-hot iron. Dorotheus, who though a Theban had
+settled near Alexandria, mortified his flesh by trying to live without
+sleep. He never willingly lay down to rest, nor indeed ever slept till
+the weakness of the body sunk under the efforts of the spirit. Paul,
+who dwelt at Pherma, repeated three hundred prayers every day, and kept
+three hundred pebbles in a bag to help him in his reckoning. He was the
+friend of Anthony, and when dying begged to be wrapt in the cloak given
+him by that holy monk, who had himself received it as a present from
+Athanasius. His friends and admirers claimed for Paul the honour of
+being the first Christian hermit, and they maintained their improbable
+opinion by asserting that he had been a monk for ninety-seven years, and
+that he had retired to the desert at the age of sixteen, when the Church
+was persecuted in the reign of Valerian. All Egypt believed that the
+monks were the especial favourites of Heaven, that they worked miracles,
+and that divine wisdom flowed from their lips without the help or
+hindrance of human learning. They were all Homoousians, believing
+that the Son was of one substance with the Father; some as trinitarians
+holding the opinions of Athanasius; some as Sabellians believing that
+Jesus was the creator of the world, and that his body therefore was not
+liable to corruption; some as anthropomorphites believing God was of
+human form like Jesus; but all warmly attached to the Mcene creed,
+denying the two natures of Christ, and hating the Arian Greeks of
+Alexandria and the other cities. Gregory of Nazianzum remarks that Egypt
+was the most Christ-loving of countries, and adds with true simplicity
+that, wonderful to say, after having so lately worshipped bulls, goats,
+and crocodiles, it was now teaching the world the worship of the Trinity
+in the truest form.
+
+The pagans, who were now no longer able to worship publicly as they
+chose, took care to proclaim their opinions indirectly in such ways as
+the law could not reach. In the hippodrome, which was the noisiest of
+the places where the people met in public, they made a profession of
+their faith by the choice of which horses they bet on; and Christians
+and pagans alike showed their zeal for religion by hooting and clapping
+of hands. Prayers and superstitious ceremonies were used on both
+sides to add to the horses’ speed; and the monk Hilarion, the pupil of
+Anthony, gained no little credit for sprinkling holy water on the horses
+of his party, and thus enabling Christianity to outrun paganism in the
+hippodrome at Gaza.
+
+During these reigns of weakness and misgovernment, it was no doubt a
+cruel policy rather than humanity that led the tax-gatherers to collect
+the tribute in kind. More could be squeezed out of a ruined people by
+taking what they had to give than by requiring it to be paid in copper
+coin. Hence Valons made a law that no tribute throughout the empire
+should be taken in money; and he laid a new land-tax upon Egypt, to the
+amount of a soldier’s clothing for every thirty acres.
+
+The Saracens* had for some time past been encroaching on the Eastern
+frontiers of the empire, and had only been kept back by treaties which
+proved the weakness of the Romans, as the armies of Constantinople were
+still called, and which encouraged the barbarians in their attacks.
+
+     * The name _Saraceni_ was given by the Greeks and Romans to
+     the nomadic Arabs who lived on the borders of the desert.
+     During the Middle Ages, the Muhammedans, coming from
+     apparently the same localities, were also called Saracens.
+
+On the death of their king, the command over the Saracens fell to
+their Queen Masvia, who broke the last treaty, laid waste Palestine and
+Phoenicia with her armies, conquered or gained over the Arabs of Petra,
+and pressed upon the Egyptians at the head of the Red Sea. On this,
+Valens renewed the truce, but on terms still more favourable to the
+invaders. Many of the Saracens were Christians, and by an article of the
+treaty they were to have a bishop granted them for their church, and
+for this purpose they sent Moses to Alexandria to be ordained. But
+the Saracens sided with the Egyptians, in religion as well as policy,
+against the Arian Greeks. Hence Moses refused to be ordained by Lucius,
+the patriarch of Alexandria, and chose rather to receive his appointment
+from some of the Homoousian bishops who were living in banishment in the
+Thebaid. After this advance of the barbarians the interesting city
+of Petra, which since the time of Trajan had been in the power or the
+friendship of Rome or Constantinople, was lost to the civilised world.
+This rocky fastness, which was ornamented with temples, a triumphal
+arch, and a theatre, and had been a bishop’s see, was henceforth
+closed against all travellers; it had no place in the map till it was
+discovered by Burckhardt in our own days without a human being dwelling
+in it, with oleanders and tamarisks choking up its entrance through
+the cliff, and with brambles trailing their branches over the rock-hewn
+temples.
+
+[Illustration: 243.jpg TEMPLE COURTYARD, MEDINET ABU]
+
+The reign of Theodosius, which extended from 379 to 395, is remarkable
+for the blow then given to paganism. The old religion had been sinking
+even before Christianity had become the religion of the emperors; it had
+been discouraged by Constantine, who had closed many of the temples; but
+Theodosius made a law in the first year of his reign that the whole
+of the empire should be Christian, and should receive the trinitarian
+faith. He soon afterwards ordered that Sunday should be kept holy, and
+forbade all work and law-proceedings on that day; and he sent Cynegius,
+the prefect of the palace, into Egypt, to see these laws carried into
+effect in that province.
+
+The wishes of the emperor were ably followed up by Theophilus, Bishop of
+Alexandria. He cleansed the temple of Mithra, and overthrew the statues
+in the celebrated temple of Serapis, which seemed the very citadel of
+paganism. He also exposed to public ridicule the mystic ornaments and
+statues which a large part of his fellow-citizens still regarded as
+sacred. It was not, however, to be supposed that this could be peaceably
+borne by a people so irritable as the Alexandrians. The students in the
+schools of philosophy put themselves at the head of the mob to stop the
+work of destruction, and to revenge themselves upon their assailants,
+and several battles were fought in the streets between the pagans
+and the Christians, in which both parties lost many lives; but as the
+Christians were supported by the power of the prefect, the pagans were
+routed, and many whose rank would have made them objects of punishment
+were forced to fly from Alexandria.
+
+No sooner had the troops under the command of the prefect put down the
+pagan opposition than the work of destruction was again carried forward
+by the zeal of the bishop. The temples were broken open, their ornaments
+destroyed, and the statues of the gods melted for the use of the
+Alexandrian church. One statue of an Egyptian god was alone saved from
+the wreck, and was set up in mockery of those who had worshipped it;
+and this ridicule of their religion was a cause of greater anger to the
+pagans than even the destruction of the other statues. The great statue
+of Serapis, which was made of wood covered with plates of metal, was
+knocked to pieces by the axes of the soldiers. The head and limbs were
+broken off, and the wooden trunk was burnt in the amphitheatre amid
+the shouts and jeers of the bystanders. A conjectured fragment of this
+statue is now in the British Museum.
+
+In the plunder of the temple of Serapis, the great library of more
+than seven hundred thousand volumes was wholly broken up and scattered.
+Orosius, the Spaniard, who visited Alexandria in the next reign, may be
+trusted when he says that he saw in the temple the empty shelves, which,
+within the memory of men then living, had been plundered of the books
+that had formerly been got together after the library of the Bruchium
+was burnt by Julius Cæsar. In a work of such lawless plunder, carried
+on by ignorant zealots, many of these monuments of pagan genius and
+learning must have been wilfully or accidentally destroyed, though the
+larger number may have been carried off by the Christians for the other
+public and private libraries of the city. How many other libraries this
+city of science may have possessed we are not told, but there were no
+doubt many. Had Alexandria during the next two centuries given birth to
+poets and orators, their works, the offspring of native genius, might
+perhaps have been written without the help of libraries; but the labours
+of the mathematicians and grammarians prove that the city was still well
+furnished with books, beside those on the Christian controversies.
+
+When the Christians were persecuted by the pagans, none but men of
+unblemished lives and unusual strength of mind stood to their religion
+in the day of trial, and suffered the penalties of the law; the weak,
+the ignorant, and the vicious readily joined in the superstitions
+required of them, and, embracing the religion of the stronger party,
+easily escaped punishment. So it was when the pagans of Alexandria were
+persecuted by Theophilus; the chief sufferers were the men of learning,
+in whose minds paganism was a pure deism, and who saw nothing but
+ignorance and superstition on the side of their oppressors; who thought
+their worship of the Trinity only a new form of polytheism, and jokingly
+declared that they were not arithmeticians enough to understand it.
+Olympius, who was the priest of Serapis when the temple was sacked, and
+as such the head of the pagans of Alexandria, was a man in every
+respect the opposite of the Bishop Theophilus. He was of a frank, open
+countenance and agreeable manners; and though his age might have allowed
+him to speak among his followers in the tone of command, he chose rather
+in his moral lessons to use the mild persuasion of an equal; and few
+hearts were so hardened as not to be led into the paths of duty by his
+exhortations. Whereas the furious monks, says the indignant pagan, were
+men only in form, but swine in manners. Whoever put on a black coat, and
+was not ashamed to be seen with dirty linen, gained a tyrannical power
+over the minds of the mob, from their belief in his holiness; and these
+men attacked the temples of the gods as a propitiation for their own
+enormous sins. Thus each party reproached the other, and often unjustly.
+Among other religious frauds and pretended miracles of which the pagan
+priests were accused, was that of having an iron statue of Serapis
+hanging in the air in a chamber of the temple, by means of a loadstone
+fixed in the ceiling. The natural difficulties shield them from this
+charge, but other accusations are not so easily rebutted.
+
+After this attack upon the pagans, their religion was no longer openly
+taught in Alexandria. Some of the more zealous professors withdrew
+from the capital to Canopus, about ten miles distant, where the ancient
+priestly learning was still taught, unpersecuted because unnoticed; and
+there, under the pretence of studying hieroglyphics, a school was opened
+for teaching magic and other forbidden rites. When the pagan worship
+ceased throughout Egypt, the temples were very much used as churches,
+and in some cases received in their ample courtyard a smaller church of
+Greek architecture, as in that of Medinet Abu. In other cases Christian
+ornaments were added to the old walls, as in the rock temple of Kneph,
+opposite to Abu Simbel, where the figure of the Saviour with a glory
+round his head has been painted on the ceiling. The Christians, in order
+to remove from before their eyes the memorials of the old superstition,
+covered up the sculpture on the walls with mud from the Nile and white
+plaster. This coating we now take away, at a time when the idolatrous
+figures are no longer dangerous to religion, and we find the sculpture
+and painting fresh as when covered up fourteen hundred years ago.
+
+[Illustration: 248.jpg CHRISTIAN PICTURE AT ABU SIMBE]
+
+It would be unreasonable to suppose that the Egyptians, upon embracing
+Christianity, at once threw off all of their pagan rites. Among other
+customs that they still clung to, was that of making mummies of the
+bodies of the dead. St. Anthony had tried to dissuade the Christian
+converts from that practice; not because the mummy-cases were covered
+with pagan inscriptions, but he boldly asserted, what a very little
+reading would have disproved, that every mode of treating a dead body,
+beside burial, was forbidden in the Bible. St. Augustine, on the other
+hand, well understanding that the immortality of the soul without the
+body was little likely to be understood or valued by the ignorant,
+praises the Egyptians for that very practice, and says that they were
+the only Christians who really believed in the resurrection from the
+dead. The tapers burnt before the altars were from the earliest times
+used to light up the splendours of the Egyptian altars, in the darkness
+of their temples, and had been burnt in still greater numbers in the
+yearly festival of the candles. The playful custom of giving away
+sugared cakes and sweetmeats on the twenty-fifth day of Tybi, our
+twentieth of January, was then changed to be kept fourteen days earlier,
+and it still marks the Feast of Epiphany or Twelfth-night. The division
+of the people into clergy and laity, which was unknown to Greeks and
+Romans, was introduced into Christianity in the fourth century by the
+Egyptians. While the rest of Christendom were clothed in woollen, linen,
+the common dress of the Egyptians, was universally adopted by the clergy
+as more becoming to the purity of their manners. At the same time the
+clergy copied the Egyptian priests in the custom of shaving the crown of
+the head bald.
+
+The new law in favour of trinitarian Christianity was enforced with as
+great strictness against the Arians as against the pagans. The bishops
+and priests of that party wrere everywhere turned out of their churches,
+which were then given up to the Homoousians. Theodosius summoned a
+council of one hundred and fifty bishops at Constantinople, to re-enact
+the Nicene creed; and in the future religious rebellions of the
+Egyptians they always quoted against the Greeks this council of
+Constantinople, with that of Nicasa, as the foundation of their faith.
+By this religious policy, Theodosius did much to delay the fall of the
+empire. He won the friendship of his Egyptian subjects, as well as of
+their Saracen neighbours, all of whom, as far as they were Christian,
+held to the Nicene creed. Egypt became the safest of his provinces; and,
+when his armies had been recruited with so many barbarians that they
+could no longer be trusted, these new levies wrere marched into Egypt
+under the command of Hormisdas, and an equal number of Egyptians were
+drafted out of the army of Egypt, and led into Thessaly.
+
+When the season came for the overflow of the Nile, in the first summer
+after the destruction of the temples, the waters happened to rise more
+slowly than usual; and the Egyptians laid the blame upon the Christian
+emperor, who had forbidden their sacrificing the usual offerings in
+honour of the river-god.
+
+[Illustration: 250.jpg MANFALOOT, SHOWING THE HEIGHT OF THE NILE IN
+SUMMER]
+
+The alarm for the loss of their crops carried more weight in the
+religious controversy than any arguments that could be brought against
+pagan sacrifices; and the anger of the people soon threatened a serious
+rebellion. Evagrius the prefect, being disturbed for the peace of the
+country, sent to Constantinople for orders; but the emperor remained
+firm; he would make no change in the law against paganism, and the fears
+of the Egyptians and Alexandrians were soon put an end to by a most
+plenteous overflow.
+
+Since the time of Athanasius, and the overthrow of the Arian party in
+Alexandria, the learning of that city was wholly in the hands of the
+pagans, and was chiefly mathematical. Diophantus of Alexandria is the
+earliest writer on algebra whose works are now remaining to us, and has
+given his name to the Diophantine problems. Pappus wrote a description
+of the world, and a commentary on Ptolemy’s _Almagest_, beside a work
+on geometry, published under the name of his _Mathematical Collections_.
+Theon, a professor in the museum, wrote on the smaller astrolabe--the
+instrument then used to measure the star orbits--and on the rise of the
+Nile, a subject always of interest to the mathematicians of Egypt, from
+its importance to the husbandman. From Theon’s astronomical observations
+we learn that the Alexandrian astronomers still made use of the old
+Egyptian movable year of three hundred and sixty-five days only, and
+without a leap-year. Paul the Alexandrian astrologer, on the other hand,
+uses the Julian year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter,
+and he dates from the era of Diocletian. His rules for telling the day
+of the week from the day of the month, and for telling on what day of
+the week each year began, teach us that our present mode of dividing
+time was used in Egypt. Horapollo, the grammarian, was also then a
+teacher in the schools of Alexandria. He wrote in the Koptic language a
+work in explanation of the old hieroglyphics, which has gained a notice
+far beyond its deserts, because it is the only work on the subject that
+has come down to us.
+
+The only Christian writings of this time, that we know of, are the
+paschal letters of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, which were much
+praised by Jerome, and by him translated into Latin. They are full of
+bitter reproaches against Origen and his writings, and they charge him
+with having treated Jesus more cruelly than Pilate or the Jews had done.
+John, the famous monk of the Thebaid, was no writer, though believed to
+have the gift of prophecy. He was said to have foretold the victory
+of Theodosius over the rebel Maximus; and, when the emperor had got
+together his troops to march against Eugenius, another rebel who
+had seized the passes of the Julian Alps, he sent his trusty eunuch
+Eutropius to fetch the holy Egyptian, or at least to learn from him what
+would be the event of the war. John refused to go to Europe, but he
+told the messenger that Theodosius would conquer the rebel, and soon
+afterwards die; both of which came to pass as might easily have been
+guessed.
+
+On the death of Theodosius, in 395, the Roman empire was again divided.
+Arcadius, his elder son, ruled Egypt and the East, while Honorius, the
+younger, held the West; and the reins of government at once passed
+from the ablest to the weakest hands. But the change was little felt
+in Egypt, which continued to be governed by the patriarch Theophilus,
+without the name but with very nearly the power of a prefect. He was
+a bold and wicked man, but as his religious opinions were for the
+Homoousians as against the Arians, and his political feelings were for
+the Egyptians as against the Greeks, he rallied to his government the
+chief strength of the province. As the pagans and Arians of Alexandria
+were no longer worthy of his enmity, he fanned into a flame a new
+quarrel which was then breaking out in the Egyptian church. The monks
+of Upper Egypt, who were mostly ignorant and unlettered men, were
+anthropomorphites, or believers that God was in outward shape like a
+man. They quoted from the Jewish Scriptures that he made man in his own
+image, in support of their opinion. They held that he was of a strictly
+human form, like Jesus, which to them seemed fully asserted in the
+Nicene creed. In this opinion they were opposed by those who were better
+educated, and it suited the policy of Theophilus to side with the more
+ignorant and larger party. He branded with the name of Origenists those
+who argued that God was without form, and who quoted the writings of
+Origen in support of their opinion. This naturally led to a dispute
+about Origen’s orthodoxy; and that admirable writer, who had been
+praised by all parties for two hundred years, and who had been quoted as
+authority as much by Athanasius as by the Arians, was declared to be a
+heretic by a council of bishops. The writings of Origen were accordingly
+forbidden to be read, because they contradicted the anthropomorphite
+opinions.
+
+The quarrel between the Origenists and the anthropomorphites did not end
+in words. A proposition in theology, or a doubt in metaphysics, was no
+better cause of civil war than the old quarrels about the bull Apis or
+the crocodile; but a change of religion had not changed the national
+character. The patriarch, finding his party the stronger, attacked the
+enemy in their own monasteries; he marched to Mount Nitria at the head
+of a strong body of soldiers, and, enrolling under his banners the
+anthropomorphite monks, attacked Dioscorus and the Origenists, set fire
+to their monasteries, and laid waste the place.
+
+Theophilus next quarrelled with Peter, the chief of the Alexandrian
+presbyters, whom he accused of admitting to the sacraments of the
+church a woman who had not renounced the Manichean heresy; and he then
+quarrelled with Isidorus, who had the charge of the poor of the church,
+because he bore witness that Peter had the orders of Theophilus himself
+for what he did.
+
+In this century there was a general digging up of the bodies of the
+most celebrated Christians of former ages, to heal the diseases and
+strengthen the faith of the living; and Constantinople, which as the
+capital of the empire had been ornamented by the spoils of its subject
+provinces, had latterly been enriching its churches with the remains of
+numerous Christian saints. The tombs of Egypt, crowded with mummies that
+had lain there for centuries, could of course furnish relics more easily
+than most countries, and in this reign Constantinople received from
+Alexandria a quantity of bones which were supposed to be those of the
+martyrs slain in the pagan persecutions. The archbishop John Chrysostom
+received them gratefully, and, though himself smarting under the
+reproach that he was not orthodox enough for the superstitious
+Egyptians, he thanks God that Egypt, which sent forth its grain to feed
+its hungry neighbours, could also send the bodies of so many martyrs to
+sanctify their churches.
+
+We have traced the fall of the Greek party in Alexandria, in the
+victories over the Arians during the religious quarrels of the last
+hundred years; and in the laws we now read the city’s loss of wealth
+and power. The corporation of Alexandria was no longer able to bear the
+expense of cleansing the river and keeping open the canals; and four
+hundred _solidi_--about twelve hundred dollars--were each year set apart
+from the custom-house duties of the city for that useful work.
+
+The arrival of new settlers in Alexandria had been very much checked by
+the less prosperous state of the country since the reign of Diocletian.
+We still find, however, that many of the men of note were not born in
+Egypt. Paulus, the physician, was a native of Ægina. He has left a work
+on diseases and their remedies. The chief man of learning was Synesius,
+a platonic philosopher whom the patriarch Theophilus persuaded to join
+the Christians. As a platonist he naturally leaned towards many of
+the doctrines of the popular religion, but he could not believe in a
+resurrection; and it was not till after Theophilus had ordained him
+Bishop of Ptolemais near Cyrene that he acknowledged the truth of that
+doctrine. Nor would he then put away or disown his wife, as the
+custom of the Church required; indeed, he accepted the bishopric very
+unwillingly. He was as fond of playful sport as he was of books, and
+very much disliked business. He has left a volume of writings, which has
+saved the names of two prefects of Cyrene; the one Anysius, under
+whose good discipline even the barbarians of Hungary behaved like Roman
+legionaries, and the other Poonius, who cultivated science in this
+barren spot. To encourage Pasonius in his praiseworthy studies he made
+him a present of an astrolabe, to measure the distances of the stars
+and planets, an instrument which was constructed under the guidance of
+Hypatia.
+
+Trade and industry were checked by the unsettled state of the country,
+and misery and famine were spreading over the land. The African tribes
+of Mazices and Auxoriani, leaving the desert in hope of plunder, overran
+the province of Libya, and laid waste a large part of the Delta. The
+barbarians and the sands of the desert were alike encroaching on the
+cultivated fields. Nature seemed changed. The valley of the Nile was
+growing narrower. Even within the valley the retreating wraters left
+behind them harvests less rich, and fever more putrid. The quarries were
+no longer worth working for their building stone. The mines yielded no
+more gold.
+
+On the death of Arcadius, his son Theodosius was only eight years old,
+but he was quietly acknowledged as Emperor of the East in 408, and he
+left the government of Egypt, as heretofore, very much in the hands of
+the patriarch. In the fifth year of his reign Theophilus died; and, as
+might be supposed, a successor was not appointed without a struggle for
+the double honour of Bishop of Alexandria and Governor of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 257.jpg QUARRIES AT TOORAH ON THE NILE]
+
+The remains of the Greek and Arian party proposed Timotheus, an
+archdeacon in the church; but the Egyptian party were united in favour
+of Cyril, a young man of learning and talent, who had the advantage of
+being the nephew of the late bishop. Whatever were the forms by which
+the election should have been governed, it was in reality settled by a
+battle between the two parties in the streets; and though Abundantius,
+the military prefect, gave the weight of his name, if not the strength
+of his cohort, to the party of Timotheus, yet his rival conquered,
+-and Cyril was carried into the cathedral with a pomp more like a pagan
+triumph than the modest ordination of a bishop.
+
+Cyril was not less tyrannical in his bishopric than his uncle had
+been before him. His first care was to put a stop to all heresy in
+Alexandria, and his second to banish the Jews. The theatre was the spot
+in which the riots between Jews and Christians usually began, and the
+Sabbath was the time, as being the day on which the Jews chiefly crowded
+in to see the dancing. On one occasion the quarrel in the theatre ran
+so high that the prefect with his cohort was scarcely able to keep them
+from blows; and the Christians reproached the Jews with plotting to burn
+down the churches. But the Christians were themselves guilty of the very
+crimes of which they accused their enemies. The next morning, as soon
+as it was light, Cyril headed the mob in their attacks upon the Jewish
+synagogues; they broke them open and plundered them, and in one day
+drove every Jew out of the city. No Jew had been allowed to live in
+Alexandria or any other city without paying a poll-tax, for leave
+to worship his God according to the manner of his forefathers; but
+religious zeal is stronger than the love of money; the Jews were driven
+out, and the tax lost to the city.
+
+[Illustration: 258b.jpg Street and Mosque of Mahdjiar]
+
+Orestes, the prefect of Alexandria, had before wished to check the power
+of the bishop; and he in vain tried to save the Jews from oppression,
+and the state from the loss of so many good citizens. But it was useless
+to quarrel with the patriarch, who was supported by the religious
+zeal of the whole population. The monks of Mount Nitria and of the
+neighbourhood burned with a holy zeal to fight for Cyril, as they had
+before fought for Theophilus; and when they heard that a jealousy had
+sprung up between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, more than
+five hundred of them marched into Alexandria to avenge the affronted
+bishop. They met the prefect Orestes as he was passing through the
+streets in his open chariot, and began reproaching him with being a
+pagan and a Greek. Orestes answered that he was a Christian, and he had
+been baptised at Constantinople. But this only cleared him of the lesser
+charge, he was certainly a Greek; and one of these Egyptian monks taking
+up a stone threw it at his head, and the blow covered his face with
+blood. They then fled from the guards and people who came up to help the
+wounded prefect; but Ammonius, who threw the stone, was taken and put
+to death with torture. The grateful bishop buried him in the church with
+much pomp; he declared him to be a martyr and a saint, and gave him
+the name of St. Thaumasius. But the Christians were ashamed of the
+new martyr: and the bishop, who could not withstand the ridicule, soon
+afterwards withdrew from him the title.
+
+Bad as was this behaviour of the bishop and his friends, the most
+disgraceful tale still remains to be told. The beautiful and learned
+Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician, was at that time
+the ornament of Alexandria and the pride of the pagans. She taught
+philosophy publicly in the platonic school which had been founded by
+Ammonius, and which boasted of Plotinus as its pupil. She was as modest
+as she wras graceful, eloquent, and learned; and though, being a pagan,
+she belonged to neither of the rival Christian parties, yet, as she
+had more hearers among the Greek friends of the prefect than among the
+ignorant followers of the bishop, she became an object of jealousy with
+the Homoousian party. A body of these Christians, says the orthodox
+historian, attacked this admirable woman in the street; they dragged
+her from her chariot, and hurried her off into the church named Cæsar’s
+temple, and there stripped her and murdered her with some broken tiles.
+She had written commentaries on the mathematical works of Diophantus,
+and on the conic sections of Apollonius. The story of her life has been
+related in the nineteenth century by Charles Kingsley in the novel which
+bears her name.
+
+Arianism took refuge from the Egyptians within the camps of the Greek
+soldiers. One church was dedicated to the honour of St. George, the late
+bishop, within the lofty towers of the citadel of Babylon, which was
+the strongest fortress in Egypt; and a second in the city of Ptolemais,
+where a garrison was stationed to collect the toll of the Thebaid. St.
+George became a favourite saint with the Greeks in Egypt, and in those
+spots where the Greek soldiers were masters of the churches this Arian
+and unpopular bishop was often painted on the walls riding triumphantly
+on horseback and slaying the dragon of Athanasian error. On the other
+hand, in Alexandria, where his rival’s politics and opinions held the
+upper hand, the monastery of St. Athanasius was built in the most public
+spot in the city, probably that formerly held by the Soma or royal
+burial-place; and in Thebes a cathedral church was dedicated to St.
+Athanasius within the great courtyard of Medinet-Abu, where the
+small and paltry Greek columns are in strange contrast to the grand
+architecture of Ramses III. which surrounds them.
+
+In former reigns the Alexandrians had been in the habit of sending
+embassies to Constantinople to complain of tyranny or misgovernment, and
+to beg for a redress of grievances, when they thought that justice could
+be there obtained when it was refused in Alexandria. But this practice
+was stopped by Theodosius, who made a law that the Alexandrians should
+never send an embassy to Constantinople, unless it were agreed to by a
+decree of the town council, and had the approbation of the prefect. The
+weak and idle emperor would allow no appeal from the tyranny of his own
+governor.
+
+We may pass over the banishment of John Chrysostom, Bishop of
+Constantinople, as having less to do with the history of Egypt, though,
+as in the cases of Arius and Nestorius, the chief mover of the attack
+upon him was a bishop of Alexandria, who accused him of heresy, because
+he did not come up to the Egyptian standard of orthodoxy. But among the
+bishops who were deposed with Chrysostom was Palladius of Galatia, who
+was sent a prisoner to Syênê. As soon as he was released from his bonds,
+instead of being cast down by his misfortunes, he proposed to take
+advantage of the place of his banishment, and he set forward on his
+travels through Ethiopia for India, in search of the wisdom of the
+Brahmins. He arrived in safety at Adule, the port on the Red Sea in
+latitude 15°, now known as Zula, where he made acquaintance with Moses,
+the bishop of that city, and persuaded him to join him in his distant
+and difficult voyage.
+
+From Adule the two set sail in one of the vessels employed in the Indian
+trade; but they were unable to accomplish their purpose, and Palladius
+returned to Egypt worn out with heat and fatigue, having scarcely
+touched the shores of India. On his return through Thebes he met with
+a traveller who had lately returned from the same journey, and who
+consoled him under his disappointment by recounting his own failure in
+the same undertaking. His new friend had himself been a merchant in the
+Indian trade, but had given up business because he was not successful in
+it; and, having taken a priest as his companion, had set out on the
+same voyage in search of Eastern wisdom. They had sailed to Adule on
+the Abyssinian shore, and then travelled to Auxum, the capital of that
+country. From that coast they set sail for the Indian ocean, and reached
+a coast which they thought was Taprobane or Ceylon. But there they were
+taken prisoners, and, after spending six years in slavery, and learning
+but little of the philosophy that they were in search of, were glad to
+take the first opportunity of escaping and returning to Egypt. Palladius
+had travelled in Egypt before he was sent there into banishment, and
+he had spent many years in examining the monasteries of the Thebaid and
+their rules, and he has left a history of the lives of many of those
+holy men and woman, addressed to his friend Lausus.
+
+When Nestorius was deposed from the bishopric of Constantinople for
+refusing to use the words “Mother of God” as the title of Jesus’
+mother, and for falling short in other points of what was then thought
+orthodoxy, he was banished to Hibe in the Great Oasis. While he was
+living there, the Great Oasis was overrun by the Blemmyes, the Roman
+garrison was defeated, and those that resisted were put to the sword.
+The Blemmyes pillaged the place and then withdrew; and, being themselves
+at war with the Mazices, another tribe of Arabs, they kindly sent their
+prisoners to the Thebaid, lest they should fall into the hands of
+the latter. Nestorius then went to Panopolis to show himself to the
+governor, lest he should be accused of running away from his place of
+banishment, and soon afterwards he died of the sufferings brought on by
+these forced and painful journeys through the desert.
+
+About the same time Egypt was visited by Cassianus, a monk of Gaul, in
+order to study the monastic institutions of the Thebaid. In his work on
+that subject he has described at length the way of life and the severe
+rules of the Egyptian monks, and has recommended them to the imitation
+of his countrymen. But the natives of Italy and the West do not seem
+to have been contented with copying the Theban monks at a distance. Such
+was the fame of the Egyptian monasteries that many zealots from Italy
+flocked there, to place themselves under the severe discipline of those
+holy men. As these Latin monks did not understand either Koptic or
+Greek, they found some difficulty in regulating their lives with the
+wished-for exactness; and the rules of Pachomius, of Theodorus, and of
+Oresiesis, the most celebrated of the founders, were actually sent to
+Jerome at Rome, to be by him translated into Latin for the use of these
+settlers in the Thebaid. These Latin monks made St. Peter a popular
+saint in some parts of Egypt; and in the temple of Asseboua, in Nubia,
+when the Christians plastered over the figure of one of the old gods,
+they painted in its place the Apostle Peter holding the key in his hand.
+
+[Illustration: 264.jpg RAMSES II. AND ST. PETER]
+
+They did not alter the rest of the sculpture; so that Ramses II. is
+there now seen presenting his offering to the Christian saint. The mixed
+group gives us proof of the nation’s decline in art rather than of its
+improvement in religion.
+
+Among the monks of Egypt there were also some men of learning and
+industry, who in their cells in the desert had made at least three
+translations of the New Testament into the three dialects of the Koptic
+language; namely, the Sahidic of Upper Egypt, the Bashmuric of the
+Bashmour province of the eastern half of the Delta, and the Koptic
+proper of Memphis and the western half of the Delta. To these were
+afterwards added the Acts of the council of Nicæa, the lives of the
+saints and martyrs, the writings of many of the Christian fathers, the
+rituals of the Koptic church, and various treatises on religion.
+
+Other monks were as busy in making copies of the Greek manuscripts
+of the Old and New Testament; and, as each copy must have needed the
+painful labour of months, and often years, their industry and zeal must
+have been great. Most of these manuscripts were on papyrus, or on a
+manufactured papyrus which might be called paper, and have long since
+been lost; but the three most ancient copies on parchment which are the
+pride of the Vatican, the Paris library, and the British Museum, are the
+work of the Alexandrian penmen.
+
+Copies of the Bible were also made in Alexandria for sale in western
+Europe; and all our oldest manuscripts show their origin by the Egyptian
+form of spelling in some of the words. The Beza manuscript at Cambridge,
+and the Clermont manuscript at Paris, which have Greek on one side of
+the page and Latin on the other, were written in Alexandria. The Latin
+is that more ancient version which was in use before the time of Jerome,
+and which he corrected, to form what is now called the Latin Vulgate.
+This old version was made by changing each Greek word into its
+corresponding Latin word, with very little regard to the different
+characters of the two languages. It was no doubt made by an Alexandrian
+Greek, who had a very slight knowledge of Latin.
+
+Already the papyrus on which books were written was, for the most part,
+a manufactured article and might claim the name of paper. In the time of
+Pliny in the first century the sheets had been made in the old way; the
+slips of the plant laid one across the other had been held together by
+their own sticky sap without the help of glue. In the reign of Aurelian,
+in the third century, if not earlier, glue had been largely used in the
+manufacture; and it is probable that at this time, in the fifth century,
+the manufactured article almost deserved the name of paper. But this
+manufactured papyrus was much weaker and less lasting than that made
+after the old and more simple fashion. No books written upon it remain
+to us. At a later period, the stronger fibre of flax was used in the
+manufacture, but the date of this improvement is also unknown, because
+at first the paper so made, like that made from the papyrus fibre, was
+also too weak to last. It was doubtless an Alexandrian improvement.
+Flax was an Egyptian plant; paper-making was an Egyptian trade; and
+Theophilus, a Roman writer on manufactures, when speaking of paper made
+from flax, clearly points to its Alexandrian origin, by giving it the
+name of Greek parchment. Between the papyrus of the third century, and
+the strong paper of the eleventh century, no books remain to us but
+those written on parchment.
+
+The monks of Mount Sinai suffered much during these reigns of weakness
+from the marauding attacks of the Arabs. These men had no strong
+monastery; but hundreds of them lived apart in single cells in the
+side of the mountains round the valley of Feiran, at the foot of Mount
+Serbal, and they had nothing to protect them but their poverty.
+They were not protected by Egypt, and they made treaties with the
+neighbouring Arabs, like an independent republic, of which the town of
+Feiran was the capital. The Arabs, from the Jordan to the Red Sea,
+made robbery the employment of their lives, and they added much to the
+voluntary sufferings of the monks.
+
+[Illustration: 267.jpg THE PAPYRUS PLANT]
+
+Nilus, a monk who had left his family in Egypt, to spend his life in
+prayer and study on the spot where Moses was appointed the legislator
+of Israel, describes these attacks upon his brethren, and he boasts over
+the Israelites that, notwithstanding their sufferings, the monks spent
+their whole lives cheerfully in those very deserts which God’s chosen
+people could not even pass through without murmuring. Nilus has left
+some letters and exhortations. It was then, probably, that the numerous
+inscriptions were made on the rocks at the foot of Mount Serbal, and on
+the path towards its sacred peak, which have given to one spot the name
+of Mokatteb, or the valley of writing. A few of these inscriptions are
+in the Greek language.
+
+The Egyptian physicians had of old always formed a part of the
+priesthood, and they seem to have done much the same after the spread
+of Christianity. We find some monks named _Parabalani_, who owned
+the Bishop of Alexandria as their head, and who united the offices of
+physician and nurse in waiting on the sick and dying. As they professed
+poverty they were maintained by the state and had other privileges; and
+hence it was a place much sought after, and even by the wealthy. But to
+lessen this abuse it was ordered by an imperial rescript that none but
+poor people who had been rate-payers should be _Parabalani_; and their
+number was limited, first to five hundred, but afterwards, at the
+request of the bishop, to six hundred. A second charitable institution
+in Alexandria had the care of strangers and the poor, and was also
+managed by one of the priests.
+
+Alexandria was fast sinking in wealth and population, and several new
+laws were now made to lessen its difficulties. One was to add a hundred
+and ten bushels of grain to the daily alimony of the city, the supply on
+which the riotous citizens were fed in idleness. By a second and a third
+law the five chief men in the corporation, and every man that had filled
+a civic office for thirty years, were freed from all bodily punishment,
+and only to be fined when convicted of a crime. Theodosius built a
+large church in Alexandria, which was called after his name; and the
+provincial judges were told in a letter to the prefect that, if they
+wished to earn the emperor’s praise, they must not only restore those
+buildings which were falling through age and neglect but must also build
+new ones.
+
+Though the pagan philosophy had been much discouraged at Alexandria by
+the destruction of the temples and the cessation of the sacrifices, yet
+the philosophers were still allowed to teach in the schools. Syrianus
+was at the head of the Platonists, and he wrote largely on the Orphic,
+Pythagorean, and Platonic doctrines. In his Commentary on Aristotle’s
+Metaphysics he aims at showing how a Pythagorean or a Platonist would
+successfully answer Aristotle’s objections. He seems to look upon the
+writings of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus as the true fountains of
+Platonic wisdom, quite as much as the works of the great philosopher
+who gave his name to the sect. Syrianus afterwards removed to Athens, to
+take charge of the Platonic school in that city, and Athens became the
+chief seat of Alexandrian Platonism.
+
+Olympiodorus was at the same time undertaking the task of forming a
+Peripatetic school in Alexandria, in opposition to the new Platonism,
+and he has left some of the fruits of his labour in his Commentaries on
+Aristotle. But the Peripatetic philosophy was no longer attractive to
+the pagans, though after the fall of the catechetical school it had
+a strong following of Christian disciples. Olympiodorus also wrote
+a history, but it has long since been lost, with other works of a
+second-rate merit. He was a native of the Thebaid, and travelled over
+his country. He described the Great Oasis as still a highly cultivated
+spot, where the husbandman watered his fields every third day in summer,
+and every fifth day in winter, from wells of two and three hundred feet
+in depth, and thereby raised two crops of barley, and often three of
+millet, in a year. Olympiodorus also travelled beyond Syênê into Nubia,
+with some danger from the Blemmyes, but he was not able to see the
+emerald mines, which were worked on Mount Smaragdus in the Arabian
+desert between Koptos and Berenice, and which seem to have been the
+chief object of his journey.
+
+Proclus came to Alexandria about the end of this reign, and studied
+many years under Olympiodorus, but not to the neglect of the platonic
+philosophy, of which he afterwards became such a distinguished ornament
+and support. The other Alexandrians under whom Proclus studied were
+Hero, the mathematician, a devout and religious pagan, Leonas, the
+rhetorician, who introduced him to all the chief men of learning, and
+Orion, the grammarian, who boasted of his descent from the race of
+Theban priests. Thus the pagans still held up their heads in the
+schools. Nor were the ceremonies of their religion, though unlawful,
+wholly stopped. In the twenty-eighth year of this reign, when the people
+were assembled in a theatre at Alexandria to celebrate the midnight
+festival of the Nile, a sacrifice which had been forbidden by
+Constantine and the council of Nicsea, the building fell beneath the
+weight of the crowd, and upwards of five hundred persons were killed by
+the fall.
+
+[Illustration: 271.jpg ARABS RESTING IN THE DESERT]
+
+It will be of some interest to review here the machinery of officers and
+deputies, civil as well as military, by which Egypt was governed under
+the successors of Constantine. The whole of the Eastern empire was
+placed under two prefects, the pretorian prefect of the East and the
+pretorian prefect of Illyricum, who, living at Constantinople, like
+modern secretaries of state, made edicts for the government of the
+provinces and heard the appeals. Under the prefect of the East were
+fifteen consular provinces, together with Egypt, which was not any
+longer under one prefect. There was no consular governor in Egypt
+between the prefect at Constantinople and the six prefects of the
+smaller provinces. These provinces were Upper Libya or Cyrene, Lower
+Libya or the Oasis, the Thebaid, Ægyptiaca or the western part of the
+Delta, Augustanica or the eastern part of the Delta, and the Heptanomis,
+now named Arcadia, after the late emperor. Each of these was under
+an Augustal prefect, attended by a _Princeps, a Cornicula-rius,
+an Adjutor_, and others, and was assisted in civil matters by a
+_Commentariensis_, a corresponding secretary, a secretary _ab actis_,
+with a crowd of _numerarii_ or clerks.
+
+The military government was under a count with two dukes, with a number
+of legions, cohorts, troops, and wedges of cavalry, stationed in about
+fifty cities, which, if they had looked as well in the field as they do
+upon paper, would have made Theodosius II. as powerful as Augustus. But
+the number of Greek and Roman troops was small. The rest were barbarians
+who held their own lives at small price, and the lives of the unhappy
+Egyptians at still less. The Greeks were only a part of the fifth
+Macedonian legion, and Trajan’s second legion, which were stationed at
+Memphis, at Parembole, and at Apollinopolis; while from the names of
+the other cohorts we learn that they were Franks, Portuguese, Germans,
+Quadri, Spaniards, Britons, Moors, Vandals, Gauls, Sarmati, Assyrians,
+Galatians, Africans, Numid-ians, and others of less known and more
+remote places. Egypt itself furnished the Egyptian legion, part of which
+was in Mesopotamia, Diocletian’s third legion of Thebans, the first
+Maximinian legion of Thebans which was stationed in Thrace, Constantine’s
+second Flavian legion of Thebans, Valens’ second Felix legion of
+Thebans, and the Julian Alexandrian legion, stationed in Thrace. Beside
+these, there were several bodies of native militia, from Abydos, Syênê,
+and other cities, which were not formed into legions. The Egyptian
+cavalry were a first and second Egyptian troop, several bodies of native
+archers mounted, three troops on dromedaries, and a body of Diocletian’s
+third legion promoted to the cavalry. These Egyptian troops were chiefly
+Arab settlers in the Thebaid, for the Kopts had long since lost the use
+of arms. The Kopts were weak enough to be trampled on; but the Arabs
+were worth bribing by admission into the legions. The taxes of the
+province were collected by a number of counts of the sacred largesses,
+who wrere under the orders of an officer of the same title at
+Constantinople, and were helped by a body of counts of the exports and
+imports, prefects of the treasury and of the mints, with an army
+of clerks of all titles and all ranks. From this government the
+Alexandrians were exempt, living under their own military prefect and
+corporation, and, instead of paying any taxes beyond the custom-house
+duties at the port, they received a bounty in grain out of the taxes of
+Egypt.
+
+Soon after this we find the political division of Egypt slightly
+altered. It is then divided into eight governments; the Upper Thebaid
+with eleven cities under a duke; the Lower Thebaid with ten cities,
+including the Great Oasis and part of the Heptanomis, under a general;
+Upper Libya or Cyrene under a general; Lower Libya or Parastonium under
+a general; Arcadia, or the remainder of the Heptanomis, under a general;
+Ægyptiaca, or the western half of the Delta, under an Augustalian
+prefect; the first Augustan government, or the rest of the Delta, under
+a _Corrector_; and the second Augustan government, from Bubastis to the
+Red Sea, under a general. We also meet with several military stations
+named after the late emperors: a Maximianopolis and a Dioclesianopolis
+in the Upper Thebaid; a Theodosianopolis in the Lower Thebaid, and a
+second Theodosianopolis in Arcadia. But it is not easy to determine what
+villages were meant by these high-sounding names, which were perhaps
+only used in official documents.
+
+The empire of the East was gradually sinking in power during this long
+and quiet reign of Theodosius II.; but the empire of the West was being
+hurried to its fall by the revolt of the barbarians in every one of its
+widespread provinces. Henceforth in the weakness of the two countries
+Egypt and Rome are wholly separated. After having influenced one another
+in politics, in literature, and in religion for seven centuries, they
+were now as little known to one another as they were before the day when
+Fabius arrived at Alexandria on an embassy from the senate to Ptolemy
+Philadelphus.
+
+Theological and political quarrels, under the name of the Homoousian
+and Arian controversy, had nearly separated Egypt from the rest of the
+empire during the reigns of Constantius and Valens, but they had been
+healed by the wisdom of the first Theodosius, who governed Egypt by
+means of a popular bishop; and the policy which he so wisely began
+was continued by his successors through weakness. But in the reign of
+Marcian (450--457) the old quarrel again broke out, and, though it was
+under a new name, it again took the form of a religious controversy.
+Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, died in the last reign; and as he had
+succeeded his uncle, so on his death the bishopric fell to Dioscorus,
+a relation of his own, a man of equal religious violence and of less
+learning, who differed from him only in the points of doctrine about
+which he should quarrel with his fellow-Christians. About the same
+time Eutyches, a priest of Constantinople, had been condemned by his
+superiors and expelled from the Church for denying the two natures of
+Christ, and for maintaining that he was truly God, and in no respect
+a man. This was the opinion of the Egyptian church, and therefore
+Dioscorus, the Bishop of Alexandria, who had no right whatever to meddle
+in the quarrels at Constantinople, yet, acting on the forgotten rule
+that each bishop’s power extended over all Christendom, undertook of
+his own authority to absolve Eutyches from his excommunication, and in
+return to excommunicate the Bishop of Constantinople who had condemned
+him. To settle this quarrel, a general council was summoned at
+Chalcedon; and there six hundred and thirty-two bishops met and
+condemned the faith of Eutyches, and further explained the Nicene creed,
+to which Eutyches and the Egyptians always appealed. They excommunicated
+Eutyches and his patron Dioscorus, who were banished by the emperor; and
+they elected Proterius to the then vacant bishopric of Alexandria.
+
+In thus condemning the faith of Eutyches, the Greeks were
+excommunicating the whole of Egypt. The Egyptian belief in the one
+nature of Christ, which soon afterwards took the name of the Jacobite
+faith from one of its popular supporters, might perhaps be distinguished
+by the microscopic eye of the controversialist from the faith of
+Eutyches; but they equally fell under the condemnation of the council of
+Chalcedon. Egypt was no longer divided in its religious opinions. There
+had been a party who, though Egyptian in blood, held the Arian and
+half-Arian opinions of the Greeks, but that party had ceased to exist.
+Their religion had pulled one way and their political feelings another;
+the latter were found the stronger, as being more closely rooted to the
+soil; and their religious opinions had by this time fitted themselves
+to the geographical boundaries of the country. Hence the decrees of
+the council of Chalcedon were rejected by the whole of Egypt; and the
+quarrel between the Chalcedonian and Jacobite party, like the former
+quarrel between the Athanasians and the Arians, was little more than
+another name for the unwillingness of the Egyptians to be governed by
+Constantinople.
+
+Proterius, the new bishop, entered Alexandria supported by the prefect
+Floras at the head of the troops.
+
+But this was the signal for a revolt of the Egyptians, who overpowered
+the cohort with darts and stones; and the magistrates were driven to
+save their lives in the celebrated temple of Serapis. But they found no
+safety there; the mob surrounded the building and set fire to it, and
+burned alive the Greek magistrates and friends of the new bishop; and
+the city remained in the power of the rebellious Egyptians. When the
+news of this rising reached Constantinople the emperor sent to Egypt a
+further force of two thousand men, who stormed Alexandria and sacked it
+like a conquered city, and established Proterius in the bishopric. As a
+punishment upon the city for its rebellion, the prefect stopped for some
+time the public games and the allowance of grain to the citizens, and
+only restored them after the return to peace and good order.
+
+In the weak state of the empire, the Blemmyes, and Nubades, or Nobatæ,
+had latterly been renewing their inroads upon Upper Egypt; they
+had overpowered the Romans, as the Greek and barbarian troops of
+Constantinople were always called, and had carried off a large booty
+and a number of prisoners. Maximinus, the imperial general, then led his
+forces against them; he defeated them, and made them beg for peace.
+The barbarians then proposed, as the terms of their surrender, never to
+enter Egypt while Maximinus commanded the troops in the Thebaid; but the
+conqueror was not contented with such an unsatisfactory submission,
+and would make no treaty with them till they had released the Roman
+prisoners without ransom, paid for the booty that they had taken, and
+given a number of the nobles as hostages. On this Maximums agreed to a
+truce of a hundred years.
+
+The people now called the Nubians, living on both sides of the cataract
+of Syênê, declared themselves of the true Egyptian race by their
+religious practices. They had an old custom of going each year to the
+temple of Isis on the isle of Elephantine, and of carrying away one
+of the statues with them and returning it to the temple when they had
+consulted it. But as they were now being driven out of the province,
+they bargained with Maximums for permission to visit the temple each
+year without hindrance from the Roman guards. The treaty was written on
+papyrus and nailed up in this temple. But friendship in the desert, says
+the proverb, is as weak and wavering as the shade of the acacia tree;
+this truce was no sooner agreed upon than Maximinus fell ill and died;
+and the Nubades at once broke the treaty, regained by force their
+hostages, who had not yet been carried out of the Thebaid, and overran
+the province as they had done before their defeat.
+
+[Illustration: 279.jpg ISIS AS THE DOG-STAR]
+
+By this success of the Nubians, Christianity was largely driven out of
+Upper Egypt; and about seventy years after the law of Thedosius L, by
+which paganism was supposed to be crushed, the religion of Isis and
+Serapis was again openly professed in the Thebaid, where it had perhaps
+always been cultivated in secret. A certain master of the robes in one
+of the Egyptian temple came at this time to the temple of Isis in the
+island of Philæ, and his votive inscription there declares that he was
+the son of Pachomius, a prophet, and successor by direct descent from a
+yet more famous Pachomius, a prophet, who we may easily believe was the
+Christian prophet who gathered together so many followers in the island
+of Tabenna, near Thebes, and there founded an order of Christian monks.
+These Christians now all returned to their paganism. Nearly all the
+remains of Christian architecture which we meet with in the The-baid
+were built during the hundred and sixty years between the defeat of the
+Nubians by Diocletian, and their victories in the reign of Marcian.
+
+The Nubians were far more civilised than their neighbours, the Blemmyes,
+whom they were usually able to drive back into their native deserts. We
+find an inscription in bad Greek, in the great temple at Talmis, now
+the village of Kalabshe, which was probably written about this time.
+A conqueror of the name of Silco there declares that he is king of the
+Nubians and all the Ethiopians; that in the upper part of his kingdom he
+is called Mars, and in the lower part Lion; that he is as great as any
+king of his day; that he has defeated the Blemmyes in battle again and
+again; and that he has made himself master of the country between
+Talmis and Primis. While such were the neighbours and inhabitants of
+the Thebaid, the fields were only half-tilled, and the desert was
+encroaching on the paths of man. The sand was filling up the temples,
+covering the overthrown statues, and blocking up the doors to the tombs;
+but it was at the same time saving, to be dug out in after ages, those
+records which the living no longer valued.
+
+On the death of the Emperor Marcian, the Alexandrians, taking advantage
+of the absence of the military prefect Dionysius, who was then fighting
+against the Nubades in Upper Egypt, renewed their attack upon the Bishop
+Proterius, and deposed him from his office. To fill his place they made
+choice of a monk named Timotheus Ælurus, who held the Jacobite faith,
+and, having among them two deposed bishops, they got them to ordain him
+Bishop of Alexandria, and then led him by force of arms into the great
+church which had formerly been called Caesar’s temple. Upon hearing
+of the rebellion, the prefect returned in haste to Alexandria; but
+his approach was only the signal for greater violence, and the enraged
+people murdered Proterius in the baptistery, and hung up his body at the
+Tetrapylon in mockery. This was not a rebellion of the mob. Timotheus
+was supported by the men of chief rank in the city; the _Honorati_ who
+had borne state offices, the _Politici_ who had borne civic offices,
+and the _Navicularii_, or contractors for the freight of the Egyptian
+tribute, were all opposed to the emperor’s claim to appoint the officer
+whose duties were much more those of prefect of the city than patriarch
+of Egypt. With such an opposition as this, the emperor would do nothing
+without the greatest caution, for he was in danger of losing Egypt
+altogether. But so much were the minds of all men then engrossed in
+ecclesiastical matters that this political struggle wholly took the form
+of a dispute in controversial divinity, and the emperor wrote a
+letter to the chief bishops in Christendom to ask their advice in
+his difficulty. These theologians were too busily engaged in their
+controversies to take any notice of the danger of Egypt’s revolting from
+the empire and joining the Persians; so they strongly advised Leo not to
+depart from the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, or to acknowledge
+as Bishop of Alexandria a man who denied the two natures of Christ.
+Accordingly, the emperor again risked breaking the slender ties by
+which he held Egypt; he banished the popular bishop, and forced the
+Alexandrians to receive in his place one who held the Chalcedonian
+faith.
+
+On the death of Leo, he was succeeded by his grandson, Leo the Younger,
+who died in 473, after a reign of one year, and was succeeded by his
+father Zeno, the son-in-law of the elder Leo. Zeno gave himself up at
+once to debauchery and vice, while the empire was harassed on all sides
+by the barbarians, and the provinces were roused into rebellion by the
+cruelty of the prefects. The rebels at last found a head in Basilicus,
+the brother-in-law of Leo. He declared himself of the Jacobite faith,
+which was the faith of the barbarian enemies, of the barbarian troops,
+and of the barbarian allies of the empire, and, proclaiming himself
+emperor, made himself master of Constantinople without a battle, and
+drove Zeno into banishment in the third year of his reign.
+
+The first step of Basilicus was to recall from banishment Timotheus
+Ælurus, the late Bishop of Alexandria, and to restore him to the
+bishopric (A.D. 477). He then addressed to him and the other recalled
+bishops a circular letter, in which he repeals the decrees of the
+council of Chalcedon, and re-establishes the Nicene creed, declaring
+that Jesus was of one substance with the Father, and that Mary was the
+mother of God. The march of Timotheus to the seat of his own government,
+from Constantinople whither he had been summoned, was more like that
+of a conqueror than of a preacher of peace. He deposed some bishops and
+restored others, and, as the decrees of the council of Chalcedon were
+the particular objects of his hatred, he restored to the city of Ephesus
+the patriarchal power which that synod had taken away from it. Basilicus
+reigned for about two years, when he was defeated and put to death by
+Zeno, who regained the throne.
+
+As soon as Zeno was again master of the empire, he re-established the
+creed of the council of Chalcedon, and drove away the Jacobite bishops
+from their bishoprics. Death, however, removed Timotheus Ælurus before
+the emperor’s orders were put in force in Alexandria, and the Egyptians
+then chose Peter Mongus as his successor, in direct opposition to the
+orders from Constantinople. But the emperor was resolved not to be
+beaten; the bishopric of Alexandria was so much a civil office that to
+have given up the appointment to the Egyptians would have been to allow
+the people to govern themselves; so he banished Peter, and recalled to
+the head of the Church Timotheus Salophaciolus, who had been living at
+Canopus ever since his loss of the bishopric.
+
+But, as the patriarch of Alexandria enjoyed the ecclesiastical revenues,
+and was still in appearance a teacher of religion, the Alexandrians,
+in recollection of the former rights of the Church, still claimed the
+appointment. They sent John, a priest of their own faith and dean of the
+church of John the Baptist, as their ambassador to Constantinople, not
+to remonstrate against the late acts of the emperor, but to beg that on
+future occasions the Alexandrians might be allowed the old privilege of
+choosing their own bishop. The Emperor Zeno seems to have seen through
+the ambassador’s earnestness, and he first bound him by an oath not to
+accept the bishopric if he should even be himself chosen to it, and
+he then sent him back with the promise that the Alexandrians should
+be allowed to choose their own patriarch on the next vacancy. But
+unfortunately John’s ambition was too strong for his oath, and on the
+death of Timotheus, which happened soon afterwards, he spent a large
+sum of money in bribes among the clergy and chief men of the city, and
+thereby got himself chosen patriarch. On this, the emperor seems to have
+thought only of punishing John, and he at once gave up the struggle with
+the Egyptians. Believing that, of the two patriarchs who had been chosen
+by the people, Peter Mongus, who was living in banishment, would be
+found more dutiful than John, who was on the episcopal throne, he
+banished John and recalled Peter; and the latter agreed to the terms of
+an imperial edict which Zeno then put forth, to heal the disputes in
+the Egyptian church, and to recall the province to obedience. This
+celebrated peace-making edict, usually called the Henoticon, is
+addressed to the clergy and laity of Alexandria, Egypt, Libya, and the
+Pentapolis, and is an agreement between the emperor and the bishops who
+countersigned it, that neither party should ever mention the decrees of
+the council of Chalcedon, which were the great stumbling-block with the
+Egyptians.
+
+[Illustration: 285.jpg STREET SPRINKLER AT ALEXANDRIA]
+
+But in all other points the Henoticon is little short of a surrender to
+the people of the right to choose their own creed; it styles Mary the
+mother of God, and allows that the decrees of the council of Nicæa and
+Constantinople contain all that is important of the true faith. John,
+when banished by Zeno, like many of the former deposed bishops, fled to
+Rome for comfort and for help. There he met with the usual support; and
+Felix, Bishop of Rome, wrote to Constantinople, remonstrating with Zeno
+for dismissing the patriarch. But this was only a small part of the
+emperor’s want of success in his attempt at peace-making; for the crafty
+Peter, who had gained the bishopric by subscribing to the peace-making
+edict, was no sooner safely seated on his episcopal throne than he
+denounced the council of Chalcedon and its decrees as heretical, and
+drove out of their monasteries all those who still adhered to that
+faith. Nephalius, one of these monks, wrote to the emperor at
+Constantinople in complaint, and Zeno sent Cosmas to the bishop to
+threaten him with his imperial displeasure, and to try to re-establish
+peace in the Church. But the arguments of Cosmas were wholly
+unsuccessful; and Zeno then sent an increase of force to Arsenius, the
+military prefect, who settled the quarrel for the time by sending back
+the most rebellious of the Alexandrians as prisoners to Constantinople.
+
+Soon after this dispute Peter Mongus died, and fortunately he was
+succeeded in the bishopric by a peacemaker. Athanasius, the new bishop,
+very unlike his great predecessor of the same name, did his best to heal
+the angry disputes in the Church, and to reconcile the Egyptians to the
+imperial government.
+
+Hierocles, the Alexandrian, was at this time teaching philosophy in his
+native city, where his zeal and eloquence in favour of Platonism drew
+upon him the anger of the Christians and the notice of the government.
+
+He was sent to Constantinople to be punished for not believing in
+Christianity, for it does not appear that, like the former Hierocles,
+he ever wrote against it. There he bore a public scourging from his
+Christian torturers, with a courage equal to that formerly shown by
+their forefathers when tortured by his. When some of the blood from
+his shoulders flew into his hand, he held it out in scorn to the judge,
+saying with Ulysses, “Cyclops, since human flesh has been thy food, now
+taste this wine.” After his punishment he was banished, but was soon
+allowed to return to Alexandria, and there he again taught openly as
+before. Paganism never wears so fair a dress as in the writings of
+Hierocles; his commentary on the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans is
+full of the loftiest and purest morality, and not less agreeable are the
+fragments that remain of his writings on our duties, and his beautiful
+chapter on the pleasures of a married life. In the Facetiæ of Hierocles
+we have one of the earliest jest-books that has been saved from the
+wreck of time. It is a curious proof of the fallen state of learning;
+the Sophists had long since made themselves ridiculous; books alone will
+not make a man of sense; and in the jokes of Hierocles the blunderer is
+always called a man of learning.
+
+Ætius, the Alexandrian physician, has left a large work containing
+a full account of the state of Egyptian medicine at this time. He
+describes the diseases and their remedies, quoting the recipes of
+numerous authors, from the King Nechepsus, Galen, Hippocrates, and
+Hioscorides, down to Archbishop Cyril. He is not wholly free from
+superstition, as when making use of a green jasper set in a ring; but he
+observes that the patients recovered as soon when the stone was plain
+as when a dragon was engraved upon it according to the recommendation of
+Nechepsus. In Nile water he finds every virtue, and does not forget dark
+paint for the ladies’ eyebrows, and Cleopatra-wash for the face.
+
+Anastasius, the next emperor, succeeding in 491, followed the wise
+policy which Zeno had entered upon in the latter years of his reign,
+and he strictly adhered to the terms of the peace-making edict. The
+four patriarchs of Alexandria who were chosen during this reign, John,
+a second John, Dioscorus, and Timotheus, were all of the Jacobite faith;
+and the Egyptians readily believed that the emperor was of the same
+opinion. When called upon by the quarrelling theologians, he would
+neither reject nor receive the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, and
+by this wise conduct he governed Egypt without any religious rebellion
+during a long reign.
+
+The election of Dioscorus, however, the third patriarch of this
+reign, was not brought about peaceably. He was the cousin of a former
+patriarch, Timotheus Ælurus, which, if we view the bishopric as a civil
+office, might be a reason for the emperor’s wishing him to have the
+appointment. But it was no good reason with the Alexandrians, who
+declared that he had not been chosen according to the canons of the
+apostles; and the magistrates of the city were forced to employ the
+troops to lead him in safety to his throne. After the first ceremony, he
+went, as was usual at an installation, to St. Mark’s Church, and
+there the clergy robed him in the patriarchal state robes. The grand
+procession then moved through the streets to the church of St. John,
+where the new bishop went through the communion service. But the city
+was much disturbed during the whole day, and in the riot Theodosius, the
+son of Calliopus, a man of Augustalian rank, was killed by the mob. The
+Alexandrians treated the affair as murder, and punished with death those
+who were thought guilty; but the emperor looked upon it as a rebellion
+of the citizens, and the bishop was obliged to go on an embassy to
+Constantinople to appease his just anger.
+
+Anastasius, who had deserved the obedience of the Egyptians by his
+moderation, pardoned their ingratitude when they offended; but he was
+the last Byzantine emperor who governed Egypt with wisdom, and the last
+who failed to enforce the decrees of the council of Chalcedon. It may
+well be doubted whether any wise conduct on the part of the rulers
+could have healed the quarrel between the two countries, and made the
+Egyptians forget the wrongs that they had suffered from the Greeks.
+
+In the tenth year of the reign of Anastasius, A.D. 501, the Persians,
+after overrunning a large part of Syria and defeating the Roman
+generals, passed Pelusium and entered Egypt. The army of Kobades
+laid waste the whole of the Delta up to the very walls of Alexandria.
+Eustatius, the military prefect, led out his forces against the invaders
+and fought many battles with doubtful success; but as the capital was
+safe the Persians were at last obliged to retire, leaving the people
+ruined as much by the loss of a harvest as by the sword. Alexandria
+suffered severely from famine and the diseases which followed in
+its train; and history has gratefully recorded the name of Urbib, a
+Christian Jew of great wealth, who relieved the starving poor of that
+city with his bounty. Three hundred persons were crushed to death in the
+church of Arcadius on Easter Sunday in the press of the crowd to receive
+his alms. As war brought on disease and famine, they also brought on
+rebellion. The people of Alexandria, in want of grain and oil, rose
+against the magistrates, and many lives were lost in the attempt to
+quell the riots.
+
+In the early part of this history we have seen ambitious bishops quickly
+disposed of by banishment to the Great Oasis; and again, as the country
+became more desolate, criminals were sufficiently separated from the
+rest of the empire by being sent to Thebes. Alexandria was then the last
+place in the world in which a pretender to the throne would be allowed
+to live. But Egypt was now ruined; and Anastasius began his reign by
+banishing, to the fallen Alexandria, Longinus, the brother of the late
+king, and he had him ordained a presbyter, to mark him as unfit for the
+throne.
+
+Julianus, who was during a part of this reign the prefect of Egypt, was
+also a poet, and he has left us a number of short epigrams that
+form part of the volume of Greek Anthology which was published at
+Constantinople soon after this time. Christodorus of Thebes was another
+poet who joined with Julianus in praising the Emperor Anastasius. He
+also removed to Constantinople, the seat of patronage; and the fifth
+book of the Greek Anthology contains his epigrams on the winners in the
+horse-race in that city and on the statues which stood around the public
+gymnasium.
+
+[Illustration: 291.jpg ILLUSTRATIONS FROM COPY OF DIOSCORIDE]
+
+The poet’s song, like the traveller’s tale, often related the wonders
+of the river Nile. The overflowing waters first manured the fields, and
+then watered the crops, and lastly carried the grain to market; and one
+writer in the Anthology, to describe the country life in Egypt, tells
+the story of a sailor, who, to avoid the dangers of the ocean, turned
+husbandman, and was then shipwrecked in his own meadows.
+
+The book-writers at this time sometimes illuminated their more valuable
+parchments with gold and silver letters and sometimes employed painters
+to ornament them with small paintings. The beautiful copy of the work
+of Dioscorides on Plants in the library at Vienna was made in this reign
+for the Princess Juliana of Constantinople. In one painting the figure
+of science or invention is holding up a plant, while on one side of her
+is the painter drawing it on his canvas, and on the other side is the
+author describing it in his book. Other paintings are of the plants and
+animals mentioned in the book. A copy of the Book of Genesis, also in
+the library at Vienna, is of the same class and date. A large part of it
+is written in gold and silver; and it has eighty-eight small paintings
+of various historical subjects. In these the story is well told, though
+the drawing and perspective are bad and the figures crowded. But
+these Alexandrian paintings are better than those made in Rome or
+Constantinople at this time.
+
+With the spread of Christianity theatrical representations had been
+gradually going out of use. The Greek tragedies, as we see in the works
+of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, those models of pure taste in
+poetry, are founded on the pagan mythology; and in many of them the gods
+are made to walk and talk upon the stage. Hence they of necessity fell
+under the ban of the clergy. As the Christians became more powerful the
+several cities of the empire had one by one discontinued these
+popular spectacles, and horse-races usually took their place. But the
+Alexandrians were the last people to give up a favourite amusement;
+and by the end of this reign Alexandria was the only city in the empire
+where tragic and comic actors and Eastern dancers were to be seen in the
+theatre.
+
+The tower or lighthouse on the island of Pharos, the work of days more
+prosperous than these, had latterly been sadly neglected with the other
+buildings of the country. For more than seven hundred years, the
+pilot on approaching this flat shore after dark had pointed out to his
+shipmate what seemed a star on the horizon, and comforted him with the
+promise of a safe entrance into the haven, and told him of Alexander’s
+tower. But the waves breaking against its foot had long since carried
+away the outworks, and laid bare the foundations; the wall was
+undermined and its fall seemed close at hand. The care of Anastasius,
+however, surrounded it again with piles and buttresses; and this
+monument of wisdom and science, which deserved to last for ever, was
+for a little while longer saved from ruin. An epigram in the Anthology
+informs us that Ammonius was the name of the builder who performed this
+good work, and to him and to Neptune the grateful sailors then raised
+their hands in prayer and praise.
+
+In 518 Justin I. succeeded Anastasius on the throne of Constantinople,
+and in the task of defending the empire against the Persians. And this
+task became every year more difficult, as the Greek population of his
+Egyptian and Asiatic provinces fell off in numbers. For some years after
+the division of the empire under the sons of Constantine, Antioch in
+Syria had been the capital from which Alexandria received the emperor’s
+commands. The two cities became very closely united; and now that the
+Greeks were deserting Antioch, a part of the Syrian church began to
+adopt the more superstitious creed of Egypt. Severus, Bishop of Antioch,
+was successful in persuading a large party in the Syrian church to deny
+the humanity of Christ, and to style Mary the mother of God. But the
+chief power in Antioch rested with the opposite party. They answered
+his arguments by threats of violence, and he had to leave the city for
+safety. He fled to Alexandria, and with him began the friendship between
+the two churches which lasted for several centuries. In Alexandria he
+was received with the honour due to his religious zeal. But though
+in Antioch his opinions had been too Egyptian for the Syrians, in
+Alexandria they were too Syrian for the Egyptians. The Egyptians, who
+said that Jesus had been crucified and died only in appearance, always
+denied that his body was liable to corruption. Severus, however, argued
+that it was liable to corruption before the resurrection; and this led
+him into a new controversy, in which Timotheus, the Alexandrian bishop,
+took part against his own more superstitious flock, and sided with
+his friend, the Bishop of Antioch. Severus has left us, in the Syriac
+language, the baptismal service as performed in Egypt. The priest
+breathes three times into the basin to make the water holy, he makes
+three crosses on the child’s forehead, he adjures the demons of
+wickedness to quit him, he again makes three crosses on his forehead
+with oil, he again blows three times into the water in the form of a
+cross, he anoints his whole body with oil, and then plunges him in the
+water. Many other natives of Syria soon followed Severus to Alexandria;
+so many indeed that as Greek literature decayed in that city, Syriac
+literature rose. Many Syrians also came to study the religious life in
+the monasteries of Egypt, and after some time the books in the library
+of the monastery at Mount Nit-ria were found to be half Arabic and half
+Syriac.
+
+Justin, the new emperor, again lighted up in Alexandria the flames
+of discord which had been allowed to slumber since the publication of
+Zeno’s peace-making edict. But in the choice of the bishop he was not
+able to command without a struggle. In the second year of his reign, on
+the death of Timotheus, the two parties again found themselves nearly
+equal in strength; and Alexandria was for several years kept almost in a
+state of civil war between those who thought that the body of Jesus had
+been liable to corruption, and those who thought it incorruptible. The
+former chose Gaianas, whom his adversaries called a Manichean; and the
+latter Theodosius, a Jacobite, who had the support of the prefect; and
+each of these in his turn was able to drive his rival out of Alexandria.
+
+Those Persian forces which in the last reign overran the Delta were
+chiefly Arabs from the opposite coast of the Red Sea. To make an end of
+these attacks, and to engage their attention in another quarter, was the
+natural wish of the statesmen of Constantinople; and for this purpose
+Anastasius had sent an embassy to the Homeritæ on the southern coast
+of Arabia, to persuade them to attack their northern neighbours. The
+Homeritæ held the strip of coast now called Hadramout. They were
+enriched, though hardly civilised, by being the channel along which
+much of the Eastern trade passed from India to the Nile, to avoid the
+difficult navigation of the ocean. They were Jewish Arabs, who had
+little in common with the Arabs of Yemen, but had frequent intercourse
+with Abyssinia and the merchants of the Red Sea. Part of the trade of
+Solomon and the Tyrians was probably to their coast. To this distant and
+little tribe the Emperor of Constantinople now sent a second pressing
+embassy. Julianus, the ambassador, went up the Nile from Alexandria,
+and then crossed the Red Sea, or Indian Sea as it was also called, to
+Arabia. He was favourably received by the Homeritæ. Arethas, the king,
+gave him an audience in grand barbaric state. He was standing in a
+chariot drawn by four elephants; he wore no clothing but a cloth of gold
+around his loins; his arms were laden with costly armlets and bracelets;
+he held a shield and two spears in his hands, and his nobles stood
+around him armed, and singing to his honour. When the ambassador
+delivered the emperor’s letter, Arethas kissed the seal, and then kissed
+Julianus himself. He accepted the gifts which Justin had sent, and
+promised to move his forces northward against the Persians as requested,
+and also to keep the route open for the trade to Alexandria.
+
+Justinian, the successor of Justin in 527, settled the quarrel between
+the two Alexandrian bishops by summoning them both to Constantinople,
+and then sending them into banishment. But this had no effect in healing
+the divisions in the Egyptian church; and for the next half-century the
+two parties ranged themselves, in their theological or rather political
+quarrel, under the names of their former bishops, and called themselves
+Gaianites and Theodosians. Nor did the measures of Justinian tend to
+lessen the breach between Egypt and Constantinople. He appointed Paul to
+the bishopric, and required the Egyptians to receive the decrees of the
+council of Chalcedon.
+
+After two years Paul was displaced either by the emperor or by his
+flock; and Zoilus was then seated on the episcopal throne by the help
+of the imperial forces. He maintained his dangerous post for about six
+years, when the Alexandrians rose in open rebellion, overpowered the
+troops, and forced him to seek safety in flight; and the Jacobite party
+then turned out all the bishops who held the Greek faith.
+
+When Justinian heard that the Jacobites were masters of Egypt he
+appointed Apollinarius to the joint office of prefect and patriarch of
+Alexandria, and sent him with a large force to take possession of his
+bishopric. Apollinarius marched into Alexandria in full military dress
+at the head of his troops; but when he entered the church he laid aside
+his arms, and putting on the patriarchal robes began to celebrate the
+rites of his religion. The Alexandrians were by no means overawed by the
+force with which he had entered the city; they pelted him with a shower
+of stones from every corner of the church, and he was forced to withdraw
+from the building in order to save his life. But three days afterwards
+the bells were rung through the city, and the people were summoned to
+meet in the church on the following Sunday, to hear the emperor’s letter
+read. When Sunday came the whole city flocked to hear and to disobey
+Justinian’s orders. Apollinarius began his address by threatening his
+hearers that, if they continued obstinate in their opinions, their
+children should be made orphans and their widows given up to the
+soldiery; and he was as before stopped with a shower of stones. But this
+time he was prepared for the attack; this Christian bishop had placed
+his troops in ambush round the church, and on a signal given they
+rushed out on his unarmed flock, and by his orders the crowds within and
+without the church were put to rout by the sword, the soldiers waded
+up to their knees in blood, and the city and whole country yielded its
+obedience for the time to bishops who held the Greek faith.
+
+Henceforth the Melchite or royalist patriarchs, who were appointed by
+the emperor and had the authority of civil prefects, and were supported
+by the power of the military prefect, are scarcely mentioned by the
+historian of the Koptic church. They were too much engaged in civil
+affairs to act the part of ministers of religion. They collected their
+revenues principally in grain, and carried on a large export trade,
+transporting their stores to those parts of Europe where they would
+bring the best price. On one occasion we hear of a small fleet belonging
+to the church of Alexandria, consisting of thirteen ships of about
+thirty tons burden each, and bearing ten thousand bushels of grain,
+being overtaken by a storm on the coast of Italy. The princely income
+of the later patriarchs, raised from the churches of all Egypt under the
+name of the offerings of the pious, sometimes amounted to two thousand
+pounds of gold, or four hundred thousand dollars. But while these
+Melchite or royalist bishops were enjoying the ecclesiastical revenues,
+and administering the civil affairs of the diocese and of the great
+monasteries, there was a second bishop who held the Jacobite faith, and
+who, having been elected by the people according to the ancient forms of
+the Church, equally bore the title of patriarch, and administered in
+his more humble path to the spiritual wants of his flock. The Jacobite
+bishop was always a monk. At his ordination he was declared to be
+elected by the popular voice, by the bishops, priests, deacons, monks,
+and all the people of Lower Egypt; and prayers were offered up through
+the intercession of the Mother of God, and of the glorious Apostle
+Mark. The two churches no longer used the same prayer-book. The Melchite
+church continued to use the old liturgy, which, as it had been read in
+Alexandria from time immemorial, was called the liturgy of St. Mark,
+altered however to declare that the Son was of the same substance with
+the Father. But the Koptic church made use of the newer liturgies
+by their own champions, Bishop Cyril, Basil of Cæsaræ, and Gregory
+Nazianzen. These three liturgies were all in the Koptic language, and
+more clearly denied the two natures of Christ. Of the two churches the
+Koptic had less learning, more bigotry, and opinions more removed from
+the teachings of the New Testament; but then the Koptic bishop alone
+had any moral power to lead the minds of his flock towards piety and
+religion. Had the emperors been at all times either humane or politic
+enough to employ bishops of the same religion as the people, they would
+perhaps have kept the good-will of their subjects; but as it was, the
+Koptic church, smarting under its insults, and forgetting the greater
+evils of a foreign conquest, would sometimes look with longing eyes to
+the condition of their neighbours, their brethren in faith, the Arabic
+subjects of Persia.
+
+The Christianity of the Egyptians was mostly superstition; and as it
+spread over the land it embraced the whole nation within its pale, not
+so much by purifying the pagan opinions as by lowering itself to their
+level, and fitting itself to their corporeal notions of the Creator.
+This was in a large measure induced by the custom of using the old
+temples for Christian churches; the form of worship was in part guided
+by the form of the building, and even the old traditions were engrafted
+on the new religion. Thus the traveller Antonius, after visiting the
+remarkable places in the Holy Land, came to Egypt to search for the
+chariots of the Egyptians who pursued Moses, petrified into rocks at the
+bottom of the Red Sea, and for the footsteps left in the sands by the
+infant Jesus while he dwelt in Egypt with his parents. At Memphis he
+enquired why one of the doors in the great temple of Phtah, then used
+as a church, was always closed, and he was told that it had been rudely
+shut against the infant Jesus five hundred years before, and mortal
+strength had never since been able to open it.
+
+The records of the empire declared that the first Cæsars had kept six
+hundred and forty-five thousand men under arms to guard Italy, Africa,
+Spain, and Egypt, a number perhaps much larger than the truth; but
+Justinian could with difficulty maintain one hundred and fifty thousand
+ill-disciplined troops, a force far from large enough to hold even those
+provinces that remained to him. During the latter half of his reign
+the eastern frontier of this falling empire was sorely harassed by the
+Persians under their king Chosroes. They overran Syria, defeated the
+army of the empire in a pitched battle, and then took Antioch. By these
+defeats the military roads were stopped; Egypt was cut off from the rest
+of the empire and could be reached from the capital only by sea. Hence
+the emperor was driven to a change in his religious policy. He gave over
+the persecution of the Jacobite opinions, and even went so far in one
+of his decrees as to call the body of Jesus incorruptible, as he thought
+that these were the only means of keeping the allegiance of his subjects
+or the friendship of his Arab neighbours, all of whom, as far as they
+were Christians, held the Jacobite view of the Nicene creed, and denied
+the two natures of Christ.
+
+As the forces of Constantinople were driven back by the victorious
+armies of the Persians, the emperors had lost, among other fortresses,
+the capital of Arabia Nabataæ, that curious rocky fastness that well
+deserved the name of Petra, and which had been garrisoned by Romans
+from the reign of Trajan till that of Valens. On this loss it became
+necessary to fortify a new frontier post on the Egyptian side of the
+Elanitic Gulf. Justinian then built the fortified monastery near Mount
+Sinai, to guard the only pass by which Egypt could be entered without
+the help of a fleet; and when it was found to be commanded by one of the
+higher points of the mountain he beheaded the engineer who built it, and
+remedied the fault, as far as it could be done, by a small fortress
+on the higher ground. This monastery was held by the Egyptians, and
+maintained out of the Egyptian taxes. When the Egyptians were formerly
+masters of their own country, before the Persian and Greek conquests,
+they were governed by a race of priests, and the temples were their only
+fortresses.
+
+[Illustration: 302.jpg FORTRESS NEAR MOUNT SINAI]
+
+The temples of Thebes were the citadels of the capital, and the temples
+of Elephantine guarded the frontier. So now, when the military prefect
+is too weak to make himself obeyed, the emperor tries to govern through
+means of the Christian priesthood; and when it is necessary for the
+Egyptians to defend their own frontier, he builds a monastery and
+garrisons it with monks.
+
+Part of the Egyptian trade to the East was carried on through the
+islands of Ceylon and Socotra; but it was chiefly in the hands of
+uneducated Arabs of Ethiopia, who were little able to communicate to
+the world much knowledge of the countries from which they brought their
+highly valued goods. At Ceylon they met with traders from beyond the
+Ganges and from China, of whom they bought the silk which Europeans had
+formerly thought a product of Arabia. At Ceylon was a Christian church,
+with a priest and a deacon, frequented by the Christians from Persia,
+while the natives of the place were pagans. The coins there used were
+Roman, borne thither by the course of trade, which during so many
+centuries carried the gold and silver eastward. The trade was lately
+turned more strongly into this channel because a war had sprung up
+between the two tribes of Jewish Arabs, the Hexumitæ of Abyssinia
+on the coast of the Red Sea near Adule, and the Homeritæ who dwelt in
+Arabia on the opposite coast, at the southern end of the Red Sea. The
+Homeritæ had quarrelled with the Alexandrian merchants in the Indian
+trade, and had killed some of them as they were passing their mountains
+from India to the country of the Hexumitae.
+
+Immediately after these murders the Hexumitæ found the trade injured,
+and they took up arms to keep the passage open for the merchants. Hadad
+their king crossed the Red Sea and conquered his enemies; he put to
+death Damianus, the King of the Homeritse, and made a new treaty
+with the Emperor of Constantinople. The Hexumitæ promised to become
+Christians. They sent to Alexandria to beg for a priest to baptise them,
+and to ordain their preachers; and Justinian sent John, a man of piety
+and high character, the dean of the church of St. John, who returned
+with the ambassadors and became bishop of the Hexumitae.
+
+It was possibly this conquest of the Homeritae by Hadad, King of the
+Hexumitae, which was recorded on the monument of Adule, at the foot of
+the inscription set up eight centuries earlier by Ptolemy Euergetes. The
+monument is a throne of white marble. The conqueror, whose name had
+been broken away before the inscription was copied, there boasts that
+he crossed over the Red Sea and made the Arabians and Sabaaans pay him
+tribute. On his own continent he defeated the tribes to the north of
+him, and opened the passage from his own country to Egypt; he also
+marched eastward, and conquered the tribes on the African incense coast;
+and lastly, he crossed the Astaborus to the snowy mountains in which
+that branch of the Nile rises, and conquered the tribes between that
+stream and the Astapus. This valuable inscription, which tells us of
+snowy mountains within the tropics, was copied by Cosmas, a merchant of
+Alexandria, who passed through Adule on his way to India.
+
+Former emperors, Anastasius and Justin, had sent several embassies to
+these nations at the southern end of the Red Sea; to the Homeritae,
+to persuade them to attack the Persian forces in Arabia, and to the
+Hexumitae, for the encouragement of trade. Justinian also sent an
+embassy to the Homeritae under Abram; and, as he was successful in his
+object, he entrusted a second embassy to Abram’s son. Nonnosus landed
+at Adule on the Abyssinian coast, and then travelled inward for fifteen
+days to Auxum, the capital. This country was then called Ethiopia; it
+had gained the name which before belonged to the valley of the Nile
+between Egypt and Meroë. On his way to Auxum, he saw troops of wild
+elephants, to the number, as he supposed, of five thousand. After
+delivering his message to Elesbaas, then King of Auxum, he crossed the
+Red Sea to Caisus, King of the Homeritæ, a grandson of that Arethas
+to whom Justin had sent his embassy. Notwithstanding the natural
+difficulties of the journey, and those arising from the tribes through
+which he had to pass, Nonnosus performed his task successfully, and on
+his return home wrote a history of his embassies.
+
+The advantage gained to the Hexumitæ by their invasion of the Homeritæ
+was soon lost, probably as soon as their forces were withdrawn. The
+trade through the country of the Homeritae was again stopped; and such
+was the difficulty of navigation from the incense coast of Africa to the
+mouths of the Indus, that the loss was severely felt at Auxum. Elesbæs
+therefore undertook to repeat the punishment which had been before
+inflicted on his less civilised neighbours, and again to open the trade
+to the merchants from the Nile. It was while he was preparing his forces
+for this invasion that Cosmas, the Alexandrian traveller, passed through
+Adule; and he copied for the King of Auxum the inscription above spoken
+of, which recorded the victories of his predecessor over the enemies he
+was himself preparing to attack.
+
+The invasion by Elesbæs, or Elesthæus as he is also named, was
+immediately successful. The Homeritæ were conquered, their ruler was
+overthrown; and, to secure their future obedience, the conqueror
+set over these Jewish Arabs an Abyssinian Christian for their king.
+Esimaphæus was chosen for that post; and his first duty was to convert
+his new subjects to Christianity. Political reasons as well as religious
+zeal would urge him to this undertaking, to make the conquered bear the
+badge of the conqueror. For this purpose he engaged the assistance of
+Gregentius, a bishop, who was to employ his learning and eloquence in
+the cause. Accordingly, in the palace of Threlletum, in the presence of
+their new king, a public dispute was held between the Christian bishop
+and Herban, a learned Jew. Gregentius has left us an account of the
+controversy, in which he was wholly successful, being helped, perhaps,
+by the threats and promises of the king. The arguments used were not
+quite the same as they would be now. The bishop explained the Trinity as
+the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Mind or Father, and resting on
+the Word or Son, which was then the orthodox view of this mysterious
+doctrine. On the other hand, the Jew quoted the Old Testament to show
+that the Lord their God was one Lord. It is related that suddenly the
+Jews present were struck blind. Their sight, however, was restored to
+them on the bishop’s praying for them; and they were then all thereby
+converted and baptised on the spot. The king stood godfather to Herban,
+and rewarded him with a high office under his government.
+
+[Illustration: 307.jpg PYRAMID OF MEDUM]
+
+Esimaphasus did not long remain King of the Homeritæ. A rebellion
+soon broke out against him, and he was deposed. Elesbaas, King of Auxum,
+again sent an army to recall the Homeritæ to their obedience, but this
+time the army joined in the revolt; and Elesbæ then made peace with
+the enemy, in hopes of thus gaining the advantages which he was unable
+to grasp by force of arms. From a Greek inscription on a monument at
+Auxum we learn the name of Æizanas, another king of that country, who
+also called himself, either truly or boastfully, king of the opposite
+coast. He set up the monument to record his victories over the Bougoto,
+a people who dwelt between Auxum and Egypt, and he styles himself the
+invincible Mars, king of kings, King of the Hexumito, of the Ethiopians,
+of the Saboans, and of the Homerito. These kings of the Hexumito
+ornamented the city of Auxum with several beautiful and lofty obelisks,
+each made of a single block of granite like those in Egypt.
+
+Egypt in its mismanaged state seemed to be of little value to the empire
+save as a means of enriching the prefect and the tax-gatherers; it
+yielded very little tribute to Constantinople beyond the supply of
+grain, and that by no means regularly. To remedy these abuses Justinian
+made a new law for the government of the province, with a view of
+bringing about a thorough reform. By this edict the districts of
+Menelaites and Mareotis, to the west of Alexandria, were separated from
+the rest of Egypt, and they were given to the prefect of Libya, whose
+seat of government was at Parotonium, because his province was too poor
+to pay the troops required to guard it. The several governments of Upper
+Egypt, of Lower Egypt, of Alexandria, and of the troops were then given
+to one prefect. The two cohorts, the Augustalian and the Ducal, into
+which the two Boman legions had gradually dwindled, were henceforth to
+be united under the name of the Augustalian Cohort, which was to contain
+six hundred men, who were to secure the obedience and put down any
+rebellion of the Egyptian and barbarian soldiers. The somewhat high
+pay and privileges of this favoured troop were to be increased; and, to
+secure its loyalty and to keep out Egyptians, nobody was to be admitted
+into it till his fitness had been inquired into by the emperor’s
+examiners. The first duty of the cohort was to collect the supply of
+grain for Constantinople and to see it put on board the ships; and as
+for the supply which was promised to the Alexandrians, the magistrates
+were to collect it at their own risk, and by means of their own cohort.
+The grain for Constantinople was required to be in that city before the
+end of August, or within four months after the harvest, and the supply
+for Alexandria not more than a month later. The prefect was made
+answerable for the full collection, and whatever was wanting of that
+quantity was to be levied on his property and his heirs, at the rate
+of one solidus for three artabo of grain, or about three dollars for
+fifteen bushels; while in order to help the collection, the export of
+grain from Egypt was forbidden from every port but Alexandria, except in
+small quantities. The grain required for Alexandria and Constantinople,
+to be distributed as a free gift among the idle citizens, was eight
+hundred thousand artabo, or four millions of bushels, and the cost
+of collecting it was fixed at eighty thousand solidi, or about three
+hundred thousand dollars. The prefect was ordered to assist the
+collectors at the head of his cohort, and if he gave credit for the
+taxes which he was to collect he was to bear the loss himself. If the
+archbishop interfered, to give credit and screen an unhappy Egyptian,
+then he was to bear the loss, and if his property was not enough the
+property of the Church was to make it good; but if any other bishop gave
+credit, not only was his property to bear the loss, but he was himself
+to be deposed from his bishopric; and lastly, if any riot or rebellion
+should arise to cause the loss of the Egyptian tribute, the tribunes
+of the Augustalian Cohort were to be punished with forfeiture of all
+property, and the cohort was to be removed to a station beyond the
+Danube.
+
+Such was the new law which Justinian, the great Roman lawgiver, proposed
+for the future government of Egypt. The Egyptians were treated as
+slaves, whose duty was to raise grain for the use of their masters at
+Constantinople, and their taskmasters at Alexandria. They did not even
+receive from the government the usual benefit of protection from their
+enemies, and they felt bound to the emperor by no tie either of love
+or interest. The imperial orders wrere very little obeyed beyond those
+places where the troops were encamped; the Arabs were each year pressing
+closer upon the valley of the Nile, and helping the sands of the desert
+to defeat the labours of the disheartened husbandmen; and the Greek
+language, which had hitherto followed and marked the route of commerce
+from Alexandria to Syênê, and to the island of Socotra, was now but
+seldom heard in Upper Egypt. The Alexandrians were sorely harassed by
+Haephasstus, a lawyer, who had risen by court favour to the chief post
+in the city. He made monopolies in his own favour of all the necessaries
+of life, and secured his ill-gotten gains by ready loans of part of
+it to Justinian. His zeal for the emperor was at the cost of the
+Alexandrians, and to save the public granaries he lessened the supply
+of grain which the citizens looked for as a right. The city was sinking
+fast; and the citizens could ill bear this loss, for its population,
+though lessened, was still too large for the fallen state of Egypt.
+
+The grain of the merchants was shipped from Alexandria to the chief
+ports of Europe, between Constantinople in the east and Cornwall in the
+west. Britain had been left by the Romans, as too remote for them to
+hold in their weakened condition; and the native Britons were then
+struggling against their Saxon invaders, as in a distant corner of the
+world, beyond the knowledge of the historian. But to that remote country
+the Alexandrian merchants sailed every year with grain to purchase tin,
+enlightening the natives, while they only meant to enrich themselves.
+Under the most favourable circumstances they sometimes performed the
+voyage in twenty days. The wheat was sold in Cornwall at the price of a
+bushel for a piece of silver, perhaps worth about twenty cents, or for
+the same weight of tin, as the tin and the silver were nearly of equal
+worth. This was the longest of the ancient voyages, being longer than
+that from the Red Sea to the island of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean; and
+it had been regularly performed for at least eight centuries without
+ever teaching the British to venture so far from their native shores.
+
+The suffering and riotous citizens made Alexandria a very unpleasant
+place of abode for the prefect and magistrates. They therefore built
+palaces and baths for their own use, at the public cost, at Taposiris,
+about a day’s journey to the west of the city, at a spot yet marked
+by the remains of thirty-six marble columns, and a lofty tower, once
+perhaps a lighthouse. At the same time it became necessary to fortify
+the public granaries against the rebellious mob. The grain was brought
+from the Nile by barges on a canal to the village of Chaereum, and
+thence to a part of Alexandria named Phialæ, or _The Basins_, where the
+public granaries stood. In all riots and rebellions this place had been
+a natural point of attack; and often had the starving mob broken
+open these buildings, and seized the grain that was on its way to
+Constantinople. But Justinian surrounded them with a strong wall
+against such attacks for the future, and at the same time he rebuilt the
+aqueduct that had been destroyed in one of the sieges of the city.
+
+In civil suits at law an appeal had always been allowed from the prefect
+of the province to the emperor, or rather to the prefect of the East
+at Constantinople; but as this was of course expensive, it was found
+necessary to forbid it when the sum of money in dispute was small.
+Justinian forbade all Egyptian appeals for sums less than ten pounds
+weight of gold, or about two thousand five hundred dollars; for smaller
+sums the judgment of the prefect was to be final, lest the expense
+should swallow up the amount in dispute.
+
+In this reign the Alexandrians, for the first time within the records
+of history, felt the shock of an earthquake. Their naturalists had very
+fairly supposed that the loose alluvial nature of the soil of the Delta
+was the reason why earthquakes were unknown in Lower Egypt, and believed
+that it would always save them from a misfortune which often overthrew
+cities in other countries. Pliny thought that Egypt had been always free
+from earthquakes. But this shock was felt by everybody in the city;
+and Agathias, the Byzantine historian, who, after reading law in the
+university of Beirut, was finishing his studies at Alexandria, says that
+it was strong enough to make the inhabitants all run into the street for
+fear the houses should fall upon them.
+
+The reign of Justinian is remarkable for another blow then given to
+paganism throughout the empire, or at least through those parts of the
+empire where the emperor’s laws were obeyed.
+
+[Illustration: 313.jpg A MODERN HOUSE IN THE DELTA AT ROSETTA]
+
+Under Justinian the pagan schools were again and from that time forward
+closed. Isidorus the platonist and Salustius the Cynic were among the
+learned men of greatest note who then withdrew from Alexandria. Isidorus
+had been chosen by Marinus as his successor in the platonic chair at
+Athens, to fill the high post of the platonic successor; but he had left
+the Athenian school to Zenodotus, a pupil of Proclus, and had removed
+to Alexandria. Salustius the Cynic was a Syrian, who had removed with
+Isidorus from Athens to Alexandria. He was virtuous in his morals though
+jocular in his manners, and as ready in his witty attacks upon the
+speculative opinions of his brother philosophers as upon the vices of
+the Alexandrians. These learned men, with Damascius and others from
+Athens, were kindly received by the Persians, who soon afterwards, when
+they made a treaty of peace with Justinian, generously bargained that
+these men, the last teachers of paganism, should be allowed to return
+home, and pass the rest of their days in quiet.
+
+After the flight of the pagan philosophers, but little learning was left
+in Alexandria. One of the most remarkable men in this age of ignorance
+was Cosmas, an Alexandrian merchant, who wished that the world should
+not only be enriched but enlightened by his travels. After making many
+voyages through Ethiopia to India for the sake of gain, he gave up trade
+and became a monk and an author. When he writes as a traveller about the
+Christian churches of India and Ceylon, and the inscriptions which he
+copied at Adule in Abyssinia, everything that he tells us is valuable;
+but when he reasons as a monk, the case is sadly changed. He is of the
+dogmatical school which forbids all inquiry as heretical. He fights
+the battle which has been so often fought before and since, and is even
+still fought so resolutely, the battle of religious ignorance against
+scientific knowledge. He sets the words of the Bible against the results
+of science; he denies that the world is a sphere, and quotes the Old
+Testament against the pagan astronomers, to show that it is a plane,
+covered by the firmament as by a roof, above which he places the kingdom
+of heaven. His work is named _Christian Topography_, and he is himself
+usually called Cosmas Indicopleustes, from the country which he visited.
+
+During the latter years of the government of Apollinarius, such was
+his unpopularity as a spiritual bishop that both the rival parties, the
+Gaianites and the Theodosians, had been building places of worship for
+themselves, and the more zealous Jacobites had quietly left the churches
+to Apollinarius and the Royalists. But on the death of an archdeacon
+they again came to blows with the bishop; and a monk had his beard torn
+off his chin by the Gaianites in the streets of Alexandria. The emperor
+was obliged to interfere, and he sent the Abbot Photinus to Egypt to put
+down this rebellion, and heal the quarrel in the Church. Apollinarius
+died soon afterwards, and Justinian then appointed John to the joint
+office of prefect of the city and patriarch of the Church. The new
+archbishop was accused of being a Manichean; but this seems to mean
+nothing but that he was too much of the Egyptian party, and that,
+though he was the imperial patriarch, and not acknowledged by the Koptic
+church, yet his opinions were disliked by the Greeks. On his death,
+which happened in about three years, they chose Peter, who held the
+Jacobite or Egyptian opinions, and whose name is not mentioned in the
+Greek lists of the patriarchs. Peter’s death occurred in the same year
+as that of the emperor.
+
+Under Justinian we again find some small traces of a national coinage in
+Egypt. Ever since the reign of Diocletian, the old Egyptian coinage had
+been stopped, and the Alexandrians had used money of the same weight,
+and with the same Latin inscriptions, as the rest of the empire. But
+under Justinian, though the inscriptions on the coins are still Latin,
+they have the name of the city in Greek letters. Like the coins of
+Constantinople, they have a cross, the emblem of Christianity; but while
+the other coins of the empire have the Greek numeral letters, E, I, K,
+A, or M, to denote the value, meaning 5, 10, 20, 30, or 40, the coins
+of Alexandria have the letters 1 B for 12, showing that they were on a
+different system of weights from those of Constantinople. On these the
+head of the emperor is in profile. But later in his reign the style was
+changed, the coins were made larger, and the head of the emperor had a
+front face. On these larger coins the numeral letters are [A r] for 33.
+We thus learn that the Alexandrians at this time paid and received
+money rather by weight than by tale, and avoided all depreciation of the
+currency. As the early coins marked 12 had become lighter by wear, those
+which were meant to be of about three times their value were marked 33.
+
+During the period from 566 to 602 Justin II. reigned twelve years,
+Tiberius reigned four years, and Mauricius, his son-in-law, twenty; and
+under these sovereigns the empire gained a little rest from its enemies
+by a rebellion among the Persians, which at last overthrew their king
+Chosroes. He fled to Mauricius for help, and was by him restored to his
+throne, after which the two kingdoms remained at peace to the end of his
+reign.
+
+[Illustration: 316.jpg COINS OF JUSTINIAN]
+
+The Emperor Mauricius was murdered by Phocas, who, in 602, succeeded
+him on the throne of Constantinople. No sooner did the news of his death
+reach Persia than Chosroes, the son of Hormuz, who had married Maria,
+the daughter of Mauricius, declared the treaty with the Romans at an
+end, and moved his forces against the new emperor, the murderer of his
+father-in-law. During the whole of his reign Constantinople was kept in
+a state of alarm and almost of siege by the Persians; and the crimes and
+misfortunes of Phocas alike prepared his subjects for a revolt. In the
+seventh year Alexandria rebelled in favour of the young Heraclius, son
+of the late prefect of Cyrene; and the patriarch of Egypt was slain
+in the struggle. Soon afterwards Heraclius entered the port of
+Constantinople with his fleet, and Phocas was put to death after an
+unfortunate reign of eight years, in which he had lost every province of
+the empire.
+
+During the first three years of the reign of Heraclius, Theodoras was
+Bishop of Alexandria; but upon his death the wishes of the Alexandrians
+so strongly pointed to John, the son of the prefect of Cyprus, that
+the emperor, yielding to their request, appointed him to the bishopric.
+Alexandria was not a place in which a good man could enjoy the pleasures
+of power without feeling the weight of its duties. It was then suffering
+under all those evils which usually befall the capital of a sinking
+state. It had lost much of its trade, and its poorer citizens no longer
+received a free supply of grain. The unsettled state of the country
+was starving the larger cities, and the population of Alexandria was
+suffering from want of employment. The civil magistrates had removed
+their palace to a distance. But the new bishop seemed formed for these
+unfortunate times, and, though appointed by the emperor, he was in every
+respect worthy of the free choice of the citizens. He was foremost in
+every work of benevolence and charity. The five years of his government
+were spent in lightening the sufferings of the people, and he gained the
+truly Christian name of John the Almsgiver. Beside his private acts of
+kindness he established throughout the city hospitals for the sick and
+almshouses for the poor and for strangers, and as many as seven lying-in
+hospitals for poor women. John was not less active in outrooting all
+that he thought heresy.
+
+The first years of the reign of Heraclius are chiefly marked by the
+successes of the Persians. While Chosroes, their king, was himself
+attacking Constantinople, one general was besieging Jerusalem and a
+second overrunning Lower Egypt. Crowds fled before the invading army
+to Alexandria as a place of safety, and the famine increased as the
+province of the prefect grew narrower and the population more crowded.
+To add to the distress the Nile rose to a less height than usual; the
+seasons seemed to assist the enemy in the destruction of Egypt. The
+patriarch John, who had been sending money, grain, and Egyptian workmen
+to assist in the pious work of rebuilding the church of Jerusalem which
+the Persians had destroyed, immediately found all his means needed, and
+far from enough, for the poor of Alexandria. On his appointment to the
+bishopric he found in its treasury eight thousand pounds of gold; he
+had in the course of five years received ten thousand more from the
+offerings of the pious, as his princely ecclesiastical revenue was
+named; but this large sum of four million dollars had all been spent
+in deeds of generosity or charity, and the bishop had no resource but
+borrowing to relieve the misery with which he was surrounded. In the
+fifth year the unbelievers were masters of Jerusalem, and in the eighth
+they entered Alexandria, and soon held all the Delta; and in that
+year the grain which had hitherto been given to the citizens of
+Constantinople was sold to them at a small price, and before the end of
+the year the supply from Egypt was wholly stopped.
+
+When the Persians entered Egypt, the patrician Nicetas, having no
+forces with which he could withstand their advance, and knowing that no
+succour was to be looked for from Constantinople, and finding that the
+Alexandrians were unwilling to support him, fled with the patriarch John
+the Almsgiver to Cyprus, and left the province to the enemy. As John
+denied that the Son of God had suffered on the cross, his opinions would
+seem not to have been very unlike those of the Egyptians; but as he was
+appointed to the bishopric by the emperor, though at the request of the
+people, he is not counted among the patriarchs of the Koptic church;
+and one of the first acts of the Persians was to appoint Benjamin, a
+Jacobite priest, who already performed the spiritual office of Bishop of
+Alexandria, to the public exercise of that duty, and to the enjoyment of
+the civil dignity and revenues.
+
+The troops with which Chosroes conquered and held Egypt were no doubt in
+part Syrians and Arabs, people with whom the fellahs or labouring class
+of Egyptians were closely allied in blood and feelings. Hence arose the
+readiness with which the whole country yielded when the Roman forces
+were defeated. But hence also arose the weakness of the Persians, and
+their speedy loss of this conquest when the Arabs rebelled. Their rule,
+however, in Egypt was not quite unmarked in the history of these dark
+ages.
+
+At this time Thomas, a Syrian bishop, came to Alexandria to correct the
+Syriac version of the New Testament, which had been made about a century
+before by Philoxenus. He compared the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles with
+the Greek manuscripts in the monastery of St. Anthony in the capital;
+and we still possess the fruits of his learned labour, in which he
+altered the ancient text to make it agree with the newer Alexandrian
+manuscripts. From his copy the Philoxenian version is now printed. A
+Syriac manuscript of the New Testament written by Alexandrian penmen
+in the sixth year of Heraclius, is now to be seen in the library of the
+Augustan friars in Rome. At the same time another Syrian scholar, Paul
+of Tela, in Mesopotamia, was busy in the Alexandrian monastery of
+St. Zacchæus in translating the Old Testament into Syriac, from the
+Septuagint Greek; and he closes his labours with begging the reader to
+pray for the soul of his friend Thomas. Such was now the reputation of
+the Alexandrian edition of the Bible, that these scholars preferred it
+both to the original Hebrew of the Old and to the earlier manuscripts
+of the New Testament. Among other works of this time were the medical
+writings of Aaron the physician of Alexandria, formerly written in
+Syriac, and afterwards much valued by the Arabs. The Syrian monks in
+numbers settled in the monastery of Mount Nitria; and in that secluded
+spot there remained a colony of these monks for several centuries,
+kept up by the occasional arrival of newcomers from the churches on the
+eastern side of the Euphrates.
+
+For ten years the Egyptians were governed by the Persians, and had
+a patriarch of their own religion and of their own choice; and the
+building of the Persian palace in Alexandria proves how quietly they
+lived under their new masters. But Heraclius was not idle under his
+misfortunes. The Persians had been weakened by the great revolt of the
+Arabs, who had formed their chief strength on the side of Constantinople
+and Egypt; and Heraclius, leading his forces bravely against Chosroes,
+drove him back from Syria and became in his turn the invader, and he
+then recovered Egypt. The Jacobite patriarch Benjamin fled with the
+Persians; and Heraclius appointed George to the bishopric, which was
+declared to have been empty since John the Almsgiver fled to Cyprus.
+
+The revolt of the Arabs, which overthrew the power of the Persians in
+their western provinces and for a time restored Egypt to Constantinople,
+was the foundation of the mighty empire of the caliphs; and the Hegira,
+or flight of Muhammed, from which the Arabic historians count their
+lunar years, took place in 622, the twelfth year of Heraclius. The
+vigour of the Arab arms rapidly broke the Persian yoke, and the Moslems
+then overran every province in the neighbourhood. This was soon felt
+by the Romans, who found the Arabs, even in the third year of their
+freedom, a more formidable enemy than the Persians whom they had
+overthrown; and, after a short struggle of only two years, Heraclius
+was forced to pay a tribute to the Moslems for their forbearance in
+not conquering Egypt. For eight years he was willing to purchase an
+inglorious peace by paying tribute to the caliph; but when his treasure
+failed him and the payment was discontinued, the Arabs marched against
+the nearest provinces of the empire, offering to the inhabitants their
+choice of either paying tribute or receiving the Muhammedan religion;
+and they then began on their western frontier that rapid career of
+conquest which they had already begun on the eastern frontier against
+their late masters, the Persians.
+
+[Illustration: 322.jpg TAILPIECE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--EGYPT DURING THE MUHAMMEDAN PERIOD
+
+
+_The Rise of Muhammedanism: The Arabic Conquest of Egypt: The Ommayad
+and Abbasid Dynasties._
+
+
+The course of history now follows the somewhat uneventful period
+which introduced Arabian rule into the valley of the Nile. It is only
+necessary to remind the reader of the striking incidents in the life of
+Muhammed. He was born at Mecca, in Arabia, in July, 571, and spent his
+earliest years in the desert. At the age of twelve he travelled with a
+caravan to Syria, and probably on this occasion first came into contact
+with the Jews and Christians. After a few youthful adventures, his
+poetic and religious feelings were awakened by study. He gave himself
+up to profound meditation upon both the Jewish and Christian ideals, and
+subsequently beholding the archangel Gabriel in a vision, he proclaimed
+himself as a prophet of God. After preaching his doctrine for three
+years, and gaining a few converts (the first of whom was his wife,
+Khadija), the people of Mecca rose against him and he was forced to
+flee from the city in 614. New visions and subsequent conversions of
+influential Arabs strengthened his cause, especially in Medina, whither
+Muhammed was forced to flee a second time from Mecca in 622, this second
+flight being known as the Hegira, from which dates the Muhammedan era.
+In the next year, at Medina, he built his first mosque and married
+Ayesha, and in 624 was compelled to defend his pretensions by an appeal
+to arms. He was at first successful, and thereupon appointed Friday as
+a day of public worship, and, being embittered against the Jews, ordered
+that the attitude of prayer should no longer be towards Jerusalem, but
+towards his birthplace, Mecca. In 625 the Muhammedans were defeated by
+the Meccans, but one tribe after another submitted to him, and after a
+series of victories Muhammed prepared, in 629, for further conquests
+in Syria, but he died in 632 before they could be accomplished. His
+successors were known as caliphs, but from the very first his disciples
+quarrelled about the leadership, some affirming the rights of Ali,
+who had married Muhammed’s daughter, Fatima, and others supporting
+the claims of Abu Bekr, his father-in-law. There was also a religious
+quarrel concerning certain oral traditions relating to the Koran, or
+the Muhammedan sacred scriptures. Those who accepted the tradition were
+known as Sunnites, and those who rejected it as Shiites, the latter
+being the supporters of Ali, both sects, however, being known as Moslems
+or Islamites. Omar, a Sunnite, obtained the leadership in 634, and
+proceeded to carry out the prophet’s ambitious schemes of conquest.
+He subdued successively Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia, and in 639
+directed operations against Egypt. The general in charge of this
+expedition was Amr, who led four thousand men against Pelusium, which
+surrendered after a siege of thirty days. This easy victory was crowned
+by the capture of Alexandria. Amr entered the city on December 22, 640,
+and he seems to have been surprised at his own success. He immediately
+wrote to the caliph a letter in which he says:
+
+“I have conquered the town of the West, and I cannot recount all it
+contains within its walls. It contains four thousand baths and twelve
+thousand venders of green vegetables, four thousand Jews who pay
+tribute, and four thousand musicians and mountebanks.”
+
+Amr was anxious to conciliate and gain the affection of the new subjects
+he had added to the caliph’s empire, and during his short stay in
+Alexandria received them with kindness and personally heard and attended
+to their demands. It is commonly believed that in this period the
+Alexandrian Library was dismantled; but, as we have already seen, the
+books had been destroyed by the zeal of contending Christians. The story
+that attributes the destruction of this world-famous institution to
+the Arabian conquerors is so much a part of history, and has been so
+generally accepted as correct, that the traditional version should be
+given here.
+
+Among the inhabitants of Alexandria whom Amr had so well received, says
+the monkish chronicler, was one John the Grammarian, a learned
+Greek, disciple of the Jacobite sect, who had been imprisoned by its
+persecutors. Since his disgrace, he had given himself up entirely to
+study, and was one of the most assiduous readers in the famous library.
+With the change of masters he believed the rich treasure would be
+speedily dispersed, and he wished to obtain a portion of it himself. So,
+profiting by the special kindness Amr had shown him, and the pleasure he
+appeared to take in his conversation, he ventured to ask for the gift of
+several of the philosophic books whose removal would put an end to his
+learned researches.
+
+At first Amr granted this request without hesitation, but in his
+gratitude John the Grammarian expatiated so unwisely on the extreme
+rarity of the manuscripts and their inestimable value, that Amr, on
+reflection, feared he had overstepped his power in granting the learned
+man’s request. “I will refer the matter to the caliph,” he said,
+and thereupon wrote immediately to Omar and asked the caliph for
+his commands concerning the disposition of the whole of the precious
+contents of the library.
+
+The caliph’s answer came quickly. “If,” he wrote, “the books contain
+only what is in the book of God (the Koran), it is enough for us, and
+these books are useless. If they contain anything contrary to the holy
+book, they are pernicious. In any case, burn them.”
+
+[Illustration: 327.jpg COIN OF OMAR]
+
+Amr wished to organise his new government, and, having left a sufficient
+garrison in Alexandria, he gave orders to the rest of his army to leave
+the camp in the town and to occupy the interior of Egypt. “Where shall
+we pitch our new camp?” the soldiers asked each other, and the answer
+came from all parts, “Round the general’s tent.” The army, in fact,
+did camp on the banks of the Nile, in the vicinity of the modern Cairo,
+where Amr had ordered his tent to be left; and round this tent, which
+had become the centre of reunion, the soldiers built temporary huts
+which were soon changed into solid, permanent habitations. Spacious
+houses were built for the leaders, and palaces for the generals, and
+this collection of buildings soon became an important military town,
+with strongly marked Muhammedan characteristics. It was called Fostât
+(tent) in memory of the event, otherwise unimportant, which was the
+origin of its creation. Amr determined to make his new town the capital
+of Egypt; whilst still preserving the name of Fostât, he added that of
+Misr,--a title always borne by the capital of Egypt, and which Memphis
+had hitherto preserved in spite of the rivalry of Alexandria.
+
+Fostât was then surrounded by fortifications, and Amr took up his
+residence there, forming various establishments and giving himself up
+entirely to the organisation of the vast province whose government the
+caliph had entrusted to him. The personal tax, which was the only one,
+had been determined in a fixed manner by the treaty of submission he
+had concluded with the Kopts; and an unimportant ground rent on landed
+property was added in favour of the holy towns of Mecca and Medina, as
+well as to defray some expenses of local administration.
+
+[Illustration: 329.jpg OLD CAIRO (FOSTAT)]
+
+Egypt was entirely divided into provincial districts, all of which
+had their own governor and administrators taken from among the Kopts
+themselves. The lands which had belonged to the imperial government of
+Constantinople, and those of the Greeks who had abandoned Egypt or been
+killed in the war against the Mussulmans, were either declared to be the
+property of the new government or given out again as fiefs or rewards
+to the chief officers of the army. All these lands were leased to the
+Koptic farmers, and the respective rights of the new proprietors
+or tenant farmers and of the peasant proprietors were determined by
+decisive and invariable rules. Thus the agricultural population enjoyed
+under the Mussulmans a security and ease which replaced the tyrannical
+annoyances and arbitrary exactions of the Christian agents of the
+treasury of Constantinople; for, in fact, little by little, there had
+disappeared under these Greek agents the sound principles of the old
+administration that had been established by the wise kings of ancient
+Egypt, and which the Ptolemies had scrupulously preserved, as did also
+the first governors under the Cæsars.
+
+After all these improvements in the internal administration, the
+governor turned his attention to the question of justice, which until
+that moment had been subject to the decision of financial agents, or
+of the soldiers of the Greek government. Amr now created permanent and
+regular tribunals composed of honourable, independent, and enlightened
+men, who enjoyed public respect and esteem. To Amr dates back the first
+of those _divans_, chosen from the élite of the population, as sureties
+of the fairness of the _cadis_, which received appeals from first
+judgments to confirm them, or, in the case of wrongful decisions, to
+alter them. The decrees of the Arab judges had force only for those
+Mussulmans who formed a part of the occupying army. Whenever a Koptic
+inhabitant was a party in an action, the Koptic authorities had the
+right to intervene, and the parties were judged by their equals in race
+and religion.
+
+One striking act of justice succeeded in winning for Amr the hearts of
+all. Despite the terror inspired by the religious persecutions which
+Heraclius had carried on with so much energy, one man, the Koptic
+patriarch Benjamin, had bravely kept his faith intact. He belonged
+to the Jacobite sect and abandoned none of its dogmas, and in their
+intolerance the all-powerful Melchites did not hesitate to choose him as
+their chief victim. Benjamin was dispossessed of his patriarchal throne,
+his liberty and life were threatened, and he only succeeded in saving
+both by taking flight. He lived thus forgotten in the various refuges
+that the desert monasteries afforded him, while Heraclius replaced him
+by an ardent supporter of the opinions favoured at court. The whole of
+Egypt was then divided into two churches separated from each other by an
+implacable hatred. At the head of the Melchites was the new patriarch,
+who was followed by a few priests and a small number of partisans who
+were more attached to him by fear than by faith. The Jacobites, on the
+other hand, comprised the immense majority of the population, who looked
+upon the patriarch as an intruder chosen by the emperor. The church
+still acknowledged as its real head Benjamin, the patriarch who had been
+for thirteen years a wanderer, and whose return was ardently desired.
+This wish found public expression as soon as the downfall of the
+imperial power in Egypt permitted its free manifestation. Amr listened
+to the supplications that were addressed to him, and, turning out the
+usurper in his turn, recalled Benjamin from his long exile and replaced
+him on the patriarchal throne.
+
+But even here Amr’s protection of the Koptic religion did not end.
+He opened the door of his Mussulman town, and allowed them to live
+in Fostât and to build churches there in the midst of the Mussulman
+soldiers, even when Islamism was still without a temple in the city, or
+a consecrated place worthy of the religion of the conquerors.
+
+Amr at length resolved to build in his new capital a magnificent mosque
+in imitation of the one at Mecca. Designs were speedily drawn up, the
+location of the new temple being, according to Arab authors, that of an
+ancient pyre consecrated by the Persians, and which had been in ruins
+since the time of the Ptolemies.
+
+[Illustration: 333.jpg A MODERN KOPT]
+
+The monuments of Memphis had often been pillaged by Greek and Roman
+emperors, and now they were once again despoiled to furnish the mosque
+of Amr with the beautiful colonnades of marble and porphyry which adorn
+the walls, and on which, the Arab historians assure us, the whole Koran
+was written in letters of gold.
+
+Omar died in 644, and under his successor, Othman, the Arabian conquests
+were extended in Northern Africa. Othman dying in 656, the claims of Ali
+were warmly supported, but not universally recognised, many looking to
+Muawia as an acceptable candidate for the caliphate. This was especially
+the view of the Syrian Muham-medans, and in 661 Muawia I. was elected
+caliph. He promptly transferred the capital from Medina to Damascus, and
+became in fact the founder of a dynasty known as the Ommayads, the new
+caliph being a descendant of the famous Arabian chieftain Ommayad. Egypt
+acknowledged the new authority and remained quiet and submissive. It
+furnished Abd el-Malik, who became caliph in 685, not only with rich
+subsidies and abundant provisions, but also with part of his troops.
+
+The attachment of the Egyptians to their new masters was chiefly owing
+to the gentleness and wisdom of Abd el-Aziz ibn Merwan, who administered
+the country after Amr was put to death in 689. He visited all the
+provinces of Egypt, and, arriving at Alexandria, he ordered the
+building of a bridge over the canal, recognising the importance of this
+communication between the town and country.
+
+Benefiting by the religious liberty that Mussulman sovereignship had
+secured them, the Kopts no longer attended to the quarrels of their
+masters. They only occupied themselves in maintaining the quiet
+peaceful-ness they had obtained by regular payment of their taxes, and
+by supplying men and commodities when occasion demanded it. During the
+reign of Abd el-Malik in Egypt the only remarkable event there was the
+election, in 688, of the Jacobite Isaac as patriarch of Alexandria. The
+Koptic clergy give him no other claim to historical remembrance than
+the formulating of a decree ordaining “that the patriarch can only be
+inaugurated on a Sunday.”
+
+[Illustration: 335.jpg MOSQUE OF AMR]
+
+Isaac was succeeded by Simon the Syrian, whom the Koptic church looks
+upon as a saint, and for whom is claimed the power of reviving the dead.
+He nevertheless died from the effects of poison given him at the altar
+by some jealous rival. Arab historians relate how deputies came to Simon
+from India to ask for a bishop and some priests. The patriarch refused
+to comply with this request, but Abd el-Aziz, thinking that this
+relation with India might prove politically useful, gave the order to
+other and more docile priests.
+
+The patriarchal seat was empty for three years after the death of Simon.
+The Kopts next appointed a patriarch named Alexander, who held the
+office for a little over twenty years. The Koptic writers who recount
+the history of this patriarch mention their discontent with the governor
+Abd el-Aziz. The monks and other members of the clergy had grown very
+numerous in Egypt and claimed to be exempt from taxation. Abd el-Aziz,
+whose yearly tax was fixed, thought it unjust that the poorest classes
+of the people should be made to pay while the priests, the bishop,
+and the patriarch, all possessing abundance, should be privileged by
+exemption. He therefore had a census made of all the monks and put
+on them a tax of one dinar (about $2.53), while he exacted from the
+patriarch an annual payment of three thousand dinars, or about $7,600.
+This act of justice was the cause of many complaints among the clergy,
+but they were soon suppressed and were without result.
+
+[Illustration: 337a.jpg COIN OF ABU BEKR]
+
+After more than twenty years of a prosperous government of Egypt, Abd
+el-Aziz ibn Merwan died at Fostât in the year 708 (a.h. 86) at the very
+time when, with many fresh plans for the future, he had completed the
+building of a large and magnificent palace called ed-Dar el-mudahaba
+(the golden house), and a quarter of the town called Suk el-hammam (the
+pigeon market). The Caliph Abd el-Malik felt deeply the loss of this
+brother, whose qualities he highly appreciated and whom he had appointed
+as his successor.
+
+He now named as his heir to the caliphate Walid, his eldest son, and
+replaced Abd el-Aziz in the government of Egypt with his second son,
+Abd Allah ibn Abd el-Malik. The Kopts hoped to obtain from the new
+governor the repeal of the act that exacted yearly tribute from the
+clergy, but Abd Allah did not think it fair to grant this unjust
+discrimination against the poorer classes of the Egyptians. Those monks
+who have written the history of the patriarchs have therefore painted
+Abd Allah in even blacker colours than they did his predecessor. For
+the rest, Abd Allah only held the reins of government in Egypt until the
+death of his father, which occurred a few months later.
+
+[Illustration: 337b.jpg COIN OF OTHMAN]
+
+Suleiman succeeded his brother Walid I. The new caliph vigorously put
+into execution all the plans his brother had formed for the propagation
+of the religion of the Prophet. In the first year of his reign he
+conquered Tabaristan and Georgia, and sent his brother Maslama to lay
+fresh siege to Constantinople. On his accession to the throne Suleiman
+placed the government of Egypt in the hands of Assama ibn Yazid, with
+the title of agent-general of finances.
+
+The Koptic clerical historians, according to their usual habit, portray
+this governor as still worse than his predecessors, but in this case
+the Mussulman authorities are in agreement in accusing him of the most
+iniquitous extortions and most barbarous massacres. The gravest reproach
+they bring against him is that, calling all the monks together, he told
+them that not only did he intend to maintain the old regulations of Abd
+el-Aziz, by which they had to pay an annual tax of one dinar ($2.53),
+but also that they would be obliged to receive yearly from his agents an
+iron ring bearing their name and the date of the financial transaction,
+for which ring they were to make personal contribution. He forced
+the wearing of this ring continually, and the hand found without this
+strange form of receipt was to be cut off. Several monks who endeavoured
+to evade this strict order were pitilessly mutilated, while a number of
+them, rebelling against the payment of the tax, retired into convents,
+thinking they could safely defraud the treasury. Assama, however, sent
+his soldiers to search these retreats, and all the monks found without
+rings were beheaded or put to death by the bastinado.
+
+[Illustration: 338.jpg COIN OF MALIK]
+
+Careful about all that related to the Egyptian revenues, Assama
+commanded the keeping up of the various Nilometers, which still served
+to regulate the assessment of the ground tax. In the year 718 he learned
+that the Nilometer established at Helwan, a little below Fostât, had
+fallen in, and hastened to report the fact to the caliph. By the orders
+of this prince the ruined Nilometer was abandoned, and a new one built
+at the meridional point of the island now called Rhodha, just between
+Fostât and Gizeh.
+
+[Illustration: 339.jpg CITADEL OF CAIRO (FOSTAT).]
+
+But of all the financial transactions of Assama, the one that vexed most
+the inhabitants of Egypt, and which brought down on him the most violent
+and implacable hatred, was the ordinance by which all ascending or
+descending the Nile were obliged to provide themselves with a passport
+bearing a tax. This exorbitant claim was carried out with an abusive
+and arbitrary sternness. A poor widow, the Oriental writers say, was
+travelling up the Nile with her son, having with her a correct passport,
+the payment of which had taken nearly all she possessed. The young man,
+while stretched along the boat to drink of the river’s water, was seized
+by a crocodile and swallowed, together with the passport he carried
+in his breast. The treasury officers insisted that the wretched widow
+should take a fresh one; and to obtain payment for it she sold all she
+had, even to the very clothes she wore. Such intolerable exactions
+and excesses ended by thoroughly rousing the indignant Egyptians. The
+malcontents assembled, and a general revolt would have been the result
+but for the news of the death of the Caliph Suleiman (717), which gave
+birth to the hope that justice might be obtained from his successor.
+
+The next caliph was Omar II., a grandson of Merwan I., who had been
+nominated as his successor by Suleiman. In his reign the Muhammedans
+were repulsed from Constantinople, and the political movement began
+which finally established the Abbasid dynasty at Baghdad. Omar dying
+in the year 720, Yazid II., a son of Abd el-Malik, succeeded to the
+caliphate, and reigned for four years, history being for the most part
+silent as to the general condition of Egypt under these two caliphs.
+It is recorded that in the year 720, one of Yazid’s brothers, by name
+Muhammed ibn Abd el-Malik, ruled over Egypt. The Kopts complained of his
+rule, and declared that during the whole reign of Yazid ibn Abd el-Malik
+the Christians were persecuted, crosses overthrown, and churches
+destroyed.
+
+[Illustration: 341.jpg A CROCODILE USED AS A TALISMAN]
+
+Yazid was succeeded, in 724 A.D., by his brother Hisham, surnamed
+Abu’l-Walid, the fourth son of Abd el-Malik to occupy the throne of
+Islam, who, having been appointed by his brother as his successor, took
+possession of the throne on the very day of his death. Muhammed was
+replaced in Egypt by his cousin, Hassan ibn Yusuf, who only held office
+for three years, resigning voluntarily in the year 730 a.d., or 108 of
+the Hegira. The Caliph Hisham replaced him by Hafs ibn Walid, who was
+deposed a year later, and in the year 109 of the Hegira the caliph
+appointed in his place Abd el-Malik ibn Rifa, who had already governed
+Egypt during the caliphate of Walid I. Hisham made many changes in
+the governorship of Egypt, and amid a succession of rulers appointed
+Handhala to the post. He had already been governor of Egypt under Yazid
+II. He administered the province for another six years, and, according
+to the Christian historians of the East, pursued the same course of
+intolerance and tyranny that he had adopted when he governed Egypt for
+the first time under Yazid.
+
+The Caliph Hisham enjoined Handhala to be gentle with his subjects and
+to treat the Christians with kindness, but far from conforming with
+these wise and kindly intentions, he overwhelmed them with vexations and
+tyrannous acts. He doubled the taxes by a general census, subjecting not
+only men but also their animals to an impost. The receipts for the
+new duty had to be stamped with the impression of a lion, and every
+Christian found without one of these documents was deprived of one of
+his hands.
+
+In the year 746 (a.h. 124), on being informed of these abuses, the
+caliph deprived him of the government of Egypt, and, giving him the
+administration of Mauritania, appointed as his successor Hafs ibn Walid,
+who, according to some accounts, had previously governed Egypt for
+sixteen years, and who had left pleasanter recollections behind him.
+Hafs, however, now only held office for a year.
+
+Nothing of political importance happened in Egypt under the long reign
+of Hisham, the only events noticed by the Christian historians being
+those which relate solely to their ecclesiastical history. The 108th
+year of the Hegira saw the death of Alexander, the forty-third Koptic
+Patriarch of Alexandria. Since the conquest of Egypt by Omar, for a
+period of about twenty-four years, the patriarchate had been in the
+hands of the Jacobites; all the bishops in Egypt belonged to that sect,
+and they had established Jacobite bishops even in Nubia, which they had
+converted to their religion. The orthodox Christians elected Kosmas as
+their patriarch. At that time the heretics had taken possession of all
+the churches in Egypt, and the patriarch only retained that of Mar-Saba,
+or the Holy Sabbath. Kosmas, by his solicitations, obtained from
+Hisham an order to his financial administrator in Egypt, Abd Allah ibn
+es-Sakari, to see that all the churches were returned to the sect to
+which they belonged.
+
+After occupying the patriarchal throne for only fifteen months,
+Kosmas died. In the 109th year of the Hegira (a. d. 727-28) Kosmas was
+succeeded by the patriarch Theodore. He occupied the seat for eleven
+years. His patriarchate was a period of peace and quiet for the church
+of Alexandria, and caused a temporary cessation of the quarrels between
+the Melchites and the Jacobites. A vacancy of six years followed his
+death until, in the year 127 of the Hegira (749 a. d.), Ibn Khalil was
+promoted to the office of patriarch, and held his seat for twenty-three
+years.
+
+Walid II. succeeded to the caliphate in the year 749. One of his first
+acts was to take the government of Egypt from Hafs, in spite of the
+kindness of his rule, the wisdom and moderation of which had gained
+for him the affection of all the provinces which he governed. He was
+replaced by Isa ibn Abi Atta, who soon created a universal discontent,
+as his administrative measures were oppressive.
+
+In the year 750 the Ommayads were supplanted by the Abbasids, who
+transferred the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. The first Abbasid
+caliph was Abu’l-Abbas, who claimed descent from Abbas, the uncle of
+Muhammed. The caliph Merwan II., the last of the Ommayads, in his flight
+from his enemies came to Egypt and sent troops from Fostât to hold
+Alexandria. He was now pursued to his death by the Abbasid general Salih
+ibn Ali, who took possession of Postât for the new dynasty in 750. The
+change from the Ommayad to the Abbasid caliphs was effected with little
+difficulty, and Egypt continued to be a province of the caliphate and
+was ruled by governors who were mostly Arabs or members of the Abbasid
+family.
+
+Abu’l-Abbas, after being inaugurated, began his rule by recalling all
+the provincial governors, whom he replaced by his kinsmen and partisans.
+He entrusted the government of Egypt to his paternal uncle, Salih ibn
+Ali, who had obtained the province for him. Salih, however, did not rule
+in person, but was represented by Abu Aun Abd el-Malik ibn Yazid, whom
+he appointed vice-governor. The duties of patriarch of Alexandria were
+then performed by Michel, commonly called Khail by the Kopts. This
+patriarch was of the Jacobite sect and the forty-fifth successor of St.
+Mark: he held the office about three years. He in turn was succeeded by
+the patriarch Myna, a native of Semennud (the ancient Sebennytus).
+
+In the year 754 Abu’l-Abbas died at the age of thirty-two, after
+reigning four years, eight months, and twenty-six days, the Arabian
+historians being always very precise in recording the duration of the
+reign of the caliphs. He was the first of the caliphs to appoint a
+vizier, the Ommayad caliphs employing only secretaries during their
+administration. The successor of Abu’l-Abbas was his brother Abu
+Jafar, surnamed El-Man-sur. Three years after his accession he took the
+government of Egypt from his uncle, and in less than seven years Egypt
+passed successively through the hands of six different governors. These
+changes were instigated by the mistrustful disposition of the caliph,
+who saw in every man a traitor and conspirator, dismissing on the
+slightest provocation his most devoted adherents, some of whom were even
+put to death by his orders. His last choice, Yazid ibn Hatim, governed
+Egypt for eight years, and the caliph bestowed the title of Prince
+of Egypt (Emir Misri) upon him, which title was also borne by his
+successors.
+
+These continual changes in the government of Egypt had not furthered
+the prosperity and well-being of the inhabitants. Each ruler, certain
+of speedy dismissal, busied himself with his personal affairs to the
+detriment of the country, anxious only to amass by every possible
+means sufficient money to compensate him for his inevitable deposition.
+Moreover, each governor increased the taxation levied by his
+predecessor. Such was the greed and rapacity of these governors that
+every industry was continually subjected to increased taxation; the
+working bricklayer, the vender of vegetables, the camel-driver, the
+gravedigger, all callings, even that of mendicant, were taxed, and the
+lower classes were reduced to eating dog’s flesh and human remains. At
+the moment when Egypt, unable to support such oppression longer, was on
+the verge of insurrection, the welcome tidings of the death of El-Mansur
+arrived.
+
+Muhammed el-Mahdi, son of El-Mansur, succeeded his father and was the
+third caliph of the house of Abbas. He was at Baghdad when his father
+expired near Mecca, but, despite his absence, was immediately proclaimed
+caliph. El-Mahdi betrayed in his deeds that same fickleness which
+had signalised the caliphate of his father, El-Mansur. He appointed
+a different governor of Egypt nearly every year. These many changes
+resulted probably from the political views held by the caliph, or
+perhaps he already perceived the tendency shown by each of his provinces
+to separate itself from the centre of Islamism. Perhaps also he already
+foresaw those divisions which destroyed the empire about half a century
+later. Thus his prudence sought, in allowing but a short period of power
+to each governor, to prevent their strengthening themselves sufficiently
+in their provinces to become independent.
+
+Egypt remained calm and subdued under these constant changes of
+government. Syria and the neighbouring provinces followed suit, and the
+Caliph el-Mahdi profited by this peaceful state of things to attack the
+Emperor of the Greeks. His second son, Harun, undertook the continuation
+of this war, and the young prince displayed such talent and bravery
+that he gained brilliant victories, and returned to Baghdad after having
+captured several cities from the Greeks, overthrown their generals,
+and forced Constantinople to pay an annual tribute of seventy thousand
+dinars (about $180,000). The Caliph el-Mahdi rewarded Harun by solemnly
+naming him the future successor of his eldest son, Musa el-Hadi, whom he
+had just definitely declared his heir to the throne. Shortly after this
+decision, el-Mahdi died, in the year 785, having reigned ten years and
+two months.
+
+Musa el-Hadi, his eldest son, succeeded him, being the fourth caliph
+of the race of Abbasids. On ascending the throne, he withdrew the
+government of Egypt from Fadl ibn Salih, appointing in his place Ali ibn
+Suleiman, also a descendant of Abbas. El-Hadi plotted against the claims
+of Harun to the succession, but he died before his plans had matured,
+and Harun became caliph in the year 786.
+
+The reign of Harun er-Rashid was the most brilliant epoch of the empire
+of Islamism, and his glory penetrated from the far East to the western
+countries of Europe, where his name is still celebrated.
+
+[Illustration: 347.jpg DOOR OF AN ARABIAN HOUSE.]
+
+Harun seems to have been as reluctant as his father and grandfather were
+before him to leave a province too long in the hands of a governor, and
+he even surpassed them in his precautionary measures. In the year 171
+of the Hegira, he recalled Ali ibn Suleiman, and gave the government of
+Egypt to Musa ibn Isa, a descendant of the Caliph Ali.
+
+Thereafter the governors were changed on an average of once a year,
+and their financial duties were separately administered. Musa ibn Isa,
+however, held the appointment of Governor of Egypt on three separate
+occasions, and of his third period Said ibn Batrik tells the following
+anecdote:
+
+“While Obaid Allah ibn el-Mahdi was ruling in Egypt,” he relates, “he
+sent a beautiful young Koptic slave to his brother, the caliph, as a
+gift. The Egyptian odalisk so charmed the caliph that he fell violently
+in love with her. Suddenly, however, the favourite was laid prostrate
+by a malady which the court physicians could neither cure nor even
+diagnose. The girl insisted that, being Egyptian, only an Egyptian
+physician could cure her. The caliph instantly ordered his brother to
+send post haste the most skilful doctor in Egypt. This proved to be the
+Melchite patriarch, for in those days Koptic priests practised medicine
+and cultivated other sciences. The patriarch set out for Baghdad,
+restored the favourite to health, and in reward received from the
+caliph an imperial diploma, which restored to the orthodox Christians
+or Melchites all those privileges of which they had been deprived by the
+Jacobite heretics since their union with the conqueror Amr ibn el-Asi.”
+
+If this story be true, one cannot but perceive the plot skilfully laid
+and carried out by the powerful clergy, to whom any means, even the
+sending of a concubine to the caliph, seemed legitimate to procure the
+restoration of their supremacy and the humiliation of their adversaries.
+
+[Illustration: 349.jpg A VEILED BEAUTY]
+
+The year 204 of the Hegira was memorable for the death of the Iman
+Muhammed ibn Idris, surnamed esh-Shafi. This celebrated doctor was the
+founder of one of the four orthodox sects which recognised the Moslem
+religion, and whose followers take the name “Shafites” from their chief.
+The Iman esh-Shafi died at Fostât when but forty-three years old. His
+dogmas are more especially followed in Egypt, where his sect is still
+represented and presided over by one of the four Imans at the head of
+the famous Mosque Jam el-Azar, or mosque of flowers.
+
+The distance of Egypt from Baghdad, the caliph’s capital, was the cause
+of the neglect of many of his commands, and upon more than one occasion
+was his authority slighted. Thus it happened that for more than five
+years the government of Egypt was in the hands of Abd Allah ibn es-Sari,
+whom the soldiers elected, but whose appointment was never confirmed by
+the caliph. Abd Allah ibn Tahir, the son of the successful general, had,
+in the year a.h. 210, settled at Belbeys in Egypt. With a large number
+of partisans, he assumed almost regal privileges. In 211 a.h. he
+proceeded to Fostât and there dismissed Abd Allah ibn es-Sari and
+replaced him by Ayad ibn Ibrahim, whom he also dismissed the following
+year, giving the governorship to Isa ibn Yazid, surnamed el-Jalud. In
+the year 213, the Caliph el-Mamun ordered Abd Allah ibn Tahir to retire,
+and confided the government of Egypt and also that of Syria to his own
+brother el-Mutasim, third son of the Caliph Ilarun er-Rashid.
+
+In the year 218 of the Hegira (a. d. 833), Muhammed el-Mutasim succeeded
+his brother el-Mamun. He was the first caliph who brought the name of
+God into his surname. On ascending the throne, he assumed the title
+el-Mutasim b’lllah, that is “strengthened by God,” and his example was
+followed by all his successors.
+
+From the commencement of this reign, el-Mutasim b’lllah was forced to
+defend himself against insurgents and aspirants to the caliphate. In
+the year 219 of the Hegira, Kindi, the Governor of Egypt, died, and the
+caliph named his son, Mudhaffar ibn Kindi, as his successor. Mudhaffar
+ibn Kindi, dying the following year, was succeeded by Musa, son of
+Abu’l-Abbas, surnamed esh-Shirbani by some writers, esh-Shami (the
+Syrian) by others. In the year 224 Musa was recalled and his place
+taken by Malik, surnamed by some el-Hindi (the Indian), by others ibn
+el-Kindi. A year later the caliph dismissed Malik, and sent Ashas to
+Egypt in his place. This was the last governor appointed by el-Mutasim
+b’lllah, for the caliph died of fever in the year 227 of the Hegira.
+
+Oriental historians have noticed that the numeral eight affected this
+caliph in a singular manner. Between himself and Abbas, the head of his
+house, there were eight generations; he was born in the month of Shaban,
+the eighth month of the Mussulman year; he was the eighth Abbasidian
+caliph, and ascended the throne in the year 218, aged thirty-eight years
+and eight months; he reigned eight years, eight months, and eight days,
+and died in the forty-eighth year of his age, leaving eight sons and
+eight daughters. He fought in eight battles, and on his death eight
+million dinars and eighty thousand dirhems were discovered in his
+private treasury. It is this singular coincidence which gave him the
+name Mutamma.
+
+[Illustration: 351.jpg TOMB OF A SHEIKH]
+
+But a sadder fatality exercised its influence over the Caliph Mutamma,
+for from him dates the beginning of the decadence of his dynasty, and
+to him its first cause may be ascribed. The fact is, Mutasim was
+uneducated, without ability, and lacking in moral principles; he was
+unable even to write. Endowed with remarkable strength and muscles
+of iron, he was able, so Arab historians relate, to lift and carry
+exceptionally heavy weights; to this strength was added indomitable
+courage and love of warfare, fine weapons, horses, and warriors. This
+taste led him, even before the death of his father, to organise a picked
+corps, for which he selected the finest, handsomest, and strongest of
+the young Turkish slaves taken in war, or sent as tribute to the caliph.
+
+The vast nation, sometimes called Turks, sometimes Tatars, was
+distributed, according to all Oriental geographers, over all the
+countries of Northern Asia, from the river Jihun or Oxus to Kathay or
+China. That the Turks and the Arabs, both bent upon a persistent
+policy of conquest, should come into more or less hostile contact
+was inevitable. The struggle was a long one, and during the numerous
+engagements many prisoners were taken on both sides. Those Turks who
+fell into the hands of the Arabs were sent to the different provinces
+of their domain, where they became slaves of the chief emirs and of the
+caliphs themselves, where, finding favour in the eyes of the caliphs,
+they were soon transferred to their personal retinue. The distrust which
+the caliphs felt for the emirs of their court, whose claims they were
+only able to appease by making vassals of them, caused them to commit
+the grave error of confiding in these alien slaves, who, barbaric
+and illiterate as they were, now living in the midst of princes, soon
+acquired a knowledge of Muhammedanism, the sciences, and, above all, the
+politics of the country.
+
+It was not long before they were able to fill the most responsible
+positions, and, given their freedom by the caliphs, were employed by the
+government according to their abilities. Not only were they given the
+chief positions at court, but the government of the principal provinces
+was entrusted to them. They repaid these favours later by the blackest
+ingratitude, especially when the formation of a Turkish guard brought
+a number of their own countrymen under their influence. Ever anxious to
+augment his own body-guard, and finding the number of Turks he annually
+received as tribute insufficient, el-Mutasim purchased a great many
+for the purpose of training them for that particular service. But these
+youths speedily abused the confidence shown them by the caliph, who,
+perceiving that their insolence was daily growing more insupportable to
+the inhabitants of Baghdad, resolved to leave the capital, rebuild the
+ancient city of Samarrah and again make it the seat of the empire.
+
+At this time the captain of the caliph’s guard was one Tulun, a
+freedman, whom fate would seem to have reduced to servitude for the
+purpose of showing that a slave might found a dynasty destined to rule
+over Egypt and Syria. Tulun belonged to the Toghus-ghur, one of the
+twenty-four tribes composing the population of Turkestan. His family
+dwelt near Lake Lop, in Little Bukhara. He was taken prisoner in battle
+by Nuh ibn Assad es-Samami, then in command at Bukhara. This prince,
+who was subject to the Caliph Mamun, paid an annual tribute of slaves,
+Turkish horses, and other valuables. In the year 815 a. d., Tulun was
+among the slaves sent as tribute to the caliph, who, attracted by his
+bearing, enrolled him in his own body-guard.
+
+Before long he had so gained the caliph’s confidence that Mamun gave him
+his freedom and the command of the guard, at the same time appointing
+him Emir es-sitri, prince of the veil or curtain. This post, which was a
+mark of the greatest esteem, comprised the charge of the personal safety
+of the sovereign, by continually keeping watch without the curtain or
+rich drapery which hung before the private apartments, and admitting no
+one without a special order. Tulun spent twenty years at the court of
+el-Mamun and of his successor, Mutasim, and became the father of several
+children, one of which, Ahmed ibn Tulun,* known later as Abu l’Abbas,
+was the founder of the Tulunide dynasty in Egypt and Syria.
+
+     * Ahmed ibn Tulun was, according to some historians, born at
+     Baghdad in the year 220 of the Hegira, in the third year of
+     the reign of el-Mutasim b’ Illah. Others claim Samarrah as
+     his birthplace. His mother, a young Turkish slave, was named
+     Kassimeh, or some say, Hachimeh. Some historians have denied
+     that Ahmed was the son of Tulun, one of them, Suyuti, in a
+     manuscript belonging to Marcel, quotes Abu Asakar in
+     confirmation of this assertion, who pretends he was told by
+     an old Egyptian that Ahmed was the son of a Turk named Mahdi
+     and of Kassimeh, the slave of Tulun. Suyuti adds that Tulun
+     adopted the child on account of his good qualities, but this
+     statement is unsupported and seems contradicted by
+     subsequent events.
+
+Before Ahmed ibn Tulun had reached an age to take part in political
+affairs, two caliphs succeeded Mutasim b’lllah. The first was his son
+Harun abu Jafar, who, upon his accession, assumed the surname el-Wathik
+b’lllah (trusting in God). Wathik carried on the traditional policy of
+continually changing the governors of the provinces, and, dying in the
+year 847, was succeeded by his half-brother Mutawakkil. In the following
+year the new caliph confided the government of Egypt to Anbasa, but
+dismissed him a few months later in favour of his own son el-Muntasir
+ibn el-Mutawakkil, whom two years afterwards the caliph named as his
+successor to the throne. El-Muntasir was to be immediately succeeded by
+his two younger brothers, el-Mutazz b’lllah and el-Mujib b’lllah.
+
+Mutawakkil then proceeded to divide his kingdom, giving Africa and
+all his Eastern possessions, from the frontier of Egypt to the eastern
+boundary of his states, to his eldest son. His second son, el-Mutazz,
+received Khorassan, Tabaristan, Persia, Armenia, and Aderbaijan as his
+portion, and to el-Mujib, his third son, he gave Damascus, Hemessa, the
+basin of the Jordan, and Palestine.
+
+These measures, by which the caliph hoped to satisfy the ambitions
+of his sons, did not have the desired effect. Despite the immense
+concessions he had received, el-Muntasir, anxious to commence his rule
+over the whole of the Islam empire, secretly conspired against his
+father and meditated taking his life. Finding that in Egypt he was too
+far from the scene of his intrigues, he deputed the government of that
+country to Yazid ibn Abd Allah, and returned to his father’s court to
+encourage the malcontents and weave fresh plots. His evil schemes soon
+began to bear fruit, for, in the year 244 of the Hegira, his agents
+stirred up the Turkish soldiery at Damascus to insurrection on the
+ground of deferred payment. Whereupon the caliph paid them the arrears,
+and left Damascus to retire to Samarrah.
+
+[Illustration: 356.jpg THE MOSQUE OF IBN TULUN, CAIRO.]
+
+At length, in the year 861 (a.h. 247), Mutawakkil discovered the
+scarcely concealed treachery of his son, and reproved him publicly.
+Some days later the caliph was murdered at night by the captain of his
+Turkish Guard, and Muntasir, who is commonly supposed to have
+instigated the crime, was immediately proclaimed as his successor in the
+government.
+
+The most important event in Egypt during the reign of Mutawakkil was the
+falling in of the Nilometer at Fostât. This disaster, was the result of
+an earthquake of considerable violence, which was felt throughout
+Syria. The caliph ordered the reconstruction of the Nilometer, which was
+accomplished the same year, and the Nilometer of the Island of Rhodha
+was then called Magaz el-jedid, or the New Nilometer.
+
+After reigning scarcely a year, Muntasir himself succumbed, most
+probably to poison, and his cousin Ahmed was elected to the caliphate by
+the Turkish soldiery, with the title of Mustain. During his brief reign
+the Moslems were defeated by the Byzantines at Awasia, and in 866 the
+Turkish soldiers revolted against the caliph and elected his brother
+Mutazz in his place. Mustain was, however, allowed to retire to Ma’szit.
+He was permitted to take an attendant with him, and his choice fell upon
+Ahmed, the son of Tulun, already mentioned. Ahmed served the dethroned
+prince truly, and had no part in the subsequent murder of this unhappy
+man.
+
+In the meantime the mother of Ahmed had married the influential General
+Baik-Bey, and when the latter was given the rulership of Egypt in the
+year 868 a. d. (254 a.h.), he sent his stepson as proxy, according to
+the custom of the time. On the 23d Ramadhan 254 (15th September, 868),
+Ahmed ibn Tulun arrived at Fostât. He encountered great difficulties,
+and discovered that at Alexandria and also in other districts there were
+independent emirs, who were not directly under the ruler. Soon after his
+arrival an insurrection broke out in Upper Egypt. Ahmed showed himself
+born to the place; he crushed the uprising and also suppressed a second
+revolt that was threatening. By degrees he cleverly undermined the power
+of his colleagues, and made his own position in Fostât secure.
+
+When Muaffik was nominated commander-in-chief of the West by his brother
+Mustamid (elected caliph in 870), Ahmed managed to secure the good-will
+of the vizier of the caliph and thus to obtain the command in Egypt.
+He kept the regent in Baghdad in a state of complacency, occasionally
+sending him tribute; but, as wars with the Sinds began to trouble the
+caliphate, he did not think it worth while to trouble himself further
+about Baghdad, and decided to keep his money for himself. Muaffik
+was not the man to stand this, and prepared to attack Ahmed, but the
+disastrous results of the last war had not yet passed away. When the
+army intended for Egypt was camping in Mesopotamia, there was not enough
+money to pay the troops, and the undertaking had to be deferred.
+
+Ahmed had a free hand over the enormous produce of Egypt. The compulsory
+labour of the industrious Kopt brought in a yearly income of four
+million gold dinars ($10,120,000), and yet these people felt themselves
+better off than formerly on account of the greater order and peace that
+existed under his energetic government. It cannot be denied that Ahmed
+in the course of years became much more extravagant and luxurious,
+but he used his large means in some measure for the betterment of the
+country. He gave large sums not only for the erection of palaces and
+barracks, but also for hospitals and educational advancement. To this
+day is to be seen the mosque of Ibn Tulun, built by him in the newer
+part of Fostât,--a district which was later annexed to the town of
+Cairo.
+
+[Illustration: 359.jpg SANCTUARY OF THE MOSQUE OF IBN TULUN]
+
+The numerous wars in which Muaffik was involved gave Ahmed the
+opportunity of extending his power beyond the boundaries of Egypt. The
+ruler of the caliphate of Damascus died in the year 897, and soon after
+Ahmed marched into Syria, and, with the exception of Antioch, which
+had to be taken by force, the whole country fell into the hands of
+the mighty emir. The commanders of isolated districts did not feel
+themselves encouraged to offer any resistance, for they had no feeling
+of faithfulness for the government, nor had they any hope of assistance
+from Baghdad.
+
+The triumphant march of Tulun was hindered in the year 879 by bad news
+from Fostât. One of his sons, El-Abbas, had quarrelled with his father,
+and had marched to Barca, with troops which he led afterwards to
+disaster, and had taken with him money to the amount of 1,000,000 dinars
+($2,530,000). He thought himself safe from his enraged father there,
+but the latter quickly returned to Fostât, and the news of the ample
+preparations which he was hastening for the subjection of his rebel
+son caused El-Abbas to place himself still farther out of his reach. He
+suddenly attacked the state of Ibrahim II. (the Aghlabite), and caused
+serious trouble with his soldiery in the eastern districts of Tripolis.
+The neighbouring Berbers gave Ibrahim their assistance, and Abbas was
+defeated and retreated to Barca in 880. He remained there some time
+until an army sent by Ahmed annihilated his troops and he himself was
+taken prisoner.
+
+The rebellion of his son was the turning-point in Ahmed’s career: Lulu,
+his general in Mesopotamia, deserted him for Muaffik, and an endeavour
+to conquer Mecca was frustrated by the unexpected resistance of numbers
+of newly arrived pilgrims. Ahmed now caused the report to be spread that
+Muaffik was a conspirator against the representatives of the Prophet,
+thus depriving him of his dignity.
+
+[Illustration: 361.jpg THE MOSQUE OF IBN TULUN]
+
+The emir had also besieged in vain at Tarsus his former general
+Jasman, who had become presumptuous on account of his victory over the
+Byzantines. He would eventually have made up for this defeat, but
+an illness overcame him while encamped before Tarsus. He obeyed his
+doctor’s orders as little as the caliph’s, and his malady, aggravated
+by improper diet, caused his death in his fifty-first year at Fostât in
+884, whither he had withdrawn. He left seventeen sons,--enough to assure
+a dynasty of a hundred years. Khumarawaih, who inherited the kingdom,
+had not many of his father’s characteristics. He was a good-natured,
+pleasure-loving young man, barely twenty years old, and with a marked
+distaste for war. He did, however, notwithstanding his peace-loving
+proclivities, fight the caliph’s forces near Damascus, and defeat them,
+never having seen a battle before. The emir fled from the scene in a
+panic.
+
+When Muatadid became caliph in 892, he offered his daughter Katr en-Neda
+(Dewdrop) in marriage to the caliph’s son. The Arabic historians relate
+that Khuma-rawaih was fearful of assassination, and had his couch
+guarded by a trained lion, but he was finally put to death (a.h. 282),
+according to some accounts by women, and according to others by his
+eunuchs. The death of Khu-marawaih was the virtual downfall of the
+Tulunid dynasty.
+
+The officers of the army then at first made Gaish Abu’l-Asakir (one of
+Khumarawaih’s sons) emir; but, when this fourteen-year-old boy seemed
+incapable of anything but stupid jokes, they put his brother Harun on
+the throne. Every commanding officer, however, did as he liked. Rajib,
+the commander of the army of defence, declared himself on the side of
+the caliph, and the Syrian emirs gave themselves up to his general,
+Muhammed ibn Suleiman, without any resistance. At the close of the year
+he was before Fostât, and at the same time a fleet appeared at Damietta.
+A quarrel arose amongst Harun’s body-guard, in which the unlucky prince
+was killed (904). His uncle Shaiban, a worthy son of Ahmed, made a last
+stand, but was obliged to give in to the superior force.
+
+Muhammed behaved with his Turks in the most outrageous way in Fostât:
+the plundering was unrestrained, and that part of Fostât which Ahmed
+had built was almost entirely destroyed. The adherents of the reigning
+family were grossly maltreated, many of them killed, and others sent to
+Baghdad. The governors changed in rapid succession; disorder, want, and
+wretchedness existed throughout the entire country west of the caliph’s
+kingdom. At this period the provinces of the empire had already fallen
+into the hands of the numerous minor princes, who, presuming on the
+caliph’s weakness, had declared themselves independent sovereigns.
+Nothing remained to the Abbasids but Baghdad, a few neighbouring
+provinces, and Egypt.
+
+Under the Caliphs Muktadir, Kahir, and Rahdi, Egypt had an almost
+constant change of governors. One of them, Abu Bekr Muhammed, ultimately
+became the founder of a new dynasty,--the Ikshidite,--destined to rule
+over Egypt and Syria. Abu Bekr Muhammed was the son of Takadj, then
+governor of Damascus. His father had been chief emir at the court of the
+Tulunid princes, and, after the fall of this dynasty, remained in Egypt,
+where he occupied a post under the government. Intrigues, however, drove
+him to Syria, whither his partisans followed him. He first entered the
+army of the caliph, and, capturing the town of Ramleh, was given the
+governorship of Damascus as reward. His son Abu Bekr Muhammed did not go
+to Egypt to fulfil the duties with which he had been invested, and only
+retained the title for one month. He was subsequently reinstated,
+and this time repaired thither. But Ahmed ibn Kighlagh, who was then
+governing Egypt, refused to retire and was only defeated after several
+engagements, when he and his followers proceeded to Barca in Africa.
+
+In the year 328 of the Hegira, the caliph Radhi bestowed the honour of
+Emir el-Umara (Prince of Princes) upon Muhammed ibn Raik. This officer,
+discontented with the government of Palestine, led an army into Syria
+and expelled Badra, the lieutenant of Muhammed el-Ikshid. The latter
+left Egypt at once, entrusting the government of that country to his
+brother, el-Hassan, and brought his forces to Faramah, where the troops
+of Muhammed ibn Raik were already stationed. Thanks to the mediation
+of several emirs, matters were concluded peacefully, and Muhammed
+el-Ikhshid returned to Fostât. Upon his arrival, however, he learnt that
+Muhammed ibn Raik had again left Damascus and was preparing to march
+upon Egypt.
+
+This intelligence obliged Muhammed el-Ikshid to return at once to Syria.
+He encountered the advance-guard of the enemy and promptly led the
+attack; his right wing was scattered, but the centre, commanded
+by himself, remained firm, and Muhammed ibn Raik retreated towards
+Damascus. Husain, brother of el-Ikshid, lost his life in the combat.
+Despite the enmity between them, Muhammed ibn Raik sent his own son
+to el-Ikshid, charged with messages of condolence for the loss he had
+sustained and bearing proposals of peace. Muhammed el-Ikshid received
+the son of his enemy with much respect, and invested him with a mantle
+of honour. He then consented to cede Damascus, in consideration of an
+annual tribute of 140,000 pieces of gold, and the restoration of all
+that portion of Palestine between Ramleh and the frontiers of Egypt.
+After having concluded all the arrangements relative to this treaty,
+Muhammed el-Ikshid returned to Egypt in the year 329 of the Hegira.
+
+[Illustration: 365.jpg COIN OF ABU BEKR.]
+
+The Caliph Rahdi died in the same year (940 a. d.). He was thirty
+years of age, and had reigned six years, ten months, and ten days. His
+brother, Abu Ishak Ibrahim, succeeded him, and was henceforth known by
+the name of Muttaki. A year later Muhammed el-Ikshid was acknowledged
+Prince of Egypt by the new caliph. Shortly after, he learnt that his
+former enemy, Muhammed ibn Raik had been killed by the Hamdanites;
+he thereupon seized the opportunity to recover those provinces he had
+granted him, and, marching into Syria, captured Damascus and all the
+possessions he had relinquished upon the conclusion of their treaty.
+Feeling now that his position was secure, he caused his son Kasim to be
+recognised by the emirs and the entire army as his successor.
+
+The year 332 of the Hegira was a disastrous one in Baghdad. The office
+of Prince of Princes, bestowed according to the caprice of the Turkish
+officers upon any of their leaders, was now become a position superior
+even to that of caliph. It was held at this time by a Turk named Turun,
+who so oppressed the caliph Muttaki that the latter was forced to fly
+from his capital and retire to Mosul. He then besought help from the
+Hamdanites, who immediately rallied their forces and, accompanied by the
+caliph, marched upon Baghdad. They were, however, completely routed by
+Turun and obliged V to retreat. Muttaki showed his gratitude to the two
+princes by conferring a mantle of honour upon them, which, for some
+time past, had been the only gift that Islam sovereigns had been able to
+bestow.
+
+Leaving Mosul, the caliph proceeded to Rakkah, and there was invited by
+Turun to return to Baghdad. Seeing that his adherents, the Hamdanites,
+were greatly discouraged by their recent reverses, Muttaki resolved to
+accept the offer. When Muhammed el-Ikshid heard this, he hastened to
+Rakkah and offered the caliph refuge in Egypt. But the caliph refused,
+agreeing, however, as Muhammed el-Ikshid promised to supply him with the
+necessary funds, not to return to Baghdad and place himself in the power
+of Turun. In spite of his promise, when Turun, fearing that the caliph
+had found powerful friends, came to him, and, casting himself before
+Muttaki, paid him all the homage due to an Islam sovereign, he allowed
+himself to be overruled, and accompanied Turun back to Baghdad. Hardly
+had the unfortunate caliph set foot in his capital when he was murdered,
+after reigning four years and eleven months. Turun now proclaimed
+Abd Allah Abu’l Kasim, son of Muttaki, caliph, who, after a short and
+uneventful reign, was succeeded by his uncle, Abu’l Kasim el-Fadhl,
+who was the last of the Abbasid caliphs whom Egypt acknowledged as
+suzerains.
+
+After Muttaki’s return to Baghdad, Muhammed el-Ikshid remained for some
+time in Damascus, and then set out for Egypt. His return was signalised
+by the war with Saif ed-Dowlah, Prince of Hamdan. The campaign was of
+varying success: After a disastrous battle, in which the Egyptians lost
+four thousand men as prisoners, Muhammed el-Ikshid left Egypt with
+a numerous army and arrived at Maarrah. Saif ed-Dowlah determined to
+decide the war with one desperate effort, and first secured the
+safety of his treasure, his baggage, and his harem by sending them to
+Mesopotamia. Then he marched upon el-Ikshid, who had taken his position
+at Kinesrin.
+
+Muhammed divided his forces into two corps, placing in the vanguard all
+those who carried lances; he himself was in the rear with ten thousand
+picked men. Saif ed-Dowlah charged the vanguard and routed it, but the
+rear stood firm; this resistance saved el-Ikshid from total defeat. The
+two armies separated after a somewhat indecisive engagement, and
+Saif ed-Dowlah, who could claim no advantage save the capture of his
+adversaries’ baggage, went on to Maubej, where he destroyed the bridge,
+and, entering Mesopotamia, proceeded towards Rakkah; but Muhammed
+el-Ikshid was already stationed there, and the hostile armies, separated
+only by the Euphrates, faced one another for several days.
+
+Negotiations were then opened, and peace was concluded. The conditions
+were that Hemessa, Aleppo, and Mesopotamia should belong to Saif
+ed-Dowlah, and all the country from Hemessa to the frontiers of Egypt
+remain in the possession of Muhammed el-Ikshid. A trench was dug between
+Djouchna and Lebouah, in those places where there were no natural
+boundaries, to mark the separation of the two states. To ratify this
+solemn peace, Saif ed-Dowlah married the daughter of Muhammed el-Ikshid;
+then each prince returned to his own province. The treaty was, however,
+almost immediately set aside by the Hamdanites, and el-Ikshid, forced to
+retrace his steps, defeated them in several engagements and seized the
+town of Aleppo.
+
+Thus we see that the year 334 of the Hegira (a. d. 946) was full
+of important events, to which was soon added the death of Muhammed
+el-Ikshid. He died at Damascus, in the last month of the year
+(Dhu’l-Kada), aged sixty, and had reigned eleven years, three months,
+and two days. He was buried at Jerusalem. Muhammed el-Ikshid was a man
+possessing many excellent talents, and chiefly renowned as an admirable
+soldier. Brave, without being rash, quick to calculate his chances, he
+was able always to seize the advantage. On the other hand, however,
+he was so distrustful and timid in the privacy of his palace that he
+organised a guard of eight thousand armed slaves, one thousand of
+whom kept constant watch. He never spent the entire night in the same
+apartment or tent, and no one was ever permitted to know the place where
+he slept.
+
+We are told that this prince could muster four hundred thousand men;
+although historians do not definitely specify the boundaries of his
+empire, which, of course, varied from time to time, we may nevertheless
+believe that his kingdom, as that of his predecessors, the Tulunites,
+extended over Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, as far as the
+Euphrates, and even included a large portion of Arabia. The Christians
+of the East charge him with supporting his immense army at their
+expense, and persecuting and taxing them to such an extent that they
+were forced to sell many possessions belonging to their Church before
+they could pay the required sums.
+
+But, if we may credit a contemporary historian more worthy of belief,
+these expenses were covered by the treasure Muhammed el-Ikshid himself
+discovered. In fact, el-Massudi, who died at Cairo in the year 346 of
+the Hegira, relates that el-Ikshid, knowing much treasure to be buried
+there, was greatly interested in the excavation of the subterraneous
+tombs of the ancient Egyptian kings. “The prince” he adds, “was
+fortunate enough to come across a portion of those tombs, consisting of
+vast rooms magnificently decorated. There he found marvellously wrought
+figures of old and young men, women, and children, having eyes of
+precious stones and faces of gold and silver.”
+
+Muhammed el-Ikshid was succeeded by his son, Abu’l Kasim Muhammed,
+surnamed Ungur. The prince being only an infant, Kafur, the favourite
+minister of the late caliph, was appointed regent. This Kafur was a
+black slave purchased by el-Ikshid for the trifling sum of twenty pieces
+of gold. He was intelligent, zealous, and faithful, and soon won the
+confidence of his master. Nobility of race in the East appertains only
+to the descendants of the Prophet, but merit, which may be found in
+prince and subject alike, often secures the highest positions, and even
+the throne itself for those of the humblest origin. Such was the fate
+of Kafur. He showed taste for the sciences, and encouraged scholars;
+he loaded the poets with benefits, and they sang his praises without
+measure so long as he continued his favours, but satirised him with
+equal vigour as soon as his munificence diminished. Invested with
+supreme authority, Kafur served the young prince with a devotion and
+fidelity worthy of the highest praise. His first step was to dismiss Abu
+Bekr Muhammed, the receiver of the Egyptian tributes, against whom he
+had received well-merited complaints. In his place he appointed a native
+of Mardin, also called Muhammed, of whose honesty and kindliness he was
+well aware. He then took his pupil to Egypt, which country they reached
+in the month of Safar in the year 335 of the Hegira.
+
+Saif ed-Dowlah, hearing of the death of Muhammed el-Ikshid, and the
+departure of Ungur, deemed this a favourable opportunity to despoil his
+brother-in-law; he therefore marched upon Damascus, which he captured;
+but the faithful Kafur promptly arrived upon the scene with a powerful
+army, and, routing Saif ed-Dowlah, who had advanced as far as Ramleh,
+drove him back to Rakkah, and relieved Damascus. The remainder of the
+reign of Ungur passed peacefully, thanks to the watchfulness and wise
+government of Kafur.
+
+In the year 345 of the Hegira, the King of Nubia invaded the Egyptian
+territories, advancing to Syene, which he pillaged and laid waste.
+Kafur at once despatched his forces overland and along the Nile, and
+simultaneously ordered a detachment embarking from the Red Sea to
+proceed along the southern coast, attack the enemy in the rear and
+completely cut off their retreat. The Nubians, thus surprised on all
+sides, were defeated and forced to retreat, leaving the fortress of Rym,
+now known as Ibrim, and situated fifty miles from Syênê, in the hands of
+the Egyptians. No other events of note took place during the lifetime of
+Ungur, who, having reigned fourteen years and ten days, died in the year
+349 of the Hegira, leaving his brother Ali, surnamed Abu’l-Hasan, as his
+successor.
+
+[Illustration: 371.jpg MOSQUE TOMB NEAR SYENE]
+
+The reign of Abu’l-Hasan Ali, the second son of Muhammed el-Ikshid,
+lasted but five years. His name, as that of his brother Ungur (Abu
+Hurr), is but little known in history. Kafur was also regent during the
+reign of Abu’l-Hasan Ali.
+
+In the year 352 of the Hegira, Egypt was stricken with a disastrous
+famine. The rise of the Nile, which the previous year had been but
+fifteen cubits, was this year even less, and suddenly the waters fell
+without irrigating the country. Egypt and the dependent provinces were
+thus afflicted for nine consecutive years. During this time, whilst
+the people were agitated by fear for the future, a rupture took place
+between Abu’l-Hasan Ali and Kafur. This internal disturbance was soon
+followed by war; and in the year 354 the Greeks of Constantinople,
+led by the Emperor Nicepherous Phocas, advanced into Syria. They took
+Aleppo, then in the possession of the Hamdanites, and, encountering
+Saif ed-Dowlah, overthrew him also. The governor of Damascus, Dalim
+el-Ukazly, and ten thousand men came to the rescue of the Hamdanites,
+but Phocas beat a retreat on hearing of his approach.
+
+Abu’l-Hasan Ali died in the year 355 of the Hegira. The regent
+Kafur then ascended the throne, assuming the surname el-Ikshid. He
+acknowledged the paramount authority of the Abbasid caliph, Muti, and
+that potentate recognised his supreme power in the kingdom of Egypt.
+During the reign of Kafur, which only lasted two years and four months,
+the greater portion of Said was seized by the Fatimites, already
+masters of Fayum and Alexandria, and the conquerors were on the point of
+encroaching still farther, when Kafur died in the year 357 a.h. Ahmed,
+surnamed Abu’l Fawaris, the son of Abu’l-Hasan Ali, and consequently
+grandson of Mu-hammed el-Ikshid, succeeded Kafur.
+
+The prince was only eleven years old, and therefore incapable of
+properly controlling Egypt, Syria, and his other domains. Husain, one
+of his relatives, invaded Syria, but in his turn driven back by the
+Karmates, returned to Egypt and strove to depose Ahmed. These divisions
+in the reigning family severed the ties which united the provinces of
+the Egyptian kingdom. To terminate the disturbances, the emirs resolved
+to seek the protection of the Fatimites. The latter, anxious to secure
+the long-coveted prize, gladly rendered assistance, and Husain was
+forced to return to Syria, where he took possession of Damascus, and the
+unfortunate Ahmed lost the throne of Egypt.
+
+With him perished the Ikshid dynasty, which, more ephemeral even than
+that of the Tulunid, flourished only thirty-four years and twenty-four
+days.
+
+The period upon which this history is now about to enter is of more than
+usual interest, for it leads immediately to the centuries during which
+the Arabic forces came into contact with the forces of Western Europe.
+The town and the coast of Mauritania were then ruled by the Fatimites,
+a dynasty independent of the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad. The Fatimites
+belonged to the tribes of Koramah, who dwelt in the mountains situated
+near the town of Fez in the extreme west of Africa. In the year 269 of
+the Hegira, they began to extend their sway in the western regions of
+Africa, pursuing their conquests farther east. The Fatimite caliph Obaid
+Allah and his son Abu’l Kasim cherished designs not only upon Egypt,
+but even aimed at the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate, these plans
+being so far successful as to leave the Fatimites in secure possession
+of Alexandria, and more or less in power in Fayum.
+
+The Fatimite caliphs had lofty and pretentious claims to the allegiance
+of the Moslem world. They traced their descent from Fatima, a daughter
+of the Prophet, whom Muhammed himself regarded as one of the four
+perfect women. At the age of fifteen she married Ali, of whom she was
+the only wife, and the partisans of Ali, as we have seen, disputed with
+Omar the right to the leadership of Islam upon the Prophet’s death.
+Critics are not wanting who dispute the family origin of Obaid Allah,
+but his claim appears to have been unhesitatingly admitted by his own
+immediate followers. The Fatimite successes in the Mediterranean gave
+them a substantial basis of political power, and doubtless this outward
+and material success was more important to them than their claim to both
+a physical and mythical descent from the founder of their religion.
+
+Some accounts trace the descent of Obaid from Abd Allah ibn Maimun
+el-Kaddah, the founder of the Ismailian sect, of which the Carmathians
+were a branch. The Ismailians may be best regarded as one of the several
+sects of Shiites, who originally were simply the partisans of Ali
+against Omar, but by degrees they became identified as the upholders of
+the Koran against the validity of the oral tradition, and when, later,
+the whole of Persia espoused the cause of Ali, the Shiite belief
+became tinged with all kinds of mysticism. The Ismailians believed, for
+instance, in the coming of a Messiah, to whom they gave the name Mahdi,
+and who would one day appear on earth to establish the reign of justice,
+and revenge the wrongs done to the family of Ali. The Ismailians
+regarded Obaid himself as the Mahdi, and they also believed in
+incarnations of the “universal soul,” which in former ages had appeared
+as the Hebrew Prophets, but which to the Muhammedan manifested itself as
+imans. The iman is properly the leader of public worship, but it is not
+so much an office as a seership with mystical attributes. The Muhammedan
+imans so far have numbered eleven, the twelfth, and greatest (El-Mahdi),
+being yet to come. The Ismailians also introduced mysticism into the
+interpretation of the Koran, and even taught that its moral precepts
+were not to be taken in a literal sense. Thus the Fatimite caliphs
+founded their authority upon a combination of political power and
+superstition.
+
+Abu’l Kasim, who ruled at Alexandria, was succeeded in 945 by his son,
+El-Mansur. Under his reign the Fatimites were attacked by Abu Yazid, a
+Berber, who gathered around him the Sunnites, and the revolutionaries
+succeeded in taking the Fatimite capital Kairwan. El-Mansur, however,
+soon defeated Abu Yazid in a decisive battle and rebuilt a new city,
+Mansuria, on the site of the modern Cairo, to commemorate the event.
+Dying in 953, he was succeeded by Muiz ad-Din.
+
+Muiz came to the throne just at the time when dissensions as to the
+succession were undermining the Ikshid dynasty. Seizing the opportunity
+in the year 969, Muiz equipped a large and well-armed force, with a
+formidable body of cavalry, the whole under the command of Abu’l-Husain
+Gohar el-Kaid, a native of Greece and a slave of his father El-Mansur.
+This general, on his arrival near Alexandria, received a deputation from
+the inhabitants of Fostât charged to negotiate a treaty. Their overtures
+were favourably entertained, and the conquest of the country seemed
+probable without bloodshed. But while the conditions were being
+ratified, the Ikshidites prevailed on the people to revoke their offer,
+and the ambassadors, on their return, were themselves compelled to seek
+safety in flight.
+
+Gohar el-Kaid incurred no delay in pushing his troops forward. He forced
+the passage of the Nile a few miles south of El-Gizeh at the head of his
+troops, and the Ikshidites suffered a disastrous defeat. To the honour
+of the African general, it is related that the inhabitants of Fostât
+were pardoned and the city was peaceably occupied. The submission of the
+rest of Egypt to Muiz was secured by this victory. In the year 359 a.h.
+Syria was also added to his domains, but shortly after was overrun by
+the Carmathians. The troops of Muiz met with several reverses, Damascus
+was taken, and those lawless freebooters, joined by the Ikshidites,
+advanced to Ain Shems. In the meanwhile, Gohar had fortified Cairo (the
+new capital which he had founded immediately north of Fostât) and taken
+every precaution to repel the invaders; a bloody battle was fought in
+the year 361 before the city walls, without any decisive result. Later,
+however, Gohar obtained a victory over the enemy which proved to be a
+decisive one.
+
+Muiz subsequently removed his court to his new kingdom. In Ramadhan 362,
+he entered Cairo, bringing with him the bodies of his three predecessors
+and vast treasure. Muiz reigned about two years in Egypt, dying in the
+year 365 a.h. He is described as a warlike and ambitious prince, but,
+notwithstanding, he was especially distinguished for justice and was
+fond of learning. He showed great favour to the Christians, especially
+to Severus, Bishop of El-Ashmunein, and the patriarch Ephrem; and under
+his orders, and with his assistance, the church of the Mu’allakah,
+in Old Misr, was rebuilt. He executed many useful works (among others
+rendering navigable the Tanitic branch of the Nile, which is still
+called the canal of Muiz), and occupied himself in embellishing Cairo.
+Gohar, when he founded that city, built the great mosque named El-Azhar,
+the university of Egypt, which to this day is crowded with students from
+all parts of the Moslem world.
+
+Aziz Abu-Mansur Nizar, on coming to the throne of his father,
+immediately despatched an expedition against the Turkish chief
+El-Eftekeen, who had taken Damascus a short time previously. Gohar again
+commanded the army, and pressed the siege of that city so vigorously
+that the enemy called to their aid the Carmathians. Before this united
+army he was forced to retire slowly to Ascalon, where he prepared to
+stand a siege; but, being reduced to great straits, he purchased his
+liberty with a large sum of money. On his return from this disastrous
+campaign, Aziz took command in person, and, meeting the enemy at Ramleh,
+was victorious after a bloody battle; while El-Eftekeen, being betrayed
+into his hands, was with Arab magnanimity received with honour and
+confidence, and ended his days in Egypt in affluence. Aziz followed his
+father’s example of liberality. It is even said that he appointed a Jew
+his vizier in Syria, and a Christian to the same post in Egypt. These
+acts, however, nearly cost him his life, and a popular tumult obliged
+him to disgrace both these officers. After a reign of twenty-one years
+of great internal prosperity, he died (a.h. 386) in a bath at Bilbeis,
+while preparing an expedition against the Greeks who were ravaging
+his possessions in Syria. Aziz was distinguished for moderation and
+mildness, but his son and successor rendered himself notorious for very
+opposite qualities.
+
+Hakim Abu Ali Mansur commenced his reign, according to Moslem
+historians, with much wisdom, but afterwards acquired a reputation for
+impiety, cruelty, and unreasoning extravagance, by which he has been
+rendered odious to posterity. He is said to have had at the same time
+“courage and boldness, cowardice and timorousness, a love for learning
+and vindictiveness towards the learned, an inclination to righteousness
+and a disposition to slay the righteous.” He also arrogated to himself
+divinity, and commanded his subjects to rise at the mention of his name
+in the congregational prayers, an edict which was obeyed even in the
+holy cities, Mecca and Medina. He is most famous in connection with the
+Druses, a sect which he founded and which still holds him in veneration
+and believes in his future return to the earth. He had made himself
+obnoxious to all classes of his subjects when, in the year 397 a.h., he
+nearly lost his throne by foreign invasion.
+
+[Illustration: 379.jpg MOSQUE OF HAKIM]
+
+Hisham, surnamed Abu-Rekweh, a descendant of the house of Ommaya in
+Spain, took the province of Barca with a considerable force and subdued
+Upper Egypt. The caliph, aware of his danger, immediately collected
+his troops from every quarter of the kingdom, and marched against the
+invaders, whom, after severe fighting, he defeated and put to flight.
+Hisham himself was taken prisoner, paraded in Cairo with every
+aggravation of cruelty, and put to death. Hakim having thus by vigorous
+measures averted this danger, Egypt continued to groan under his tyranny
+until the year 411 a.h., when he fell by domestic treachery. His sister
+Sitt el-Mulk had, in common with the rest of his subjects, incurred his
+displeasure; and, being fearful for her life, she secretly and by night
+concerted measures with the emir Saif ed-Dowlah, chief of the guard,
+who very readily agreed to her plans. Ten slaves, bribed by five hundred
+dinars each ($1,260), having received their instructions, went forth on
+the appointed day to the desert tract southward of Cairo, where Hakim,
+unattended, was in the habit of riding, and waylaid him near the village
+of Helwan, where they put him to death.
+
+Within a week Hakim’s son Ali had been raised to the caliphate with
+the title of Dhahir, at the command of Sitt el-Mulk. As Dhahir was only
+eighteen years old, and in no way educated for the government, Sitt
+el-Mulk took the reins of government, and was soon looked upon as the
+instigator of Hakim’s death. This suspicion was strengthened by the
+fact that his sister had the heir to the throne--who was at that time
+governor of Aleppo--murdered, and also the chief who had conspired with
+her in assassinating Hakim. She survived her brother for about four
+years, but the actual ruler was the Vizier Ali el-Jar jar.
+
+Dhahir’s reign offers many points of interest. Peace and contentment
+reigned in the interior, and Syria continued to be the chief point of
+interest to the Egyptian politics. Both Lulu and his son Mansur, who
+received princely titles from Hakim, recognised the suzerainty of the
+Fatimites. Later on a disagreement arose between Lulu’s son and Dhahir.
+One of the former’s slaves conspired against his master, and gave Aleppo
+into the hands of the Fatimites, whose governor maintained himself there
+till 1023. In this year, however, Aleppo fell into the power of the Benu
+Kilab, who defended the town with great success against Romanus in
+1030. Not till Dhahir’s successor came to the throne in 1036 was Aleppo
+reconquered by the Fatimites, but only to fall, after a few years, again
+into the hands of a Kilabite, whom the caliph was obliged to acknowledge
+as governor until he of his own free will exchanged the city for several
+other towns in Syria; but even then the strife about the possession of
+Aleppo was not yet at an end.
+
+Mustanssir ascended the throne at the age of four years. His mother,
+although black and once a slave, had great influence in the choice of
+the viziers and other officials, and even when the caliph became of age,
+he showed very few signs of independence. His reign, which lasted sixty
+years, offers a constant alternation of success and defeat. At one time
+his dominion was limited to the capital Cairo, at another time he was
+recognised as lord of Africa, Sicily, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and even of
+the Abbassid capital, Baghdad. A few days later his dominion was again
+on the point of being extinguished. The murder of a Turk by the negroes
+led to a war between the Turkish mercenaries and the blacks who formed
+the caliph’s body-guard. The latter were joined by many of the other
+slaves, but the Turks were supported by the Ketama Berbers and some of
+the Bedouin tribes, and also the Hamdanite Nasir ed-Dowlah, who had
+long been in the Egyptian service. The blacks, although supported by the
+caliph’s mother, were completely defeated, and the caliph was forced to
+acknowledge the authority of Nasir ed-Dowlah. He thereupon threatened
+to abdicate, but when he learned that his palace with all its treasures
+would then be given up to plunder, he refrained from fulfilling his
+threat. The power of the Hamdanites and the Turks increased with
+every victory over the negroes, who finally could no longer maintain
+themselves at all in Upper Egypt. The caliph was treated with contempt,
+and had to give up his numerous treasures, one by one, to satisfy the
+avarice of his troops. Even the graves of his ancestors were at last
+robbed of all they contained, and when, at last, everything had been
+ransacked, even his library, which was one of the largest and finest,
+was not spared. The best manuscripts were dispersed, some went to
+Africa, others were destroyed, many were damaged or purposely mutilated
+by the Sunnites, simply because they had been written by the Shiites;
+still others were burnt by the Turks as worthless material, and the
+leather bands which held them made into sandals.
+
+[Illustration: 383.jpg MUSTANSSIR’S GATE AT CAIRO]
+
+Meanwhile war between Mustanssir and Nasir ed-Dowlah continued to be
+waged in Egypt and Syria, until at last the latter became master of
+Cairo and deprived the caliph once more completely of his independence.
+
+Soon after, a conspiracy with Ildeghiz, a Turkish general, at its head,
+was formed against Nasir ed-Dowlah, and he, together with his relations
+and followers, was brutally murdered. Ildeghiz behaved in the same way
+as his predecessor had-done towards the caliph, and the latter appealed
+to Bedr el-Jemali for help. Bedr proceeded to Acre with his best Syrian
+troops, landed in the neighbourhood of Damietta and proceeded towards
+the capital, which he entered without difficulty (January, 1075). He was
+appointed general and first vizier, so that he now held both the highest
+military and civil authority.
+
+In order to strengthen his position, he had all the commanders of the
+troops and the highest officials murdered at a ball. Under his rule,
+peace and order were at last restored to Egypt, and the income of the
+state was increased under his excellent government.
+
+Bedr remained at his post till his death, and his son El-Afdhal was
+appointed by Mustanssir to succeed him. Upon the death of Mustanssir
+(1094), his successor El-Mustali Abu’l Kasim retained El-Afdhal in
+office. He was afterwards murdered under Emir (December, 1121) because,
+according to some, he was not a zealous enough Shiite, but, according
+to others, because the caliph wished to gain possession of the enormous
+treasures of the vizier and to be absolutely independent. Emir was
+also murdered (October 7, 1130), and was succeeded by his cousin, who
+ascended the throne under the name of Hafiz, and appointed a son of
+El-Afdhal as vizier, who, just as his father had done, soon became the
+real ruler, and did not even allow the caliph’s name to be mentioned in
+the prayers; whereupon he also was murdered at the caliph’s instigation.
+After other viziers had met with a similar fate, and amongst them a son
+of the caliph himself, at last Hafiz ruled alone. His son and successor,
+Dhafir (1149-1150), also frequently changed his viziers because they
+one and all wished to obtain too much influence. The last vizier,
+Abbas, murdered the caliph (March-April, 1154), and placed El-Faiz, the
+five-year-old son of the dead caliph, on the throne, but the child died
+in his eleventh year (July, 1160). Salih, then vizier, raised Adid, a
+descendant of Alhagiz, to the caliphate and gave him his daughter to
+wife, for which reason he was murdered at the desire of the harem. His
+son Adil maintained himself for a short time, and then El-Dhargham and
+Shawir fought for the post; as the former gained the victory, Shawir
+fled to Syria, called Nureddin to his aid, and their army, under Shirkuh
+and Saladin, put an end in 1171 to the rule of the Fatimites.
+
+END OF VOL. XI.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The
+Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12), by S. Rappoport
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      History of Egypt, by S. Rappoport, Volume 11
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    pre     { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The
+Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12), by S. Rappoport
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)
+
+Author: S. Rappoport
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2005 [EBook #17331]
+Last Updated: September 8, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+Character set: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/spines.jpg" width="100%" alt="Spines " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="100%" alt="Cover " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="100%" alt="Frontispiece " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> Dam at Aswan
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" alt="Titlepage " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      HISTORY OF EGYPT
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      From 330 B.C. to the Present Time
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      By S. RAPPOPORT, Doctor of Philosophy, Basel
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Member of the Ecole Langues Orientales, Paris; Russian, German, <br />
+      French Orientalist and Philologist
+    </h4>
+    <h2>
+      VOL. XI.
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      Containing over Twelve Hundred Colored Plates and Illustrations
+    </h4>
+    <h3>
+      THE GROLIER SOCIETY <br /> PUBLISHERS, LONDON
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/001.jpg" width="100%" alt="001.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/002.jpg" width="100%" alt="002.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      <i>THE ROMAN, CHRISTIAN, AND ARABIC PERIODS</i>
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <i>THE ROMAN ADMINISTRATION IN EGYPT&mdash;THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY&mdash;THE
+      ARIAN CONTROVERSY&mdash;THE GROWTH OF MONASTICISM&mdash;THE DECLINE OF
+      ALEXANDRIA&mdash;THE ARAB INVASION AND THE SPREAD OF MUHAMMEDANISM&mdash;THE
+      ARAB DYNASTIES.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Augustus remodels the government of Egypt&mdash;A new calendar
+      introduced&mdash;Egypt surveyed&mdash;Dissension between Jews and Greeks
+      at Alexandria&mdash;Strabo&rsquo;s visit&mdash;The Egyptian religion at Rome&mdash;Wise
+      administration of Tiberius&mdash;The rise of the Therapeutæ&mdash;Lake
+      Mæris destroyed&mdash;The origin of Chemistry&mdash;The fable of the
+      Phoenix&mdash;Christianity introduced&mdash;Fiscal reforms under Galba&mdash;Vespasian
+      in Egypt&mdash;Fall of Jerusalem&mdash;The Nile Canal restored&mdash;Hadrian&rsquo;s
+      voyage up the Nile&mdash;Death of Antinous&mdash;Christians and Gnostics&mdash;Astrology
+      and Astronomy&mdash;Roman roads in Egypt&mdash;Commerce and Sports&mdash;The
+      Growth of Christianity&mdash;Severus visits Egypt&mdash;The massacre of
+      the Alexandrians&mdash;Ammonius Saccas and the Alexandrian Platonists&mdash;The
+      School of Origen&mdash;Rise of Controversy&mdash;Decline of Commerce&mdash;Zenobia
+      in Syria&mdash;Growing importance of the Arabs&mdash;Revolt and recapture
+      of Alexandria&mdash;Persecution of the Christians under Diocletian&mdash;Introduction
+      of the Manichean heresy.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Constantine the Great converted&mdash;Privileges of the clergy&mdash;Dogmatic
+      disputes&mdash;Council of Nicæa and the first Nicene Creed&mdash;Athanasian
+      and Arian controversies&mdash;Founding of Constantinople&mdash;Decline of
+      Alexandria&mdash;Imperial appointments in the Church&mdash;Religious riots&mdash;Triumphs
+      of Athanasius&mdash;Persecution by Bishop George of Cappadocia&mdash;Early
+      mission work&mdash;Development of the monastic system&mdash;Text of the
+      Bible&mdash;The monks and military service&mdash;Saracenic encroachments&mdash;Theodosius
+      overthrows Paganism&mdash;Destruction of the Great Library&mdash;Pagan and
+      Christian literature&mdash;Story of Hypatia&mdash;The Arabs defeat the
+      Romans&mdash;The Koptic New Testament&mdash;Egypt separated from Rome&mdash;The
+      Council of Chalcedon&mdash;Paganism restored in Upper Egypt&mdash;The
+      Henoticon&mdash;The writings of Hierocles&mdash;Relations with Persia&mdash;Inroads
+      of the Arabs&mdash;Justinian&rsquo;s fiscal reforms&mdash;Coinage restored&mdash;The
+      Persians enter Egypt. The Life of Muhammed&mdash;Amr conquers Egypt&mdash;The
+      legend of Omar and the Great Library&mdash;The founding of Fostât&mdash;The
+      Christians taxed&mdash;Muhammedan oppression in Egypt&mdash;The Ommayad
+      and Abbasid dynasties&mdash;Caliph Harun er-Rashid&mdash;Turkish
+      bodyguards&mdash;Rise of the Tulunite Dynasty&mdash;Office of Prince of
+      Princes&mdash;Reign of Muhammed el-Ikshid&mdash;War with Byzantium&mdash;Fatimite
+      Caliphs&mdash;The Ismailians and Mahdism&mdash;Reign of Mustanssir&mdash;Turkish
+      Rapacity&mdash;End of the Fatimite Rule.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I&mdash;EGYPT UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB2HCH0001"> CHAPTER II.&mdash;THE CHRISTIAN PERIOD IN
+        EGYPT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkC2HCH0001"> CHAPTER III.&mdash;EGYPT DURING THE MUHAMMEDAN
+        PERIOD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+      <hr />
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>List of Illustrations</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0001"> Spines </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0002"> Cover </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0003"> Frontispiece </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0004"> 001.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0005"> 002.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0006"> 003.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0007"> 007.jpg Plan of Alexandria </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0008"> 011.jpg the Nilometer at Elephantine </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0009"> 016.jpg on the Edge of The Desert </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0010"> 018.jpg a Koptic Maiden </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0011"> 022b.jpg Fragments in Wood Painted </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0012"> 024.jpg Temple at Tentyra, Enlarged by Roman
+        Architects </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0013"> 027.jpg on the Banks of The Nile. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0014"> 029.jpg Bedouin Tent in the Desert </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0015"> 041.jpg Egyptian Threshing-machine </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0016"> 047.jpg an Arab Girl </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0017"> 051.jpg Farming in Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0018"> 056.jpg Egyptian Threshing Machine </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0019"> 057.jpg Maltese Coin </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0020"> 058.jpg Coin of Cossyra </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0021"> 059.jpg Coin of Nero </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0022"> 063.jpg Ethiopian Arabs </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0023"> 078b.jpg Scene in a Sepuuchral Chamber </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0024"> 080.jpg Harpocrates </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0025"> 081.jpg Coins of Domitian </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0026"> 082.jpg Coin of Nerva </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0027"> 083.jpg Trinity of Isis, Horus and Nephthys
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0028"> 084.jpg Coins of Trajan </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0029"> 086.jpg Egyptian Wig (british Museum) </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0030"> 089.jpg Antoninian Temple Near Sinai </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0031"> 095.jpg Commemorative Coin of Antinous </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0032"> 097.jpg Rose-coloured Lotus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0033"> 099.jpg Vocal Statue of Amenhothes </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0034"> 100b..jpg the Slumber Song </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0035"> 102.jpg Egyptian Oracle </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0036"> 106.jpg Koptic Charm and Scarabeus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0037"> 107.jpg Gnostic Gem </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0038"> 108.jpg Gems Showing Symbol of Death and the
+        Word [Îah Javeh </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0039"> 109.jpg Hadrian&rsquo;s Egyptian Coins </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0040"> 112.jpg Coins of Antoninus Pius. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0041"> 115.jpg Statue of the Nile </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0042"> 117.jpg Coins of Marcus Aurelius </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0043"> 120.jpg Alexandrian Forms of Writing </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0044"> 122.jpg a Snake-charmer </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0045"> 123.jpg the Sign of Nobility </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0046"> 125.jpg Cartouche of Commodus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0047"> 126.jpg the Anubis Staff </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0048"> 128.jpg Canopic Jars </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0049"> 130.jpg Religious Procession </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0050"> 131.jpg Shrine </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0051"> 135.jpg Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic
+        Writing </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0052"> 138b.jpg a Native of Aswan </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0053"> 139b.jpg Painting at the Entrance of The
+        Fifth Tomb </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0054"> 149.jpg a Modern Scribe </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0055"> 151.jpg Symbol of Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0056"> 155.jpg a Harem Window </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0057"> 158b.jpg Egyptian Slave </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0058"> 59.jpg Coins of Zenobia </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0059"> 161.jpg Coin of Athenodorus </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0060"> 164.jpg Street Vendors in Metal Ware </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0061"> 165.jpg Coin of Domitianus With Latin
+        Inscription </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0062"> 167.jpg Coin of Severina </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0063"> 169.jpg Coin of Trajan&rsquo;s Second Legion </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0064"> 179.jpg Symbol of Mithra </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-0065"> 184.jpg Dome Palm of Upper Egypt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0004"> 187.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0005"> 199.jpg the Island of Rhodha </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0006"> 213.jpg Temple of Abu Simbel in Nubia </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0007"> 220.jpg Coin of Constantius </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0008"> 225.jpg a Young Egyptian Wearing the Royal Lock
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0009"> 231.jpg an Egyptian Water-carrier </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0010"> 237.jpg Remains of a Christian Church in the
+        Temple Of Luxor </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0011"> 243.jpg Temple Courtyard, Medinet Abu </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0012"> 248.jpg Christian Picture at Abu Simbe </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0013"> 250.jpg Manfaloot, Showing the Height of The Nile
+        In Summer </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0014"> 257.jpg Quarries at Toorah on the Nile </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0015"> 258b.jpg Street and Mosque of Mahdjiar </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0016"> 264.jpg Ramses Ii. And St. Peter </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0017"> 267.jpg the Papyrus Plant </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0018"> 271.jpg Arabs Resting in the Desert </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0019"> 279.jpg Isis As the Dog-star </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0020"> 285.jpg Street Sprinkler at Alexandria </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0021"> 291.jpg Illustrations from Copy of Dioscoride </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0022"> 302.jpg Fortress Near Mount Sinai </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0023"> 307.jpg Pyramid of Medum </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0024"> 313.jpg a Modern House in the Delta at Rosetta
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0025"> 316.jpg Coins of Justinian </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkB0026"> 322.jpg Tailpiece </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0004"> 323.jpg Page Image </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0005"> 325.jpg Coins of Ali abd Omar </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0006"> 329.jpg Old Cairo (fostat) </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0007"> 333.jpg a Modern Kopt </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0008"> 335.jpg Mosque of Amr </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0009"> 337a.jpg Coin of Abu Bekr </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0010"> 337b.jpg Coin of Othman </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0011"> 338.jpg Coin of Malik </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0012"> 339.jpg Citadel of Cairo (fostat). </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0013"> 341.jpg a Crocodile Used As A Talisman </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0014"> 347.jpg Door of an Arabian House. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0015"> 349.jpg a Veiled Beauty </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0016"> 351.jpg Tomb of a Sheikh </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0017"> 356.jpg the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0018"> 359.jpg Sanctuary of the Mosque Of Ibn Tulun
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0019"> 361.jpg the Mosque of Ibn Tulun </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0020"> 365.jpg Coin of Abu Bekr. </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0021"> 371.jpg Mosque Tomb Near Syene </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0022"> 379.jpg Mosque of Hakim </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkCimage-0023"> 383.jpg Mustanssir&rsquo;s Gate at Cairo </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> <a name="linkimage-0006"
+       id="linkimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/003.jpg" width="100%" alt="003.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I&mdash;EGYPT UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <i>The Roman dominion on the Nile: Settlement of the Egyptian frontiers:
+      Religious developments: Rebellions.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Augustus began his reign in Egypt in B.C. 30 by ordering all the statues
+      of Antony, of which there were more than fifty ornamenting the various
+      public buildings of the city, to be broken to pieces; and it is said he
+      had the meanness to receive a bribe of one thousand talents from Archibus,
+      a friend of Cleopatra, that the queen&rsquo;s statues might be left standing. It
+      seems to have been part of his kingcraft to give the offices of greatest
+      trust to men of low birth, who were at the same time well aware that they
+      owed their employments to their seeming want of ambition. Thus the
+      government of Egypt, the greatest and richest of the provinces, was given
+      to Cornelius Gallus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the fall of the republic the senate had given the command of the
+      provinces to members of their own body only; and therefore Augustus, not
+      wishing to alter the law, obtained from the senate for himself all those
+      governments which he meant to give to men of lower rank. By this legal
+      fiction, these equestrian prefects were answerable for their conduct to
+      nobody but the emperor on a petition, and they could not be sued at law
+      before the senate for their misdeeds. But he made an exception in the case
+      of Egypt. While on the one hand in that province he gave to the prefect&rsquo;s
+      edicts the force of law, on the other he allowed him to be cited before
+      the senate, though appointed by himself. The power thus given to the
+      senate they never ventured to use, and the prefect of Egypt was never
+      punished or removed but by the emperor. Under the prefect was the chief
+      justice of the province, who heard himself, or by deputy, all causes
+      except those which were reserved for the decision of the emperor in
+      person. These last were decided by a second judge, or in modern language a
+      chancellor, as they were too numerous and too trifling to be taken to
+      Rome. Under these judges were numerous freedmen of the emperor, and clerks
+      entrusted with affairs of greater and less weight. Of the native
+      magistrates the chief were the keeper of the records, the police judge,
+      the prefect of the night, and the <i>Exegetes</i>, or interpreter of the
+      Egyptian law, who was allowed to wear a purple robe like a Roman
+      magistrate. But these Egyptian magistrates were never treated as citizens;
+      they were barbarians, little better than slaves, and only raised to the
+      rank of the emperor&rsquo;s freedmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Augustus showed not a little jealousy in the rest of the laws by which his
+      new province was to be governed. While other conquered cities usually had
+      a senate or municipal form of government granted to them, no city in Egypt
+      was allowed that privilege, which, by teaching the citizens the art of
+      governing themselves and the advantages of union, might have made them
+      less at the mercy of their masters. He not only gave the command of the
+      kingdom to a man below the rank of a senator, but ordered that no senator
+      should even be allowed to set foot in Egypt without leave from himself;
+      and centuries later, when the weakness of the country had led the emperors
+      to soften some of the other stern laws of Augustus, this was still
+      strictly enforced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among other changes then brought in by the Romans was the use of a fixed
+      year in all civil reckonings. The Egyptians, for all the common purposes
+      of life, called the day of the heliacal rising of the dogstar, about our
+      18th of July, their new year&rsquo;s day, and the husbandman marked it with
+      religious ceremonies as the time when the Nile began to overflow; while
+      for all civil purposes, and dates of kings&rsquo; reigns, they used a year of
+      three hundred and sixty-five days, which, of course, had a movable new
+      year&rsquo;s day. But by the orders of Augustus all public deeds were henceforth
+      dated by the new year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter,
+      which was named, after Julius Cæsar, the Julian year. The years from B.C.
+      24 were made to begin on the 29th of August, the day on which the movable
+      new year&rsquo;s day then happened to fall, and were numbered from the year
+      following the last of Cleopatra, as from the first year of the reign of
+      Augustus. But notwithstanding the many advantages of the Julian year,
+      which was used throughout Europe for sixteen centuries, till its
+      faultiness was pointed out by Pope Gregory XIII., the Egyptian astronomers
+      and mathematicians distrusted it from the first, and chose to stick to
+      their old year, in which there could be no mistake about its length. Thus
+      there were at the same time three years and three new year&rsquo;s days in use
+      in Egypt: one about the 18th of July, used by the common people; one on
+      the 29th of August, used by order of the emperor; and one movable, used by
+      the astronomers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the conquest of Egypt, Augustus was also able to extend another of the
+      plans of his late uncle. Julius Cæsar, whose powerful mind found all
+      sciences within its grasp, had ordered a survey to be taken of the whole
+      of the Roman provinces, and the length of all the roads to be measured for
+      the use of the tax-gatherers and of the army; and Augustus was now able to
+      add Egypt to the survey. Polyclitus was employed on this southern portion
+      of the empire; and, after thirty-two years from its beginning by Julius,
+      the measurement of nearly the whole known world was finished and reported
+      to the senate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Alexandria Augustus was visited by Herod, who hastened to beg of him
+      those portions of his kingdom which Antony had given to Cleopatra.
+      Augustus received him as a friend; gave him back the territory which
+      Antony had taken from him, and added the province of Samaria and the free
+      cities on the coast. He also gave to him the body of four hundred Gauls,
+      who formed part of the Egyptian army and had been Cleopatra&rsquo;s bodyguard.
+      He thus removed from Alexandria the last remains of the Gallic
+      mercenaries, of whom the Ptolemies had usually had a troop in their
+      service.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/007.jpg" width="100%" alt="007.jpg Plan of Alexandria " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Augustus visited the royal burial-place to see the body of Alexander, and
+      devoutly added a golden crown and a garland of flowers to the other
+      ornaments on the sarcophagus of the Macedonian. But he would take no pains
+      to please either the Alexandrians or Egyptians; he despised them both.
+      When asked if he would not like to see the Alexandrian monarchs lying in
+      their mummy-cases in the same tomb, he answered: &ldquo;No, I came to see the
+      king, not dead men,&rdquo; His contempt for Cleopatra and her father made him
+      forget the great qualities of Ptolemy Soter. So when he was at Memphis he
+      refused to humour the national prejudice of two thousand years&rsquo; standing
+      by visiting the bull Apis. Of the former conquerors, Cambyses had stabbed
+      the sacred bull, Alexander had sacrificed to it; had Augustus had the
+      violent temper of either, he would have copied Cambyses. The Egyptians
+      always found the treatment of the sacred bull a foretaste of what they
+      were themselves to receive from their sovereigns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Greeks of Alexandria, who had for some time past very unwillingly
+      yielded to the Jews the right of citizenship, now urged upon Augustus that
+      it should no longer be granted. Augustus, however, had received great
+      services from the Jews, and at once refused the prayer; and he set up in
+      Alexandria an inscription granting to the Jews the full privileges of
+      Macedonians, which they claimed and had hitherto enjoyed under the
+      Ptolemies. They were allowed their own magistrates and courts of justice,
+      with the free exercise of their own religion; and soon afterwards, when
+      their high priest died, they were allowed as usual to choose his
+      successor. The Greek Jews of Alexandria were indeed very important, both
+      from their numbers and their learning; they spread over Syria and Asia
+      Minor: they had a synagogue in Jerusalem in common with the Jews of Cyrene
+      and Libya; and we find that one of the chief teachers of Christianity
+      after the apostles was Apollos, the Alexandrian, who preached the new
+      religion in Ephesus, in Corinth, and in Crete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his return to Rome, Augustus carried with him the whole of the royal
+      treasure; and though perhaps there might have been less gold and silver
+      than usual in the palace of the Ptolemies, still it was so large a sum
+      that when, upon the establishment of peace over all the world, the rate of
+      interest upon loans fell in Rome, and the price of land rose, the change
+      was thought to have been caused by the money from Alexandria. At the same
+      time were carried away the valuable jewels, furniture, and ornaments,
+      which had been handed down from father to son, with the crown of Upper and
+      Lower Egypt. These were drawn in waggons through the streets of Rome in
+      triumph; and with them were shown in chains to the wondering crowd
+      Alexander Helius and Cleopatra Selene, the children of Cleopatra and
+      Antony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Augustus threatened a severe punishment to the Alexandrians in the
+      building of a new capital. Only four miles from the Canopic or eastern
+      gate of Alexandria he laid out the plan of his new city of Meopolis, on
+      the spot where he had routed Mark Antony&rsquo;s forces. Here he began several
+      large temples, and removed to them the public sacrifices and the
+      priesthood from the temples of Alexandria. But the work was carried no
+      farther, and soon abandoned; and the only change made by it in Alexandria
+      was that the temple of Serapis and the other temples were for a time
+      deserted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rest of the world had long been used to see their finest works of art
+      carried away by their conquerors; and the Egyptians soon learned that, if
+      any of the monuments of which they were so justly proud were to be left to
+      them, it would only be because they were too heavy to be moved by the
+      Roman engineers. Beside many other smaller Egyptian works, two of the
+      large obelisks, which even now ornament Rome, were carried away by
+      Augustus, that of Thutmosis IV., which stands in the Piazza del Popolo,
+      and that of Psammetichus, on Monte Citorio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cornelius Gallus, the prefect of Egypt, seems either to have
+      misunderstood, or soon forgotten, the terms of his appointment. He set up
+      statues of himself in the cities of Egypt, and, copying the kings of the
+      country, he carved his name and deeds upon the pyramids. On this Augustus
+      recalled him, and he killed himself to avoid punishment. The emperor&rsquo;s
+      wish to check the tyranny of the prefects and tax-gatherers was strongly
+      marked in the case of the champion fighting-cock. The Alexandrians bred
+      these birds with great care, and eagerly watched their battles in the
+      theatre. A powerful cock, that had hitherto slain all its rivals and
+      always strutted over the table unconquered, had gained a great name in the
+      city; and this bird, Eros, a tax-gatherer, roasted and ate. Augustus, on
+      hearing of this insult to the people, sent for the man, and, on his owning
+      what he had done, ordered him to be crucified. Three legions and nine
+      cohorts were found force enough to keep this great kingdom in quiet
+      obedience to their new masters; and when Heroopolis revolted, and
+      afterwards when a rebellion broke out in the Thebaid against the Roman
+      tax-gatherers, these risings were easily crushed. The spirit of the
+      nation, both of the Greeks and Egyptians, seems to have been wholly
+      broken; and Petronius, who succeeded Cornelius Gallus, found no difficulty
+      in putting down a rising of the Alexandrians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The canals, through which the overflowing waters of the Nile were carried
+      to the more distant fields, were, of course, each year more or less
+      blocked up by the same mud which made the fields fruitful; and the
+      clearing of these canals was one of the greatest boons that the monarch
+      could bestow upon the tillers of the soil. This had often been neglected
+      by the less powerful and less prudent kings of Egypt, in whose reigns the
+      husbandman believed that Heaven in its displeasure withheld part of the
+      wished-for overflow; but Petronius employed the leisure of his soldiers on
+      this wise and benevolent work. In order better to understand the rise of
+      the Nile, to fix the amount of the land-tax, and more fairly to regulate
+      the overflow through the canals, the Nilometer on the Island of
+      Elephantine was at this time made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:30%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/011.jpg"
+       alt="011.jpg the Nilometer at Elephantine " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It was under Ælius Gallus, the third prefect, that Egypt was visited by
+      Strabo, the most careful and judicious of all the ancient travellers. He
+      had come to study mathematics, astronomy, and geography in the museum,
+      under the successors of Euclid, Eratosthenes, and Hipparchus. He
+      accompanied the prefect in a march to Syênê (Aswan), the border town, and
+      he has left us a valuable account of the state of the country at that
+      time. Alexandria was the chief object that engaged his attention. Its two
+      harbours held more ships than were to be seen in any other port in the
+      world, and its export trade was thought greater than that of all Italy.
+      The docks on each side of the causeway, and the ship canal, from the
+      harbour of Eunostus to the Mareotic Lake, were full of bustle and
+      activity. The palace or citadel on the promontory of Lochias on one side
+      of the great harbour was as striking an object as the lighthouse on the
+      other. The temples and palaces covered a space of ground equal to more
+      than one-fourth part of the city, and the suburbs reached even beyond the
+      Mareotic Lake. Among the chief buildings were the Soma, which held the
+      bodies of Alexander and of the Ptolemies; the court of justice; the museum
+      of philosophy, which had been rebuilt since the burning by Cæsar&rsquo;s
+      soldiers; the exchange, crowded with merchants, the temple of Neptune, and
+      Mark Antony&rsquo;s fortress, called the Timonium, on a point of land which
+      jutted into the harbour; the Cæsarium, or new palace; and the great temple
+      of Serapis, which was on the western side of the city, and was the largest
+      and most ornamented of all these buildings. Farther off was the beautiful
+      gymnasium for wrestlers and boxers, with its porticoes of a stadium in
+      length, where the citizens used to meet in public assembly. From the top
+      of the temple of Pan, which rose like a sugar-loaf in the middle of the
+      city, and was mounted by a winding staircase, the whole of this remarkable
+      capital might be seen spread out before the eye. On the east of the city
+      was the circus, for chariot races, and on the west lay the public gardens
+      and pale green palm-groves, and the Necropolis ornamenting the roadside
+      with tombs for miles along the seashore. Other tombs were in the catacombs
+      underground on the same side of the city. The banks of the Mareotic Lake
+      were fringed with vineyards, which bore the famed wine of the same name,
+      and which formed a pleasant contrast with the burning whiteness of the
+      desert beyond. The canal from the lake to the Nile marked its course
+      through the plain by the greater freshness of the green along its banks.
+      In the distance were the new buildings of Augustus&rsquo; city of Nicopolis. The
+      arts of Greece and the wealth of Egypt had united to adorn the capital of
+      the Ptolemies. Heliopolis, the ancient seat of Egyptian learning, had
+      never been wholly repaired since its siege by Cambyses, and was then
+      almost a deserted city. Its schools were empty, its teachers silent; but
+      the houses in which Plato and his friend Eudoxus were said to have dwelt
+      and studied were pointed out to the traveller, to warm his love of
+      knowledge and encourage him in the pursuit of virtue. Memphis was the
+      second city in Egypt, while Thebes and Abydos, the former capitals, had
+      fallen to the size and rank of villages. At Memphis Strabo saw the
+      bull-fights in the circus, and was allowed to look at the bull Apis
+      through a window of his stable. At Crocodilopolis he saw the sacred
+      crocodile caught on the banks of the lake and fed with cakes and wine.
+      Ptolemais, which was at first only an encampment of Greek soldiers, had
+      risen under the sovereigns to whom it owed its name to be the largest city
+      in the Thebaid, and scarcely less than Memphis. It was built wholly by the
+      Greeks, and, like Alexandria, it was under Greek laws, while the other
+      cities in Egypt were under Egyptian laws and magistrates. It was situated
+      between Panopolis and Abydos; but, while the temples of Thebes, which were
+      built so many centuries earlier, are still standing in awful grandeur,
+      scarcely a trace of this Greek city can be found in the villages of El
+      Menshieh and Girgeh (Cerkasoros), which now stand on the spot. Strabo and
+      the Roman generals did not forget to visit the broken colossal statue of
+      Amenhôthes, near Thebes, which sent forth its musical sounds every
+      morning, as the sun, rising over the Arabian hills, first shone upon its
+      face; but this inquiring traveller could not make up his mind whether the
+      music came from the statue, or the base, or the people around it. He ended
+      his tour with watching the sunshine at the bottom of the astronomical well
+      at Syênê, which, on the longest day, is exactly under the sun&rsquo;s northern
+      edge, and with admiring the skill of the boatmen who shot down the
+      cataracts in their wicker boats, for the amusement of the Roman generals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the earlier periods of Egyptian history Ethiopia was peopled, or, at
+      least, governed, by a race of men, whom, as they spoke the same language
+      and worshipped the same gods as their neighbours of Upper Egypt, we must
+      call the Kopts. But the Arabs, under the name of Troglodyte, and other
+      tribes, had made an early settlement on the African side of the Red Sea.
+      So numerous were they in Upper Egypt that in the time of Strabo half the
+      population of the city of Koptos were Arabs; they were the camel-drivers
+      and carriers for the Theban merchants in the trade across the desert. Some
+      of the conquests of Ramses had been over that nation in southern Ethiopia,
+      and the Arab power must have further risen after the defeat of the
+      Ethiopians by Euergetes I. Ethiopia in the time of Augustus was held by
+      Arabs; a race who thought peace a state of disgraceful idleness, and war
+      the only employment worthy of men; and who made frequent hasty inroads
+      into Nubia, and sometimes into Egypt. They fought for plunder, not for
+      conquest, and usually retreated as quickly as they came, with such booty
+      as they laid their hands on. To use words which were proverbial while the
+      Nile swarmed with crocodiles, &ldquo;They did as the dogs do, they drank and ran
+      away;&rdquo; and the Romans found it necessary to place a body of troops near
+      the cataracts of Syênê to stop their marching northward and laying waste
+      the Thebaid. While the larger part of the Roman legions was withdrawn into
+      Arabia on an unsuccessful quest for treasure, a body of thirty thousand of
+      these men, whom we may call either Arabs, from their blood and language,
+      or Ethiopians, from their country, marched northward into Egypt, and
+      overpowered the three Roman cohorts at Elephantine, Syênê, and Philas.
+      Badly armed and badly trained, they were led on by the generals of
+      Candace, Queen of Napata, to the fourth cataract. They were, however,
+      easily driven back when Gallus led against them an army of ten thousand
+      men, and drove them to Ethiopian Pselchis, now remaining as the modern
+      village of Dakkeh. There he defeated them again, and took the city by
+      storm. From Pselchis he marched across the Nubian desert two hundred and
+      fifty miles to Premnis, on the northerly bend of the river, and then made
+      himself master of Napata, the capital. A guard was at the moment left in
+      the country to check any future inroads; but the Romans made no attempts
+      to hold it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/016.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="016.jpg on the Edge of The Desert " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Of the state of the Ethiopie Arabs under Queen Candace we learn but little
+      from this hasty inroad; but some of the tribes must have been very far
+      from the barbarians that, from their ignorance of the arts of war, the
+      Romans judged them to be. Those nearest to the Egyptian frontiers, the
+      Troglodyte and Blemmyes, were unsettled, wandering, and plundering; but
+      the inhabitants of Meroë were of a more civilised race. The Jews had
+      settled in southern Ethiopia in large numbers, and for a long time;
+      Solomon&rsquo;s trade had made them acquainted with Adule and Auxum; some of
+      them were employed in the highest offices, and must have brought with them
+      the arts of civilised life. A few years later (Acts VIII. 27) we meet with
+      a Jewish eunuch, the treasurer of Queen Candace, travelling with some pomp
+      from Ethiopia to the religious festivals at Jerusalem. The Egyptian coins
+      of Augustus and his successors are all Greek; the conquest of the country
+      by the Romans made no change in its language. Though the chief part of the
+      population spoke Koptic, it was still a Greek province of the Roman
+      empire; the decrees of the prefects of Alexandria and of the upper
+      provinces were written in Greek; and every Roman traveller, who, like a
+      schoolboy, has scratched his name upon the foot of the musical statue of
+      Amenhôthes, to let the world know the extent of his travels, has helped to
+      prove that the Roman government of the country was carried on in the Greek
+      language. The coins often bear the eagle and thunderbolt on one side,
+      while on the other is the emperor&rsquo;s head, with his name and titles; and,
+      after a few years, they are all dated with the year of the emperor&rsquo;s
+      reign. In the earliest he is styled a Son of God, in imitation of the
+      Egyptian title of Son of the Sun. After Egypt lost its liberty, we no
+      longer find any gold coinage in the country; that metal, with everything
+      else that was most costly, was carried away to pay the Roman tribute. This
+      was chiefly taken in money, except, indeed, the tax on grain, which the
+      Egyptian kings had always received in kind, and which was still gathered
+      in the same way, and each year shipped to Rome, to be distributed among
+      the idle poor of that great city. At this time it amounted to twenty
+      millions of bushels, which was four times what was levied in the reign of
+      Philadelphus. The trade to the east was increasing, but as yet not large.
+      About one hundred and twenty small vessels sailed every year to India from
+      MyosHormos, which was now the chief port on the Red Sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No change was made in the Egyptian religion by this change of masters;
+      and, though the means of the priests were lessened, they still carried
+      forward the buildings which were in progress, and even began new ones. The
+      small temple of Isis, at Tentyra, behind the great temple of Hâthor, was
+      either built or finished in this reign, and it was dedicated to the
+      goddess, and to the honour of the emperor as Jupiter Liberator, in a Greek
+      inscription on the cornice, in the thirty-first year of the reign, when
+      Publius Octavius was prefect of the province.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/019.jpg" width="100%" alt="019.jpg a Koptic Maiden " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The large temple at Talmis, in Nubia, was also then built, though not
+      wholly finished; and we find the name of Augustus at Philæ, on some of the
+      additions to the temple of Isis, which had been built in the reign of
+      Philadelphus. In the hieroglyphical inscriptions on these temples,
+      Augustus is called Autocrator Cæsar, and is styled Son of the Sun, King of
+      Upper and Lower Egypt, with the other titles which had always been given
+      by the priests to the Ptolemies and their own native sovereigns for so
+      many centuries. These claims were evidently unknown in Rome, where the
+      modesty of Augustus was almost proverbial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Greeks had at all times been forward in owning the Egyptians as their
+      teachers in religion; and in the dog Cerberus, the judge Minos, the boat
+      of Charon, and the river Styx of their mythology, we see a clear proof
+      that it was in Egypt that the Greeks gained their faint glimpse of the
+      immortality of the soul, a day of judgment, and a future state of rewards
+      and punishments; and, now that Rome was in close intercourse with Egypt,
+      the Romans were equally ready to borrow thence their religious ceremonies.
+      They brought to Rome the Egyptian opinions with the statues of the gods.
+      They ran into the new superstition to avoid the painful uneasiness of
+      believing nothing, and, though the Romans ridiculed their own gods, they
+      believed in those of Egypt. So fashionable was the worship of Isis and
+      Serapis becoming in Italy, that Augustus made a law that no Egyptian
+      ceremonies should enter the city or even the suburbs of Rome. His subjects
+      might copy the luxuries, the follies, and the vices of the Alexandrians,
+      but not the gloomy devotion of the Egyptians. But the spread of opinions
+      was not so checked; even Virgil taught the doctrine of the Egyptian
+      millennium, or the resurrection from the dead when the thousand years were
+      ended; and the cripple asking for alms in the streets of Rome would beg in
+      the name of the holy Osiris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egypt felt no change on the death of Augustus. The province was well
+      governed during the whole of the reign of Tiberius, and the Alexandrians
+      completed the beautiful temple to his honour, named the Sebaste, or
+      Cæsar&rsquo;s Temple. It stood by the side of the harbour, and was surrounded
+      with a sacred grove. It was ornamented with porticoes, and fitted up with
+      libraries, paintings, and statues, and was the most lofty building in the
+      city. In front of this temple they set up two ancient obelisks, which had
+      been made by Thutmosis III. and carved by Ramses II., and which, like the
+      other monuments of the Theban kings, have outlived all the temples and
+      palaces of their Greek and Roman successors. These obelisks are now
+      generally known as &ldquo;Cleopatra&rsquo;s Needles.&rdquo; One of them, in 1878, was taken
+      to London and set up on the Thames Embankment; the other was soon
+      afterward brought to New York, and is now in Central Park in that city. It
+      is sixty-seven feet high to its sharpened apex, and seven feet, seven
+      inches in diameter at its base. On its face are deeply incised
+      inscriptions in hieroglyphic character, giving the names Thutmosis III.,
+      Ramses II., and Seti II.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/022b.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="022b.jpg Fragments in Wood Painted " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The harsh justice with which Tiberius began his reign was at Rome soon
+      changed into a cruel tyranny; but in the provinces it was only felt as a
+      check to the injustice of the prefects. On one occasion, when Æmilius
+      Rectus sent home from Egypt a larger amount of taxes than was usual, he
+      hoped that his zeal would be praised by Tiberius. But the emperor&rsquo;s
+      message to the prefect was as stern as it was humane: &ldquo;I should wish my
+      sheep to be sheared, but not to be flayed.&rdquo; On the death of one of the
+      prefects, there was found among his property at Rome a statue of Menelaus,
+      carved in Ethiopian obsidian, which had been used in the religious
+      ceremonies in the temple of Heliopolis, and Tiberius returned it to the
+      priests of that city as its rightful owners. Another proof of the equal
+      justice with which this province was governed was to be seen in the
+      buildings then carried on by the priests in Upper Egypt. We find the name
+      of Tiberius carved in hieroglyphics on additions or repairs made to the
+      temples at Thebes, at Aphroditopolis, at Berenicê, on the Red Sea, at
+      Philæ, and at the Greek city of Parembole, in Nubia. The great portico was
+      at this time added to the temple at Tentyra, with an inscription
+      dedicating it to the goddess in Greek and in hieroglyphics. As a building
+      is often the work of years, while sculpture is only the work of weeks, so
+      the fashion of the former is always far less changing than that of the
+      latter. The sculptures on the walls of this beautiful portico are crowded
+      and graceless; while, on the other hand, the building itself has the same
+      grand simplicity and massive strength that we find in the older temples of
+      Upper Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We cannot but admire the zeal of the Egyptians by whom this work was then
+      finished. They were treated as slaves by their Greek fellow-countrymen;
+      their houses were ransacked every third year by military authority in
+      search of arms; they could have had no help from their Roman masters, who
+      only drained the province of its wealth; and the temple had perhaps never
+      been heard of by the emperor, who could have been little aware that the
+      most lasting monument of his reign was being raised in the distant
+      province of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/024.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="024.jpg Temple at Tentyra, Enlarged by Roman Architects " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The priests of the other parts of the country sent gifts out of their
+      poverty in aid of this pious work; and among the figures on the walls we
+      see those of forty cities, from Semneh, at the second cataract, to Memphis
+      and Saïs, in the Delta, each presenting an offering to the god of the
+      temple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the third year of this reign Germanicus Cæsar, who, much against his
+      will, had been sent into the East as governor, found time to leave his own
+      province, and to snatch a hasty view of the time-honoured buildings of
+      Egypt. Descending the river to Thebes, and, while gazing on the huge
+      remains of the temples, he asked the priests to read to him the
+      hieroglyphical writing on the walls. He was told that it recounted the
+      greatness of the country in the time of King Ramses, when there were seven
+      hundred thousand Egyptians of an age to bear arms; and that with these
+      troops Ramses had conquered the Libyans, Ethiopians, Medes, Persians,
+      Bactrians, Scythians, Syrians, Armenians, Cappadocians, Bithynians, and
+      Lycians. He was also told the tributes laid upon each of those nations;
+      the weight of gold and silver, the number of chariots and horses, the
+      gifts of ivory and scents for the temples, and the quantity of grain which
+      the conquered provinces sent to feed the population of Thebes. After
+      listening to the musical statue of Amenhothes, Germanicus went on to
+      Elephantine and Syênê; and, on his return, he turned aside to the pyramids
+      and the Lake of Mceris, which regulated the overflow of the Nile on the
+      neighbouring fields. At Memphis, Germanicus consulted the sacred bull Apis
+      as to his future fortune, and met with an unfavourable answer. The manner
+      of consulting Apis was for the visitor to hold out some food in his hand,
+      and the answer was understood to be favourable if the bull turned his head
+      to eat, but unfavourable if he looked another way. When Germanicus
+      accordingly held out a handful of grain, the well-fed animal turned his
+      head sullenly towards the other side of his stall; and on the death of
+      this young prince, which shortly followed, the Egyptians did not forget to
+      praise the bull&rsquo;s foresight. This blameless and seemingly praiseworthy
+      visit of Germanicus did not, however, escape the notice of the jealous
+      Tiberius. He had been guilty of gaining the love of the people by walking
+      about without guards, in a plain Greek dress, and of lowering the price of
+      grain in a famine by opening the public granaries; and Tiberius sternly
+      reproached him with breaking the known law of Augustus, by which no Roman
+      citizen of consular or even of equestrian rank might enter Alexandria
+      without leave from the emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:52%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/027.jpg"
+       alt="027.jpg on the Banks of The Nile. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      There were at this time about a million of Jews in Egypt. In Alexandria
+      they seem to have been about one-third of the population, as they formed
+      the majority in two wards out of the five into which the city was divided.
+      They lived under their own elders and Sanhedrim, going up at their solemn
+      feasts to worship in their own temple at Onion; but, from their mixing
+      with the Greeks, they had become less strict than their Hebrew brethren in
+      their observance of the traditions. Some few of them, however, held
+      themselves in obedience to the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem, and looked upon the
+      temple of Jerusalem as the only Jewish temple; and these men were in the
+      habit of sending an embassy on the stated solemn feasts of the nation to
+      offer the appointed sacrifices and prayers to Jahveh in the holy city on
+      their behalf. But though the decree by Cæsar, which declared that the Jews
+      were Alexandrian citizens, was engraved on a pillar in the city, yet they
+      were by no means treated as such, either by the government, or by the
+      Greeks, or by the Egyptians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, during the famine, the public granaries seemed unable to supply the
+      whole city with food, even the humane Germanicus ordered that the Jews,
+      like the Egyptians, should have no share of the gift. They were despised
+      even by the Egyptians themselves, who, to insult them, said that the
+      wicked god Typhon had two sons, Hierosolymus and Judæus, and that from
+      these the Jews were descended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the neighbourhood of Alexandria, on a hill near the shores of the Lake
+      Mareotis, was a little colony of Jews, who, joining their own religion
+      with the mystical opinions and gloomy habits of the Egyptians, have left
+      us one of the earliest known examples of the monastic life. They bore the
+      name of Therapeutæ. They had left, says Philo, their worldly wealth to
+      their families or friends; they had forsaken wives, children, brethren,
+      parents, and the society of men, to bury themselves in solitude and pass
+      their lives in the contemplation of the divine essence. Seized by this
+      heavenly love, they were eager to enter upon the next world, as though
+      they were already dead to this. Every one, whether man or woman, lived
+      alone in his cell or monastery, caring for neither food nor raiment, but
+      having his thoughts wholly turned to the Law and the Prophets, or to
+      sacred hymns of their own composing. They had their God always in their
+      thoughts, and even the broken sentences which they uttered in their dreams
+      were treasures of religious wisdom. They prayed every morning at sunrise,
+      and then spent the day in turning over the sacred volumes, and the
+      commentaries, which explained the allegories, or pointed out a secondary
+      meaning as hidden beneath the surface of even the historical books of the
+      Old Testament. At sunset they again prayed, and then tasted their first
+      and only meal. Selfdenial indeed was the foundation of all their virtues.
+      Some made only three meals in the week, that their meditations might be
+      more free; while others even attempted to prolong their fast to the sixth
+      day. During six days of the week they saw nobody, not even one another. On
+      the seventh day they met together in the synagogue. Here they sat, each
+      according to his age; the women separated from the men. Each wore a plain,
+      modest robe, which covered the arms and hands, and they sat in silence
+      while one of the elders preached. As they studied the mystic powers of
+      numbers, they thought the number seven was a holy number, and that seven
+      times seven made a great week, and hence they kept the fiftieth day as a
+      solemn festival. On that day they dined together, the men on one side and
+      the women on the other. The rushy papyrus formed the couches; bread was
+      their only meat, water their drink, salt the seasoning, and cresses the
+      delicacy. They would keep no slaves, saying that all men were born equal.
+      Nobody spoke, unless it was to propose a question out of the Old
+      Testament, or to answer the question of another. The feast ended with a
+      hymn of praise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/029.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="029.jpg Bedouin Tent in the Desert " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The ascetic Jews of Palestine, the Essenes on the banks of the Dead Sea,
+      by no means, according to Philo, thus quitted the active duties of life;
+      and it would seem that the Therapeutas rather borrowed their customs from
+      the country in which they had settled, than from any sects of the Jewish
+      nation. Some classes of the Egyptian priesthood had always held the same
+      views of their religious duties. These Egyptian monks slept on a hard bed
+      of palm branches, with a still harder wooden pillow for the head; they
+      were plain in their dress, slow in walking, spare in diet, and scarcely
+      allowed themselves to smile. They washed thrice a day, and prayed as
+      often; at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset. They often fasted from animal
+      food, and at all times refused many meats as unclean. They passed their
+      lives alone, either in study or wrapped in religious thought. They never
+      met one another but at set times, and were seldom seen by strangers. Thus,
+      leaving to others the pleasures, wealth, and lesser prizes of this life,
+      they received from them in return what most men value higher, namely,
+      honour, fame, and power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Romans, like the Greeks, feeling but little partiality in favour of
+      their own gods, were rarely guilty of intolerance against those of others;
+      and would hardly have checked the introduction of a new religion unless it
+      made its followers worse citizens. But in Rome, where every act of its
+      civil or military authorities was accompanied with a religious rite, any
+      slight towards the gods was a slight towards the magistrate; many devout
+      Romans had begun to keep holy the seventh day; and Egypt was now so
+      closely joined to Italy that the Roman senate made a new law against the
+      Egyptian and Jewish superstitions, and, in A.D. 19, banished to Sardinia
+      four thousand men who were found guilty of being Jews.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egypt had lost with its liberties its gold coinage, and it was now made to
+      feel a further proof of being a conquered country in having its silver
+      much alloyed with copper. But Tiberius, in the tenth year of his reign,
+      altogether stopped the Alexandrian mint, as well as those of the other
+      cities which occasionally coined; and after this year we find no more
+      coins, but the few with the head and name of Augustus Cæsar, which seem
+      hardly to have been meant for money, but to commemorate on some peculiar
+      occasions the emperor&rsquo;s adoption by his stepfather. The Nubian gold mines
+      were probably by this time wholly deserted; they had been so far worked
+      out as to be no longer profitable. For fifteen hundred years, ever since
+      Ethiopia was conquered by Thebes, wages and prices had been higher in
+      Egypt than in the neighbouring countries. But this was now no longer the
+      case. Egypt had been getting poorer during the reigns of the latter
+      Ptolemies; and by this time it is probable that both wages and prices were
+      higher in Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seems to have been usual to change the prefect of Egypt every few
+      years, and the prefect-elect was often sent to Alexandria to wait till his
+      predecessor&rsquo;s term of years had ended. Thus in this reign of twenty-three
+      years Æmilius Rectus was succeeded by Vetrasius Pollio; and on his death
+      Tiberius gave the government to his freedman Iberus. During the last five
+      years Egypt was under the able but stern government of Flaccus Avillius,
+      whose name is carved on the temple of Tentyra with that of the emperor. He
+      was a man who united all those qualities of prudent forethought, with
+      prompt execution and attention to business, which was so necessary in
+      controlling the irritable Alexandrians, who were liable to be fired into
+      rebellion by the smallest spark. Justice was administered fairly; the
+      great were not allowed to tyrannise over the poor, nor the people to meet
+      in tumultuous mobs; and the legions were regularly paid, so that they had
+      no excuse for plundering the Egyptians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Tiberius, in A.D. 37, the old quarrel again broke out
+      between Jews and Greeks. The Alexandrians were not slow in learning the
+      feelings of his successor, Caius, or Caligula, towards the Jews, nor in
+      turning against them the new law that the emperor&rsquo;s statue should be
+      honoured in every temple of the empire. They had very unwillingly yielded
+      a half-obedience to the law of Augustus that the Jews should still be
+      allowed the privileges of citizenship; and, as soon as they heard that
+      Caligula was to be worshipped in every temple of the empire, they
+      denounced the Jews as traitors and rebels, who refused so to honour the
+      emperor in their synagogues. It happened, unfortunately, that their
+      countryman, King Agrippa, at this time came to Alexandria. He had full
+      leave from the emperor to touch there, as being the quickest and most
+      certain way of making the voyage from Rome to the seat of his own
+      government. Indeed, the Alexandrian voyage had another merit in the eyes
+      of a Jew; for, whereas wooden water-vessels were declared by the Law to be
+      unclean, an exception was made by their tradition in favour of the larger
+      size of the water-wells in the Alexandrian ships. Agrippa had seen Egypt
+      before, on his way to Rome, and he meant to make no stay there; but,
+      though he landed purposely after dark, and with no pomp or show, he seems
+      to have raised the anger of the prefect Flaccus, who felt jealous at any
+      man of higher rank than himself coming into his province. The Greeks fell
+      into the prefect&rsquo;s humour, and during the stay of Agrippa in Alexandria
+      they lampooned him in songs and ballads, of which the raillery was not of
+      the most delicate kind. They mocked him by leading about the streets a
+      poor idiot dressed up with a paper crown and a reed for a sceptre, in
+      ridicule of his rather doubtful right to the style of royalty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="039 (39K)" src="images/039.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As these insults towards the emperor&rsquo;s friend passed wholly unchecked by
+      the prefect, the Greeks next assaulted the Jews in the streets and
+      market-place, attacked their houses, rooted up the groves of trees around
+      their synagogues, and tore down the decree by which the privileges of
+      citizenship had been confirmed to them. The Greeks then proceeded to set
+      up by force a statue of the emperor in each Jewish synagogue, as if the
+      new decree had included those places of worship among the temples, and,
+      not finding statues enough, they made use of the statues of the Ptolemies,
+      which they carried away from the gymnasium for that purpose. During the
+      last reign, under the stern government of Tiberius, Flaccus had governed
+      with justice and prudence, but under Caligula he seemed to have lost all
+      judgment in his zeal against the Jews. When the riots in the streets could
+      no longer be overlooked, instead of defending the injured party, he issued
+      a decree in which he styled the Jews foreigners; thus at one word robbing
+      them of their privileges and condemning them unheard. By this the Greeks
+      were hurried forward into further acts of injustice, and the Jews of
+      resistance. But the Jews were the weaker party: they were overpowered, and
+      all driven into one ward, and four hundred of their houses in the other
+      wards were plundered, and the spoil divided as if taken in war. They were
+      stoned, and even burnt in the streets, if they ventured forth to buy food
+      for their families. Flaccus seized and scourged in the theatre
+      thirty-eight of their venerable councillors, and, to show them that they
+      were no longer citizens, the punishment was inflicted by the hands of
+      Egyptian executioners. While the city was in this state of riot, the
+      Greeks gave out that the Jews were concealing arms; and Flaccus, to give
+      them a fresh proof that they had lost the rights of citizenship, ordered
+      that their houses should be forcibly entered and searched by a centurion
+      and a band of soldiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During their troubles the Jews had not been allowed to complain to the
+      emperor, or to send an embassy to Rome to make known their grievances. But
+      the Jewish King Agrippa, who was on his way from Rome to his kingdom,
+      forwarded to Caligula the complaints of his countrymen, the Jews, with an
+      account of the rebellious state of Alexandria. The riots, it is true, had
+      been wholly raised by the prefect&rsquo;s zeal in setting up the emperor&rsquo;s
+      statue in the synagogues to be worshipped by the Jews, and in carrying
+      into effect the emperor&rsquo;s decree; but, as he had not been able to keep his
+      province quiet, it was necessary that he should be recalled, and punished
+      for his want of success. To have found it necessary to call out the troops
+      was of course a fault in a governor; but doubly so at a time and in a
+      province where a successful general might so easily become a formidable
+      rebel. Accordingly, a centurion, with a trusty cohort of soldiers, was
+      sent from Rome for the recall of the prefect. On approaching the flat
+      coast of Egypt, they kept the vessel in deep water till sunset, and then
+      entered the harbour of Alexandria in the dark. The centurion, on landing,
+      met with a freedman of the emperor, from whom he learned that the prefect
+      was then at supper, entertaining a large company of friends. The freedman
+      led the cohort quietly into the palace, into the very room where Flaccus
+      was sitting at table; and the first tidings that he heard of his
+      government being disapproved of in Rome was his finding himself a prisoner
+      in his own palace. The friends stood motionless with surprise, the
+      centurion produced the emperor&rsquo;s order for what he was doing, and as no
+      resistance was attempted all passed off quietly; Flaccus was hurried on
+      board the vessel then at anchor in the harbour on the same evening and
+      immediately taken to Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It so happened that on the night that Flaccus was seized, the Jews had met
+      together to celebrate their autumnal feast, the feast of the Tabernacles:
+      not as in former years with joy and pomp, but in fear, in grief, and in
+      prayer. Their chief men were in prison, their nation smarting under its
+      wrongs and in daily fear of fresh cruelties; and it was not without alarm
+      that they heard the noise of soldiers moving to and fro through the city,
+      and the heavy tread of the guards marching by torchlight from the camp to
+      the palace. But their fear was soon turned into joy when they heard that
+      Flaccus, the author of all their wrongs, was already a prisoner on board
+      the vessel in the harbour; and they gave glory to God, not, says Philo,
+      that their enemy was going to be punished, but because their own
+      sufferings were at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Jews then, having had leave given them by the prefect, sent an embassy
+      to Rome, at the head of which was Philo, the platonic philosopher, who was
+      to lay their grievances before the emperor, and to beg for redress. The
+      Greeks also at the same time sent their embassy, at the head of which was
+      the learned grammarian Apion, who was to accuse the Jews of not
+      worshipping the statue of the emperor, and to argue that they had no right
+      to the same privileges of citizenship with those who boasted of their
+      Macedonian blood. But, as the Jews did not deny the charge that was
+      brought against them, Caligula would hear nothing that they had to say;
+      and Philo withdrew with the remark, &ldquo;Though the emperor is against us, God
+      will be our friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We learn the sad tale of the Jews&rsquo; suffering under Caligula from the pages
+      of their own historian only. But though Philo may have felt and written as
+      one of the sufferers, his truth is undoubted. He was a man of unblemished
+      character, and the writer of greatest learning and of the greatest note at
+      that time in Alexandria; being also of a great age, he well deserved the
+      honour of being sent on the embassy to Caligula. He was in religion a Jew,
+      in his philosophy a platonist, and by birth an Egyptian: and in his
+      numerous writings we may trace the three sources from which he drew his
+      opinions. He is always devotional and in earnest, full of pure and lofty
+      thoughts, and often eloquent. His fondness for the mystical properties of
+      numbers, and for finding an allegory or secondary meaning in the plainest
+      narrative, seems borrowed from the Egyptians. According to the Eastern
+      proverb every word in a wise book has seventy-two meanings; and this mode
+      of interpretation was called into use by the necessity which the Jews felt
+      of making the Old Testament speak a meaning more agreeable to their modern
+      views of religion. In Philo&rsquo;s speculative theology he seems to have
+      borrowed less from Moses than from the abstractions of Plato, whose
+      shadowy hints he has embodied in a more solid form. He was the first
+      Jewish writer that applied to the Deity the mystical notion of the
+      Egyptians, that everything perfect was of three parts. Philo&rsquo;s writings
+      are valuable as showing the steps by which the philosophy of Greece may be
+      traced from the writings of Plato to those of Justin Martyr and Clemens
+      Alexandrinus. They give us the earliest example of how the mystical
+      interpretation of the Scriptures was formed into a system, by which every
+      text was made to unfold some important philosophic or religious truth to
+      the learned student, at the same time that to the unlearned reader it
+      conveyed only the simple historic fact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Hellenistic Jews, while suffering under severe political disabilities,
+      had taken up a high literary position in Alexandria, and had forced their
+      opinions into the notice of the Greeks. The glowing earnestness of their
+      philosophy, now put forward in a platonic dress, and heir improved style,
+      approaching even classic elegance, laced their writings on a lofty
+      eminence far above anything which the cold, lifeless grammarians of the
+      museum were then producing. Apion, who went to Rome to plead against
+      Philo, was a native of the Great Oasis, but as he was born of Greek
+      parents, he claimed and received the title and privileges of an
+      Alexandrian, which he denied to the Jews who were born in the city. He had
+      studied under Didymus and Apollonius and Euphranor, and was one of the
+      most laborious of the grammarians and editors of Homer. All his writings
+      are now lost. Some of them were attacks upon the Jews and their religion,
+      calling in question the truth of the Jewish history and the justice of
+      that nation&rsquo;s claim to high antiquity; and to these attacks we owe
+      Josephus&rsquo; <i>Answer</i>, in which several valuable fragments of history
+      are saved by being quoted against the pagans in support of the Old
+      Testament. One of his works was his <i>Ægyptiaca</i>, an account of what
+      he thought most curious in Egypt. But his learned trifling is now lost,
+      and nothing remains of it but his account of the meeting between Androclus
+      and the lion, which took place in the amphitheatre at Rome when Apion was
+      there on his embassy. Androclus was a runaway slave, who, when retaken,
+      was brought to Rome to be thrown before an African lion for the amusement
+      of the citizens, and as a punishment for his flight. But the fierce and
+      hungry beast, instead of tearing him to pieces, wagged his tail at him,
+      and licked his feet. It seems that the slave, when he fled from his
+      master, had gained the friendship of the lion in the Libyan desert, first
+      by pulling a thorn out of his foot, and then by living three years with
+      him in a cave; and, when both were brought in chains to Rome, Androclus
+      found a grateful friend in the amphitheatre where he thought to have met
+      with a cruel death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We may for a moment leave our history, to bid a last farewell to the
+      family of the Ptolemies. Augustus, after leading Selene, the daughter of
+      Cleopatra and Antony, through the streets of Rome in his triumph, had
+      given her in marriage to the younger Juba, the historian of Africa; and
+      about the same time he gave to the husband the kingdom of Mauritania, the
+      inheritance of his father. His son Ptolemy succeeded him on the throne,
+      but was soon turned out of his kingdom. We trace the last of the Ptolemies
+      in his travels through Greece and Asia Minor by the inscriptions remaining
+      to his honour. The citizens of Xanthus in Lycia set up a monument to him;
+      and at Athens his statue was placed beside that of Philadelphus in the
+      gymnasium of Ptolemy, near the temple of Theseus, where he was honoured as
+      of founder&rsquo;s kin. He was put to death by Caligula. Drusilla, another
+      grandchild of Cleopatra and Antony, married Antonius Felix, the procurator
+      of Judæa, after the death of his first wife, who was also named Drusilla.
+      These are the last notices that we meet with of the royal family of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the news of Caligula&rsquo;s death (A.D. 41) reached Egypt, the joy
+      of the Jews knew no bounds. They at once flew to arms to revenge
+      themselves on the Alexandrians, whose streets were again the seat of civil
+      war. The governor did what he could to quiet both parties, but was not
+      wholly successful till the decree of the new emperor reached Alexandria.
+      In this Claudius granted to the Jews the full rights of citizenship, which
+      they had enjoyed under the Ptolemies, and which had been allowed by
+      Augustus; he left them to choose their own high priest, to enjoy their own
+      religion without hindrance, and he repealed the laws of Caligula under
+      which they had been groaning. At this time the Jewish alabarch in Egypt
+      was Demetrius, a man of wealth and high birth, who had married Mariamne,
+      the daughter of the elder Agrippa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0015" id="linkimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/041.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="041.jpg Egyptian Threshing-machine " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The government under Claudius was mild and just, at least as far as a
+      government could be in which every tax-gatherer, every military governor,
+      and every sub-prefect was supposed to enrich himself by his appointment.
+      Every Roman officer, from the general down to the lowest tribune, claimed
+      the right of travelling through the country free of expense, and seizing
+      the carts and cattle of the villagers to carry him forward to the next
+      town, under the pretence of being a courier on the public service. But we
+      have a decree of the ninth year of this reign, carved on the temple in the
+      Great Oasis, in which Cneius Capito, the prefect of Egypt, endeavours to
+      put a stop to this injustice. He orders that no traveller shall have the
+      privilege of a courier unless he has a proper warrant, and that then he
+      shall only claim a free lodging; that clerks in the villages shall keep a
+      register of all that is taken on account of the public service; and that
+      if anybody make an unjust claim he shall pay four times the amount to the
+      informer and six times the amount to the emperor. But royal decrees could
+      do little or nothing where there were no judges to enforce them; and the
+      people of Upper Egypt must have felt this law as a cruel insult when they
+      were told that they might take up their complaints to Basilides, at
+      Alexandria. The employment of the informer is a full acknowledgment of the
+      weakness of this absolute government, and that the prefect had not the
+      power to enforce his own decrees; and, when we compare this law with that
+      of Alexander on his conquest of the country, we have no difficulty in
+      seeing why Egypt rose under the Ptolemies and sunk under the selfish
+      policy of Augustus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Claudius was somewhat of a scholar and an author; he wrote several volumes
+      both in Greek and in Latin. The former he might perhaps think would be
+      chiefly valued in Alexandria; and when he founded a new college in that
+      city, called after himself the Claudian Museum, he ordered that on given
+      days every year his history of Carthage should be publicly read in one
+      museum, and his history of Italy in the other; thus securing during his
+      reign an attention to his writings which their merits alone would not have
+      gained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the government of Claudius the Egyptians were again allowed to coin
+      money; and in his first year begins that historically important series in
+      which every coin is dated with the year of the emperor&rsquo;s reign. The coins
+      of the Ptolemies were strictly Greek in their workmanship, and the few
+      Egyptian characters that we see upon them are so much altered by the
+      classic taste of the die-engraver that we hardly know them again. But it
+      is far otherwise with the coins of the emperors, which are covered with
+      the ornaments, characters, and religious ceremonies of the native
+      Egyptians; and, though the style of art is often bad, they are scarcely
+      equalled by any series of coins whatever in the service they render to the
+      historian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was in this reign that the route through Egypt to India first became
+      really known to the Greeks and Romans. The historian Pliny, who died in 79
+      A.D., has left us a contemporary account of these early voyages. &ldquo;It will
+      not be amiss,&rdquo; he says in his <i>Natural History</i>, &ldquo;to set forth the
+      whole of the route from Egypt, which has been stated to us of late, upon
+      information on which reliance may be placed and is here published for the
+      first time. The subject is one well worthy of our notice, seeing that in
+      no year does India drain our empire of less than five hundred and fifty
+      millions of sesterces [or two million dollars], giving back her own wares
+      in exchange, which are sold among us at fully one hundred times their cost
+      price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two miles distant from Alexandria is the town of Heliopolis. The distance
+      thence to Koptos, up the Nile, is three hundred and eight miles; the
+      voyage is performed, when the Etesian winds are blowing, in twelve days.
+      From Koptos the journey is made with the aid of camels, stations being
+      arranged at intervals for the supply of fresh water. The first of these
+      stations is called Hydreuma, and is distant twenty-two miles; the second
+      is situate on a mountain at a distance of one day&rsquo;s journey from the last;
+      the third is at a second Hydreuma, distant from Koptos ninety-five miles;
+      the fourth is on a mountain; the next to that is another Hydreuma, that of
+      Apollo, and is distant from Koptos one hundred and eighty-four miles;
+      after which there is another on a mountain; there is then another station
+      at a place called the New Hydreuma, distant from Koptos two hundred and
+      thirty miles; and next to it there is another called the Old Hydreuma,
+      where a detachment is always on guard, with a caravansary that affords
+      lodging for two thousand persons. The last is distant from the New
+      Hydreuma seven miles. After leaving it, we come to the city of Berenicê,
+      situate upon a harbour of the Red Sea, and distant from Koptos two hundred
+      and fifty-seven miles. The greater part of this distance is generally
+      travelled by night, on account of the extreme heat, the day being spent at
+      the stations; in consequence of which it takes twelve days to perform the
+      whole journey from Koptos to Berenicê.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Passengers generally set sail at midsummer before the rising of the
+      Dog-star, or else immediately after, and in about thirty days arrive at
+      Ocelis in Arabia, or else at Cane, in the region which bears frankincense.
+      To those who are bound for India, Ocelis is the best place for
+      embarkation. If the wind called Hippolus happens to be blowing, it is
+      possible to arrive in forty days at the nearest mart of India, Muziris by
+      name [the modern Mangalore]. This, however, is not a very desirable place
+      for disembarkation, on account of the pirates which frequent its vicinity,
+      where they occupy a place, Mtrias; nor, in fact, is it very rich in
+      articles of merchandise. Besides, the roadstead for shipping is a
+      considerable distance from the shore, and the cargoes have to be conveyed
+      in boats, either for loading or discharging. At the moment that I am
+      writing these pages,&rdquo; continues Pliny, &ldquo;the name of the king of the place
+      is Cælobotras. Another part, and a much more convenient one, is that which
+      lies in the territory of the people called Neacyndi, Barace by name. Here
+      King Pandian used to reign, dwelling at a considerable distance from the
+      mart in the interior, at a city known as Modiera. The district from which
+      pepper is carried down to Barace in boats hollowed out of a single tree,
+      is known as Cottonara. None of these names of nations, ports, and cities
+      are to be found in any of the former writers, from which circumstance it
+      would appear that the localities have since changed their names.
+      Travellers set sail from India on their return to Europe, at the beginning
+      of the Egyptian month Tybus, which is our December, or, at all events,
+      before the sixth day of the Egyptian month Mechir, the same as our ides of
+      January: if they do this, they can go and return in the same year. They
+      set sail from India with a south-east wind, and, upon entering the Red
+      Sea, catch the south-west or south.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The places on the Indian coast which the Egyptian merchant vessels then
+      reached are verified from the coins found there; and as we know the course
+      of the trade-wind by which they arrived, we also know the part of Africa
+      where they left the shore and braved the dangers of the ocean. A hoard of
+      Roman gold coins of these reigns has been dug up in our own days near
+      Calicut, under the roots of a banyan-tree. It had been there buried by an
+      Alexandrian merchant on his arrival from this voyage, and left safe under
+      the cover of the sacred tree to await his return from a second journey.
+      But he died before his return, and his secret died with him. The products
+      of the Indian trade were chiefly silk, diamonds, and other precious
+      stones, ginger, spices, and some scents. The state of Ethiopia was then
+      such that no trade came down the Nile to Syênê; and the produce of
+      southern Africa was brought by coasting vessels to Berenicê. These
+      products were ivory, rhinoceros teeth, hippopotamus skins, tortoise shell,
+      apes, monkeys, and slaves, a list which throws a sidelight both on the
+      pursuits of the natives and the tastes of the ultimate purchasers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0016" id="linkimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/047.jpg" width="100%" alt="047.jpg an Arab Girl " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Romans in most cases collected the revenues of a province by means of
+      a publican or farmer, to whom the taxes were let by auction; but such was
+      the importance of Egypt that the same jealousy which made them think its
+      government too great to be trusted to a man of high rank, made them think
+      its revenues too large to be trusted to one farmer. The smaller branches
+      of the Egyptian revenue were, however, let out as usual, and even the
+      collection of the customs of the whole of the Red Sea was not thought too
+      much to trust to one citizen. Annius Plocamus, who farmed them in this
+      reign, had a little fleet under his command to collect them with; and,
+      tempted either by trade or plunder, his ships were sometimes as far out as
+      the south coast of Arabia. On one occasion one of his freedmen in the
+      command of a vessel was carried by a north wind into the open ocean, and
+      after being fifteen days at sea found himself on the coast of Ceylon. This
+      island was not then wholly new to the geographers of Egypt and Europe. It
+      had been heard of by the pilots in the voyage of Alexander the Great;
+      Eratosthenes had given it a place in his map; and it had often been
+      reached from Africa by the sailors of the Red Sea in wickerwork boats made
+      of papyrus; but this was the first time it had been visited by a European.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the neighbourhood of the above-mentioned road from Koptos to Berenicê
+      were the porphyritic quarries and the emerald mines, which were briskly
+      worked under the Emperor Claudius. The mountain was now named the Claudian
+      Mountain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As this route for trade became known, the geographers began to understand
+      the wide space that separates India from Africa. Hitherto, notwithstanding
+      a few voyages of discovery, it had been the common opinion that Persia was
+      in the neighbourhood of Ethiopia. The Greeks had thought that the Nile
+      rose in India, in opposition to the Jews, who said that it was the river
+      Gibon of the garden of Eden, which made a circuit round the whole of the
+      land of Cush, or Ethiopia. The names of these countries got misused
+      accordingly; and even after the mistake was cleared up we sometimes find
+      Ethiopia called India.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptian chemists were able to produce very bright dyes by methods
+      then unknown to Greece or Rome. They dipped the cloth first into a liquid
+      of one colour, called a mordant, to prepare it, and then into a liquid of
+      a second colour; and it came out dyed of a third colour, unlike either of
+      the former. The ink with which they wrote the name of a deceased person on
+      the mummy-cloth, like our own marking-ink, was made with nitrate of
+      silver. Their knowledge of chemistry was far greater than that of their
+      neighbours, and the science is even now named from the country of its
+      birth. The later Arabs called it Alchemia, <i>the Egyptian art</i>, and
+      hence our words alchemy and chemistry. So also Naphtha, or <i>rock oil</i>,
+      from the coast of the Red Sea; and Anthracite, or <i>rock fuel</i>, from
+      the coast of Syria, both bear Egyptian names. To some Egyptian stones the
+      Romans gave their own names; as the black glassy obsidian from Nubia they
+      called after Obsidius, who found it; the black Tiberian marble with white
+      spots, and the Augustan marble with regular wavy veins, were both named
+      after the emperors. Porphyry was now used for statues for the first time,
+      and sometimes to make a kind of patchwork figure, in which the clothed
+      parts were of the coloured stone, while the head, hands, and feet were of
+      white marble. And it was thought that diamonds were nowhere to be found
+      but in the Ethiopian gold mines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Several kinds of wine were made in Egypt; some in the Arsinoïte nome on
+      the banks of the lake Mceris; and a poor Libyan wine at Antiplme on the
+      coast, a hundred miles from Alexandria. Wine had also been made in Upper
+      Egypt in small quantities a very long time, as we learn from the
+      monuments; but it was produced with difficulty and cost and was not good;
+      it was not valued by the Greeks. It was poor and thin, and drunk only by
+      those who were feverish and afraid of anything stronger. That of Anthylla,
+      to the east of Alexandria, was very much better. But better still were the
+      thick luscious Tæniotic and the mild delicate Mareotic wines. This last
+      was first grown at Plinthine, but afterwards on all the banks of the lake
+      Mareotis. The Mareotic wine was white and sweet and thin, and very little
+      heating or intoxicating. Horace had carelessly said of Cleopatra that she
+      was drunk with Mareotic wine; but Lucan, who better knew its quality, says
+      that the headstrong lady drank wine far stronger than the Mareotic. Near
+      Sebennytus three kinds of wine were made; one bitter named Peuce, a second
+      sparkling named Æthalon, and the third Thasian, from a vine imported from
+      Thasus. But none of these Egyptian wines was thought equal to those of
+      Greece and Italy. Nor were they made in quantities large enough or cheap
+      enough for the poor; and here, as in other countries, the common people
+      for their intoxicating drink used beer or spirits made from barley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0017" id="linkimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/051.jpg" width="100%" alt="051.jpg Farming in Egypt " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptian sour wine, however, made very good vinegar, and it was then
+      exported for sale in Rome. During this half-century that great national
+      work, the lake of Moeris, by which thousands of acres had been flooded and
+      made fertile, and the watering of the lower country regulated, was,
+      through the neglect of the embankments, at once destroyed. The latest
+      traveller who mentions it is Strabo, and the latest geographer Pomponius
+      Mela. By its means the province of Arsinoë was made one of the most
+      fruitful and beautiful spots in Egypt. Here only does the olive grow wild.
+      Here the vine will grow. And by the help of this embanked lake the
+      province was made yet more fruitful. But before Pliny wrote, the bank had
+      given way, the pentup waters had made for themselves a channel into the
+      lake now called Birket el Kurun, and the two small pyramids, which had
+      hitherto been surrounded by water, then stood on dry ground. Thus was the
+      country slowly going to ruin by the faults of the government, and
+      ignorance in the foreign rulers. But, on the other hand, the beautiful
+      temple of Latopolis, which had been begun under the Ptolemies, was
+      finished in this reign; and bears the name of Claudius with those of some
+      later emperors on its portico and walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Egyptian language the word for a year is <i>Bait</i>, which is also
+      the name of a bird. In hieroglyphics this word is spelt by a palm-branch
+      <i>Bai</i> and the letter T, followed sometimes by a circle as a picture
+      of the year. Hence arose among a people fond of mystery and allegory a
+      mode of speaking of the year under the name of a palm-branch or of a bird;
+      and they formed a fable out of a mere confusion of words. The Greeks, who
+      were not slow to copy Egyptian mysticism, called this fabulous bird the <i>Phoenix</i>
+      from their own name for the palm-tree. The end of any long period of time
+      they called the return of the phonix to earth. The Romans borrowed the
+      fable, though perhaps without understanding the allegory; and in the
+      seventh year of this reign, when the emperor celebrated the secular games
+      at Rome, at the end of the eighth century since the city was built, it was
+      said that the phoenix had come to Egypt and was thence brought to Rome.
+      This was in the consulship of Plautius and Vitellius; and it would seem to
+      be only from mistakes in the name that Pliny places the event eleven years
+      earlier, in the consulship of Plautius and Papinius, and that Tacitus
+      places it thirteen years earlier in the consulship of Fabius and
+      Vitellius. This fable is connected with some of the remarkable epochs in
+      Egyptian history. The story lost nothing by travelling to a distance. In
+      Rome it was said that this wonderful bird was a native of Arabia, where it
+      lived for five hundred years, that on its death a grub came out of its
+      body which in due time became a perfect bird; and that the new phonix
+      brought to Egypt the bones of its parent in the nest of spices in which it
+      had died, and laid them on the altar in the temple of the sun in
+      Heliopolis. It then returned to Arabia to live in its turn for five
+      hundred years, and die and give life again to another as before. The
+      Christians saw in this story a type of the resurrection; and Clement,
+      Bishop of Rome, quotes it as such in his Epistle to the Corinthians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We find the name of Claudius on several of the temples of Upper Egypt,
+      particularly on that of Apollinopolis Magna, and on the portico of the
+      great temples of Latopolis, which were being built in this reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the beginning of the reign of Nero, 55 A.D., an Egyptian Jew, who
+      claimed to be listened to as a prophet, raised the minds of his countrymen
+      into a ferment of religious zeal by preaching about the sufferings of
+      their brethren in Judæa; and he was able to get together a body of men,
+      called in reproach the Sicarii, or <i>ruffians</i>, whose numbers are
+      variously stated at four thousand and thirty thousand, whom he led out of
+      Egypt to free the holy city from the bondage of the heathen. But Felix,
+      the Roman governor, led against them the garrison of Jerusalem, and easily
+      scattered the half-armed rabble. By such acts of religious zeal on the
+      part of the Jews they were again brought to blows with the Greeks of
+      Alexandria. The Macedonians, as the latter still called themselves, had
+      met in public assembly to send an embassy to Rome, and some Jews who
+      entered the meeting, which as citizens they had a full right to do, were
+      seized and ill-treated by them as spies. They would perhaps have even been
+      put to death if a large body of their countrymen had not run to their
+      rescue. The Jews attacked the assembled Greeks with stones and lighted
+      torches, and would have burned the amphitheatre and all that were in it,
+      if the prefect, Tiberius Alexander, had not sent some of the elders of
+      their own nation to calm their angry feelings. But, though the mischief
+      was stopped for a time, it soon broke out again; and the prefect was
+      forced to call out the garrison of two Roman legions and five thousand
+      Libyans before he could re-establish peace in the city. The Jews were
+      always the greatest sufferers in these civil broils; and Josephus says
+      that fifty thousand of his countrymen were left dead in the streets of
+      Alexandria. But this number is very improbable, as the prefect was a
+      friend to the Jewish nation, and as the Roman legions were not withdrawn
+      to the camp till they had guarded the Jews in carrying away and burying
+      the bodies of their friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0018" id="linkimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:52%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/056.jpg"
+       alt="056.jpg Egyptian Threshing Machine " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It was a natural policy on the part of the emperors to change a prefect
+      whenever his province was disturbed by rebellion, as we have seen in the
+      case of Flaccus, who was recalled by Caligula. It was easier to send a new
+      governor than to inquire into a wrong or to redress a grievance; and
+      accordingly in the next year C. Balbillus was sent from Rome as prefect of
+      Egypt. He reached Alexandria on the sixth day after leaving the Straits of
+      Sicily, which was spoken of as the quickest voyage known. The Alexandrian
+      ships were better built and better manned than any others, and, as a
+      greater number of vessels sailed every year between that port and Puteoli
+      on the coast of Italy than between any other two places, no voyage was
+      better understood or more quickly performed. They were out of sight of
+      land for five hundred miles between Syracuse and Cyrene. Hence we see that
+      the quickest rate of sailing, with a fair wind, was at that time about one
+      hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours. But these ships had very
+      little power of bearing up against the wind; and if it were contrary the
+      voyage became tedious. If the captain on sailing out of the port of
+      Alexandria found the wind westerly, and was unable to creep along the
+      African coast to Cyrene, he stood over to the coast of Asia Minor, in
+      hopes of there finding a more favourable wind. If a storm arose, he ran
+      into the nearest port, perhaps in Crete, perhaps in Malta, there to wait
+      the return of fair weather. If winter then came on, he had to lie by till
+      spring. Thus a vessel laden with Egyptian wheat, leaving Alexandria in
+      September, after the harvest had been brought down to the coast, would
+      sometimes spend five months on its voyage from that port to Puteoli. Such
+      was the case with the ship bearing the children of Jove as its figurehead,
+      which picked up the Apostle Paul and the historian Josephus when they had
+      been wrecked together on the island of Malta; and such perhaps would have
+      been the case with the ship which they before found on the coast of Lycia,
+      had it been able to reach a safe harbour, and not been wrecked at Malta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0019" id="linkimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:46%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/057.jpg" alt="057.jpg Maltese Coin " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The rocky island of Malta, with the largest and safest harbour in the
+      Mediterranean, was a natural place for ships to touch at between
+      Alexandria and Italy. Its population was made up of those races which had
+      sailed upon its waters first from Carthage and then from Alexandria; it
+      was a mixture of Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Græco-Egyptians. To judge
+      from the skulls turned up in the burial-places, the Egyptians were the
+      most numerous, and here as elsewhere the Egyptian superstitions conquered
+      and put down all the other superstitions. While the island was under the
+      Phoenicians, the coins had the head of the Sicilian goddess on one side,
+      and on the other the Egyptian trinity of Isis, Osiris, and Nepthys. When
+      it was under the Greek rule the head on the coins received an Egyptian
+      head-dress, and became that of the goddess Isis, and on the other side of
+      the coin was a winged figure of Osiris. It was at this time governed by a
+      Roman governor. The large temple, built with barbarian rudeness, and
+      ornamented with the Phoenician palm-branch, was on somewhat of a Roman
+      plan, with a circular end to every room. But it was dedicated to the chief
+      god of Egypt, and is even yet called by its Greek name Hagia Chem, <i>the
+      temple of Chem</i>. The little neighbouring island of Cossyra, between
+      Sicily and Carthage, also shows upon its coins clear traces of its taste
+      for Egyptian customs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0020" id="linkimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/058.jpg" alt="058.jpg Coin of Cossyra " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The first five years of this reign, the <i>quinquennium Neronis</i>, while
+      the emperor was under the tutorship of the philosopher Seneca, became in
+      Rome proverbial for good government, and on the coinage we see marks of
+      Egypt being equally well treated. In the third year we see on a coin the
+      queen sitting on a throne with the word <i>agreement</i>, as if to praise
+      the young emperor&rsquo;s good feeling in following the advice of his mother
+      Agrippina. On another the emperor is styled the young good genius, and he
+      is represented by the sacred basilisk crowned with the double crown of
+      Egypt. The new prefect, Balbillus, was an Asiatic Greek, and no doubt
+      received his Roman names of Tiberius Claudius on being made a freedman of
+      the late emperor. He governed the country mildly and justly; and the
+      grateful inhabitants declared that under him the Nile was more than
+      usually bountiful, and that its waters always rose to their just height.
+      But in the latter part of the reign the Egyptians smarted severely under
+      that cruel principle of a despotic monarchy that every prefect, every
+      sub-prefect, and even every deputy tax-gatherer, might be equally despotic
+      in his own department.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a coin of the thirteenth year of the reign of this ruler, we see a ship
+      with the word <i>emperor-bearer</i>, being that in which he then sailed
+      into Greece, or in which the Alexandrians thought that he would visit
+      their city. But if they had really hoped for his visit as a pleasure, they
+      must have thought it a danger escaped when they learned his character;
+      they must have been undeceived when the prefect Cæcinna Tuscus was
+      punished with banishment for venturing to bathe in the bath which was
+      meant for the emperor&rsquo;s use if he had come on his projected visit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the first century and a half of Roman sway in Egypt the school of
+      Alexandria was nearly silent. We have a few poems by Leonides of
+      Alexandria, one of which is addressed to the Empress Poppæa, as the wife
+      of Jupiter, on his presenting a celestial globe to her on her birthday.
+      Pamphila wrote a miscellaneous history of entertaining stories, and her
+      lively, simple style makes us very much regret its loss. Chæremon, a Stoic
+      philosopher, had been, during the last reign, at the head of the
+      Alexandrian library, but he was removed to Rome as one of the tutors to
+      the young Nero.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0021" id="linkimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:44%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/059.jpg" alt="059.jpg Coin of Nero " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      He is ridiculed by Martial for writing in praise of death, when, from age
+      and poverty, he was less able to enjoy life. We still possess a most
+      curious though short account by him of the monastic habits of the ancient
+      Egyptians. He also wrote on hieroglyphics, and a small fragment containing
+      his opinion of the meanings of nineteen characters still remains to us.
+      But he is not always right; he thinks the characters were used
+      allegorically for thoughts, not for sounds; and fancies that the priests
+      used them to keep secret the real nature of the gods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was succeeded at the museum by his pupil Dionysius, who had the charge
+      of the library till the reign of Trajan. Dionysius was also employed by
+      the prefect as a secretary of state, or, in the language of the day,
+      secretary to the embassies, epistles, and answers. He was the author of
+      the <i>Periegesis</i>, and aimed at the rank of a poet by writing a
+      treatise on geography in heroic verse. From this work he is named
+      Dionysius Periegetes. While careful to remind us that his birthplace
+      Alexandria was a Macedonian city, he gives due honour to Egypt and the
+      Egyptians. There is no river, says he, equal to the Nile for carrying
+      fertility and adding to the happiness of the land. It divides Asia from
+      Libya, falling between rocks at Syênê, and then passing by the old and
+      famous city of Thebes, where Memnon every morning salutes his beloved
+      Aurora as she rises. On its banks dwells a rich and glorious race of men,
+      who were the first to cultivate the arts of life; the first to make trial
+      of the plough and sow their seed in a straight furrow; and the first to
+      map the heavens and trace the sloping path of the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to the traditions of the church, it was in this reign that
+      Christianity was first brought into Egypt by the Evangelist Mark, the
+      disciple of the Apostle Peter. Many were already craving for religious
+      food more real than the old superstitions. The Egyptian had been shaken in
+      his attachment to the sacred animals by Greek ridicule. The Greek had been
+      weakened in his belief of old Homer&rsquo;s gods by living with men who had
+      never heard of them. Both were dissatisfied with the scheme of explaining
+      the actions of their gods by means of allegory. The crumbling away of the
+      old opinions left men more fitted to receive the new religion from
+      Galilee. Mark&rsquo;s preaching converted crowds in Alexandria; but, after a
+      short stay, he returned to Rome, in about the eleventh year of this reign,
+      leaving Annianus to watch over the growing church. Annianus is usually
+      called the first bishop of Alexandria; and Eusebius, who lived two hundred
+      years later, has given us the names of his successors in an unbroken
+      chain. If we would inquire whether the early converts to Christianity in
+      Alexandria were Jews, Greeks, or Egyptians, we have nothing to guide us
+      but the names of these bishops. Annianus, or Annaniah, as his name was
+      written by the Arabic historians, was very likely a Jew; indeed, the
+      Evangelist Mark would begin by addressing himself to the Jews, and would
+      leave the care of the infant church to one of his own nation. In the
+      platonic Jews, Christianity found soil so exactly suited to its reception
+      that it is only by he dates that the Thérapeute of Alexandria and their
+      historian Philo are proved not to be Christian; and, again, it was in the
+      close union between the platonic Jews and the platonists that Christianity
+      found its easiest path to the ears and hearts of the pagans. The bishops
+      that followed seem to have been Greek converts. Before the death of
+      Annaniah, Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Roman armies, and the Jews
+      sunk in their own eyes and in those of their fellow-citizens throughout
+      the empire; hence the second bishop of Alexandria was less likely to be of
+      Hebrew blood; and it was long before any Egyptians aimed at rank in the
+      church. But though the spread of Christianity was rapid, both among the
+      Greeks and the Egyptians, we must not hope to find any early traces of it
+      in the historians. It was at first embraced by the unlearned and the poor,
+      whose deeds and opinions are seldom mentioned in history; and we may
+      readily believe the scornful reproach of the unbelievers, that it was
+      chiefly received by the unfortunate, the unhappy, the despised, and the
+      sinful. When the white-robed priestesses of Ceres carried the sacred
+      basket through the streets of Alexandria, they cried out, &ldquo;Sinners away,
+      or keep your eyes to the ground; keep your eyes to the ground!&rdquo; When the
+      crier, standing on the steps of the portico in front of the great temple,
+      called upon the pagans to come near and join in the celebration of their
+      mysteries, he cried out, &ldquo;All ye who are clean of hands and pure of heart,
+      come to the sacrifice; all ye who are guiltless in thought and deed, come
+      to the sacrifice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But many a repentant sinner and humble spirit must have drawn back in
+      distrust from a summons which to him was so forbidding, and been glad to
+      hear the good tidings of mercy offered by Christianity to those who labour
+      and are heavy laden, and to the broken-hearted who would turn away from
+      their wickedness. While such were the chief followers of the gospel, it
+      was not likely to be much noticed by the historians; and we must wait till
+      it forced its way into the schools and the palace before we shall find
+      many traces of the rapidity with which it was spreading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0022" id="linkimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/063.jpg" width="100%" alt="063.jpg Ethiopian Arabs " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      During these reigns the Ethiopian Arabs kept up their irregular warfare
+      against the southern frontier. The tribe most dreaded were the Blemmyes,
+      an uncivilised people, described by the affrighted neighbours as having no
+      heads, but with eyes and mouth on the breast; and it was under that name
+      that the Arabs spread during each century farther and farther into Egypt,
+      separating the province from the more cultivated tribes of Upper Ethiopia
+      or Meroë. The cities along the banks of the Nile in Lower Ethiopia,
+      between Nubia and Meroë, were ruined by being in the debatable land
+      between the two nations. The early Greek travellers had counted about
+      twenty cities on each side of the Nile between Syênê and Meroë; but when,
+      in a moment of leisure, the Roman government proposed to punish and stop
+      the inroads of these troublesome neighbours, and sent forward a tribune
+      with a guard of soldiers, he reported on his return that the whole country
+      was a desert, and that there was scarcely a city inhabited on either side
+      of the Nile beyond Nubia. But he had not marched very far. The interior of
+      Africa was little known; and to seek for the fountain of the Nile was
+      another name for an impossible or chimerical undertaking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Egypt itself was so quiet as not to need the presence of so large a
+      Roman force as usual to keep it in obedience; and when Vespasian, who
+      commanded Nero&rsquo;s armies in Syria, found the Jews more obstinate in their
+      rebellion and less easily crushed than he expected, the emperor sent the
+      young Titus to Alexandria, to lead to his father&rsquo;s assistance all the
+      troops that could be spared. Titus led into Palestine through Arabia two
+      legions, the Fifth and the Tenth, which were then in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We find a temple of this reign in the oasis of Dakleh, or the Western
+      Oasis, which seems to have been a more flourishing spot in the time of the
+      Romans than when Egypt itself was better governed. It is so far removed
+      from the cities in the valley of the Nile that its position, and even
+      existence, was long unknown to Europeans, and to such hiding-places as
+      this many of the Egyptians fled, to be farther from the tyranny of the
+      Roman tax-gatherers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto the Roman empire had descended for just one hundred years through
+      five emperors like a family inheritance; but, on the death of Nero, the
+      Julian and Claudian families were at an end, and Galba, who was raised to
+      the purple by the choice of the soldiers, endeavoured to persuade the
+      Romans and their dependent provinces that they had regained their
+      liberties. The Egyptians may have been puzzled by the word <i>freedom</i>,
+      then struck upon the coins by their foreign masters, but must have been
+      pleased to find it accompanied with a redress of grievances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Galba began his reign with the praiseworthy endeavour of repairing the
+      injustice done by his cruel predecessor. He at once recalled the prefect
+      of Egypt, and appointed in his place Tiberius Julius Alexander, an
+      Alexandrian, a son of the former prefect of that name; and thus Egypt was
+      under the government of a native prefect. The peaceable situation of the
+      Great Oasis has saved a long Greek inscription of the decree which was now
+      issued in redress of the grievances suffered under Nero. It is a
+      proclamation by Julius Demetrius, the commander of the Oasis, quoting the
+      decree of Tiberius Julius Alexander, the new prefect of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prefect acknowledges that the loud complaints with which he was met on
+      entering upon his government were well founded, and he promises that the
+      unjust taxes shall cease; that nobody shall be forced to act as a
+      provincial tax-gatherer; that no debts shall be cancelled or sales made
+      void under the plea of money owing to the revenue; that no freeman shall
+      be thrown into prison for debt, unless it be a debt due to the royal
+      revenue, and that no private debt shall be made over to the tax-gatherer,
+      to be by him collected as a public debt; that no property settled on the
+      wife at marriage shall be seized for taxes due from the husband; and that
+      all new charges and claims which had grown up within the last five years
+      shall be repealed. In order to discourage informers, whom the prefects had
+      much employed, and by whom the families in Alexandria were much harassed,
+      and to whom he laid the great falling off in the population of that city,
+      he orders, that if anybody should make three charges and fail in proving
+      them, he shall forfeit half his property and lose the right of bringing an
+      action at law. The land had always paid a tax in proportion to the number
+      of acres overflowed and manured by the waters of the Nile; and the
+      husbandmen had latterly been frightened by the double threat of a new
+      measurement of the land, and of making it at the same time pay according
+      to the ancient registers of the overflow when the canals had been more
+      open and more acres flooded; but the prefect promises that there shall be
+      no new measurements, and that they shall only be taxed according to the
+      actual overflow. In 69 A.D. Galba was murdered, after a reign of seven
+      months. Some of his coins, however, are dated in the second year of his
+      reign, according to the Alexandrian custom of counting the years. They
+      called the 29th of August, the first new year&rsquo;s day after the sovereign
+      came to the throne, the first day of his second year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Otho was then acknowledged as emperor by Rome and the East, while the
+      hardy legions of Germany thought themselves entitled to choose for
+      themselves. They set up their own general, Vitellius. The two legions in
+      Egypt sided with the four legions in Syria under Mucianus, and the three
+      legions which, under Vespasian, were carrying on the memorable war against
+      the Jews; and all took the oaths to Otho. We find no hieroglyphical
+      inscriptions during this short reign of a few weeks, but there are many
+      Alexandrian coins to prove the truth of the historian; and some of them,
+      like those of Galba, bear the unlooked-for word <i>freedom</i>. In the few
+      weeks which then passed between the news of Otho&rsquo;s death and of Vespasian
+      being raised to the purple in Syria, Vitellius was acknowledged in Egypt;
+      and the Alexandrian mint struck a few coins in his name with the figure of
+      Victory. But as soon as the legions of Egypt heard that the Syrian army
+      had made choice of another emperor, they withdrew their allegiance from
+      Vitellius, and promised it to his Syrian rival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vespasian was at Cæsarea, in command of the army employed in the Jewish
+      war, when the news reached him that Otho was dead, and that Vitellius had
+      been raised to the purple by the German legions, and acknowledged at Rome;
+      and, without wasting more time in refusing the honour than was necessary
+      to prove that his soldiers were in earnest in offering it, he allowed
+      himself to be proclaimed emperor, as the successor of Otho. He would not,
+      however, then risk a march upon Rome, but he sent to Alexandria to tell
+      Tiberius Alexander, the governor of Egypt, what he had done; he ordered
+      him to claim in his name the allegiance of that great province, and added
+      that he should soon be there himself. The two Roman legions in Egypt much
+      preferred the choice of the Eastern to that of the Western army, and the
+      Alexandrians, who had only just acknowledged Vitellius, readily took the
+      oath to be faithful to Vespasian. This made it less necessary for him to
+      hasten thither, and he only reached Alexandria in time to hear that
+      Vitellius had been murdered after a reign of eight months, and that he
+      himself had been acknowledged as emperor by Rome and the Western legions.
+      His Egyptian coins in the first year of his reign, by the word <i>peace</i>,
+      point to the end of the civil war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Vespasian entered Alexandria, he was met by the philosophers and
+      magistrates in great pomp. The philosophers, indeed, in a city where,
+      beside the officers of government, talent formed the only aristocracy,
+      were a very important body; and Dion, Euphrates, and Apollonius had been
+      useful in securing for Vespasian the allegiance of the Alexandrians. Dion
+      was an orator, who had been professor of rhetoric, but he had given up
+      that study for philosophy. His orations, or declamations, gained for him
+      the name of Chrysostom, or <i>golden-mouthed</i>. Euphrates, his friend,
+      was a platonist, who afterwards married the daughter of the prefect of
+      Syria, and removed to Rome. Apollonius of Tyana, the most celebrated of
+      these philosophers, was one of the first who gained his eminence from the
+      study of Eastern philosophy, which was then rising in the opinions of the
+      Greeks as highly worth their notice. He had been travelling in the East;
+      and, boasting that he was already master of all the fabled wisdom of the
+      Magi of Babylon and of the Gymnosophists of India, he was come to Egypt to
+      compare this mystic philosophy with that of the hermits of Ethiopia and
+      the Thebaid. Addressing himself as a pupil to the priests, he willingly
+      yielded his belief to their mystic claims; and, whether from being
+      deceived or as a deceiver, whether as an enthusiast or as a cheat, he
+      pretended to have learned all the supernatural knowledge which they
+      pretended to teach. By the Egyptians he was looked upon as the favourite
+      of Heaven; he claimed the power of working miracles by his magical arts,
+      and of foretelling events by his knowledge of astrology. In the Thebaid he
+      was so far honoured that at the bidding of the priests one of the sacred
+      trees spoke to him, as had been their custom from of old with favourites,
+      and in a clear and rather womanly voice addressed him as a teacher from
+      heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was to witness such practices as these, and to learn the art of
+      deceiving their followers, that the Egyptian priests were now consulted by
+      the Greeks. The oracle at Delphi was silent, but the oracle of Ammon
+      continued to return an answer. The mystic philosophy of the East had come
+      into fashion in Alexandria, and the priests were more celebrated as
+      magicians than as philosophers. They would tell a man&rsquo;s fortune and the
+      year that he was to die by examining the lines of his forehead. Some of
+      them even undertook, for a sum of money, to raise the dead to life, or,
+      rather, to recall for a time to earth the unwilling spirits, and make them
+      answer any questions that might be put to them. Ventriloquism was an art
+      often practised in Egypt, and perhaps invented there. By this the priests
+      gained a power over the minds of the listeners, and could make them
+      believe that a tree, a statue, or a dead body, was speaking to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Alexandrian men of letters seldom erred by wrapping themselves up in
+      pride to avoid the fault of meanness; they usually cringed to the great.
+      Apollonius was wholly at the service of Vespasian, and the emperor repaid
+      the philosopher by flattery as well as by more solid favours. He kept him
+      always by his side during his stay in Egypt; he acknowledged his rank as a
+      prophet, and tried to make further use of him in persuading the Egyptians
+      of his own divine right to the throne. Vespasian begged him to make use of
+      his prayers that he might obtain from God the empire which he had as yet
+      hardly grasped; but Apollonius, claiming even a higher mission from Heaven
+      than Vespasian was granting to him, answered, with as much arrogance as
+      flattery, &ldquo;I have myself already made you emperor.&rdquo; With the intimacy
+      between Vespasian and Apollonius begins the use of gnostic emblems on the
+      Alexandrian coins. The imperial pupil was not slow in learning from such a
+      master; and the people were as ready to believe in the emperor&rsquo;s miracles
+      as in the philosopher&rsquo;s. As Vespasian was walking through the streets of
+      Alexandria, a man well known as having a disease in his eyes threw himself
+      at his feet and begged of him to heal his blindness. He had been told by
+      the god Serapis that he should regain his sight if the emperor would but
+      deign to spit upon his eyelids. Another man, who had lost the use of a
+      hand, had been told by the same god that he should be healed if the
+      emperor would but trample on him with his feet. Vespasian at first laughed
+      at them and thrust them off; but at last he so far yielded to their
+      prayers, and to the flattery of his friends, as to have the physicians of
+      Alexandria consulted whether it was in his power to heal these unfortunate
+      men. The physicians, like good courtiers, were not so unwise as to think
+      it impossible; besides, it seemed meant by the god as a public proof of
+      Vespasian&rsquo;s right to the throne; if he were successful the glory would be
+      his, and if he failed the laugh would be against the cripples. The two men
+      were therefore brought before him, and in the face of the assembled
+      citizens he trampled on one and spit on the other; and his flatterers
+      declared that he had healed the maimed and given sight to the blind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Vespasian met with further wonders when he entered the temple of Serapis
+      to consult the god as to the state and fortunes of the empire. He went
+      into the inner sanctuary alone, and, to his surprise, there he beheld the
+      old Basilides, the freedman of Claudius, one of the chief men of
+      Alexandria, whom he knew was then lying dangerously ill, and several days&rsquo;
+      journey from the city. He inquired of the priests whether Basilides had
+      been in the temple, and was assured that he had not. He then asked whether
+      he had been in Alexandria; but nobody had seen him there. Lastly, on
+      sending messengers, he learned that he was on his death-bed eighty miles
+      off. With this miracle before his eyes, he could not distrust the answers
+      which the priests gave to his questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Alexandria Vespasian sent back Titus to finish the siege of
+      Jerusalem. The Jewish writer Joseph, the son of Matthias, or Flavius
+      Josephus, as he called himself when he entered the service of the emperor,
+      was then in Alexandria. He had been taken prisoner by Vespasian, but had
+      gained his freedom by the betrayal of his country&rsquo;s cause. He joined the
+      army of Titus and marched to the overthrow of Jerusalem. Notwithstanding
+      the obstinate and heroic struggles of the Jews, Judæa was wholly conquered
+      by the Romans, and Jerusalem and its other fortresses either received
+      Roman garrisons or were dismantled. The Temple was overthrown in the month
+      of September, A.D. 70. Titus made slaves of ninety-seven thousand men,
+      many of whom he led with him into Egypt, and then sent them to work in the
+      mines. These were soon followed by a crowd of other brave Jews, who chose
+      rather to quit their homes and live as wanderers in Egypt than to own
+      Vespasian as their king. They knew no lord but Jahveh; to take the oaths
+      or to pay tribute to Cæsar was to renounce the faith of their fathers. But
+      they found no safety in Egypt. Their Greek brethren turned against them,
+      and handed six hundred of them up to Lupus, the governor of Egypt, to be
+      punished; and their countryman Josephus brands them all with the name of
+      Sicarii. They tried to hide themselves in Thebes and other cities less
+      under the eyes of the Roman governor. They were, however, followed and
+      taken, and the courage with which the boys and mere children bore their
+      sufferings, sooner than acknowledge Vespasian for their king, drew forth
+      the praise of even the time-serving Josephus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Greek Jews of Egypt gained nothing by this treachery towards their
+      Hebrew brethren; they were themselves looked down upon by the
+      Alexandrians, and distrusted by the Romans. The emperor ordered Lupus to
+      shut up the temple at Onion, near Heliopolis, in which, during the last
+      three hundred years, they had been allowed to have an altar, in rivalry to
+      the Temple of Jerusalem. Even Josephus, whose betrayal of his countrymen
+      might have saved him from their enemies, was sent with many others in
+      chains to Rome, and was only set free on his making himself known to
+      Titus. Indeed, when the Hebrew Jews lost their capital and their rank as a
+      nation, their brethren felt lowered in the eyes of their fellow-citizens,
+      in whatever city they dwelt, and in Alexandria they lost all hope of
+      keeping their privileges; although the emperor refused to repeal the edict
+      which granted them their citizenship, an edict to which they always
+      appealed for protection, but often with very little success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Alexandrians were sadly disappointed in Vespasian. They had been among
+      the first to acknowledge him as emperor while his power was yet doubtful,
+      and they looked for a sum of money as a largess; but to their sorrow he
+      increased the taxes, and re-established some which had fallen into disuse.
+      They had a joke against him, about his claiming from one of his friends
+      the trifling debt of six oboli; and, upon hearing of their witticisms, he
+      was so angry that he ordered this sum of six oboli to be levied as a
+      poll-tax upon every man in the city, and he only remitted the tax at the
+      request of his son Titus. He went to Rome, carrying with him the nickname
+      of Cybiosactes, <i>the scullion</i>, which the Alexandrians gave him for
+      his stinginess and greediness, and which they had before given to
+      Seleucus, who robbed the tomb of Alexander the Great, at Alexandria, of
+      its famous golden sarcophagus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Titus saw the importance of pleasing the people; and his wish to humour
+      their ancient prejudices, at the ceremony of consecrating a new bull as
+      Apis, brought some blame upon him. He there, as became the occasion, wore
+      the state crown, and dazzled the people of Memphis with his regal pomp;
+      but, while thus endeavouring to strengthen his father&rsquo;s throne, he was by
+      some accused of grasping at it for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great temple of Kneph, at Latopolis, which had been the work of many
+      reigns and perhaps many centuries, was finished under Vespasian. It is a
+      building worthy of the best times of Egyptian architecture. It has a grand
+      portico, upheld by four rows of massive columns, with capitals in the form
+      of papyrus flowers. On the ceiling is a zodiac, like that at Tentyra; and,
+      though many other kings&rsquo; names are carved on the walls, that of Vespasian
+      is in the dedication over the entrance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the reign of Titus in Egypt we find no trace beyond his coins struck
+      each year at Alexandria, and his name carved on one or two temples which
+      had been built in former reigns.
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:41%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/068.jpg" alt="Egyptian coin of Galba" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Of the reign of Domitian (81&mdash;96 A.D.) we learn something from the
+      poet Juvenal, who then held a military post in the province; and he gives
+      us a sad account of the state of lawlessness in which the troops lived
+      under his commands. All quarrels between soldiers and citizens were tried
+      by the officers according to martial law; and justice was very far from
+      being even-handed between the Roman and the poor Egyptian. No witness was
+      bold enough to come forward and say anything against a soldier, while
+      everybody was believed who spoke on his behalf. Juvenal was at a great age
+      when he was sent into Egypt; and he felt that the command of a cohort on
+      the very borders of the desert was a cruel banishment from the literary
+      society of Rome. His death in the camp was hastened by his wish to return
+      home. As what Juvenal chiefly aimed at in his writings was to lash the
+      follies of the age, he, of course, found plenty of amusement in the
+      superstitions and sacred animals of Egypt. But he sometimes takes a poet&rsquo;s
+      liberty, and when he tells us that man&rsquo;s was almost the only flesh that
+      they ate without sinning, we need not believe him to the letter. He gives
+      a lively picture of a fight which he saw between the citizens of two
+      towns. The towns of Ombos and Tentyra, though about a hundred miles apart,
+      had a long-standing quarrel about their gods. At Ombos they worshipped the
+      crocodile and the crocodile-headed god Savak, while at Tentyra they
+      worshipped the goddess Hâthor, and were celebrated for their skill in
+      catching and killing crocodiles. So, taking advantage of a feast or
+      holiday, they marched out for a fight. The men of Ombos Avere beaten and
+      put to flight; but one of them, stumbling as he ran away, was caught and
+      torn to pieces, and, as Juvenal adds, eaten by the men of Tentyra. Their
+      worship of beasts, birds, and fishes, and even growing their gods in the
+      garden, are pleasantly hit off by him; they left nothing, said he, without
+      worship, but the goddess of chastity. The mother goddess, Isis, the queen
+      of heaven, was the deity to whom they bowed with the most tender devotion,
+      and to swear by Isis was their favourite oath; and hence the leek, in
+      their own language named Isi, was no doubt the vegetable called a god by
+      the satiric Juvenal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the same time also the towns of Oxyrrhynchos and Cynopolis, in the
+      Heptanomos, had a little civil war about the animals which they
+      worshipped. Somebody at Cynopolis was said to have caught an oxyrrhynchus
+      fish in the Nile and eaten it; and so the people of Oxyrrhynchos, in
+      revenge, made an attack upon the dogs, the gods of Cynopolis. They caught
+      a number of them, killed them in sacrifice to their offended fish-god, and
+      ate them. The two parties then flew to arms and fought several battles;
+      they sacked one another&rsquo;s cities in turns, and the war was not stopped
+      till the Roman troops marched to the spot and punished them both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we gain a more agreeable and most likely a more true notion of the
+      mystical religion and philosophy of the Egyptians in these days from the
+      serious enquiries of Plutarch, who, instead of looking for what he could
+      laugh at, was only too ready to believe that he saw wisdom hidden under an
+      allegory in all their superstitions. Many of the habits of the priests,
+      such as shaving the whole body, wearing linen instead of cotton, and
+      refusing some meats as impure, seem to have arisen from a love of
+      cleanliness; their religion ordered what was useful. And it also forbade
+      what was hurtful; so to stir the fire with a sword was displeasing to the
+      gods, because it spoilt the temper of the metal. None but the vulgar now
+      looked upon the animals and statues as gods; the priests believed that the
+      unseen gods, who acted with one mind and with one providence, were the
+      authors of all good; and though these, like the sun and moon, were called
+      in each country by a different name, yet, like those luminaries, they were
+      the same over all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0023" id="linkimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/078b.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="078b.jpg Scene in a Sepuuchral Chamber " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0024" id="linkimage-0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:20%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/080.jpg" alt="080.jpg Harpocrates " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Outward ceremonies in religion were no longer thought enough without a
+      good life; and, as the Greeks said, that beard and cloak did not make a
+      philosopher, so the Egyptians said that white linen and a tonsure would
+      not make a follower of Isis. All the sacrifices to the gods had a
+      secondary meaning, or, at least, they tried to join a moral aim to the
+      outward act; as on the twentieth day of the month, when they ate honey and
+      figs in honour of Thot, they sang &ldquo;Sweet is truth.&rdquo; The Egyptians, like
+      most other Eastern polytheists, held the doctrine which was afterwards
+      called Manicheism; they believed in a good and in a wicked god, who
+      governed the world between them. Of these the former made himself
+      threefold, because three is a perfect number, and they adopted into their
+      religion that curious metaphysical opinion that everything divine is
+      formed of three parts; and accordingly, on the Theban monuments we often
+      see the gods in groups of three. They worshipped Osiris, Isis, and Horus
+      under the form of a right-angled triangle, in which Horus was the side
+      opposite to the right angle. The favourite part of their mythology was the
+      lamentation of Isis for the death of her husband Osiris. By another change
+      the god Horus, who used to be a crowned king of manly stature, was now a
+      child holding a finger to his mouth, and thereby marking that he had not
+      yet learned to talk. The Romans, who did not understand this Egyptian
+      symbol for youthfulness, thought that in this character he was commanding
+      silence; and they gave the name of Harpocrates, <i>Horus the powerful</i>,
+      to a god of silence. Horus was also often placed as a child in the arms of
+      his mother Isis; and thus by the loving nature of the group were awakened
+      the more tender feelings of the worshipper. The Egyptians, like the
+      Greeks, had always been loud in declaring that they were beloved by their
+      gods; but they received their favours with little gratitude, and hardly
+      professed that they felt any love towards the gods in return. But after
+      the time of the Christian era, we meet with more kindly feelings even
+      among the pagans. We find from the Greek names of persons that they at
+      least had begun to think their gods deserving of love, and in this group
+      of the mother and child, such a favourite also in Christian art, we see in
+      what direction these more kindly feelings found an entrance into the
+      Egyptian religion. As fast as opinion was raising the great god Serapis
+      above his fellows and making the wrathful judge into the ruler of the
+      world, so fast was the same opinion creating for itself a harbour of
+      refuge in the child Horus and its mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The deep earnestness of the Egyptians in the belief of their own religion
+      was the chief cause of its being adopted by others. The Greeks had
+      borrowed much from it. Though in Rome it had been forbidden by law, it was
+      much cultivated there in private; and the engraved rings on the fingers of
+      the wealthy Romans which bore the figures of Harpocrates and other
+      Egyptian gods easily escaped the notice of the magistrate. But the
+      superstitious Domitian, who was in the habit of consulting astrologers and
+      Chaldæan fortune-tellers, allowed the Egyptian worship. He built at Rome a
+      temple to Isis, and another to Serapis; and such was the eagerness of the
+      citizens for pictures of the mother goddess with her child in her arms
+      that, according to Juvenal, the Roman painters all lived upon the goddess
+      Isis. For her temple in the Campus Martius, holy water was even brought
+      from the Nile to purify the building and the votaries; and a regular
+      college of priests was maintained there by their zeal and at their cost,
+      with a splendour worthy of the Roman capital. Domitian, also, was somewhat
+      of a scholar, and he sent to Alexandria for copies of their books, to
+      restore the public library at Rome which had been lately burnt; while his
+      garden on the banks of the Tiber was richer in the Egyptian winter rose
+      than even the gardens of Memphis and Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this century the coinage continues one of the subjects of chief
+      interest to the antiquary. In 92 A.D., in the eleventh year of his reign,
+      when Domitian took upon himself the tribunitian power at Rome for a second
+      period of ten years, the event was celebrated in Alexandria with a
+      triumphal procession and games in the hippodrome, of all which we see
+      clear traces on the Egyptian coins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0025" id="linkimage-0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/081.jpg" width="100%" alt="081.jpg Coins of Domitian " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The coinage is almost the only trace of Nerva (96&mdash;98 A.D.) having
+      reigned in Egypt; but it is at the same time enough to prove the mildness
+      of his government. The Jews who by their own law were of old required to
+      pay half a shekel, or a didrachm, to the service of their temple, had on
+      their conquest been made to pay that sum as a yearly tribute to the
+      Ptolemies, and afterwards to the emperors. It was a poll-tax levied on
+      every Jew throughout the empire. But Nerva had the humanity to relieve
+      them from this insulting tribute, and well did he deserve the honour of
+      having it recorded on the coins struck in his reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coinage of the eleventh year of his successor, Trajan (98-117 A.D.),
+      is very remarkable for its beauty, its technical skill, and variety, even
+      more so than that of the eleventh year of Domitian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0026" id="linkimage-0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:29%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/082.jpg" alt="082.jpg Coin of Nerva " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The coins have hitherto proclaimed, in a manner unmistakably plain to
+      those who study numismatics, the games and conquests of the emperors, the
+      bountiful overflow of the Nile, and sometimes the worship of Serapis; but
+      we now enter upon the most brilliant and most important period of the
+      Egyptian coinage, and find a rich variety of fables taken both from
+      Egyptian and Greek mythology. The coins of Rome in this and the following
+      reigns show the wealth, good taste, and learning of the nation, but they
+      are surpassed by the coins of Egypt. While history is nearly silent, and
+      the buildings and other proofs of Roman good government have perished, the
+      coins alone are quite enough to prove the well-being of the people. Among
+      the Egyptian coins those of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines equal in
+      number those of all the other emperors together, while in beauty they far
+      surpass them. They are mostly of copper, of a small size, and thick,
+      weighing about one hundred and ten grains, and some larger of two hundred
+      and twenty grains; the silver coins are less common, and of mixed metal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Romans, while admiring and copying everything that was Greek,
+      affected to look upon the Egyptians as savages, who were only known to be
+      human beings by their power of speech, still the Egyptian physicians were
+      held by them in the highest repute. The more wealthy Romans often sailed
+      to Alexandria for the benefit of their advice. Pliny the Elder, however,
+      thought that of the invalids who went to Egypt for their health more were
+      cured by the sea voyage than by the physicians on their arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0027" id="linkimage-0027">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:23%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/083.jpg"
+       alt="083.jpg Trinity of Isis, Horus and Nephthys " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      One of Cicero&rsquo;s physicians was an Egyptian. Pliny the Younger repaid his
+      Egyptian oculist, Harpocrates, by getting a rescript from the emperor to
+      make him a Roman citizen. But the statesman did not know under what harsh
+      laws his friend was born, for the grant was void in the case of an
+      Egyptian, the emperor&rsquo;s rescript was bad as being against the law; and
+      Pliny had again to beg the greater favour that the Egyptian might first be
+      made a citizen of Alexandria, without which the former favour was useless.
+      Thus, even in Alexandria, a conquered province governed by the despotic
+      will of a military emperor, there were still some laws or principles which
+      the emperor found it not easy to break. The courts of justice, those to
+      whom the edicts were addressed and by whom they were to be explained and
+      carried into effect, claimed a power in some cases above the emperor; and
+      the first article in the Roman code was that an imperial rescript, by
+      whomsoever or howsoever obtained, was void if it was against the law. As
+      the lawyers and magistrates formed part of the body of citizens, the
+      Alexandrians had so far a share in the government of their own affairs;
+      but this was an advantage that the Egyptians lost by being under the power
+      of the Greek magistrates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trajan always kept in the public granaries of Rome a supply of Egyptian
+      grain equal to seven times the <i>canon</i>, or yearly gift to the poor
+      citizens; and in this prudent course he was followed by all his
+      successors, until the store was squandered by the worthless Elagabalus.
+      One year, when the Nile did not rise to its usual height, and much of the
+      grain land of the Delta, instead of being moistened by its waters and
+      enriched by its mud, was left a dry, sandy plain, the granaries of Rome
+      were unlocked to feed the city of Alexandria. The Alexandrians then saw
+      the unusual sight of ships unloading their cargoes of wheat in their
+      harbour, and the Romans boasted that they took the Egyptian tribute in
+      grain, not because they could not feed themselves, but because the
+      Egyptians had nothing else to send them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0028" id="linkimage-0028">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/084.jpg" width="100%" alt="084.jpg Coins of Trajan " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Alexandria under the Romans was still the centre of the trading world, not
+      only having its own great trade in grain, but being the port through which
+      the trade of India and Arabia passed to Europe, and at which the Syrian
+      vessels touched in their way to Italy. The harbour was crowded with masts
+      and strange prows and uncouth sails, and the quays always busy with
+      loading and unloading; while in the streets might be seen men of all
+      languages and all dresses, copper-coloured Egyptians, swarthy Jews,
+      lively, bustling Greeks, and haughty Italians, with Asiatics from the
+      neighbouring coasts of Syria and Cilicia, and even dark Ethiopians,
+      painted Arabs, Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and Indians, all gay with
+      their national costumes. Alexandria was a spot in which Europe met Asia,
+      and each wondered at the strangeness of the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the Alexandrians themselves we receive a very unfavourable account from
+      their countryman, Dion Chrysostom. With their wealth, they had those vices
+      which usually follow or cause the loss of national independence. They were
+      eager for nothing but food and horse-races. They were grave and quiet in
+      their sacrifices and listless in business, but in the theatre or in the
+      stadium men, women, and children were alike heated into passion, and
+      overcome with eagerness and warmth of feeling. A scurrilous song or a
+      horse-race would so rouse them into a quarrel that they could not hear for
+      their own noise, nor see for the dust raised by their own bustle in the
+      hippodrome; while all those acts of their rulers, which in a more
+      wholesome state of society would have called for notice, passed by
+      unheeded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0029" id="linkimage-0029">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:42%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/086.jpg"
+       alt="086.jpg Egyptian Wig (british Museum) " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      They cared more for the tumble of a favourite charioteer than for the
+      sinking state of the nation. The ready employment of ridicule in the place
+      of argument, of wit instead of graver reason, of nicknames as their most
+      powerful weapon, was one of the worst points in the Alexandrian character.
+      Frankness and manliness are hardly to be looked for under a despotic
+      government where men are forbidden to speak their minds openly; and the
+      Alexandrians made use of such checks upon their rulers as the law allowed
+      them. They lived under an absolute monarchy tempered only by ridicule.
+      Though their city was four hundred years old, they were still colonists
+      and without a mother-country. They had very little faith in anything great
+      or good, whether human or divine. They had few cherished prejudices, no
+      honoured traditions, sadly little love of fame, and they wrote no
+      histories. But in luxury and delicacy they set the fashion to their
+      conquerors. The wealthy Alexandrian walked about Rome in a scarlet robe,
+      in summer fanning himself with gold, and displaying on his fingers rings
+      carefully suited to the season; as his hands were too delicate to carry
+      his heavier jewels in the warm weather. At the supper tables of the rich,
+      the Alexandrian singing boys were much valued; the smart young Roman
+      walked along the Via Sacra humming an Alexandrian tune; the favourite
+      comic actor, the delight of the city, whose jokes set the theatre in a
+      roar, was an Alexandrian; the Retiarius, who, with no weapon but a net,
+      fought against an armed gladiator in the Roman forum, and came off
+      conqueror in twenty-six such battles, was an Alexandrian; and no breed of
+      fighting-cocks was thought equal to those reared in the suburbs of
+      Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the reign of Augustus the Roman generals had been defeated in their
+      attacks on Arabia; but under Trajan, when the Romans were masters of all
+      the countries which surround Arabia Nabatæa, and when Egypt was so far
+      quiet that the legions could be withdrawn without danger to the provinces,
+      the Arabs could hold out no longer, and the rocky fastness of Petra was
+      forced to receive a Roman garrison. The event was as usual commemorated on
+      the coins of Rome; and for the next four hundred years that remarkable
+      Arab city formed part of the Roman empire; and Europeans now travelling
+      through the desert from Mount Sinai to Jerusalem are agreeably surprised
+      at coming upon temples, carved out of the solid rock, ornamented with
+      Corinthian columns of the age of the Antonines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the twelfth year of this reign, when Lucius Sulpicius Simius was
+      prefect, some additions which had been made to the temple at Panopolis in
+      the Thebaid were dedicated in the name of the emperor; and in the
+      nineteenth year, when Marcus Rutilius Lupus was prefect, a new portico in
+      the oasis of Thebes was in the same manner dedicated to Serapis and Isis.
+      A small temple, which had been before built at Denderah, near the great
+      temple of Venus, was in the first year of this reign dedicated to the
+      Empress Plotina, under the name of the great goddess, the Younger Venus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The canal from the Nile near Bubastis to the Bitter Lakes, which had been
+      first made by Necho, had been either finished or a second time made by
+      Philadelphus; and in this reign that great undertaking was again renewed.
+      But the stream of the Nile was deserting the Bubastite branch, which was
+      less navigable than formerly; and the engineers now changed the greater
+      part of the canal&rsquo;s bed. They thought it wiser to bring water from a
+      higher part of the Nile, so that the current in the canal might run into
+      the Red Sea instead of out, and its waters might still be fresh and useful
+      to agriculture. It now began at Babylon opposite Memphis and entered the
+      Red Sea at a town which, taking its name from the locks, was called
+      Clysmon, about ten miles to the south of Arsinoë. This latter town was no
+      longer a port, having been separated from the sea by the continual advance
+      of the sands. We have no knowledge of how long the care of the imperial
+      prefects kept this new canal open and in use. It was perhaps one of the
+      first of the Roman works that went to decay; and, when we find the
+      Christian pilgrims sailing along it seven centuries later, on their way
+      from England to the holy sepulchre, it had been again opened by the
+      Muhammedan conquerors of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0030" id="linkimage-0030">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:48%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/089.jpg"
+       alt="089.jpg Antoninian Temple Near Sinai " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Writings which some now regard as literary forgeries appeared in
+      Alexandria about this time. They prophesied the re-establishment of the
+      Jews at Jerusalem, and, as the wished-for time drew near, all the eastern
+      provinces of the Roman empire were disturbed by rebellious risings of the
+      Jews. Moved by the religious enthusiasm which gave birth to the writings,
+      the Jews of Egypt in the eighteenth year of this reign (116 A.D.) were
+      again roused into a quarrel with their Greek fellow-citizens; and in the
+      next year, the last of the reign, they rose against their Roman governors
+      in open rebellion, and they were not put down till the prefect Lupus had
+      brought his forces against them. After this the Jews of Cyrene marched
+      through the desert into Egypt, under the command of Lucuas, to help their
+      brethren; and the rebellion took the regular form of a civil war, with all
+      its usual horrors. The emperor sent against the Jews an army followed by a
+      fleet, which, after numerous skirmishes and battles, routed them with
+      great slaughter, and drove numbers of them back into the desert, whence
+      they harassed the village as robbers. By these unsuccessful appeals to
+      force, the Jews lost all right to those privileges of citizenship which
+      they always claimed, and which had been granted by the emperors, though
+      usually refused by the Alexandrians. The despair and disappointment of the
+      Jews seem in many cases to have turned their minds to the Christian view
+      of the Old Testament prophecies; henceforth, says Eusebius, the Jews
+      embraced the Christian religion more readily and in greater numbers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In A.D. 122, the sixth year of the reign of Hadrian, Egypt was honoured by
+      a visit from the emperor. He was led to Egypt at that time by some riots
+      of a character more serious than usual, which had arisen between two
+      cities, probably Memphis and Heliopolis, about a bull, as to whether it
+      was to be Apis or Mnevis. Egypt had been for some years without a sacred
+      bull; and when at length the priests found one, marked with the mystic
+      spots, the inhabitants of those two cities flew to arms, and the peace of
+      the province was disturbed by their religious zeal, each claiming the bull
+      as their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hadrian also undertook a voyage up the Nile from Alexandria in order to
+      explore the wonders of Egypt. This was the fashion then, for the ancient
+      monuments and the banks of this mysterious river offered just as many
+      attractions at that time as they have done to all nations since the
+      expedition of Napoleon. That animal-worship, which had remained unchanged
+      for centuries, a riddle of human religion, was bound to excite the
+      curiosity of strangers. In this divinisation of animals lay the greatest
+      contempt for human understanding, and it was a bitter satire on the
+      apotheosis of kings and emperors. For what was the divinity of Sesostris,
+      of Alexander, of Augustus, or Hadrian compared with the heavenly majesty
+      of the ox Apis, or the holy cats, dogs, kites, crocodiles, and god-apes?
+      Egypt was at this epoch already a museum of the Pharaoh-time and its
+      enbalamed culture. Strange buildings, rare sculptures, hieroglyphics, and
+      pictures still filled the ancient towns, even though these had lost their
+      splendour. Memphis and Heliopolis, Bubastis, Abydos, Saïs, Tanis, and the
+      hundred-gated Thebes had long fallen into ruin, although still inhabited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emperor&rsquo;s escort must have been an extraordinary sight as it steered
+      up the stream on a fleet of dahabiehs. The emperor was accompanied by
+      students of the museum, interpreters, priests, and astrologers. Amongst
+      his followers were Verus and the beautiful Antinous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Empress Sabina also accompanied him; she had the poetess Julia
+      Balbilla amongst her court ladies. They landed wherever there was anything
+      of interest to be seen, and there was more in those days than there is
+      now. They admired the great pyramids, the colossal sphinx, and the sacred
+      town of Memphis. This city, the ancient royal seat of the Pharaohs, and
+      even in Strabo&rsquo;s time the second town in Egypt, was not yet buried under
+      the sand of the desert; its disappearance had, however, already begun.
+      Under the Ptolemies it had given much of the material of her temples and
+      palaces for the building of Alexandria. The great palace of the Pharaohs
+      had long been destroyed, but there still remained many notable monuments,
+      such as the temple of Phtah, the pyramids, the necropolis, and the
+      Serapeum, and they retained their ancient cult. The town was still the
+      chief seat of the Egyptian hierarchy and the residence of Apis; for this
+      very reason the Roman government had destined it to be one of her strong
+      military stations, for here a legion was quartered. The emperor could walk
+      through the time-worn avenues of sphinxes which led to the wonderful
+      vaults where the long succession of divine animals was buried, each like a
+      Pharaoh, in a magnificent granite sarcophagus. Hadrian could admire the
+      beautifully sculptured tomb of Di, an Egyptian officer of the fifth
+      dynasty, with less trouble than we must experience now; for now the
+      palaces, the pictures of the gods, and almost all the pyramids are
+      swallowed up in sand. Miserable Arab villages, such as Saqqâra, have fixed
+      themselves in the ruins of Memphis, and from a thick palm grove one can
+      look with astonishment upon the torso of the powerful Ramses II. lying
+      solitary there, the last witness to the glory of the temple of Phtah,
+      before which this colossus once had its stand. In the neighbourhood of
+      Memphis lay Heliopolis, the town of the sun-god, with its ancient temple,
+      and a school of Egyptian wisdom, in which Plato is supposed to have
+      studied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Heliopolis the worship of the god Ra was preserved, the centre of which
+      was the holy animal Mnevis, a rival or comrade of Apis. Cambyses had
+      partly destroyed the temple and even the obelisks which the Pharaohs had
+      in the course of centuries erected to the sun-god; nowhere in Egypt
+      existed so many of these monuments as here and in Thebes. Hadrian saw many
+      of them lying half-burnt on the ground just as Strabo had done. On the
+      site of Heliopolis, now green with wheat-fields, only a single obelisk has
+      remained upright, which is considered as the oldest of all, and was
+      erected in the twelfth dynasty by Usirtasen I.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The royal assemblage had arrived in the course of their journey at Besa, a
+      place on the right bank of the river, opposite Hermopolis, when a strange
+      event occurred. This was the death of Hadrian&rsquo;s favourite, Antinous, a
+      young Greek from Claudiopolis, who had been degraded to the position of
+      Ganymede to the emperor on account of his beauty. It is not known where
+      the emperor first came across the youth; possibly in his native land,
+      Bithynia. Not till he came to Egypt did he become his inseparable
+      companion, and this must have been a deep offence to his wife. The
+      unfortunate queen was delivered in Besa from his hated presence, for
+      Antinous was drowned there in the Nile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His death was surrounded by mystery. Was it accident? Was he a victim?
+      Hadrian&rsquo;s humanity protects him from the suspicion that he sacrificed his
+      victim in cold blood, as Tiberius had once sacrificed the beautiful
+      Hypatus in Capri. Had the fantastic youth sacrificed himself of his own
+      free will to the death divinities in order to save the emperor&rsquo;s life? Had
+      the Egyptian priests foreseen in the stars some danger threatening
+      Hadrian, only to be averted by the death of his favourite? Such an idea
+      commended itself to the superstition of the time, especially in this land
+      and by the mysterious Nile. It corresponded, too, with the emperor&rsquo;s
+      astrological arts. Was Antinous certain when he plunged into the waves of
+      the Nile that he would arise from them as a god? Hadrian asserts in his
+      memoirs that it was an accident, but no one believed him. The divine
+      honours which he paid to the dead youth lead us to suppose that they
+      formed the reward of a self-sacrifice, which, according to the custom of
+      those times, constituted a highly moral action, and was looked upon as
+      heroic devotion. At any rate, we will assume that this sacrifice sank into
+      the Nile without Hadrian&rsquo;s will. Hadrian mourned for Antinous with
+      unspeakable pain and &ldquo;womanly tears.&rdquo; Now he was Achilles by the corpse of
+      Patroklus, or Alexander by the pyre of the dead Hephaistus. He had the
+      youth splendidly buried in Besa. This most extraordinary intermezzo of all
+      Nile journeys supplied dying heathendom with a new god, and art with its
+      last ideal form. Probably, also, during the burial, far-sighted courtiers
+      already saw the star of Antinous shining in Egypt&rsquo;s midnight sky, and then
+      Hadrian saw it himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the mystical land of Egypt, life might still be poetical even in the
+      clear daylight of Roman universal history in the reign of Hadrian. The
+      death of the young Bithynian seems to have occurred in October, 130. The
+      emperor continued his journey as soon as he had given orders for a
+      splendid town to be erected on the site of Besa, in honour of his friend.
+      In November, 130, the royal company is to be found amongst the ruins of
+      Thebes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thebes, the oldest town in Egypt, had been first put in the shade by
+      Memphis, and then destroyed by Cambyses. Since the time of the Ptolemies,
+      it had been called Diospolis, and Ptolemais had taken its place as capital
+      of the Thebaid. Already in Strabo&rsquo;s time it was split up. It formed on
+      either side of the Nile groups of gigantic temples and palaces, monuments,
+      and royal graves similar to those scattered to-day amongst Luxor, Karnak,
+      Medinet-Habu, Deir-el-Bahari, and Kurna.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0031" id="linkimage-0031">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/095.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="095.jpg Commemorative Coin of Antinous " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      In Hadrian&rsquo;s time the Rameseum, the so-called grave of Osymandias, on the
+      western bank of the Nile, the wonderful building of Ramses II., must still
+      have been in good repair. These pylons, pillars, arcades, and courts,
+      these splendid halls with their sculpture-covered walls, appear even to
+      have influenced the Roman art in the time of the emperors. Their reflex
+      influence has been even seen in Trajan&rsquo;s forum, in which the chief thing
+      was the emperor&rsquo;s tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0032" id="linkimage-0032">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:38%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/097.jpg" alt="097.jpg Rose-coloured Lotus " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      In Alexandria the emperor mixed freely with the professors of the museum,
+      asking them questions and answering theirs in return; and he dropped his
+      tear of pity on the tomb of the great Pompey, in the form of a Greek
+      epigram, though with very little point. He laid out large sums of money in
+      building and ornamenting the city, and the Alexandrians were much pleased
+      with his behaviour. Among other honours that they paid him, they changed
+      the name of the month December, calling it the month Hadrian; but as they
+      were not followed by the rest of the empire the name soon went out of use.
+      The emperor&rsquo;s patronage of philosophy was rather at the cost of the
+      Alexandrian museum, for he enrolled among its paid professors men who were
+      teaching from school to school in Italy and Asia Minor. Thus Polemon of
+      Laodicea, who taught oratory and philosophy at Rome, Laodicea, and Smyrna,
+      and had the right of a free passage for himself and his servants in any of
+      the public ships whenever he chose to move from city to city for the
+      purposes of study or teaching, had at the same time a salary from the
+      Alexandrian museum. Dionysius of Miletus also received his salary as a
+      professor in the museum while teaching philosophy and mnemonicsat Miletus
+      and Ephesus. Pancrates, the Alexandrian poet, gained his salary in the
+      museum by the easy task of a little flattery. On Hadrian&rsquo;s return to
+      Alexandria from the Thebaid, the poet presented to him a rose-coloured
+      lotus, a flower well known in India, though less common in Egypt than
+      either the blue or white lotus, and assured him that it had sprung out of
+      the blood of the lion slain by his royal javelin at a lion-hunt in Libya.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emperor was pleased with the compliment, and gave him a place in the
+      museum; and Pancrates in return named the plant the lotus of Antinous.
+      Pancrates was a warm admirer of the mystical opinions of the Egyptians
+      which were then coming into note in Alexandria. He was said to have lived
+      underground in holy solitude or converse with the gods for twenty-three
+      years, and during that time to have been taught magic by the goddess Isis,
+      and thus to have gained the power of working miracles. He learned to call
+      upon the queen of darkness by her Egyptian name Hecate, and when driving
+      out evil spirits to speak to them in the Egyptian language. Whether these
+      Greek students of the Eastern mysticism were deceivers or deceived,
+      whether they were led by a love of notoriety or of knowledge, is in most
+      cases doubtful, but they were surrounded by a crowd of credulous admirers,
+      who formed a strange contrast with the sceptics and critics of the museum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the Alexandrian grammarians of this reign was Apollonius Dyscolus,
+      so called perhaps from a moroseness of manner, who wrote largely on
+      rhetoric, on the Greek dialects, on accents, prosody, and on other
+      branches of grammar. In the few pages that remain of his numerous
+      writings, we trace the love of the marvellous which was then growing among
+      some of the philosophers. He tells us many remarkable stories, which he
+      collected rather as a judicious inquirer than as a credulous believer;
+      such as of second sight; an account of a lad who fell asleep in the field
+      while watching his sheep, and then slept for fifty-seven years, and awoke
+      to wonder at the strangeness of the changes that had taken place in the
+      meanwhile; and of a man who after death used from time to time to leave
+      his body, and wander over the earth as a spirit, till his wife, tired of
+      his coming back again so often, put a stop to it by having his mummy
+      burnt. He gives us for the first time Eastern tales in a Greek dress, and
+      we thus learn the source from which Europe gained much of its literature
+      in the Middle Ages. The Alexandrian author of greatest note at this time
+      was the historian Appian, who tells us that he had spent some years in
+      Rome practising as a lawyer, and returned to Egypt on being appointed to a
+      high post in the government of his native city. There he wrote his Roman
+      history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this reign the Jews, forgetful of what they had just suffered under
+      Trajan, again rose against the power of Rome; and, when Judæa rebelled
+      against its prefect, Tinnius Rufus, a little army of Jews marched out of
+      Egypt and Libya, to help their brethren and to free the holy land (130
+      A.D.). But they were everywhere routed and put down with resolute
+      slaughter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0033" id="linkimage-0033">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/099.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="099.jpg Vocal Statue of Amenhothes " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Travellers, on reaching a distant point of a journey, or on viewing any
+      remarkable object of their curiosity, have at all times been fond of
+      carving or scribbling their names on the spot, to boast of their prowess
+      to after-comers; and never had any place been more favoured with memorials
+      of this kind than the great statue of Amenhôthes at Thebes. This colossal
+      statue, fifty-three feet high, was famed, as long as the Egyptian
+      priesthood lasted, for sending forth musical sounds every morning at
+      sunrise, when first touched by the sun&rsquo;s rays; and no traveller ever
+      visited Thebes without listening for these remarkable notes. The journey
+      through Upper Egypt was at this time perfectly open and safe, and the legs
+      and feet of the statue are covered with names, and inscriptions in prose
+      and verse, of travellers who had visited it at sunrise during the reigns
+      of Hadrian and the Antonines. From these curious memorials we learn that
+      Hadrian visited Thebes a second time with his queen, Sabina, in the
+      fifteenth year of his reign. When the empress first visited the statue she
+      was disappointed at not hearing the musical sounds; but, on her hinting
+      threats of the emperor&rsquo;s displeasure, her curiosity was gratified on the
+      following morning. This gigantic statue of hard gritstone had formerly
+      been broken in half across the waist, and the upper part thrown to the
+      ground, either by the shock of an earthquake or the ruder shock of Persian
+      zeal against the Egyptian religion; and for some centuries past the
+      musical notes had issued from the broken fragments. Such was its fallen
+      state when the Empress Sabina saw it, and when Strabo and Juvenal and
+      Pausanias listened to its sounds; and it was not till after the reign of
+      Hadrian that it was again raised upright like its companion, as travellers
+      now see it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0034" id="linkimage-0034">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/100b.jpg" width="100%" alt="100b..jpg the Slumber Song " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="100b-text (8K)" src="images/100b-text.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     From the painting by P. Grot. Johann
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      From this second visit, and a longer acquaintance, Hadrian seems to have
+      formed a very poor opinion of the Egyptians and Egyptian Jews; and the
+      following curious letter, written in 134 A.D. to his friend Servianus,
+      throws much light upon their religion as worshippers of Serapis, at the
+      same time that it proves how numerous the Christians had become in
+      Alexandria, even within seventy years of the period during which the
+      evangelist Mark is believed to have preached there:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hadrian Augustus to Servianus, the consul, greeting:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As for Egypt, which you were praising to me, dearest Servianus, I have
+      found its people wholly light, wavering, and flying after every breath of
+      a report. Those who worship Serapis are Christians, and those who call
+      themselves bishops of Christ are devoted to Serapis. There is no ruler of
+      a Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no presbyter of the Christians, who is
+      not a mathematician, an augur, and a soothsayer. The very patriarch
+      himself, when he came into Egypt, was by some said to worship Serapis, and
+      by others to worship Christ. As a race of men, they are seditious, vain,
+      and spiteful; as a body, wealthy and prosperous, of whom nobody lives in
+      idleness. Some blow glass, some make paper, and others linen. There is
+      work for the lame and work for the blind; even those who have lost the use
+      of their hands do not live in idleness. Their one god is nothing;
+      Christians, Jews, and all nations worship him. I wish this body of men was
+      better behaved, and worthy of their number; for as for that they ought to
+      hold the chief place in Egypt. I have granted everything unto them; I have
+      restored their old privileges, and have made them grateful by adding new
+      ones.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the crowd of gods that had formerly been worshipped in Egypt,
+      Serapis had latterly been rising above the rest. He was the god of the
+      dead, who in the next world was to reward the good and punish the wicked;
+      and in the growing worship of this one all-seeing judge we cannot but
+      trace the downfall of some of the evils of polytheism. A plurality in
+      unity was another method now used to explain away the polytheism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0035" id="linkimage-0035">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:20%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/102.jpg" alt="102.jpg Egyptian Oracle " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The oracle when consulted about the divine nature had answered, &ldquo;I am Ra,
+      and Horus, and Osiris;&rdquo; or, as the Greeks translated it, Apollo, and Lord,
+      and Bacchus; &ldquo;I rule the hours and the seasons, the wind and the storms,
+      the day and the night; I am king of the stars and myself an immortal
+      fire.&rdquo; Hence arose the opinion which seems to have been given to Hadrian,
+      that the Egyptians had only one god, and his mistake in thinking that the
+      worshippers of Serapis were Christians. The emperor, indeed, himself,
+      though a polytheist, was very little of an idolater; for, though he wished
+      to add Christ to the number of the Roman gods, he on the other hand
+      ordered that the temples built in his reign should have no images for
+      worship; and in after ages it was common to call all temples without
+      statues Hadrian&rsquo;s temples. But there were other and stronger reasons for
+      Hadrian&rsquo;s classing the Christians with the Egyptian astrologers. A
+      Christian heresy was then rising into notice in Egypt in that very form,
+      taking its opinions from the philosophy on which it was engrafted. Before
+      Christianity was preached in Alexandria, there were already three
+      religions or forms of philosophy belonging to the three races of men who
+      peopled that busy city; first, the Greek philosophy; which was chiefly
+      platonism; secondly, the mysticism of the Egyptians; and lastly, the
+      religion of the Jews. These were often more or less mixed, as we see them
+      all united in the works of Philo-Judæ; and in the writings of the early
+      converts we usually find Christianity clothed in one or other of these
+      forms, according to the opinions held by the writers before their
+      conversion. The first Christian teachers, the apostolic fathers as they
+      are called, because they had been hearers of the apostles themselves, were
+      mostly Jews; but among the Egyptians and Greeks of Alexandria their
+      religion lost much of its purely moral caste, and became, with the former,
+      an astrological mysticism, and with the latter an abstract speculative
+      theology. It is of the Egyptian Jews that Hadrian speaks in his letter
+      just quoted; many of them had been already converted to Christianity, and
+      their religion had taken the form of Gnosticism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gnosticism, or Science, for the name means no more, was not then new in
+      Alexandria, nor were its followers originally Christians. It was the proud
+      name claimed for their opinions by those who studied the Eastern
+      philosophy of the Magi; and Egypt seems to have been as much its native
+      soil as India. The name of Gnostic, says Weber, was generally given to
+      those who distinguished between belief on authority and gnosis, i.e.,
+      between the ordinary comprehension and a higher knowledge only granted to
+      a few gifted or chosen ones. They were split up into different sects,
+      according as they approached more nearly the Eastern theosophy or the
+      platonic philosophy; but in general the Eastern conception, with its
+      symbols and unlimited fantasy, remained dominant. The &ldquo;creed of those who
+      know&rdquo; never reached actual monotheism, the conception of one personal god,
+      who created everything according to his own free will and rules over
+      everything with unlimited wisdom and love. The god of the Gnostics is a
+      dark, mysterious being which can only arrive at a consciousness of itself
+      through a manifold descending scale of forces, which flow from the god
+      himself. The visible world was created out of dead and evil matter by
+      Demiurgos, the divine work-master, a production and subordinate of the
+      highest god. Man, too, is a production of this subordinate creator, a
+      production subject to a blind fate, and a prey to those powers which rule
+      between heaven and earth, without free-will, the only thing which makes
+      the ideas of sin and responsibility possible. Matter is the seat of evil,
+      and as long as man stands under the influence of this matter, he is in the
+      hands of evil and knows no freedom. Redemption can only reach him through
+      those higher beings of light, which free man from the power of matter and
+      translate him into the kingdom of light. According to the Gnostic
+      teaching, Christ is one of these beings of light; he is one of the highest
+      who appeared on earth, and is transformed into a mythical, allegorical
+      being, with his human nature, his sufferings and death completely
+      suppressed. The redeemed soul is then as a kind of angel, or ideal being,
+      brought in triumph into the idealistic realm of light as soon as it has
+      purified itself to the nature of a spirit, by means of penitence,
+      chastisements, and finally the death of the physical body. Hence the
+      Gnostics attached little importance to the means of mercy in the Church,
+      to the Bible, or the sacraments; they allowed the Church teaching to exist
+      as a necessary conception for the people, but they placed their own
+      teachings far above it as mysterious or secret teachings. As regards their
+      morals and mode of life, the Gnostics generally went to extremes. It was
+      due to Gnosticism that art and science found an entrance into the Church.
+      It preserved the Church from becoming stereotyped in form; but, built up
+      entirely on ideas and not on historical facts, it died from its own
+      hollowness and eccentricity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0036" id="linkimage-0036">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:26%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/106.jpg"
+       alt="106.jpg Koptic Charm and Scarabeus " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      We still possess the traces of the Gnostic astrology in a number of
+      amulets and engraved gems, with the word <i>Abraxas</i> or rather <i>Abrasax</i>
+      and other emblems of their superstition, which they kept as charms against
+      diseases and evil spirits. The word <i>Abrasax</i> may be translated <i>Hurt
+      me not</i>. To their mystic rites we may trace many of the reproaches
+      thrown upon Christianity, such as that the Christians worshipped the head
+      of an ass, using the animal&rsquo;s Koptic name <i>Eeo</i>, to represent the
+      name of IAn, or Jahveh. To the same source we may also trace some of the
+      peculiarities of the Christian fathers, such as St. Ambrose calling Jesus
+      &ldquo;the good scarabæus, who rolled up before him the hitherto un-shapen mud
+      of our bodies;&rdquo; a thought which seems to have been borrowed as much from
+      the hieroglyphics as from the insect&rsquo;s habits; and perhaps from the
+      Egyptian priests in some cases, using the scarabous to denote the god
+      Horus-Ra, and sometimes the word <i>only begotten</i>. We trace this
+      thought on the Gnostic gems where Ave see a winged griffin rolling before
+      him a wheel, the emblem of eternity. He sits like a conqueror on
+      horseback, trampling under foot the serpent of old, the spirit of sin and
+      death. His horse is in the form of a ram, with an eagle&rsquo;s head and the
+      crowned asp or basilisk for its tail. Before him stands the figure of
+      victory giving him a crown; above are written the words Alpha and Omega,
+      and below perhaps the word [IAH], Jahveh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far we have seen the form which Christianity at first took among the
+      Egyptians; but, as few writings by these Gnostics have come down to our
+      time, we chiefly know their opinions from the reproaches of their enemies.
+      It was not till the second generation of Gnostic teachers were spreading
+      their heresies that the Greek philosophers began to embrace Christianity,
+      or the Christians to study Greek literature; but as soon as that was the
+      case we have an unbroken chain of writings, in which we find Christianity
+      more or less mixed with the Alexandrian form of platonism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0037" id="linkimage-0037">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:34%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/107.jpg" alt="107.jpg Gnostic Gem " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The philosopher Justin, after those who had talked with the apostles, is
+      the earliest Christian writer whose works have reached us. He was a Greek,
+      born in Samaria; but he studied many years in Alexandria under
+      philosophers of all opinions. He did not, however, at once find in the
+      schools the wisdom he was in search for. The Stoic could teach him nothing
+      about God; the Peripatetic wished to be paid for his lessons before he
+      gave them; and the Pythagorean proposed to begin with music and
+      mathematics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not content with these, Justin turned to the platonist, whose purer
+      philosophy seemed to add wings to his thoughts, and taught him to mount
+      aloft towards true wisdom. While turning over in his mind what he had thus
+      learned in the several schools, dissatisfied with the philosopher&rsquo;s views,
+      he chanced one day to meet with an old man walking on the seashore near
+      Alexandria, to whom he unbosomed his thoughts, and by whom he was
+      converted to Christianity. Justin tells us that there were no people,
+      whether Greeks or barbarians, or even dwellers in tent and waggons, among
+      whom prayers were not offered up to the heavenly father in the name of the
+      crucified Jesus. The Christians met every Sunday for public worship, which
+      began with a reading from the prophets, or from the memoirs of the
+      apostles called the gospels. This was followed by a sermon, a prayer, the
+      bread and wine, and a second prayer. Justin&rsquo;s quotations prove that he is
+      speaking of the New Testament, which within a hundred years of the
+      crucifixion wras read in all the principal cities in which Greek was
+      spoken. Justin died as a martyr in 163 A.D.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The platonic professorship in Alexandria had usually been held by an
+      Athenian, and for a short time Athenagoras of Athens taught that branch of
+      philosophy in the museum; but he afterwards embraced the Christian
+      religion, and then taught Christianity openly in Alexandria. He enjoys
+      with Justin the honour of being one of the first men of learning who were
+      converted, and, like Justin, his chief work is an apology for the
+      Christians, addressed to the emperor, Marcus Aurelius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0038" id="linkimage-0038">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/108.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="108.jpg Gems Showing Symbol of Death and the Word [Îah Javeh " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Athenagoras confines himself in his defence to the resurrection from the
+      dead and the unity of the Deity, the points chiefly attacked by the
+      pagans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hadrian&rsquo;s Egyptian coins are remarkable both for number and variety. In
+      the sixth year of the reign we see a ship with spread sails, most likely
+      in gratitude for the emperor&rsquo;s safe arrival in Egypt. In the eighth year
+      we see the head of the favourite Antinous, who had been placed among the
+      gods of the country. In the eleventh year, when the emperor took up the
+      tribunitial power at Rome for a second period of ten years, we find a
+      series of coins, each bearing the name of the nome or district in which it
+      was coined. This indeed is the most remarkable year of the most remarkable
+      reign in the whole history of coinage; we have numerous coins for every
+      year of this reign, and, in this year, for nearly every nome in Egypt.
+      Some coins are strongly marked with the favourite opinion of the Gnostics
+      as to the opposition between good and evil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0039" id="linkimage-0039">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/109.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="109.jpg Hadrian&rsquo;s Egyptian Coins " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      On one we have the war between the serpent of good and the serpent of
+      evil, distinguished by their different forms and by the emblems of Isis
+      and Serapis; on others the heads of Isis and Serapis, the principles of
+      love and fear; while on a third these two are united into a trinity by
+      Horus, who is standing on an eagle instead of having an eagle&rsquo;s head, as
+      represented on previous coins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138) was remarkable as
+      being the end of the Sothic period of one thousand four hundred and sixty
+      years; the movable new year&rsquo;s day of the calendar had come round to the
+      place in the natural year from which it first began to move in the reign
+      of Menophres or Thûtmosis III.; it had come round to the day when the
+      dog-star rose heliacally. If the years had been counted from the beginning
+      of this great year, there could have been no doubt when it came to an end,
+      as from the want of a leap year the new year&rsquo;s day must have been always
+      moving one day in four years; but no satisfactory reckoning of the years
+      had been kept, and, as the end of the period was only known by
+      observation, there was some little doubt about the exact year. Indeed,
+      among the Greek astronomers, Dositheus said the dog-star rises heliacally
+      twenty-three days after midsummer, Meton twenty-eight days, and Euctemon
+      thirty-one days; they thus left a doubt of thirty-two years as to when the
+      period should end, but the statesmen placed it in the first year of the
+      reign of Antoninus. This end of the Sothic period Avas called the return
+      to the phoenix, and had been looked forward to by the Egyptians for many
+      years, and is well marked on the coins of this reign. The coins for the
+      first eight years teem with astronomy. There are several with the goddess
+      Isis in a boat, which we know, from the zodiac in the Memnonium at Thebes,
+      was meant for the heliacal rising of the dog-star. In the second and in
+      the sixth year we find on the coins the remarkable word aion, <i>the age</i>
+      or <i>period</i>, and an ibis with a glory of rays round its head, meant
+      for the bird phoenix. In the seventh year we see Orpheus playing on his
+      lyre while all the animals of the forest are listening, thus pointing out
+      the return of the golden age. In the eighth year we have the head of
+      Serapis circled by the seven planets, and the whole within the twelve
+      signs of the zodiac; and on another coin we have the sun and moon within
+      the signs of the zodiac. A series of twelve coins for the same year tells
+      us that the house of the sun, in the language of the astrologers, is in
+      the lion, that of the moon in the crab, the houses of Venus in the scales
+      and the bull, those of Mars in the scorpion and the ram, those of Jupiter
+      in the archer and the fishes, those of Saturn in the sea-goat and
+      aquarius, those of Mercury in the virgin and the twins. On the coins of
+      the same year we have the eagle and thunderbolt, the sphinx, the bull
+      Apis, the Nile and crocodile, Isis nursing the child Horus, the
+      hawk-headed Aroëris, and the winged sun. On coins of other years we have a
+      camelopard, Horus sitting on the lotus-flower, and a sacrifice to Isis,
+      which was celebrated on the last day of the year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coins also tell us of the bountiful overflow of the Nile, and of the
+      goodness of the harvests that followed; thus, in the ninth, tenth,
+      thirteenth, and seventeenth years, we see the river Nile in the form of an
+      old man leaning on a crocodile, pouring corn and fruit out of a
+      cornucopia, while a child by his side, with the figures 36, tells us that
+      in those years the waters of the Nile rose at Memphis to the wished-for
+      height of sixteen cubits. From these latter coins it would seem that but
+      little change had taken place in the soil of the Delta by the yearly
+      deposit of mud; Herodotus says that sixteen cubits was the wished-for rise
+      of the Nile at Memphis when he was there. And we should almost think that
+      the seasons were more favourable to the husbandman during the reign of an
+      Antonine than of a Caligula, did we not set it down to the canals being
+      better cleansed by the care of the prefect, and to the mildness of the
+      government leaving the people at liberty to enjoy the bounties of nature,
+      and at the same time making them more grateful in acknowledging them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0040" id="linkimage-0040">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/112.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="112.jpg Coins of Antoninus Pius. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The mystic emblems on the coins are only what we might look for from the
+      spread of the Gnostic opinions, and the eagerness with which the Greeks
+      were copying the superstitions of the Egyptians; and, while astrology was
+      thus countenanced by the state, of course it was not less followed by the
+      people. The poor Jews took to it as a trade. In Alexandria the Jewess,
+      half beggar, half fortune-teller, would stop people in the streets and
+      interpret dreams by the help of the Bible, or sit under a sacred tree like
+      a sibyl, and promise wealth to those who consulted her, duly proportioned
+      to the size of the coin by which she was paid. We find among the Theban
+      ruins pieces of papyrus with inscriptions, describing the positions of the
+      heavens at particular hours in this reign, for the astrologers therewith
+      to calculate the nativities of the persons then born. On one is a complete
+      horoscope, containing the places of the sun, moon, and every planet, noted
+      down on the zodiac in degrees and minutes of a degree; and with these
+      particulars the mathematician undertook to foretell the marriage, fortune,
+      and death of the person who had been born at the instant when the heavenly
+      bodies were so situated; and, as the horoscope was buried in the tomb with
+      the mummy, we must suppose that it was thought that the prognostication
+      would hold good even in the next world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But astrology was not the only end to which mathematics were then turned.
+      Claudius Ptolemy, the astronomer and geographer, was at that time the
+      ornament of the mathematical school of Alexandria. In his writings he
+      treats of the earth as the centre of the heavens, and the sun, moon, and
+      planets as moving in circles and epicycles round it. This had been the
+      opinion of some of the early astronomers; but since this theory of the
+      heavens received the stamp of his authority, it is now always called the
+      Ptolemaic system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this reign was made a new survey of all the military roads in the Roman
+      empire, called the <i>Itinerary of Antoninus</i>. It included the great
+      roads of Egypt, which were only six in number. One was from Contra-Pselcis
+      in Nubia along the east bank of the Nile, to Babylon opposite Memphis, and
+      there turning eastward through Heliopolis and the district of the Jews to
+      Clysmon, where Trajan&rsquo;s canal entered the Red Sea. A second, from Memphis
+      to Pelusium, made use of this for about thirty miles, joining it at
+      Babylon, and leaving it at Scense Veteranorum. By these two roads a
+      traveller could go from Pelusium to the head of the Red Sea; but there was
+      a shorter road through the desert which joined the first at Serapion,
+      about fifty miles from Clysmon, instead of at Sceno Veteranorum, which was
+      therefore about a hundred miles shorter. A fourth was along the west bank
+      of the Nile from Hiera Sycaminon in Nubia to Alexandria, leaving the river
+      at Andropolis, about sixty miles from the latter city. A fifth was from
+      Palestine to Alexandria, running along the coast of the Mediterranean from
+      Raphia to Pelusium, and thence, leaving the coast to avoid the flat
+      country, which was under water during the inundation; it joined the last
+      at Andropolis. The sixth road was from Koptos on the Nile to Berenicê on
+      the Red Sea. These six were probably the only roads under the care of the
+      prefect. Though Syênê was the boundary of the province of Egypt, the Roman
+      power was felt for about one hundred miles into Nubia, and we find the
+      names of the emperors on several temples between Syênê and Hiera
+      Sycaminon. But beyond this, though we find inscriptions left by Roman
+      travellers, the emperors seem never to have aimed at making military
+      roads, or holding any cities against the inroads of the Blemmyes and other
+      Arabs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this survey we must add the valuable geographical knowledge given by
+      Arrian in his voyage round the shores of the Red Sea, which has come down
+      to us in an interesting document, wherein he mentions the several seaports
+      and their distances, with the tribes and cities near the coast. The trade
+      of Egypt to India, Ethiopia, and Arabia was then most valuable, and
+      carried on with great activity; but, as the merchandise was in each case
+      carried only for short distances from city to city, the traveller could
+      gain but little knowledge of where it came from, or even sometimes of
+      where it was going.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0041" id="linkimage-0041">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/115.jpg" width="100%" alt="115.jpg Statue of the Nile " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptians sent coarse linen, glass bottles, brazen vessels, brass for
+      money, and iron for weapons of war and hunting; and they received back
+      ivory, rhinoceros&rsquo; teeth, Indian steel, Indian ink, silks, slaves,
+      tortoise-shell, myrrh, and other scents, with many other Eastern articles
+      of high price and little weight. The presents which the merchants made to
+      the petty kings of Arabia were chiefly horses, mules, and gold and silver
+      vases. Beside this, the ports on the Red Sea carried on a brisk trade
+      among themselves in grain, expressed oil, wicker boats, and sugar. Of
+      sugar, or honey from the cane, this is perhaps the earliest mention found
+      in history; but Arrian does not speak of the sugar-cane as then new, nor
+      does he tell us where it was grown. Had sugar been then seen for the first
+      time he would certainly have said so; it must have been an article well
+      known in the Indian trade. While passing through Egypt on his travels, or
+      while living there and holding some post under the prefect, the historian
+      Arrian has left us his name and a few lines of poetry carved on the foot
+      of the great sphinx near the pyramids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time also the travellers continued to carve their names and their
+      feelings of wonder on the foot of the musical statue at Thebes and in the
+      deep empty tombs of the Theban kings. These inscriptions are full of
+      curious information. For example, it has been doubted whether the Roman
+      army was provided with medical officers. Their writers have not mentioned
+      them. But part of the Second Legion was at this time stationed at Thebes;
+      and one Asclepiades, while cutting his name in a tomb which once held some
+      old Theban, has cleared up the doubt for us, by saying that he was
+      physician to the Second Legion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Antoninus made a hippodrome, or race-course, for the amusement of the
+      citizens of Alexandria, and built two gates to the city, called the gate
+      of the sun and the gate of the moon, the former fronting the harbour and
+      the latter fronting the lake Mareotis, and joined by the great street
+      which ran across the whole width of the city. But this reign was not
+      wholly without trouble; there was a rebellion in which the prefect
+      Dinarchus lost his life, and for which the Alexandrians were severely
+      punished by the emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0042" id="linkimage-0042">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/117.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="117.jpg Coins of Marcus Aurelius " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The coins of Marcus Aurelius, the successor of Antoninus Pius, have a rich
+      variety of subjects, falling not far short of those of the last reign. On
+      those of the fifth year, the bountiful overflow of the Nile is gratefully
+      acknowledged by the figure of the god holding a cornucopia, and a troop of
+      sixteen children playing round him. It had been not unusual in
+      hieroglyphical writing to express a thought by means of a figure which in
+      the Koptic language had nearly the same sound; and we have seen this
+      copied on the coins in the case of a Greek word, when the bird phoenix was
+      used for the palm-branch phoenix, or the hieroglyphical word <i>year</i>;
+      and a striking instance may be noticed in the case of a Latin word, as the
+      sixteen children or <i>cupids</i> mean sixteen <i>cubits</i>, the
+      wished-for height of the Nile&rsquo;s overflow. The statue of the Nile, which
+      had been carried by Vespasian to Rome and placed in the temple of Peace,
+      was surrounded by the same sixteen children. On the coins of his twelfth
+      year the sail held up by the goddess Isis is blown towards the Pharos
+      lighthouse, as if in that year the emperor had been expected in
+      Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We find no coins in the eleventh or fourteenth years of this reign, which
+      makes it probable that it was in the eleventh year (A.D. 172) that the
+      rebellion of the native soldiers took place. These were very likely Arabs
+      who had been admitted into the ranks of the legions, but having withdrawn
+      to the desert they now harassed the towns with their marauding inroads,
+      and a considerable time elapsed before they were wholly put down by
+      Avidius Cassius at the head of the legions. But Cassius himself was unable
+      to resist the temptations which always beset a successful general, and
+      after this victory he allowed himself to be declared emperor by the
+      legions of Egypt; and this seems to have been the cause of no coins being
+      struck in Alexandria in the fourteenth year of the reign. Cassius left his
+      son Moecianus in Alexandria with the title of Pretorian Prefect, while he
+      himself marched into Syria to secure that province. There the legions
+      followed the example of their brethren in Egypt, and the Syrians were glad
+      to acknowledge a general of the Eastern armies as their sovereign. But on
+      Marcus leading an army into Syria he was met with the news that the rebels
+      had repented, and had put Cassius to death, and he then moved his forces
+      towards Egypt; but before his arrival the Egyptian legions had in the same
+      manner put Moecianus to death, and all had returned to their allegiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Marcus arrived in Alexandria the citizens were agreeably surprised by
+      the mildness of his conduct. He at once forgave his enemies; and no
+      offenders were put to death for having joined in the rebellion. The
+      severest punishment, even to the children of Cassius, was banishment from
+      the province, but without restraint, and with the forfeiture of less than
+      half their patrimony. In Alexandria the emperor laid aside the severity of
+      the soldier, and mingled with the people as a fellow-citizen in the
+      temples and public places; while with the professors in the museum he was
+      a philosopher, joining them in their studies in the schools.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Borne and Athens at this time alike looked upon Alexandria as the centre
+      of the world&rsquo;s learning. The library was then in its greatest glory; the
+      readers were numerous, and Christianity had as yet raised no doubts about
+      the value of its pagan treasures. All the wisdom of Greece, written on
+      rolls of brittle papyrus or tough parchment, was ranged in boxes on the
+      shelves. Of these writings the few that have been saved from the wreck of
+      time are no doubt some of the best, and they are perhaps enough to guide
+      our less simple taste towards the unornamented grace of the Greek model.
+      But we often fancy those treasures most valuable that are beyond our
+      reach, and hence when we run over the names of the authors in this library
+      we think perhaps too much of those which are now missing. The student in
+      the museum could have read the lyric poems of Alcæus and Stersichorus,
+      which in matter and style were excellent enough to be judged not quite so
+      good as Homer; the tender lamentations of Simonides; the warm breathings
+      of Sappho, the tenth muse; the pithy iambics of Archilochus, full of noble
+      flights and brave irregularities; the comedies of Menander, containing
+      every kind of excellence; those of Eupolis and Cratinus, which were equal
+      to Aristophanes; the histories of Theopompus, which in the speeches were
+      as good as Thucydides; the lively, agreeable orations of Hyperides, the
+      accuser of Demosthenes; with the books of travels, chronologies, and
+      countless others of less merit for style and genius, but which, if they
+      had been saved, would not have left Egypt wholly without a history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0043" id="linkimage-0043">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/120.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="120.jpg Alexandrian Forms of Writing " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The trade of writing and making copies of the old authors employed a great
+      many hands in the neighbourhood of the museum. Two kinds of handwriting
+      were in use. One was a running hand, with the letters joined together in
+      rather a slovenly manner; and the other a neat, regular hand, with the
+      letters square and larger, written more slowly but read more easily. Those
+      that wrote the first were called <i>quick-writers</i>, those that wrote
+      the second were called <i>book-writers</i>. If an author was not skilled
+      in the use of the pen, he employed a <i>quickwriter</i> to write down his
+      words as he delivered them. But in order that his work might be published
+      it was handed over to the <i>book-writers</i> to be copied out more
+      neatly; and numbers of young women, skilled in penmanship, were employed
+      in the trade of copying books for sale. For this purpose parchment was
+      coming into use, though the old papyrus was still used, as an inexpensive
+      though less lasting writing material.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Athenæus, if we may judge from Iris writings, was then the brightest of
+      the Alexandrian wits and men of learning. We learn from his own pages that
+      he was born at Naucratis, and was the friend of Pancrates, who lived under
+      Hadrian, and also of Oppian, who died in the reign of Caracalla. His <i>Deipnosophist</i>,
+      or table-talk of the philosophers, is a large work full of pleasing
+      anecdotes and curious information, gathered from comic writers and authors
+      without number that have long since been lost. But it is put together with
+      very little skill. His industry and memory are more remarkable than his
+      judgment or good taste; and the table-talk is too often turned towards
+      eating and drinking. His amusing work is a picture of society in
+      Alexandria, where everything frivolous was treated as grave, and
+      everything serious was laughed at. The wit sinks into scandal, the humour
+      is at the cost of morality, and the numerous quotations are chosen for
+      their point, not for any lofty thoughts or noble feeling. Alexandria was
+      then as much the seat of literary wit as it was of dry criticism; and
+      Martial, the lively author of the <i>Epigrams</i>, had fifty years before
+      remarked that there were few places in the world where he would more wish
+      his verses to be repeated than on the banks of the Nile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing could be lower than the poetic taste in Alexandria at this time.
+      The museum was giving birth to a race of poets who, instead of bringing
+      forth thoughts out of their own minds, found them in the storehouse of the
+      memory only. They wrote their patchwork poems by the help of Homer&rsquo;s
+      lines, which they picked from all parts of the Iliad and Odyssey and so
+      put together as to make them tell a new tale. They called themselves
+      Homeric poets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucian, the author of the <i>Dialogues</i>, was at that time secretary to
+      the prefect of Egypt, and this philosopher found a broad mark for his
+      humour in the religion of the Egyptians, their worship of animals and
+      water-jars, their love of magic, the general mourning through the land on
+      the death of the bull Apis, their funeral ceremonies, their placing of
+      their mummies round the dinner-table as so many guests, and pawning a
+      father or a brother when in want of money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0044" id="linkimage-0044">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/122.jpg" width="100%" alt="122.jpg a Snake-charmer " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      So little had the customs changed that the young Egyptians of high birth
+      still wore their long hair tied in one lock, and hanging over the right
+      ear, as we see on the Theban sculptures fifteen centuries earlier. It was
+      then a mark of royalty, but had since been adopted by many families of
+      high rank, and continues to be used even in the twentieth century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0045" id="linkimage-0045">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:18%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/123.jpg" alt="123.jpg the Sign of Nobility " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Before the end of this reign we meet with a strong proof of the spread of
+      Christianity in Egypt. The number of believers made it necessary for the
+      Bishop of Alexandria to appoint three bishops under him, to look after the
+      churches in three other cities; and accordingly Demetrius, who then held
+      that office, took upon himself the rank, if not the name, of Patriarch of
+      Alexandria. A second proof of the spread of Christianity is the pagan
+      philosophers thinking it necessary to write against it. Celsus, an
+      Epicurean of Alexandria, was one of the first to attack it. Origen
+      answered the several arguments of Celsus with skill and candour. He
+      challenges his readers to a comparison between the Christians and pagans
+      in point of morals, in Alexandria or in any other city. He argues in the
+      most forcible way that Christianity had overcome all difficulties, and had
+      spread itself far and wide against the power of kings and emperors, and he
+      says that nobody but a Christian ever died a martyr to the truth of his
+      religion. He makes good use of the Jewish prophecies; but he brings
+      forward no proofs in support of the truth of the gospel history; they were
+      not wanted, as Celsus and the pagans had not considered it necessary to
+      call it into question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another proof of the number of Egyptian Christians is seen in the literary
+      frauds of which their writers were guilty, most likely to satisfy the
+      minds of those pagan converts that they had already made rather than from
+      a wish to make new believers. About this time was written by an unknown
+      Christian author a poem in eight books, named the <i>Sibylline Verses</i>
+      which must not be mistaken for the pagan fragments of the same name. It is
+      written in the form of a prophecy, in the style used by the Gnostics, and
+      is full of dark sentences and half-expressed hints.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another spurious Christian work of about the same time is the <i>Clementina</i>,
+      or the <i>Recognitions of Clemens</i>, Bishop of Rome. It is an account of
+      the travels of the Apostle Peter and his conversation with Simon Magus;
+      but the author&rsquo;s knowledge of the Egyptian mythology, of the opinions of
+      the Greek philosophers, and of the astrological rules by which fortunes
+      are foretold from the planets&rsquo; places, amply prove that he was an Egyptian
+      or an Alexandrian. No name ranked higher among the Christians than that of
+      Clemens Romanus; and this is only one out of several cases of Christian
+      authors who wished to give weight to their own opinions by passing them
+      upon the world as his writings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marcus Aurelius, who died in 181 A.D., had pardoned the children of the
+      rebel general Avidius Cassius, but Commodus began his reign by putting
+      them to death; and, while thus disregarding the example and advice of his
+      father, he paid his memory the idle compliment of continuing his series of
+      dates on his own coins. But the Egyptian coinage of Commodus clearly
+      betrays the sad change that was gradually taking place in the arts of the
+      country; we no longer see the former beauty and variety of subjects; and
+      the silver, which had before been very much mixed with copper, was under
+      Commodus hardly to be known from brass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0046" id="linkimage-0046">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:22%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/125.jpg" alt="125.jpg Cartouche of Commodus " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Commodus was very partial to the Egyptian superstitions, and he adopted
+      the tonsure, and had his head shaven like a priest of Isis, that he might
+      more properly carry an Anubis staff in sacred processions, which continued
+      to be a feature of the religious activities of the age. Upper Egypt had
+      latterly been falling off in population. It had been drained of all its
+      hoarded wealth. Its carrying trade through Koptos to the Red Sea was much
+      lessened. Any tribute that its temples received from the piety of the
+      neighbourhood was small. Nubia was a desert; and a few soldiers at Syênê
+      were enough to guard the poverty of the Thebaid from the inroads of the
+      Blemmyes. It was no longer necessary to send criminals to the Oasis; it
+      was enough to banish them to the neighbourhood of Thebes. Hence we learn
+      but little of the state of the country. Now and then a traveller, after
+      measuring the pyramids of Memphis and the underground tombs of Thebes,
+      might venture as far as the cataracts, and watch the sun at noon on the
+      longest day shining to the bottom of the sacred well at Syênê, like the
+      orator Aristides and his friend Dion. But such travellers were few; the
+      majority of those who made this journey have left the fact on record.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The celebrated museum, which had held the vast library of the Ptolemies,
+      had been burnt by the soldiers of Julius Cæsar in one of their battles
+      with the Egyptian army in the streets of Alexandria; but the loss had been
+      in part repaired by Mark Antony&rsquo;s gift of the library from Pergamus to the
+      temple of Serapis. The new library, however, would seem to have been
+      placed in a building somewhat separated from the temple, as when the
+      temple of Serapis was burnt in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and again
+      when it was in part destroyed by fire in the second year of this reign we
+      hear of no loss of books; and two hundred years later the library of the
+      Serapium, it is said, had risen to the number of seven hundred thousand
+      volumes. The temple-keeper to the great god Serapis, or one of the
+      temple-keepers, at this time was Asclepiades, a noted boxer and wrestler,
+      who had been made chief of the wrestling-ground and had received the high
+      rank of the emperor&rsquo;s freedman. He set up a statue to his father
+      Demetrius, an equally noted boxer and wrestler, who had been chief priest
+      of the wrestling-ground and of the emperor&rsquo;s baths in the last reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0047" id="linkimage-0047">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:12%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/126.jpg" alt="126.jpg the Anubis Staff " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Another favourite in the theatre was Apolaustus of Memphis, who removed to
+      Rome, where he was crowned as conqueror in the games, and as a reward made
+      priest to Apollo and emperor&rsquo;s freedman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The city of Canopus was still a large mart for merchandise, as the shallow
+      but safe entrance to its harbour made it a favourite with pilots of the
+      small trading vessels, who rather dreaded the rocks at the mouth of the
+      harbour of Alexandria. A temple of Serapis which had lately been built at
+      Canopus was dedicated to the god in the name of the Emperor Commodus; and
+      there some of the grosser superstitions of the polytheists fled before the
+      spread of Christianity and platonism in Alexandria. The Canopic jars,
+      which held those parts of the body that could not be made solid in the
+      mummy, and which had the heads of the four lesser gods of the dead on
+      their lids, received their name from this city. The sculptures on the
+      beautiful temples of Contra-Latopolis were also finished in this reign,
+      and the emperor&rsquo;s names and titles were carved on the walls in
+      hieroglyphics, with those of the Ptolemies, under whom the temple itself
+      had been built. Commodus may perhaps not have been the last emperor whose
+      name and praises were carved in hieroglyphics; but all the great buildings
+      in the Thebaid, which add such value to the early history of Egypt, had
+      ceased before his reign. Other buildings of a less lasting form were no
+      doubt being built, such as the Greek temples at Antinoopolis and
+      Ptolemais, which have long since been swept away; but the Egyptian
+      priests, with their gigantic undertakings, their noble plan of working for
+      after ages rather than for themselves, were nearly ruined, and we find no
+      ancient building now standing in Egypt that was raised after the time of
+      the dynasty of the Antonines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the poverty of the Egyptians was not the only cause why they built no
+      more temples. Though the colossal statue of Amenhôthes uttered its musical
+      notes every morning at sunrise, still tuneful amid the desolation with
+      which it was surrounded, and the Nile was still worshipped at midsummer by
+      the husbandman to secure its fertilising overflow; nevertheless, the
+      religion itself for which the temples had been built was fast giving way
+      before the silent spread of Christianity. The religion of the Egyptians,
+      unlike that of the Greeks, was no longer upheld by the magistrate; it
+      rested solely on the belief of its followers, and it may have merged into
+      Christianity the faster for the greater number of truths which were
+      contained in it than in the paganism of other nations. The scanty
+      hieroglyphical records tell us little of thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
+      Indeed that cumbersome mode of writing, which alone was used in religious
+      matters, was little fitted for anything beyond the most material parts of
+      their mythology. Hence we must not believe that the Egyptian polytheism
+      was quite so gross as would appear from the sculptures; and indeed we
+      there learn that they believed, even at the earliest times, in a
+      resurrection from the tomb, a day of judgment, and a future state of
+      rewards and punishments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0048" id="linkimage-0048">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/128.jpg" width="100%" alt="128.jpg Canopic Jars " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The priests made a great boast of their learning and philosophy, and could
+      each repeat by heart those books of Thot which belonged to his own order.
+      The singer, who walked first in the sacred processions, bearing the
+      symbols of music, could repeat the books of hymns and the rules for the
+      king&rsquo;s life. The soothsayer, who followed, carrying a clock and a
+      palm-branch, the emblem of the year, could repeat the four astrological
+      books; one on the moon&rsquo;s phases, one on the fixed stars, and two on their
+      heliacal risings. The scribe, who walked next, carrying a book and the
+      flat rule which held the ink and pen, was acquainted with the geography of
+      the world and of the Nile, and with those books which describe the motions
+      of the sun, moon, and planets, and the furniture of the temple and
+      consecrated places. The master of the robes understood the ten books
+      relating to education, to the marks on the sacred heifers, and to the
+      worship of the gods, embracing the sacrifices, the first-fruits, the
+      hymns, the prayers, the processions, and festivals. The prophet or
+      preacher, who walked last, carrying in his arms the great water-pot, was
+      the president of the temple, and learned in the ten books, called
+      hieratic, relating to the laws, the gods, the management of the temples,
+      and the revenue. Thus, of the forty-two chief books of Thot, thirty-six
+      were learned by these priests, while the remaining six on the body, its
+      diseases, and medicines, were learned by the Pastophori, priests who
+      carried the image of the god in a small shrine. These books had been
+      written at various times: some may have been very old, but some were
+      undoubtedly new; they together formed the Egyptian bible. Apollonius, or
+      Apollonides Horapis, an Egyptian priest, had lately published a work on
+      these matters in his own language, named Shomenuthi, <i>the book of the
+      gods</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0049" id="linkimage-0049">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/130.jpg" width="100%" alt="130.jpg Religious Procession " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      But the priests were no longer the earnest, sincere teachers as of old;
+      they had invented a system of secondary meanings, by which they explained
+      away the coarse religion of their statues and sacred animals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They had two religions, one for the many and one for the few; one,
+      material and visible, for the crowds in the outer courtyards, in which the
+      hero was made a god and every attribute of deity was made a person; and
+      another, spiritual and intellectual, for the learned in the schools and
+      sacred colleges. Even if we were not told, we could have no doubt but the
+      main point of secret knowledge among the learned was a disbelief in those
+      very doctrines which they were teaching to the vulgar, and which they now
+      explained among themselves by saying that they had a second meaning. This,
+      perhaps, was part of the great secret of the goddess Isis, the secret of
+      Abydos, the betrayer of which was more guilty than he who should try to
+      stop the <i>baris</i> or sacred barge in the procession on the Nile. The
+      worship of gods, before whose statues the nation had bowed with unchanging
+      devotion for at least two thousand years was now drawing to a close.
+      Hitherto the priests had been able to resist all new opinions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0050" id="linkimage-0050">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:14%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/131.jpg" alt="131.jpg Shrine " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The name of Amon-Ra had at one time been cut out from the Theban monuments
+      to make way for a god from Lower Egypt; but it had been cut in again when
+      the storm passed by. The Jewish monotheism had left the crowd of gods
+      unlessened. The Persian efforts had overthrown statues and broken open
+      temples, but had not been able to introduce their worship of the sun. The
+      Greek conquerors had yielded to the Egyptian mind without a struggle; and
+      Alexander had humbly begged at the door of the temple to be acknowledged
+      as a son of Amon. But in the fulness of time these opinions, which seemed
+      as firmly based as the monuments which represented them, sunk before a
+      religion which set up no new statues, and could command no force to break
+      open temples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptian priests, who had been proud of the superiority of their own
+      doctrines over the paganism of their neighbours, mourned the overthrow of
+      their national religion. &ldquo;Our land,&rdquo; says the author of Hermes
+      Trismegistus, &ldquo;is the temple of the world; but, as wise men should foresee
+      all things, you should know that a time is coming when it will seem that
+      the Egyptians have by an unfailing piety served God in vain. For when
+      strangers shall possess this kingdom religion will be neglected, and laws
+      made against piety and divine worship, with punishment on those who favour
+      it. Then this holy seat will be full of idolatry, idols&rsquo; temples, and dead
+      men&rsquo;s tombs. O Egypt, Egypt, there shall remain of thy religion but vague
+      stories which posterity will refuse to believe, and words graven in stone
+      recounting thy piety. The Scythian, the Indian, or some other barbarous
+      neighbour shall dwell in Egypt. The Divinity shall reascend into the
+      heaven; and Egypt shall be a desert, widowed of men and gods.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The spread of Christianity among the Egyptians was such that their
+      teachers found it necessary to supply them with a life of Jesus, written
+      in their own language, that they might the more readily explain to them
+      his claim to be obeyed, and the nature of his commands. The Gospel
+      according to the Egyptians, for such was the name this work bore, has long
+      since been lost, and was little quoted by the Alexandrians. It was most
+      likely a translation from one of the four gospels, though it had some
+      different readings suited to its own church, and contained some praise of
+      celibacy not found in the New Testament; but it was not valued by the
+      Greeks, and was lost on the spread of the Koptic translation of the whole
+      New Testament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grave, serious Christians of Upper Egypt were very unlike the lively
+      Alexandrians. But though the difference arose from peculiarities of
+      national character, it was only spoken of as a difference of opinion. The
+      Egyptians formed an ascetic sect in the church, who were called heretics
+      by the Alexandrians, and named Docetas, because they taught that the
+      Saviour was a god, and did not really suffer on the cross, but was
+      crucified only <i>in appearance</i>. They of necessity used the Gospel
+      according to the Egyptians, which is quoted by Cassianus, one of their
+      writers; many of them renounced marriage with, the other pleasures and
+      duties of social life, and placed their chief virtue in painful
+      self-denial; and out of them sprang that remarkable class of hermits,
+      monks, and fathers of the desert who in a few centuries covered Europe
+      with monasteries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is remarkable that the translation of a gospel into Koptic introduced a
+      Greek alphabet into the Koptic language. Though for all religious purposes
+      the scribes continued to use the ancient hieroglyphics, in which we trace
+      the first steps by which pictures are made to represent words and
+      syllables rather than letters, yet for the common purposes of writing they
+      had long since made use of the <i>enchorial</i> or common hand, in which
+      the earlier system of writing is improved by the characters representing
+      only letters, though sadly too numerous for each to have a fixed and
+      well-known force. But, as the hieroglyphics were also always used for
+      carved writing on all subjects, and the common hand only used on papyrus
+      with a reed pen, the latter became wholly an indistinct running hand; it
+      lost that beauty and regularity which the hieroglyphics, like the Greek
+      and Roman characters, kept by being carved on stone, and hence it would
+      seem arose the want of a new alphabet for the New Testament. This was made
+      by merely adding to the Greek alphabet six new letters borrowed from the
+      hieroglyphics for those sounds which the Greeks did not use; and the
+      writing was then written from left to right like a European language
+      instead of in either direction according to the skill or fancy of the
+      scribe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was only upon the ancient hieroglyphics thus falling into disuse that
+      the Greeks of Alexandria, almost for the first time, had the curiosity to
+      study the principles on which they were written. Clemens Alexandrinus, who
+      thought no branch of knowledge unworthy of his attention, gives a slight
+      account of them, nearly agreeing with the results of our modern
+      discoveries. He mentions the three kinds of writing; first, the <i>hieroglyphic</i>;
+      secondly, the <i>hieratic</i>, which is nearly the same, but written with
+      a pen, and less ornamental than the carved figures; and thirdly, the <i>demotic</i>,
+      or common alphabetic writing. He then divides the hieroglyphic into the
+      alphabetic and the symbolic; and lastly, he divides the symbolic
+      characters into the imitative, the figurative, and those formed like
+      riddles. As instances of these last we may quote, for the first, the three
+      zigzag lines which by simple imitation mean &ldquo;water;&rdquo; for the second, the
+      oval which mean &ldquo;a name,&rdquo; because kings&rsquo; names were written within ovals;
+      and for the third, a cup with three anvils, which mean &ldquo;Lord of Battles,&rdquo;
+       because &ldquo;cup&rdquo; and &ldquo;lord&rdquo; have nearly the same sound <i>neb</i>, and
+      &ldquo;anvils&rdquo; and &ldquo;battles&rdquo; have nearly the same sound <i>meshe</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this reign Pantonus of Athens, a Stoic philosopher, held the first
+      place among the Christians of Alexandria. He is celebrated for uniting the
+      study of heathen learning with a religious zeal which led him to preach
+      Christianity in Abyssinia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0051" id="linkimage-0051">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/135.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="135.jpg Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic Writing " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      He introduced a taste for philosophy among the Christians; and, though
+      Athenagoras rather deserves that honour, he was called the founder of the
+      catechetical school which gave birth to the series of learned Christian
+      writers that flourished in Alexandria for the next century. To have been a
+      learned man and a Christian, and to have encouraged learning among the
+      catechists in his schools may seem deserving of no great praise. Was the
+      religion of Jesus to spread ignorance and darkness over the world? But we
+      must remember that a new religion cannot be introduced without some danger
+      that learning and science may get forbidden, together with the ancient
+      superstitions which had been taught in the same schools; we shall
+      hereafter see that in the quarrels between pagans and Christians, and
+      again between the several sects of Christians, learning was often
+      reproached with being unfavourable to true religion; and then it will be
+      granted that it was no small merit to have founded a school in which
+      learning and Christianity went hand in hand for nearly two centuries.
+      Pantænus has left no writings of his own, and is best known through his
+      pupil or fellow-student, Clemens. He is said to have brought with him to
+      Alexandria, from the Jewish Christians that he met with on his travels, a
+      copy of St. Matthew&rsquo;s Gospel in the original Hebrew, a work now
+      unfortunately lost, which, if we possessed it, would settle for us the
+      disputed point, whether or no it contained all that now bears that
+      Apostle&rsquo;s name in the Greek translation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The learned, industrious, and pious Clemens, who, to distinguish him from
+      Clemens of Rome, is usually called Clemens Alexandrinus, succeeded
+      Pantænus in the catechetical school, and was at the same time a voluminous
+      writer. He was in his philosophy a platonist, though sometimes called of
+      the Eclectic school. He has left an Address to the Gentiles, a treatise on
+      Christian behaviour called Pedagogus, and eight books of Stromata, or <i>collections</i>,
+      which he wrote to describe the perfect Christian or Gnostic, to furnish
+      the believer with a model for his imitation, and to save him from being
+      led astray by the sects of Gnostics &ldquo;falsely so called.&rdquo; By his advice,
+      and by the imitation of Christ, the Christian is to step forward from
+      faith, through love, to knowledge; from being a slave, he is to become a
+      faithful servant and then a son; he is to become at last a god walking in
+      the flesh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Clemens was not wholly free from the mysticism which was the chief mark of
+      the Gnostic sect. He thought much of the sacred power of numbers. Abraham
+      had three hundred and eighteen servants when he rescued Lot, which, when
+      written in Greek numerals thus, IHT formed the sacred sign for the name of
+      Jesus. Ten was a perfect number, and is that of the commandments given to
+      Moses. Seven was a glorious number, and there are seven Pleiades, seven
+      planets, seven days in the week; and the two fishes and five barley
+      loaves, with which the multitude were miraculously fed, together make the
+      number of years of plenty in Egypt under Joseph. Clemens also quotes
+      several lines in praise of the seventh day, which he says were from Homer,
+      Hesiod, and Callimachus; but here there is reason to believe that he was
+      deceived by the pious fraud of some zealous Jew or Christian, as no such
+      lines are now to be found in the pagan poets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the reign of Pertinax, which lasted only three months (194 A.D.),
+      we find no trace of his power in Egypt, except the money which the
+      Alexandrians coined in his name. It seems to have been the duty of the
+      prefect of the mint, as soon as he heard of an emperor&rsquo;s death, to lose no
+      time in issuing coins in the name of his successor. It was one of the
+      means to proclaim and secure the allegiance of the province for the new
+      emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the reign of Commodus, Pescennius Niger had been at the head of the
+      legion that was employed in Upper Egypt in stopping the inroads of their
+      troublesome neighbours, who already sometimes bore the name of Saracens.
+      He was a hardy soldier, and strict in his discipline, while he shared the
+      labours of the field and of the camp with the men under him. He would not
+      allow them the use of wine; and once, when the troops that guarded the
+      frontier at Syênê (Aswan) sent to ask for it, he bluntly answered, &ldquo;You
+      have got the Nile to drink, and cannot possibly want more.&rdquo; Once, when a
+      cohort had been routed by the Saracens, the men complained that they could
+      not fight without wine; but he would not relax in his discipline. &ldquo;Those
+      who have just now beaten you,&rdquo; said Niger, &ldquo;drink nothing but water.&rdquo; He
+      gained the love and thanks of the people of Upper Egypt by thus bridling
+      the lawlessness of the troops; and they gave him his statue cut in black
+      basalt, in allusion to his name Niger. This statue was placed in his Roman
+      villa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0052" id="linkimage-0052">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/139.jpg" width="100%" alt="139.jpg a Native of Aswan " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      But on the death of Pertinax, when Septimus Severus declared himself
+      emperor in Pannonia, Niger, who was then in the province of Syria, did the
+      same. Egypt and the Egyptian legions readily and heartily joined his
+      party, which made it unnecessary for him to stay in that part of the
+      empire; so he marched upon Greece, Thrace, and Macedonia. But there, after
+      a few months, he was met by the army of his rival, who also sent a second
+      army into Egypt; and he was defeated and slain at Cyzicus in Mysia, after
+      having been acknowledged as emperor in Egypt and Syria for perhaps a year
+      and a few months.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0053" id="linkimage-0053">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/140b.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="140b.jpg Painting at the Entrance of The Fifth Tomb " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      We find no Alexandrian coins of Niger, although we cannot allow a shorter
+      space of time to his reign than one whole year, together with a few months
+      of the preceding and following years. Within that time Severus had to
+      march upon Rome against his first rival, Julian, to punish the praetorian
+      guards, and afterwards to conquer Niger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the death of his rival, when Severus was the undisputed master of
+      the empire, and was no longer wanted in the other provinces, he found
+      leisure, in A.D. 196, to visit Egypt; and, like other active-minded
+      travellers, he examined the pyramids of Memphis and the temples at Thebes,
+      and laughed at the worship of Serapis and the Egyptian animals. His visit
+      to Alexandria wras marked by many new laws. Now that the Greeks of that
+      city, crushed beneath two centuries of foreign rule, had lost any remains
+      of courage or of pride that could make them feared by their Roman master,
+      he relaxed part of the strict policy of Augustus. He gave them a senate
+      and a municipal form of government, a privilege that had hitherto been
+      refused in distrust to that great city, though freely granted in other
+      provinces where rebellion was less dreaded. He also ornamented the city
+      with a temple to Rhea, and with a public bath, which was named after
+      himself the Bath of Severus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Severus made a law, says the pagan historian, forbidding anybody, under a
+      severe punishment, from becoming Jew or Christian. But he who gives the
+      blow is likely to speak of it more lightly than he who smarts under it;
+      and we learn from the historian of the Church that, in the tenth year of
+      this reign, the Christians suffered persecution from their governors and
+      their fellow-citizens. Among others who then lost their lives for their
+      religion was Leonides, the father of Origen. He left seven orphan
+      children, of whom the eldest, that justly celebrated writer, was only
+      sixteen years old, but was already deeply read in the Scriptures, and in
+      the great writers of Greece. As the property of Leonides was forfeited,
+      his children were left in poverty; but the young Origen was adopted by a
+      wealthy lady, zealous for the new religion, by whose help he was enabled
+      to continue his studies under Clemens. In order to read the Old Testament
+      in the original, he made himself master of Hebrew, which was a study then
+      very unusual among the Greeks, whether Jews or Christians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this persecution of the Church all public worship was forbidden to the
+      Christians; and Tertullian of Carthage eloquently complains that, while
+      the emperor allowed the Egyptians to worship cows, goats, or crocodiles,
+      or indeed any animal they chose, he only punished those that bowed down
+      before the Creator and Governor of the world. Of course, at this time of
+      trouble the catechetical school was broken up and scattered, so that there
+      was no public teaching of Christianity in Alexandria. But Origen ventured
+      to do that privately which was forbidden to be done openly; and, when the
+      storm had blown over, Demetrius, the bishop, appointed him to that office
+      at the head of the school which he had already so bravely taken upon
+      himself in the hour of danger. Origen could boast of several pupils who
+      added their names to the noble list of martyrs who lost their lives for
+      Christianity, among whom the best known was Plutarch, the brother of
+      Heraclas. Origen afterwards removed for a time to Palestine, and fell
+      under the displeasure of his own bishop for being there ordained a
+      presbyter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Egypt Severus seems to have dated the years of his reign from the death
+      of Niger, though he had reigned in Rome since the deaths of Pertinax and
+      Julian. His Egyptian coins are either copper, or brass plated with a
+      little silver; and after a few reigns even those last traces of a silver
+      coinage are lost in this falling country. In tracing the history of a
+      word&rsquo;s meaning we often throw a light upon the customs of a nation. Thus,
+      in Rome, gold was so far common that avarice was called the love of gold;
+      while in Greece, where silver was the metal most in use, money was called
+      <i>argurion</i>. In the same way it is curiously shown that silver was no
+      longer used in Egypt by our finding that the brass coin of one hundred and
+      ten grains weight, as being the only piece of money seen in circulation,
+      was named an <i>argurion</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter years of the reign of Caracalla were spent in visiting the
+      provinces of his wide empire; and, after he had passed through Thrace and
+      Asia Minor, Egypt had the misfortune to be honoured by a visit from its
+      emperor. The satirical Alexandrians, who in the midst of their own follies
+      and vices were always clever in lashing those of their rulers, had
+      latterly been turning their unseemly jokes against Caracalla. They had
+      laughed at his dressing like Achilles and Alexander the Great, while in
+      his person he was below the usual height; and they had not forgotten his
+      murder of his brother, and his talking of marrying his own mother. Some of
+      these dangerous witticisms had reached his ears at Rome, and they were not
+      forgotten. But Caracalla never showed his displeasure; and, as he passed
+      through Antioch, he gave out that he was going to visit the city founded
+      by Alexander the Great, and to consult the oracle in the temple of
+      Serapis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Alexandrians in their joy got ready the hecatombs for his sacrifices;
+      and the emperor entered their city through rows of torches to the sound of
+      soft music, while the air was sweetened with costly scents, and the road
+      scattered with flowers. After a few days he sacrificed in the temple of
+      Serapis, and then visited the tomb of Alexander, where he took off his
+      scarlet cloak, his rings, and his girdle covered with precious stones, and
+      dutifully laid them on the sarcophagus of the hero. The Alexandrians were
+      delighted with their visitor; and crowds flocked into the city to witness
+      the daily and nightly shows, little aware of the unforgiving malice that
+      was lurking in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emperor then issued a decree that all the youths of Alexandria of an
+      age to enter the army should meet him in a plain on the outside of the
+      city; they had already a Macedonian and a Spartan phalanx, and he was
+      going to make an Alexandrian phalanx. Accordingly the plain was filled
+      with thousands of young men, who were ranged in bodies according to their
+      height, their age, and their fitness for bearing arms, while their friends
+      and relations came in equal numbers to be witnesses of their honour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The emperor moved through their ranks, and was loudly greeted with their
+      cheers, while the army which encircled the whole plain was gradually
+      closing round the crowd and lessening the circle. When the ring was
+      formed, Caracalla withdrew with his guards and gave the looked-for signal.
+      The soldiers then lowered their spears and charged on the unarmed crowd,
+      of whom a part were butchered and part driven headlong into the ditches
+      and canals; and such was the slaughter that the waters of the Nile, which
+      at midsummer are always red with the mud from the upper country, were said
+      to have flowed coloured to the sea with the blood of the sufferers.
+      Caracalla then returned to Antioch, congratulating himself on the revenge
+      that he had taken on the Alexandrians for their jokes; not however till he
+      had consecrated in the temple of Serapis the sword with which he boasted
+      that he had slain his brother Geta.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Caracalla also punished the Alexandrians by stopping the public games and
+      the allowance of grain to the citizens; and, to lessen the danger of their
+      rebelling, he had the fortifications carried between the rest of the city
+      and the great palace-quarter, the Bruchium, thus dividing Alexandria into
+      two fortified cities, with towers on the walls between them. Hitherto,
+      under the Romans as under the Ptolemies, the Alexandrians had been the
+      trusted favourites of their rulers, who made use of them to keep the
+      Egyptians in bondage. But under Caracalla that policy was changed; the
+      Alexandrians were treated as enemies; and we see for the first time
+      Egyptians taking their seat in the Roman senate, and the Egyptian religion
+      openly cultivated by the emperor, who then built a temple in Rome to the
+      goddess Isis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the murder of Caracalla in A.D. 217, Macrinus, who was thought to be
+      the author of his death, was acknowledged as emperor; and though he only
+      reigned for about two months, yet, as the Egyptian new year&rsquo;s day fell
+      within that time, we find Alexandrian coins for the first and second years
+      of his reign. The Egyptians pretended that the death of Caracalla had been
+      foretold by signs from heaven; that a ball of fire had fallen on the
+      temple of Serapis, which destroyed nothing but the sword with which
+      Caracalla had slain his brother; and that an Egyptian named Serapion, who
+      had been thrown into a lion&rsquo;s den for naming Macrinus as the future
+      emperor, had escaped unhurt by the wild beasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Macrinus recalled from Alexandria Julian, the prefect of Egypt, and
+      appointed to that post his friend Basilianus, with Marius Secundus, a
+      senator, as second in command, who was the first senator that had ever
+      held command in Egypt. He was himself at Antioch when Bassianus, a Syrian,
+      pretending to be the son of Caracalla, offered himself to the legions as
+      that emperor&rsquo;s successor. When the news reached Alexandria that the Syrian
+      troops had joined the pretended Antoninus, the prefect Basilianus at once
+      put to death the public couriers that brought the unwelcome tidings. But
+      when, a few days afterwards, it was known that Macrinus had been defeated
+      and killed, the doubts about his successor led to serious struggles
+      between the troops and the Alexandrians. The Alexandrians could have had
+      no love for a son of Caracalla; Basilianus and Secundus had before
+      declared against him; but, on the other hand, the choice of the soldiers
+      was guided by their brethren in Syria. The citizens flew to arms, and day
+      after day was the battle fought in the streets of Alexandria between two
+      parties, neither of whom was strong enough, even if successful, to have
+      any weight in settling the fate of the Roman empire. Marius Secundus lost
+      his life in the struggle. The prefect Basilianus fled to Italy to escape
+      from his own soldiers; and the province of Egypt then followed the example
+      of the rest of the East in acknowledging the new emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For four years Rome was disgraced by the sovereignty of Elagabalus, the
+      pretended son of Caracalla, and we find his coins each year in Alexandria.
+      He was succeeded by the young Alexander, whose amiable virtues, however,
+      could not gain for him the respect which he lost by the weakness of his
+      government. The Alexandrians, always ready to lampoon their rulers,
+      laughed at his wish to be thought a Roman; they called him the Syrian, the
+      high priest, and the ruler of the synagogue. And well might they think
+      slightly of his government, when a prefect of Egypt owed his appointment
+      to the emperor&rsquo;s want of power to punish him. Epagathus had headed a
+      mutiny of the prætorian guards in Rome, in which their general Ulpian was
+      killed; and Alexander, afraid to punish the murderers, made the ringleader
+      of the rebels prefect of Egypt in order to send him out of the way; so
+      little did it then seem necessary to follow the cautious policy of
+      Augustus, or to fear a rebellion in that province. But after a short time,
+      when Epagathus had been forgotten by the Roman legion, he was removed to
+      the government of Crete, and then at last punished with death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this reign Ammonius Saccas became the founder of a new and most
+      important school of philosophy, that of the Alexandrian platonists. He is
+      only known to us through his pupils, in whose writings we trace the mind
+      and system of the teacher. The most celebrated of these pupils were
+      Plotinus, Herennius, and Origen, a pagan writer, together with Longinus,
+      the great master of the &ldquo;sublime,&rdquo; who owns him his teacher in elegant
+      literature. Ammonius was unequalled in the variety and depth of his
+      knowledge, and was by his followers called heaven-taught. He aimed at
+      putting an end to the triflings and quarrels of the philosophers by
+      showing that all the great truths were the same in each system, and by
+      pointing out where Plato and Aristotle agreed instead of where they
+      differed; or rather by culling opinions out of both schools of philosophy,
+      and by gathering together the scattered limbs of Truth, whose lovely form
+      had been hewn to pieces and thrown to the four winds like the mangled body
+      of Osiris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Origen in the tenth year of this reign (A.D. 231) withdrew to Cæsarea, on
+      finding himself made uncomfortable at Alexandria by the displeasure of
+      Demetrius the bishop; and he left the care of the Christian school to
+      Heraclas, who had been one of his pupils. Origen&rsquo;s opinions met with no
+      blame in Cæsarea, where Christianity was not yet so far removed from its
+      early simplicity as in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Christians of Syria and Palestine highly prized his teaching when it
+      was no longer valued in Alexandria. He died at Tyre in the reign of
+      Gallus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0054" id="linkimage-0054">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/149.jpg" width="100%" alt="149.jpg a Modern Scribe " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Demetrius, Heraclas, who had just before succeeded Origen
+      in the charge of the Christian school, was chosen Bishop of Alexandria;
+      and Christianity had by that time so far spread through the cities of
+      Upper and Lower Egypt that he found it necessary to ordain twenty bishops
+      under him, while three had been found enough by his predecessor. From his
+      being the head of the bishops, who were all styled fathers, Heraclas
+      received the title of <i>Papa</i>, pope or grandfather, the title
+      afterwards used by the bishops of Rome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the presbyters ordained by Heraclas was Ammonius Saccas, the founder
+      of the platonic school; but he afterwards forsook the religion of Jesus;
+      and we must not mistake him for a second Alexandrian Christian of the name
+      of Ammonius, who can hardly have been the same person as the former, for
+      he never changed his religion, and was the author of the <i>Evangelical
+      Canons</i>, a work afterwards continued by Eusebius of Cæsarea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of the Emperor Alexander, in A.D. 235, while Italy was torn
+      to pieces by civil wars and by its generals&rsquo; rival claims for the purple,
+      the Alexandrians seem to have taken no part in the struggles, but to have
+      acknowledged each emperor as soon as the news reached them that he had
+      taken the title. In one year we find Alexandrian coins of Maximin and his
+      son Maximus, with those of the two Gordians, who for a few weeks reigned
+      in Carthage, and in the next year we again have coins of Maximin and
+      Maximus, with those of Balbinus and Pupienus, and of Gordianus Pius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Persians, taking advantage of the weakness in the empire caused by
+      these civil wars, had latterly been harassing the eastern frontier; and it
+      soon became the duty of the young Gordian to march against them in person.
+      Hitherto the Roman armies had usually been successful; but unfortunately
+      the Persians, or, rather, their Syrian and Arab allies, had latterly risen
+      as much as the Romans had fallen off in courage and warlike skill. The
+      army of Gordian was routed, and the emperor himself slain, either by
+      traitors or by the enemy. Hereafter we shall see the Romans paying the
+      just penalty for the example that they had set to the surrounding nations.
+      They had taught them that conquest should be a people&rsquo;s chief aim, that
+      the great use of strength was to crush a neighbour; and it was not long
+      before Egypt and the other Eastern provinces suffered under the same
+      treatment. So little had defeat been expected that the philosopher
+      Plotinus had left his studies in Alexandria to join the army, in hopes of
+      gaining for himself an insight into the Eastern philosophy that was so
+      much talked of in Egypt. After the rout of the army he with difficulty
+      escaped to Antioch, and thence he removed to Rome, where he taught the new
+      platonism to scholars of all nations, including Serapion, the celebrated
+      rhetorician, and Eustochius, the physician, from Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0055" id="linkimage-0055">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:13%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/151.jpg" alt="151.jpg Symbol of Egypt " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Philip, who is accused by the historians of being the author of Gordian&rsquo;s
+      death, succeeded him on the throne in 244; but he is only known in the
+      history of Egypt by his Alexandrian coins, which we find with the dates of
+      each of the seven years of his reign, and these seem to prove that for one
+      year he had been associated with Gordian in the purple. In the reign of
+      Decius, which began in 249, the Christians of Egypt were again harassed by
+      the zeal with which the laws against their religion were put in force. The
+      persecution began by their fellow-citizens informing against them; but in
+      the next year it was followed up by the prefect Æmilianus; and several
+      Christians were summoned before the magistrate and put to death. Many fled
+      for safety to the desert and to Mount Sinai, where they fell into a danger
+      of a different kind; they were taken prisoners by the Saracens and carried
+      away as slaves. Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria, himself fled from the
+      storm, and was then banished to the village of Cephro in the desert. But
+      his flight was not without some scandal to the Church, as there were not a
+      few who thought that he was called upon by his rank at least to await, if
+      not to court, the pains of martyrdom. Indeed, the persecution was less
+      remarkable for the sufferings of the Christians than for the numbers who
+      failed in their courage, and renounced Christianity under the threats of
+      the magistrate. Dionysius, the bishop, who had shown no courage himself,
+      was willing to pardon their weakness, and after fit proof of sorrow again
+      to receive them as brethren. But his humanity offended the zeal of many
+      whose distance from the danger had saved them from temptation; and it was
+      found necessary to summon a council at Rome to settle the dispute. In this
+      assembly the moderate party prevailed; and some who refused to receive
+      back those who had once fallen away from the faith were themselves turned
+      out of the Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dionysius had succeeded Heraclas in the bishopric, having before succeeded
+      him as head of the catechetical school. He was the author of several
+      works, written in defence of the trinitarian opinions, on the one hand
+      against the Egyptian Gnostics, who said that there were eight, and even
+      thirty, persons in the Godhead, and, on the other hand, against the Syrian
+      bishop, Paul of Samosata, on the Euphrates, who said that Jesus was a man,
+      and that the Word and Holy Spirit were not persons, but attributes, of
+      God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But while Dionysius was thus engaged in a controversy with such opposite
+      opinions, Egypt and Libya were giving birth to a new view of the trinity.
+      Sabellius, Bishop of Ptolemais, near Cyrene, was putting forth the opinion
+      that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were only three names for the one
+      God, and that the creator of the world had himself appeared upon earth in
+      the form of Jesus. Against this opinion Dionysius again engaged in
+      controversy, arguing against Sabellius that Jesus was not the creator, but
+      the first of created beings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Christians were thus each generation changing more and more, sometimes
+      leaning towards Greek polytheism and sometimes towards Egyptian mysticism.
+      As in each quarrel the most mysterious opinions were thought the most
+      sacred, each generation added new mysteries to its religion; and the
+      progress was rapid, from a practical piety, to a profession of opinions
+      which they did not pretend to understand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the reigns of Gallus, of Æmilius Æmilianus, and of Valerian (A.D.
+      251-260), the Alexandrians coined money in the name of each emperor as
+      soon as the news reached Egypt that he had made Italy acknowledge his
+      title. Gallus and his son reigned two years and four months; Æmilianus,
+      who rebelled in Pannonia, reigned three months; and Valerian reigned about
+      six years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egypt, as a trading country, now suffered severely from the want of order
+      and quiet government; and in particular since the reign of Alexander
+      Severus it had been kept in a fever by rebellions, persecutions, and this
+      unceasing change of rulers. Change brings the fear of change; and this
+      fear checks trade, throws the labourer out of employment, and leaves the
+      poor of the cities without wages and without food. Famine is followed by
+      disease; and Egypt and Alexandria were visited in the reign of Gallus by a
+      dreadful plague, one of those scourges that force themselves on the notice
+      of the historian. It was probably the same disease that in a less
+      frightful form had been not uncommon in that country and in the lower
+      parts of Syria. The physician Aretæus describes it under the name of
+      ulcers on the tonsils. It seems by the letters of Bishop Dionysius that in
+      Alexandria the population had so much fallen off that the inhabitants
+      between the ages of fourteen and eighty were not more than those between
+      forty and seventy had been formerly, as appeared by old records then
+      existing. The misery that the city had suffered may be measured by its
+      lessened numbers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During these latter years the eastern half of the empire was chiefly
+      guarded by Odenathus of Palmyra, the brave and faithful ally of Rome,
+      under whose wise rule his country for a short time held a rank among the
+      empires of the world, which it never could have gained but for an union of
+      many favourable circumstances. The city and little state of Palmyra is
+      situated about midway between the cities of Damascus and Babylon.
+      Separated from the rest of the world, between the Roman and the Parthian
+      empires, Palmyra had long kept its freedom, while each of those great
+      rival powers rather courted its friendship than aimed at conquering it.
+      But, as the cause of Rome grew weaker, Odenathus wisely threw his weight
+      into the lighter scale; and latterly, without aiming at conquest, he found
+      himself almost the sovereign of those provinces of the Roman empire which
+      were in danger of being overrun by the Persians. Valerian himself was
+      conquered, taken prisoner, and put to death by Sapor, King of Persia; and
+      Gallienus, his son, who was idling away his life in disgraceful pleasures
+      in the West, wisely gave the title of emperor to Odenathus, and declared
+      him his colleague on the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0056" id="linkimage-0056">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:51%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/155.jpg" alt="155.jpg a Harem Window " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      No sooner was Valerian taken prisoner than every province of the Roman
+      empire, feeling the sword powerless in the weak hands of Gallienus,
+      declared its own general emperor; and when Macrianus, who had been left in
+      command in Syria, gathered together the scattered forces of the Eastern
+      army, and made himself emperor of the East, the Egyptians owned him as
+      their sovereign. As Macrianus found his age too great for the activity
+      required of a rebel emperor, he made his two sons, Macrianus, junior, and
+      Quietus, his colleagues; and we find their names on the coins of
+      Alexandria, dated the first and second years of their reign. But Macrianus
+      was defeated by Dominitianus at the head of a part of the army of
+      Aureolus, who had made himself emperor in Illyricum, and he lost his life,
+      together with one of his sons, while the other soon afterwards met with
+      the same fate from Odenathus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this, Egypt was governed for a short time in the name of Gallienus;
+      but the fickle Alexandrians soon made a rebel emperor for themselves. The
+      Roman republic, says the historian, was often in danger from the
+      headstrong giddiness of the Alexandrians. Any civility forgotten, a place
+      in the baths not yielded, a heap of rubbish, or even a pair of old shoes
+      in the streets, was often enough to throw the state into the greatest
+      danger, and make it necessary to call out the troops to put down the
+      riots. Thus, one day, one of the prefect&rsquo;s slaves was beaten by the
+      soldiers, for saying that his shoes were better than theirs. On this a
+      riotous crowd gathered round the house of Æmilianus to complain of the
+      conduct of his soldiers. He was attacked with stones and such weapons as
+      are usually within the reach of a mob. He had no choice but to call out
+      the troops, who, when they had quieted the city and were intoxicated with
+      their success, saluted him with the title of emperor; and hatred of
+      Gallienus made the rest of the Egyptian army agree to their choice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was in the year 265. The new emperor called himself Alexander, and
+      was even thought to deserve the name. He governed Egypt during his short
+      reign with great vigour. He led his army through the Thebaid, and drove
+      back the barbarians with a courage and activity which had latterly been
+      uncommon in the Egyptian army. Alexandria then sent no tribute to Rome.
+      &ldquo;Well! cannot we live without Egyptian linen?&rdquo; was the forced joke of
+      Gallienus, when the Romans were in alarm at the loss of the usual supply
+      of grain. But Æmilianus was soon beaten by Theodotus, the general of
+      Gallienus, who besieged him in the strong quarter of Alexandria called the
+      Bruchium, and then took him prisoner and strangled him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During this siege the ministers of Christianity were able to lessen some
+      of the horrors of war by persuading the besiegers to allow the useless
+      mouths to quit the blockaded fortress. Eusebius, afterwards Bishop of
+      Laodicea, was without the trenches trying to lessen the cruelties of the
+      siege; and Anatolius, the Christian peripatetic, was within the walls,
+      endeavouring to persuade the rebels to surrender. Gallienus in gratitude
+      to his general would have granted him the honour of a proconsular triumph,
+      to dazzle the eyes of the Alexandrians; but the policy of Augustus was not
+      wholly forgotten, and the emperor was reminded by the priests that it was
+      unlawful for the consular fasces to enter Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The late Emperor Valerian had begun his reign with mild treatment of the
+      Christians; but he was overpersuaded by the Alexandrians. He then allowed
+      the power of the magistrate to be used, in order to check the Christian
+      religion. But in this weakness of the empire Gallienus could no longer
+      with safety allow the Christians to be persecuted for their religion. Both
+      their numbers and their station made it dangerous to treat them as
+      enemies; and the emperor ordered all persecution to be stopped. The
+      imperial rescript for that purpose was even addressed to &ldquo;Dionysius,
+      Pinna, Demetrius, and the other bishops;&rdquo; it grants them full indulgence
+      in the exercise of their religion, and by its very address almost
+      acknowledges their rank in the state. By this edict of Gallienus the
+      Christians were put on a better footing than at any time since their
+      numbers brought them under the notice of the magistrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0057" id="linkimage-0057">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/158b.jpg" width="100%" alt="158b.jpg Egyptian Slave " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="158b-text (4K)" src="images/158b-text.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     From the painting by Siefèrt
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When the bishop Dionysius returned to Alexandria, he found the place sadly
+      ruined by the late siege. The middle of the city was a vast waste. It was
+      easier, he says, to go from one end of Egypt to the other than to cross
+      the main street which divided the Bruchium from the western end of
+      Alexandria. The place was still marked with all the horrors of last week&rsquo;s
+      battle. Then, as usual, disease and famine followed upon war. Not a house
+      was without a funeral. Death was everywhere to be seen in its most ghastly
+      form. Bodies were left un-buried in the streets to be eaten by the dogs.
+      Men ran away from their sickening friends in fear. As the sun set they
+      felt in doubt whether they should be alive to see it rise in the morning.
+      Cowards hid their alarms in noisy amusements and laughter. Not a few in
+      very despair rushed into riot and vice. But the Christians clung to one
+      another in brotherly love; they visited the sick; they laid out and buried
+      their dead; and many of them thereby caught the disease themselves, and
+      died as martyrs to the strength of their faith and love.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As long as Odenathus lived, the victories of the Palmyrenes were always
+      over the enemies of Rome; but on his assassination, together with his son
+      Herodes, though the armies of Palmyra were still led to battle with equal
+      courage, its counsels were no longer guided with the same moderation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0058" id="linkimage-0058">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:35%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/159.jpg" alt="159.jpg Coins of Zenobia " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Zenobia, the widow of Odenathus, seized the command of the army for
+      herself and her infant sons, Herennius and Timolaus; and her masculine
+      courage and stern virtues well qualified her for the bold task that she
+      had undertaken. She threw off the friendship of Rome, and routed the
+      armies which Gallienus sent against her; and, claiming to be descended
+      from Cleopatra, she marched upon Egypt, in 268 A.D., to seize the throne
+      of her ancestors, and to add that kingdom to Syria and Asia Minor, which
+      she already possessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zenobia&rsquo;s army was led by her general, Zabda, who was joined by an
+      Egyptian named Timogenes; and, with seventy thousand Palmyrenes, Syrians,
+      and other barbarians, they routed the Roman army of fifty thousand
+      Egyptians under Probatus. The unfortunate Roman general put an end to his
+      own life; but nevertheless the Palmyrenes were unsuccessful, and Egypt
+      followed the example of Rome, and took the oaths to Claudius. For three
+      years the coins of Alexandria bear the name of that emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Claudius, his brother Quintillus assumed the purple in
+      Europe (A.D. 270); and though he only reigned for seventeen days the
+      Alexandrian mint found time to engrave new dies and to issue coined money
+      in his name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Claudius, also, the Palmyrenes renewed their attacks upon
+      Egypt, and this second time with success. The whole kingdom acknowledged
+      Zenobia as their queen; and in the fourth and fifth years of her reign in
+      Palmyra we find her name on the Alexandrian coins. The Greeks, who had
+      been masters of Egypt for six hundred years, either in their own name or
+      in that of the Roman emperors, were then for the first time governed by an
+      Asiatic. Palmyra in the desert was then ornamented with the spoils of
+      Egypt; and travellers yet admire the remains of eight large columns of red
+      porphyry, each thirty feet high, which stood in front of the two gates to
+      the great temple. They speak for themselves, and tell their own history.
+      From their material and form and size we must suppose that these columns
+      were quarried between Thebes and the Red Sea, were cut into shape by
+      Egyptian workmen under the guidance of Greek artists in the service of the
+      Roman emperors; and were thence carried away by the Syrian queen to the
+      oasis-city in the desert between Damascus and Babylon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0059" id="linkimage-0059">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:38%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/161.jpg" alt="161.jpg Coin of Athenodorus " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Zenobia was a handsome woman of a dark complexion, with an aquiline nose,
+      quick, piercing eyes, and a masculine voice. She had the commanding
+      qualities of Cleopatra, from whom her flatterers traced her descent, and
+      she was without her vices. While Syriac was her native tongue, she was not
+      ignorant of Latin, which she was careful to have taught to her children;
+      she carried on her government in Greek, and could speak Koptic with the
+      Egyptians, whose history she had studied and written upon. In her dress
+      and manners she joined the pomp of the Persian court to the self-denial
+      and military virtues of a camp. With these qualities, followed by a
+      success in arms which they seemed to deserve, the world could not help
+      remarking, that while Gallienus was wasting his time with fiddlers and
+      players, in idleness that would have disgraced a woman, Zenobia was
+      governing her half of the empire like a man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zenobia made Antioch and Palmyra the capitals of her empire, and Egypt
+      became for the time a province of Syria. Her religion like her language
+      was Syriac. The name of her husband, Odenathus, means sacred to the
+      goddess Adoneth, and that of her son, Vaballathus, means sacred to the
+      goddess Baaleth. But as her troops were many of them Saracens or Arabs, a
+      people nearly the same as the Blemmyes, who already formed part of the
+      people of Upper Egypt, this conquest gave a new rank to that part of the
+      population; and had the further result, important in after years, of
+      causing them to be less quiet in their slavery to the Greeks of
+      Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the sceptre of Rome had lately been grasped by the firmer hand of
+      Aurelian, and the reign of Zenobia drew to a close. Aurelian at first
+      granted her the title of his colleague in the empire, and we find
+      Alexandrian coins with her head on one side and his on the other. But he
+      lost no time in leading his forces into Syria, and, after routing
+      Zenobia&rsquo;s army in one or two battles, he took her prisoner at Emessa. He
+      then led her to Rome, where, after being made the ornament of his triumph,
+      she was allowed to spend the rest of her days in quiet, having reigned for
+      four years in Palmyra, though only for a few months in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the defeat of Zenobia it would seem that Egypt and Syria were still
+      left under the government of one of her sons, with the title of colleague
+      of Aurelian. The Alexandrian coins are then dated in the first year of
+      Aurelian and the fourth of Vaballathus, or, according to the Greek
+      translation of this name, of Athenodorus, who counted his years from the
+      death of Odenathus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The young Herodes, who had been killed with his father Odenathus, was not
+      the son of Zenobia, but of a former wife, and Zenobia always acted towards
+      him with the unkindness unfortunately too common in a stepmother. She had
+      claimed the throne for her infant sons, Herennius and Timolaus; and we are
+      left in doubt by the historians about Vaballathus; Vopiscus, who calls him
+      the son of Zenobia, does not tell us who was his father. We know but
+      little of him beyond his coins; but from these we learn that, after
+      reigning one year with Aurelian, he aimed at reigning alone, took the
+      title of Augustus, and dropped the name of Aurelian from his coins. This
+      step was very likely the cause of his overthrow and death, which happened
+      in the year 271.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the overthrow of Zenobia&rsquo;s family, Egypt, which had been so fruitful in
+      rebels, submitted to the Emperor Aurelian, but it was only for a few
+      months. The Greeks of Alexandria, now lessened in numbers, were found to
+      be no longer masters of the kingdom. Former rebellions in Egypt had been
+      caused by the two Roman legions and the Greek mercenaries sometimes
+      claiming the right to appoint an emperor to the Roman world; but Zenobia&rsquo;s
+      conquest had raised the Egyptian and Arab population in their own opinion,
+      and they were no longer willing to be governed by an Alexandrian or
+      European master. In 272 A.D. they set up Firmus, a native of Seleucia, who
+      took the title of emperor; and, resting his power on that part of the
+      population that had been treated as slaves or barbarians for six hundred
+      years, he aimed at the conquest of Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Firmus was a man of great size and bodily strength, and, of course,
+      barbarian manners. He had gained great riches by trade with India; and had
+      a paper trade so profitable that he used to boast that he could feed an
+      army on papyrus and glue. His house was furnished with glass windows, a
+      luxury then but little known, and the squares of glass were fastened into
+      the frames by means of bitumen. His chief strength was in the Arabs or
+      Blemmyes of Upper Egypt, and in the Saracens who had lately been fighting
+      against Rome under the standard of Zenobia. Firmus fixed his government at
+      Koptos and Ptolemais, and held all Upper Egypt; but he either never
+      conquered Alexandria, or did not hold it for many months, as for every
+      year that he reigned in the Thebaid we find Alexandrian coins bearing the
+      name of Aurelian. Firmus was at last conquered by Aurelian in person, who
+      took him prisoner, and had him tortured and then put to death. During
+      these troubles Rome had been thrown into alarm at the thoughts of losing
+      the usual supply of Egyptian grain, as since the reign of Elagabalus the
+      Roman granaries had never held more than was wanted for the year; but
+      Aurelian hastened to send word to the Roman people that the country was
+      again quiet, and that the yearly supplies, which had been delayed by the
+      wickedness of Firmus, would soon arrive. Had Firmus raised the Roman
+      legions in rebellion, he would have been honoured with the title of a
+      rebel emperor; but, as his power rested on the Egyptians and Arabs,
+      Aurelian only boasted that he had rid the world of a robber.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0060" id="linkimage-0060">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/163.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="163.jpg Street Vendors in Metal Ware " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Another rebel emperor about this time was Domitius Domitiamis; but we have
+      no certain knowledge of the year in which he rebelled, nor, indeed,
+      without the help of the coins should we know in what province of the whole
+      Roman empire he had assumed the purple. The historian only tells us that
+      in the reign of Aurelian the general Domitianus was put to death for
+      aiming at a change. We learn, however, from the coins that he reigned for
+      part of a first and a second year in Egypt; but the subject of his reign
+      is not without its difficulties, as we find Alexandrian coins of
+      Domitianus with Latin inscriptions, and dated in the third year of his
+      reign. The Latin language had not at this time been used on the coins of
+      Alexandria; and he could not have held Alexandria for any one whole year,
+      as the series of Aurelian&rsquo;s coins is not broken. It is possible that the
+      Latin coins of Domitianus may belong to a second and later usurper of the
+      same name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aurelian had reigned in Rome from the death of Claudius; and,
+      notwithstanding the four rebels to whom we have given the title of
+      sovereigns of Egypt, money was coined in Alexandria in his name during
+      each of those years. His coinage, however, reminds us of the troubled and
+      fallen state of the country; and from this time forward copper, or,
+      rather, brass, is the only metal used.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aurelian left Probus in the command of the Egyptian army, and that
+      general&rsquo;s skill and activity found full employment in driving back the
+      barbarians who pressed upon the province on each of the three sides on
+      which it was open to attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0061" id="linkimage-0061">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:45%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/165.jpg"
+       alt="165.jpg Coin of Domitianus With Latin Inscription " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      His first battles were against the Africans and Marmaridæ, who were in
+      arms on the side of Cyrene, and he next took the field against the
+      Palmyrenes and Saracens, who still claimed Egypt in the name of the family
+      of Zenobia. He employed the leisure of his soldiers in many useful works;
+      in repairing bridges, temples, and porticoes, and more particularly in
+      widening the trenches and keeping open the canals, and in such other works
+      as were of use in raising and forwarding the yearly supply of grain to
+      Rome. Aurelian increased the amount of the Egyptian tribute, which was
+      paid in glass, paper, linen, hemp, and grain; the latter he increased by
+      one-twelfth part, and he placed a larger number of ships on the voyage to
+      make the supply certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Christians were well treated during this reign, and their patriarch
+      Nero so far took courage as to build the Church of St. Mary in Alexandria.
+      This was probably the first church that was built in Egypt for the public
+      service of Christianity, which for two hundred years had been preached in
+      private rooms, and very often in secret. The service was in Greek, as,
+      indeed, it was in all parts of Egypt: for it does not appear that
+      Christian prayers were publicly read in the Egyptian language before the
+      quarrel between the two churches made the Kopts unwilling to use Greek
+      prayers. The liturgy there read was probably very nearly the same as that
+      afterwards known as the <i>Liturgy of St. Mark</i>. This is among the
+      oldest of the Christian liturgies, and it shows its country by the prayer
+      that the waters of the river may rise to their just measure, and that rain
+      may be sent from heaven to the countries that need it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We learn from the historians that eight months were allowed to pass
+      between the death of Aurelian and the choice of a successor; and during
+      this time the power rested in the hands of his widow. The sway of a woman
+      was never openly acknowledged in Rome, but the Alexandrians and Egyptians
+      were used to female rule, and from contemporary coins we learn that in
+      Egypt the government was carried on in the name of the Empress Severina.
+      The last coins of Aurelian bear the date of the sixth year of his reign,
+      and the coins of Severina are dated in the sixth and seventh years. But
+      after Tacitus was chosen emperor by his colleagues of the Roman senate,
+      and during his short reign of six months (A.D. 276), his authority was
+      obeyed by the Egyptian legions under Probus, as is fully proved by the
+      Alexandrian coins bearing his name, all dated in the first year of his
+      reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0062" id="linkimage-0062">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/167.jpg" width="100%" alt="167.jpg Coin of Severina " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Tacitus, his brother Florian hoped to succeed to the
+      imperial power, and was acknowledged in the same year by the senate and
+      troops of Rome. But when the news reached Egypt it was at once felt by the
+      legions that Probus, both by his own personal qualities and by the high
+      state of discipline of the army under his command, and by his success
+      against the Egyptian rebels, had a better claim to the purple than any
+      other general. At first the opinion ran round the camp in a whisper, and
+      at last the army spoke the general wish aloud; they snatched a purple
+      cloak from a statue in one of the temples to throw over him, they placed
+      him on an earthen mound as a tribunal, and against his will saluted him
+      with the title of emperor. The choice of the Egyptian legions was soon
+      approved of by Asia Minor, Syria, and Italy; Florian was put to death, and
+      Probus shortly afterwards marched into Gaul and Germany, to quiet those
+      provinces.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a year or two, Probus was recalled into Egypt by hearing that the
+      Blemmyes had risen in arms, and that Upper Egypt was again independent of
+      the Roman power. Not only Koptos, which had for centuries been an Arab
+      city, but even Ptolemais, the Greek capital of the Thebaid, was now
+      peopled by those barbarians, and they had to be reconquered by Probus as
+      foreign cities, and kept in obedience by Roman garrisons; and on his
+      return to Rome he thought his victories over the Blemmyes of Upper Egypt
+      not unworthy of a triumph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By these unceasing wars, the Egyptian legions had lately been brought into
+      a high state of discipline, and, confident in their strength, and in the
+      success with which they had made their late general emperor of the Roman
+      world, they now attempted to raise up a rival to him in the person of
+      their present general Saturninus. Saturninus had been made general of the
+      Eastern frontier by Aurelian, who had given him strict orders never to
+      enter Egypt. &ldquo;The Egyptians,&rdquo; says the historian, meaning, however, the
+      Alexandrians, &ldquo;are boastful, vain, spiteful, licentious, fond of change,
+      clever in making songs and epigrams against their rulers, and much given
+      to soothsaying and augury.&rdquo; Aurelian well knew that the loyalty of a
+      successful general was not to be trusted in Egypt, and during his lifetime
+      Saturninus never entered that province. But after his death, when Probus
+      was called away to the other parts of the empire, the government of Egypt
+      was added to the other duties of Saturninus; and no sooner was he seen
+      there, at the head of an army that seemed strong enough to enforce his
+      wishes, than the fickle Alexandrians saluted him with the title of emperor
+      and Augustus. But Saturninus was a wise man, and shunned the dangerous
+      honour; he had hitherto fought always for his country; he had saved the
+      provinces of Spain, Gaul, and Africa from the enemy or from rebellion; and
+      he knew the value of his rank and character too well to fling it away for
+      a bauble. To escape from further difficulties he withdrew from Egypt, and
+      moved his headquarters into Palestine. But the treasonable cheers of the
+      Alexandrians could neither be forgotten by himself nor by his troops; he
+      had withstood the calls of ambition, but he yielded at last to his fears;
+      he became a rebel for fear of being thought one, and he declared himself
+      emperor as the safest mode of escaping punishment. But he was soon
+      afterwards defeated and strangled, against the will of the forgiving
+      Probus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Probus, in A.D. 283, the empire fell to Carus and his
+      sons, Numerianus and Carinus, whose names are found on the Alexandrian
+      coins, but whose short reigns have left no other trace in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0063" id="linkimage-0063">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:38%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/169.jpg"
+       alt="169.jpg Coin of Trajan&rsquo;s Second Legion " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      At this time also we find upon the coins the name of Trajan&rsquo;s second
+      Egyptian legion, which was at all times stationed in Egypt, and which,
+      acting upon an authority that was usually granted to the Roman legions in
+      the various provinces, coined money of several kinds for their own pay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Diocletian, beginning in A.D. 285, was one of suffering to
+      the Egyptians; and in the fourth year the people rose against the Roman
+      government, and gave the title of emperor to Achilleus, their leader in
+      the rebellion. Galerius, the Roman general, led an army against the
+      rebels, and marched through the whole of the Thebaid; but, though the
+      Egyptians were routed whenever they were bold enough to meet the legions
+      in battle, yet the rebellion was not very easily crushed. The Romans were
+      scarcely obeyed beyond the spot on which their army was encamped. In the
+      fourth year of the rebellion, A.D. 292, Diocletian came to Egypt, and the
+      cities of Koptos and Busiris were besieged by the emperor in person, and
+      wholly destroyed after a regular siege.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Diocletian reached the southern limits of Egypt he was able to judge
+      of the difficulty, and indeed the uselessness, of trying to hold any part
+      of Ethiopia; and he found that the tribute levied there was less than the
+      cost of the troops required to collect it. He therefore made a new treaty
+      with the Nobatæ, as the people between the first and second cataracts were
+      now called. He gave up to them the whole of Lower Ethiopia, or the
+      province called Nubia. The valley for seventy miles above Syênê, which
+      bore the name of the Dodecaschonos, had been held by Augustus and his
+      successors, and this was now given up to the original inhabitants.
+      Diocletian strengthened the fortifications on the isle of Elephantine, to
+      guard what was thenceforth the uttermost point of defence, and agreed to
+      pay to the Nobatae and Blemmyes a yearly sum of gold on the latter
+      promising no longer to harass Upper Egypt with their marauding inroads,
+      and on the former promising to forbid the Blemmyes from doing so. What
+      remains of the Roman wall built against the inroads of these troublesome
+      neighbours runs along the edge of the cultivated land on the east side of
+      the river for some distance to the north of the cataract. But so much was
+      the strength of the Greek party lessened, and so deeply rooted among the
+      Egyptians was their hatred of their rulers and the belief that they should
+      then be able to throw off the yoke, that soon afterwards Alexandria
+      declared in favour of Achilleus, and Diocletian was again called to Egypt
+      to regain the capital. Such was the strength of the rebels that the city
+      could not be taken without a regular siege. Diocletian surrounded it with
+      a ditch and wall, and turned aside the canals that supplied the citizens
+      with water. After a tedious siege of eight months, Alexandria was at last
+      taken by storm in 297, and Achilleus was put to death. A large part of the
+      city was burnt at the storming, nor would the punishment of the citizens
+      have there ended, but for Diocletian&rsquo;s humane interpretation of an
+      accident. The horse on which he sat stumbled as he entered the city with
+      his troops, and he had the humanity to understand it as a command from
+      heaven that he should stop the pillage of the city; and the citizens in
+      gratitude erected near the spot a bronze statue of the horse to which they
+      owed so much. This statue has long since been lost, but we cannot be
+      mistaken in the place where it stood. The lofty column in the centre of
+      the temple of Serapis, now well known by the name of Pompey&rsquo;s Pillar,*
+      once held a statue on the top, and on the base it still bears the
+      inscription of the grateful citizens, &ldquo;To the most honoured emperor, the
+      saviour of Alexandria, the unconquerable Diocletian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See Volume X., page 317.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This rebellion had lasted more than nine years, and the Egyptians seemed
+      never in want of money for the purposes of the war. Diocletian was struck
+      with their riches, and he ordered a careful search to be made through
+      Egypt for all writings on alchemy, an art which the Egyptians studied
+      together with magic and astrology. These books he ordered to be burnt,
+      under a belief that they were the great sources of the riches by which his
+      own power had been resisted. Want and misery no doubt caused this
+      rebellion, but the rebellion certainly caused more want and misery. The
+      navigation of the Nile was stopped, the canals were no longer kept
+      cleared, the fields were badly tilled, trade and manufactures were ruined.
+      Since the rebellions against the Persians, Egypt had never suffered so
+      much. It had been sadly changed by the troubles of the last sixty years,
+      during which it had been six times in arms against Rome; and when the
+      rebellion was put down by Diocletian, it was no longer the same country
+      that it had been under the Antonines. The framework of society had been
+      shaken, the Greeks had lessened in numbers, and still more in weight. The
+      fall of the Ptolemies, and the conquest by Rome, did not make so great a
+      change. The bright days of Egypt as a Greek kingdom began with the
+      building of Alexandria, and they ended with the rebellions against
+      Gallienus, Aurelian and Diocletian. The native Egyptians, both Kopts and
+      Arabs, now rise into more notice, as the Greek civilisation sinks around
+      them. And soon the upper classes among the Kopts, to avoid the duty of
+      maintaining a family of children in such troubled times, rush by thousands
+      into monasteries and convents, and further lessen the population by their
+      religious vows of celibacy. In the twelfth year of the reign, that in
+      which Alexandria rebelled and the siege was begun, the Egyptian coinage
+      for the most part ceased. Henceforth, though money was often coined in
+      Alexandria as in every other great city of the empire, the inscriptions
+      were usually in Latin, and the designs the same as those on the coins of
+      Rome. In taking leave of this long and valuable series of coins with
+      dates, which has been our guide in the chronology of these reigns, we must
+      not forget to acknowledge how much we owe to the labours of the learned
+      Zoega. In his <i>Numi Ægypti Imperatorii</i>, the mere descriptions,
+      almost without a remark, speak the very words of history.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Diocletian is chiefly remarkable for the new law which was
+      then made against the Christians, and for the cruel severity with which it
+      was put into force. The issuing of this edict in 304 A.D., which was to
+      root out Christianity from the world, took place in the twentieth year of
+      the reign, according to the Alexandrians, or in the nineteenth year after
+      the emperor&rsquo;s first installation as consul, as years were reckoned in the
+      other parts of the empire. The churches, which since the reign of
+      Gallienus had been everywhere rising, were ordered to be destroyed and the
+      Bibles to be burnt, while banishment, slavery, and death were the
+      punishments threatened against those who obstinately clung to their
+      religion. In no province of the empire was the persecution more severe
+      than in Egypt; and many Christians fled to Syria, where the law, though
+      the same, was more mildly carried into execution. But the Christians were
+      too numerous to fly and too few to resist. The ecclesiastical writers
+      present us with a sad tale of tortures and of death borne by those who
+      refused to renounce their faith,&mdash;a tale which is only made less sad
+      by the doubt how far the writers&rsquo; feelings may have misled their judgment,
+      and made them overstate the numbers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But we may safely rely upon the account which Eusebius gives us of what he
+      himself saw in Egypt. Many were put to death on the same day, some
+      beheaded and some burnt. The executioners were tired, and the hearts of
+      the pagan judges melted by the unflinching firmness of the Christians.
+      Many who were eminent for wealth, rank, and learning chose to lay down
+      their lives rather than throw a few grains of wheat upon the altar, or
+      comply with any ceremony that was required of them as a religious test.
+      The judges begged them to think of their wives and children, and pointed
+      out that they were the cause of their own death; but the Christians were
+      usually firm, and were beheaded for the refusal to take the test. Among
+      the most celebrated of the Egyptian martyrs were Peter, Bishop of
+      Alexandria, with Faustus, Dius, and Ammonius, presbyters under him; the
+      learned Phileas, Bishop of Thmuis, Hesychius, the editor of the
+      Septuagint, and the Bishops Pachomius and Theodorus; though the pagans
+      must have been still more surprised at Philoromus, the receiver-general of
+      the taxes at Alexandria. This man, after the prefect of Egypt and the
+      general of the troops, was perhaps the highest Roman officer in the
+      province. He sat in public as a judge in Alexandria, surrounded by a guard
+      of soldiers, daily deciding all causes relating to the taxes of Egypt. He
+      was accused of no crime but that of being a Christian, which he was
+      earnestly entreated to deny, and was at liberty indirectly to disprove by
+      joining in some pagan sacrifice. The Bishops of Alexandria and Thmuis may
+      have been strengthened under their trials by their rank in the church, by
+      having themselves urged others to do their duty in the same case, but the
+      receiver-general of the taxes could have had nothing to encourage him but
+      the strength of his faith and a noble scorn of falsehood; he was
+      reproached or ridiculed by all around him, but he refused to deny his
+      religion, and was beheaded as a common criminal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ready ministers of this persecution were Culeianus, the prefect of the
+      Thebaid, and Hierocles, the prefect of Alexandria. The latter was
+      peculiarly well chosen for the task; he added the zeal of the theologian
+      to the ready obedience of the soldier. He had written against the
+      Christians a work named <i>Philalethes</i> (the lover of truth), which we
+      now know only in the answer by Eusebius of Cæsarea. In this he denounced
+      the apostles as impostors, and the Christian miracles as trifling; and,
+      comparing them with the pretended miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, he
+      pronounced the latter more numerous, more important, and better
+      authenticated than the former by the evangelists; and he ridiculed the
+      Christians for calling Jesus a god, while the pagans did not raise
+      Apollonius higher than a man beloved by the gods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This persecution under Diocletian was one of the most severe that the
+      Christians ever underwent from the Romans. It did not, however, wholly
+      stop the religious services, nor break up the regular government of the
+      Church. In the catechetical school, Pierius, whom we have before spoken of
+      as a man of learning, was succeeded by Theognostus and then by Serapion,
+      whose name reminds us that the Egyptian party was gaining weight in the
+      Alexandrian church. It can hardly have been for his superior learning, it
+      may have been because his opinions were becoming more popular than those
+      of the Greeks, that a professor with an Egyptian name was placed at the
+      head of the catechetical school. Serapion was succeeded by Peter, who
+      afterwards gained the bishopric of Alexandria and a martyr&rsquo;s crown. But
+      these men were little known beyond their lecture-room. In the twentieth
+      year of the reign, on the death of Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria, who
+      lost his life as a martyr, the presbyters of the church met to choose a
+      successor. Among their number was Arius, whose name afterwards became so
+      famous in ecclesiastical history, and who had already, even before he was
+      ordained a priest, offended many by the bold manner in which he stated his
+      religious opinions. But upon him, if we may believe a partial historian,
+      the majority of votes fell in the choice of a patriarch of Alexandria, and
+      had he not himself modestly given way to the more ambitious Alexander, he
+      might perhaps have been saved from the treatment which he afterwards
+      suffered from his rival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, in the year 305, Diocletian and his colleague, Valerius Maximian,
+      resigned the purple, Egypt with the rest of the East was given to
+      Galerius, who had also as Cæsar been named Maximian on his Egyptian coins,
+      while Constantius Chlorus ruled the West. Galerius in 307 granted some
+      slight indulgence to the Christians without wholly stopping the
+      persecution. But all favour was again withdrawn from them by his successor
+      Maximin, who had indeed misgoverned Egypt for some years, under the title
+      of Cæsar, before the rank of Augustus was granted to him. He encouraged
+      private informers, he set townsman against townsman; and, as the wishes of
+      the emperor are quickly understood by all under him, those who wished for
+      his favour courted it by giving him an excuse for his cruelties. The
+      cities sent up petitions to him, begging that the Christians might not be
+      allowed to have churches within their walls. The history of these reigns
+      indeed is little more than the history of the persecutions; and when the
+      Alexandrian astronomers, dropping the era of Augustus, began to date from
+      the first year of Diocletian, the Christian writers in the same way dated
+      from the Era of the Martyrs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It can be no matter of surprise to us that, in a persecution which
+      threatened all classes of society, there should have been many who, when
+      they were accused of being Christians, wanted the courage to undergo the
+      pains of martyrdom, and escaped the punishment by joining in a pagan
+      sacrifice. When the storm was blown over, these men again asked to be
+      received into the Church, and their conduct gave rise to the very same
+      quarrel that had divided the Christians in the reign of Decius. Meletius,
+      a bishop of the Thebaid, was at the head of the party who would make no
+      allowance for the weakness of their brethren, and who refused to grant to
+      the repentant the forgiveness that they asked for. He had himself borne
+      the same trials without bending, he had been sent as a criminal to work in
+      the Egyptian mines, and had returned to Alexandria from his banishment,
+      proud of his sufferings and furious against those who had escaped through
+      cowardice. But the larger part of the bishops were of a more forgiving
+      nature; they could not all boast of the same constancy, and the repentant
+      Christians were re-admitted into communion with the faithful, while the
+      followers of Meletius were branded with the name of heretics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In Alexandria, Meletius soon found another and, as it proved, a more
+      memorable occasion for the display of his zeal. He has the unenviable
+      honour of being the author of the great Arian quarrel, by accusing of
+      heresy Arius, at that time a presbyter of the church of Baucala near
+      Alexandria, and by calling upon Alexander, the bishop, to inquire into his
+      belief, and to condemn it if found unsound. Arius frankly and openly
+      acknowledged his opinions: he thought Jesus a created being, and would
+      speak of him in no higher terms than those used in the New Testament and
+      Apostles&rsquo; Creed, and defended his opinions by an appeal to the Scriptures.
+      But he soon found that his defence was thought weak, and, without waiting
+      to be condemned, he withdrew before the storm to Palestine, where he
+      remained till summoned before the council of Nicæa in the coming reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was during these reigns of trouble, about which history is sadly
+      silent, when Greek learning was sinking, and after the country had been
+      for a year or two in the power of the Syrians, that the worship of Mithra
+      was brought into Alexandria, where superstitious ceremonies and
+      philosophical subtleties were equally welcome. Mithra was the Persian god
+      of the sun; and in the system of two gods, one good and the other wicked,
+      he was the god of goodness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0064" id="linkimage-0064">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/179.jpg" alt="179.jpg Symbol of Mithra " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The chief symbol in his worship was the figure of a young hero in Phrygian
+      cap and trousers, mounted on a sinking bull, and stabbing it in sacrifice
+      to the god. In a deserted part of Alexandria, called the Mithrium, his
+      rites were celebrated among ruins and rubbish; and his ignorant followers
+      were as ignorantly accused of there slaying their fellow-citizens on his
+      altars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about the same time that the eastern doctrine of Manicheism was
+      said to have been brought into Egypt by Papus, and Thomas or Hernias. This
+      sect, if sect it may be called, owed its origin to a certain Majus Mani,
+      banished from Persia under the Sassanides; this Mani was a talented man,
+      highly civilised through his studies and voyages in distant lands. In his
+      exile he conceived the idea of putting himself forward as the reformer of
+      the religions of all the peoples he had visited, and of reducing them all
+      to one universal religion. Banished by the Christians, to whom he
+      represented himself as the divinely inspired apostle of Jesus, in whom the
+      Comforter had appeared, he returned to Persia, taking with him a book of
+      the Gospels adorned by extraordinary paintings. Here he obtained at first
+      the favour of the king and the people, till finally, after many changes of
+      fortune, he was pursued by the magi, and convicted in a solemn disputation
+      of falsifying religion; he was condemned to the terrible punishment of
+      being flayed alive, after which his skin was to be stuffed and hung up
+      over the gates of the royal city. His teaching consisted in a mixture of
+      Persian and Christian-Gnostic views; its middle final point was the
+      dualism of good and evil which rules in the world and in the human breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      According to Mani&rsquo;s creed, there were originally two principles, God in
+      His kingdom of light, and the demon with his kingdom of darkness, and
+      these two principles existed independently of each other. The powers of
+      evil fell into strife with each other, until, hurled away by their inward
+      confusion, they reached the outermost edge of their own kingdom, and from
+      there beheld the kingdom of light in all its glory. Now they ceased their
+      strife among themselves and united to do battle to the kingdom of light.
+      To meet them, God created the &ldquo;original man&rdquo; who, armed with the five pure
+      elements, light, fire, air, water, and earth, advanced to meet the hostile
+      powers. He was defeated, though finally saved; but a part of his light had
+      thus made its way into the realm of darkness. In order gradually to regain
+      this light, God caused the mother of life to create the visible world, in
+      which that light lies hidden as a living power or world-soul awaiting its
+      deliverance from the bonds of matter. In order to accomplish this
+      redemption, two new beings of light proceed from God, viz.: Christ and the
+      Holy Ghost, of whom the former, Christus Mithras, has his abode in the sun
+      and moon, the latter in the ether diffused around the entire world. Both
+      attract the powers of light which have sunk into the material world in
+      order to lead them back, finally, into the everlasting realm of light. To
+      oppose them, however, the demons created a new being, viz.: man, after the
+      example of the &ldquo;original man,&rdquo; and united in him the clearest light and
+      the darkness peculiar to themselves, in order that the great strife might
+      be renewed in his breast, and so man became the point of union of all the
+      forces in the universe, the microcosm in which two principles ever strive
+      for the mastery. Through the enticements of the material and the illusions
+      of the demon, the soul of light was held in bondage in spite of its
+      indwelling capacity for freedom, so that in heathenism and Judaism the
+      &ldquo;son of everlasting light,&rdquo; as the soul of the universe, was chained to
+      matter. In order to accomplish this work of redemption more quickly,
+      Christ finally leaves his throne at God&rsquo;s right hand, and appears on
+      earth, truly in human form, but only with an apparent body; his suffering
+      and death on the cross are but illusions for the multitude, although
+      historical facts, and they serve at the same time as a symbol of the light
+      imprisoned in matter, and as a typical expression of the suffering, poured
+      out over the whole of nature (especially in the plant-world), of the great
+      physical <i>weltschmerz</i>. Christ, through his teaching and power of
+      attraction, began the deliverance of the light, so that one can truly say
+      that the salvation of the world proceeds from rays which stream from the
+      Cross; as, however, his teachings were conceived by the apostles in a
+      Jewish sense, and the Gospels were disfigured, Mani appeared as the
+      comforter promised by Christ to accomplish the victory. In his writings
+      only is the pure truth preserved. Finally there will be a complete
+      separation of the light from the darkness, and then the powers of darkness
+      will fall upon each other again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0065" id="linkimage-0065">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:40%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/184.jpg"
+       alt="184.jpg Dome Palm of Upper Egypt " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The ignorant in all ages of Christianity seem to have held nearly the same
+      opinion in one form or other, thinking that sin has arisen either from a
+      wicked being or from the wickedness of the flesh itself. The Jews alone
+      proclaimed that God created good and God created evil. But we know of few
+      writers who have ever owned themselves Manicheans, though many have been
+      reproached as such; their doctrine is now known only in the works written
+      against it. Of all heresies among the Christians this is the one most
+      denounced by the ecclesiastical writers, and most severely threatened by
+      the laws when the law makers became Christian; and of all the accusations
+      of the angry controversialists this was the most reproachful. We might
+      almost think that the numerous fathers who have written against the
+      Manicheans must have had an easy victory when the enemy never appeared in
+      the field, when their writings were scarcely answered, or their arguments
+      denied; but perhaps a juster view would lead us to remark how much the
+      writers, as well as the readers, must have felt the difficulty of
+      accounting for the origin of evil, since men have run into such wild
+      opinions to explain it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another heresy, which for a time made even as much noise as the last, was
+      that of Hieracas of Leontopolis. Even in Egypt, where for two thousand
+      years it had been the custom to make the bodies of the dead into mummies,
+      to embalm them against the day of resurrection, a custom which had been
+      usually practised by the Christians, this native Egyptian ventured to
+      teach that nothing but the soul would rise from the dead, and that we must
+      look forward to only a spiritual resurrection. Hieracas was a man of some
+      learning, and, much to the vexation of those who opposed his arguments, he
+      could repeat nearly the whole Bible by heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Bishop Hesychius, the martyr in the late persecution, was one of the
+      learned men of the time. He had published a new edition of the Septuagint
+      Old Testament, and also of the New Testament. This edition was valued and
+      chiefly used in Egypt, while that by Lucianus, who suffered in the same
+      persecution, was read in Asia Minor from Constantinople to Antioch, and
+      the older edition by Origen remained in use in Palestine. But such was the
+      credit of Alexandria, as the chief seat of Christian learning, that
+      distant churches sent there for copies of the Scriptures, foreign
+      translations were mostly made from Alexandrian copies, and the greater
+      number of Christians even now read the Bible according to the edition by
+      Hesychius. We must, however, fear that these editors were by no means
+      judicious in their labours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the text itself we can learn that the early copiers of the Bible
+      thought those manuscripts most valuable which were most full. Many a gloss
+      and marginal note got written into the text. Their devotional feelings
+      blinded their critical judgment; and they never ventured to put aside a
+      modern addition as spurious. This mistaken view of their duty had of old
+      guided the Hebrew copiers in Jerusalem; and though in Alexandria a juster
+      criticism had been applied to the copies of Homer, it was not thought
+      proper to use the same good sense when making copies of the Bible. So
+      strong was the habit of grafting the additions into the text that the
+      Greek translation became more copious than the Hebrew original, as the
+      Latin soon afterwards became more copious than the Greek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was about this time, at least after Theodotion&rsquo;s translation of Daniel
+      had received the sanction of the Alexandrian church, and when the teachers
+      of Christianity found willing hearers in every city of Egypt, that the
+      Bible was translated into the language of the country. We have now parts
+      of several Koptic versions. They are translated closely, and nearly word
+      by word from the Greek; and, being meant for a people among whom that
+      language had been spoken for centuries, about one word in five is Greek.
+      The Thebaic and Bashmuric versions may have been translated from the
+      edition by Hesychius; but the Koptic version seems older, and its value to
+      the Biblical critic is very great, as it helps us, with the quotations in
+      Origen and Clemens, to distinguish the edition of the sacred text which
+      was then used in Alexandria, and is shown in the celebrated Vatican
+      manuscript, from the later editions used afterwards in Constantinople and
+      Italy, when Christian literature flourished in those countries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Emperor Maximin died at Tarsus in A.D. 313, after being defeated by
+      Licinius, who like himself had been raised to the rank of Augustus by
+      Galerius, and to whom the empire of Egypt and the East then fell, while
+      Constantine, the son of Constantius, governed Italy and the West. Licinius
+      held his empire for ten years against the growing strength of his
+      colleague and rival; but the ambition of Constantine increased with his
+      power, and Licinius was at last forced to gather together his army in
+      Thrace, to defend himself from an attack. His forces consisted of one
+      hundred and fifty thousand foot, fifteen thousand horse, and three hundred
+      and fifty triremes, of which Egypt furnished eighty. He was defeated near
+      Adrianople; and then, upon a promise that his life should be spared, he
+      surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia. But the promise was forgotten and
+      Licinius hanged, and the Roman world was once more governed by a single
+      emperor. The growing strength of his colleague and rival; but the ambition
+      of Constantine increased with his power, and Licinius was at last forced
+      to gather together his army in Thrace, to defend himself from an attack.
+      His forces consisted of one hundred and fifty thousand foot, fifteen
+      thousand horse, and three hundred and fifty triremes, of which Egypt
+      furnished eighty. He was defeated near Adrianople; and then, upon a
+      promise that his life should be spared, he surrendered to Constantine at
+      Nicomedia. But the promise was forgotten and Licinius hanged, and the
+      Roman world was once more governed by a single emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="186 (21K)" src="images/186.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkB2HCH0001" id="linkB2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <a name="linkB0004" id="linkB0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/187.jpg" width="100%" alt="187.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II.&mdash;THE CHRISTIAN PERIOD IN EGYPT
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <i>The Ascendency of the new religion: The Arian controversies: The Zenith
+      of monasticism: The final struggle of Paganism: The decline of Alexandria.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming under the Roman sway, the Greek world underwent, not only
+      politically but also intellectually, a complete change. As the Roman
+      conquest had worn away all political differences and national divergences,
+      and, by uniting the various races under the rule of the empire was
+      bringing to its consummation the work begun by the Macedonian conqueror,
+      it could not fail to influence the train of thought. On the one hand the
+      political and ideal structure of Greek life was crumbling and bringing
+      down the support and guiding principle supplied by the duties of
+      citizenship and the devotion to the commonwealth. Man was thrown upon
+      himself to find the principles of conduct. The customary morality and
+      religion had been shaken in their foundations. The belief in the old gods
+      and the old religion was undermined. Philosophy endeavoured to occupy the
+      place left vacant by the gradual decay of the national religion. The
+      individual, seeking for support and spiritual guidance, found it, or at
+      least imagined he had found it, in philosophy. The conduct of life became
+      the fundamental problem, and philosophy assumed a practical aspect. It
+      aimed at finding a complete art of living. It had a thoroughly ethical
+      stamp, and became more and more a rival of and opposed to religion. Such
+      were the tendencies of the Stoic and Epicurean schools. The Roman rule was
+      greatly favourable to such a development of thought. The Romans were a
+      practical nation, had no conception of nor appreciation for purely
+      theoretical problems, and demanded practical lessons and philosophical
+      investigations which would serve as a guide for life. Thus the political
+      tendency of the time towards practical wisdom had imparted a new direction
+      to philosophical thought. Yet, as time went on, a deep feeling of
+      dissatisfaction seized the ancient world in the midst of all the glories
+      of the Roman rule. This huge empire could offer to the peoples, which it
+      had welded into one mighty unit, no compensation for the loss of their
+      national independence; it offered them no inner worth nor outer fortune.
+      There was a complete discord running through the entire civilisation of
+      the Græco-Roman world. The social condition of the empire had brought with
+      it extreme contrasts in the daily life. The contrasts had become more
+      pronounced. Abundance and luxury existed side by side with misery and
+      starvation. Millions were excluded from the very necessaries of existence.
+      With the sense of injustice and revolt against the existing inequality of
+      the state of society, the hope for some future compensation arose. The
+      millions excluded from the worldly possessions turned longingly to a
+      better world. The thoughts of man were turned to something beyond
+      terrestrial life, to heaven instead of earth. Philosophy, too, had failed
+      to give complete satisfaction. Man had realised his utter inability to
+      find knowledge in himself by his unaided efforts. He despaired to arrive
+      at it without the help of some transcendental power and its kind
+      assistance. Salvation was not to be found in man&rsquo;s own nature, but in a
+      world beyond that of the senses. Philosophy could not satisfy the cultured
+      man by the presentation of its ethical ideal of life, could not secure for
+      him the promised happiness. Philosophy, therefore, turned to religion for
+      help. At Alexandria, where, in the active work of its museum, all
+      treasures of Grecian culture were garnered, all religions and forms of
+      worship crowded together in the great throng of the commercial metropolis
+      to seek a scientific clarification of the feelings that surged and stormed
+      within them. The cosmopolitan spirit and broad-mindedness which had
+      brought nations together under the Egyptian government, which had gathered
+      scholars from all parts in the library and the museum, was favourable also
+      to the fusion and reconciliation in the evolution of thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Alexandria was the birthplace of that intellectual movement which has
+      been described, this was not only the result of the prevailing spirit of
+      the age, but was due to the influence of ideas; salvation could only be
+      found in the reconciliation of ideas. The geographical centre of this
+      movement of fusion and reconciliation was, however, in Alexandria. After
+      having been the town of the museum and the library, of criticism and
+      literary erudition, Alexandria became once again the meeting-place of
+      philosophical schools and religious sects; communication had become
+      easier, and various fundamentally different inhabitants belonging to
+      distinct social groups met on the banks of the Nile. Not only goods and
+      products of the soil were exchanged, but also ideas and thoughts. The
+      mental horizon was widened, comparisons ensued, and new ideas were
+      suggested and formed. This mixture of ideas necessarily created a complex
+      spirit where two currents of thought, of critical scepticism and
+      superstitious credulity, mixed and mingled. Another powerful factor was
+      the close contact in which Occidentalism or Greek culture found itself
+      with Orientalism. Here it was where the Greek and Oriental spirit mixed
+      and mingled, producing doctrines and religious systems containing germs of
+      tradition and science, of inspiration and reflection. Images and formulas,
+      method and ecstasy, were interwoven and intertwined. The brilliant
+      qualities of the Greek spirit, its sagacity and subtlety of intelligence,
+      its lucidity and facility of expression, were animated and vivified by the
+      Oriental spark, and gained new life and vigour. On the other hand, the
+      contemplative spirit of the Orient, which is characterised by its
+      aspiration towards the invisible and mysterious, would never have produced
+      a coherent system or theory had it not been aided by Greek science. It was
+      the latter that arranged and explained the Oriental traditions, loosed
+      their tongues, and produced those religious doctrines and philosophical
+      systems which culminated in Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, the Judaism of
+      Philo, and the Polytheism of Julian the Apostate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the contemplative Oriental mind, with its tendency towards the
+      supernatural and miraculous, with its mysticism and religion, and Greece
+      with her subtle scrutinising and investigating spirit, which gave rise to
+      the peculiar phase of thought prevalent in Alexandria during the first
+      centuries of our era. It was tinctured with idealistic, mystic, and yet
+      speculative and scientific colours. Hence the religious spirit in
+      philosophy and the philosophic tendency in the religious system that are
+      the characteristic features. &ldquo;East and West,&rdquo; says Baldwin,* &ldquo;met at
+      Alexandria.&rdquo; The co-operative ideas of civilisations, cultures, and
+      religions of Rome, Greece, Palestine, and the farther East found
+      themselves in juxtaposition. Hence arose a new problem, developed partly
+      by Occidental thought, partly by Oriental aspiration. Religion and
+      philosophy became inextricably mixed, and the resultant doctrines
+      consequently belong to neither sphere proper, but are rather witnesses of
+      an attempt at combining both.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Baldwin: Dictionary of Philosophy.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      These efforts naturally came from two sides. On the one hand, the Jews
+      tried to accommodate their faith to the results of Western culture, in
+      which Greek culture predominated. On the other hand, thinkers whose main
+      impulse came from Greek philosophy attempted to accommodate their
+      doctrines to the distinctively religious problems which the Eastern
+      nations had brought with them. From whichever side the consequences be
+      viewed, they are to be characterised as theosophical rather than purely
+      philosophical, purely religious, or purely theological.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Constantine the Great, who became sole ruler of the East and
+      West in 323, after ten years&rsquo; joint government with Licinius, is
+      remarkable for the change which was then wrought in the religion and
+      philosophy of the empire by the emperor&rsquo;s embracing the Christian faith.
+      His conversion occurred in 312, and on his coming to the united
+      sovereignty the Christians were at once released from every punishment and
+      disability on account of their religion, which was then more than
+      tolerated; they were put upon a nearly equal footing with the pagans, and
+      every minister of the Church was released from the burden of civil and
+      military duties. Whether the emperor&rsquo;s conversion arose from education,
+      from conviction, or from state policy, we have no means of knowing; but
+      Christianity did not reach the throne before it was the religion of a most
+      important class of his subjects, and the Egyptian Christians soon found
+      themselves numerous enough to call the Greek Christians heretics, as the
+      Greek Christians had already begun to designate the Jewish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Greeks of Alexandria had formed rather a school of philosophy than a
+      religious sect. Before Alexander&rsquo;s conquest the Greek settlers at
+      Naucratis had thought it necessary to have their own temples and
+      sacrifices; but since the building of Alexandria they had been smitten
+      with the love of Eastern mysticism, and content to worship in the temples
+      of Serapis and Mithra, and to receive instruction from the Egyptian
+      priests. They had supported the religion of the conquered Egyptians
+      without wholly believing it; and had shaken by their ridicule the respect
+      for the very ceremonies which they upheld by law. Polytheism among the
+      Greeks had been further shaken by the platonists; and Christianity spread
+      in about equal proportions among the Greeks and the Egyptians. Before the
+      conversion of Constantine the Egyptian church had already spread into
+      every city of the province, and had a regular episcopal government. Till
+      the time of Heraclas and Dionysius, the bishops had been always chosen by
+      the votes of the presbyters, as the archdeacons were by the deacons.
+      Dionysius in his public epistles joins with himself his fellow-presbyters
+      as if he were only the first among equals; but after that time some
+      irregularities had crept into the elections, and latterly the Church had
+      become more monarchical. There was a patriarch in Alexandria, with a
+      bishop in every other large city, each assisted by a body of priests and
+      deacons. They had been clad in faith, holiness, humility, and charity; but
+      Constantine robed them in honour, wealth, and power; and to this many of
+      them soon added pride, avarice, and ambition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This reign is no less remarkable for the religious quarrel which then
+      divided the Christians, which set church against church and bishop against
+      bishop, as soon as they lost that great bond of union, the fear of the
+      pagans. Jesus of Nazareth was acknowledged by Constantine as a divine
+      person; and, in the attempt then made by the Alexandrians to arrive at a
+      more exact definition of his nature, while the emperor was willing to be
+      guided by the bishops in his theological opinions, he was able to instruct
+      them all in the more valuable lessons of mutual toleration and
+      forbearance. The followers of early religions held different opinions, but
+      distinguished themselves apart only by outward modes of worship, such as
+      by sacrifices among the Greeks and Romans, and among the Jews and
+      Egyptians by circumcision, and abstinence from certain meats. When Jesus
+      of Nazareth introduced his spiritual religion of repentance and amendment
+      of life, he taught that the test by which his disciples wrere to be known
+      was their love to one another. After his death, however, the Christians
+      gave more importance to opinions in religion, and towards the end of the
+      third century they proposed to distinguish their fellow-worshippers in a
+      mode hitherto unknown to the world, namely, by the profession of belief in
+      certain opinions; for as yet there was no difference in their belief of
+      historic facts. This gave rise to numerous metaphysical discussions,
+      particularly among the more speculative and mystical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At about this time the chief controversy was as to whether Christ was of
+      the <i>same</i>, or of <i>similar</i> substance with God the Father, this
+      being the dispute which divided Christendom for centuries. This dispute
+      and others not quite so metaphysical were brought to the ears of the
+      emperor by Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and Arius, the presbyter. The
+      bishop had been enquiring into the belief of the presbyter, and the latter
+      had argued against his superior and against the doctrine of the <i>consubstantiality</i>
+      of the Father and the Son. The emperor&rsquo;s letter to the theologians, in
+      this first ecclesiastical quarrel that was ever brought before a Christian
+      monarch, is addressed to Alexander and Arius, and he therein tells them
+      that they are raising useless questions, which it is not necessary to
+      settle, and which, though a good exercise for the understanding, only
+      breed ill-will, and should be kept by each man in his own breast. He
+      regrets the religious madness which has seized all Egypt; and lastly he
+      orders the bishop not to question the priest as to his belief, and orders
+      the priest, if questioned, not to return an answer. But this wise letter
+      had no weight with the Alexandrian divines. The quarrel gained in
+      importance from being noticed by the emperor; the civil government of the
+      country was clogged; and Constantine, after having once interfered, was
+      persuaded to call a council of bishops to settle the Christian faith for
+      the future. Nicæa in Bithynia was chosen as the spot most convenient for
+      Eastern Christendom to meet in; and two hundred and fifty bishops,
+      followed by crowds of priests, there met in council from Greece, Thrace,
+      Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and Libya, with one or two from Western
+      Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this synod, held in the year 325, Athanasius, a young deacon in the
+      Alexandrian church, came for the first time into notice as the champion of
+      Alexander against Arius, who was then placed upon his trial. All the
+      authority, eloquence, and charity of the emperor were needed to quell the
+      tumultuous passions of the assembly. It ended its stormy labours by voting
+      what was called the Homoousian doctrine, that Jesus was of one substance
+      with God. They put forth to the world the celebrated creed, named, from
+      the city in which they met, the Nicene creed, and they excommunicated
+      Arius and his followers, who were then all banished by the emperor. The
+      meeting had afterwards less difficulty in coming to an agreement about the
+      true time of Easter, and in excommunicating the Jews; and all except the
+      Egyptians returned home with a wish that the quarrel should be forgotten
+      and forgiven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This first attempt among the Christians at settling the true faith by
+      putting fetters on the mind, by drawing up a creed and punishing those
+      that disbelieved it, was but the beginning of theological difficulties.
+      These in Egypt arose as much from the difference of blood and language of
+      the races that inhabited the country as from their religious belief; and
+      Constantine must soon have seen that if as a theologian he had decided
+      right, yet as a statesman he had been helping the Egyptians against the
+      friends of his own Greek government in Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a reasonable delay, Arius addressed to the emperor a letter either
+      of explanation or apology, asserting his full belief in Christianity,
+      explaining his faith by using the words of the Apostles&rsquo; Creed, and
+      begging to be re-admitted into the Church. The emperor, either from a
+      readiness to forgive, or from a change of policy, or from an ignorance of
+      the theological controversy, was satisfied with the apology, and thereupon
+      wrote a mild conciliatory letter to Athanasius, who had in the meantime
+      been made Bishop of Alexandria, expressing his wish that forgiveness
+      should at all times be offered to the repentant, and ordering him to
+      re-admit Arius to his rank in the Church. But the young Athanasius, who
+      had gained his favour with the Egyptian clergy, and had been raised to his
+      high seat by his zeal shown against Arius, refused to obey the commands of
+      the emperor, alleging that it was unlawful to re-admit into the Church
+      anybody who had once been excommunicated. Constantine could hardly be
+      expected to listen to this excuse, or to overlook this direct refusal to
+      obey his orders. The rebellious Athanasius was ordered into the emperor&rsquo;s
+      presence at Constantinople, and soon afterwards, in 335, called before a
+      council of bishops at Tyre, where he was deposed and banished. At the same
+      council, in the thirtieth year of this reign, Arius was re-admitted into
+      communion with the Church, and after a few months he was allowed to return
+      to Alexandria, to the indignation of the popular party in that city, while
+      Athanasius remained in banishment during the rest of the reign, as a
+      punishment for his disobedience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This practice of judging and condemning opinions gave power in the Church
+      to men who would otherwise have been least entitled to weight and
+      influence. Athanasius rose to his high rank over the heads of the elder
+      presbyters by his fitness for the harsher duties then required of an
+      archbishop. Theological opinions became the watchwords of two contending
+      parties; religion lost much of its empire over the heart; and the mild
+      spirit of Christianity gave way to angry quarrels and cruel persecutions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another remarkable event of this reign was the foundation of the new city
+      of Constantinople, to which the emperor removed the seat of his
+      government. Rome lost much by the building of the new capital, although
+      the emperors had for some time past ceased to live in Italy; but
+      Alexandria lost the rank which it had long held as the centre of Greek
+      learning and Greek thought, and it felt a blow from which Rome was saved
+      by the difference of language. The patriarch of Alexandria was no longer
+      the head of Greek Christendom. That rank was granted to the bishop of the
+      imperial city; many of the philosophers who hung round the palace at
+      Constantinople would otherwise have studied and taught in the museum; and
+      the Greeks, by whose superiority Egypt had so long been kept in
+      subjection, gradually became the weaker party. In the opinion of the
+      historian, as in the map of the geographer, Alexandria had formerly been a
+      Greek state on the borders of Egypt; but since the rebellion in the reign
+      of Diocletian it was becoming more and more an Egyptian city; and those
+      who in religion and politics thought and felt as Egyptians soon formed the
+      larger half of the Alexandrians. The climate of Egypt was hardly fitted
+      for the Greek race. Their numbers never could have been kept up by births
+      alone, and they now began to lessen as the attraction to newcomers ceased.
+      The pure Greek names henceforth become less common; and among the monks
+      and writers we now meet with those named after the old gods of the
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0005" id="linkB0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/199.jpg" width="100%" alt="199.jpg the Island of Rhodha " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Constantine removed an obelisk from Egypt for the ornament of his new
+      city, and he brought down another from Heliopolis to Alexandria; but he
+      died before the second left the country, and it was afterwards taken by
+      his son to Rome. These obelisks were covered with hieroglyphics, as usual,
+      and we have a translation said to be made from the latter by Hermapion, an
+      Egyptian priest. In order to take away its pagan character from the
+      religious ceremony with which the yearly rise of the Nile wras celebrated
+      in Alexandria, Constantine removed the sacred cubit from the temple of
+      Serapis to one of the Christian churches; and nothwithstanding the gloomy
+      forebodings of the people, the Nile rose as usual, and the clergy
+      afterwards celebrated the time of its overflow as a Christian festival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pagan philosophers under Constantine had but few pupils and met with
+      but little encouragement. Alypius of Alexandria and his friend Iamblichus,
+      however, still taught the philosophy of Ammonius and Plotinus. The only
+      writings by Alypius now remaining are his <i>Introduction to Music</i>; in
+      which he explains the notation of the fifteen modes or tones in their
+      respective kinds of diatonic, chromatic, and enharmonic. His signs are
+      said to be Pythagorean. They are in pairs, of which one is thought to
+      represent the note struck on the lyre, and the other the tone of the voice
+      to be sung thereto. They thus imply accord or harmony. The same signs are
+      found in some manuscripts written over the syllables of ancient poems; and
+      thereby scholars, learned at once in the Greek language, in the art of
+      deciphering signs, and in the science of music, now chant the odes of
+      Pindar in strains not dissimilar to modern cathedral psalmody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sopator succeeded Iamblichus as professor of platonism in Alexandria, with
+      the proud title of successor to Plato, For some time he enjoyed the
+      friendship of Constantine; but, when religion made a quarrel between the
+      friends, the philosopher was put to death by the emperor. The pagan
+      account of the quarrel was that, when Constantine had killed his son, he
+      applied to Sopator to be purified from his guilt; and when the platonist
+      answered that he knew of no ceremony that could absolve a man from such a
+      crime, the emperor applied to the Christians for baptism. This story may
+      not be true, and the ecclesiastical historian remarks that Constantine had
+      professed Christianity several years before the murder of his son; but
+      then, as after his conversion he had got Sopator to consecrate his new
+      city with a variety of pagan ceremonies, he may in the same way have asked
+      him to absolve him from the guilt of murder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Constantine, in 337, his three sons, without entirely
+      dismembering the empire, divided the provinces of the Roman world into
+      three shares. Constantine II., the eldest son, who succeeded to the throne
+      of his father in Constantinople, and Constans, the youngest, who dwelt in
+      Rome, divided Europe between them; while Constantius, the second son, held
+      Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Egypt, of which possessions Antioch on
+      the Orontes was at that time the capital. Thus Alexandria was doomed to a
+      further fall. When governed by Rome it had still been the first of Greek
+      cities; afterwards, when the seat of the empire was fixed at
+      Constantinople, it became the second; but on this division of the Roman
+      world, when the seat of government came still nearer to Egypt, and Antioch
+      rose as the capital of the East, Alexandria fell to be the third among
+      Greek cities. Egypt quietly received its political orders from Antioch.
+      Its opinions also in some cases followed those of the capital, and it is
+      curious to remark that the Alexandrian writers, when dating by the era of
+      the creation, were now willing to consider the world ten years less old
+      than they used, because it was so thought at Antioch. But it was not so
+      with their religious opinions, and as long as Antioch and its emperor
+      undertook to govern the Egyptian church there was little peace in the
+      province.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three emperors did not take the same side in the quarrel which under
+      the name of religion was then unsettling the obedience of the Egyptians,
+      and even in some degree troubling the rest of the empire. Constantius held
+      the Arian opinions of Syria; but Constantine II. and Constans openly gave
+      their countenance to the party of the rebellious Athanasius, who under
+      their favour ventured to return to Alexandria, where, after an absence of
+      two years and four months, he was received in the warmest manner by his
+      admiring flock. But on the death of Constantine II., who was shortly
+      afterwards killed in battle by his brother Constans, Constantius felt
+      himself more master of his own kingdom; he deposed Athanasius, and
+      summoned a council of bishops at Antioch to elect a new patriarch of
+      Alexandria. Christian bishops, though they had latterly owed their
+      ordination to the authority of their equals, had always received their
+      bishoprics by the choice of their presbyters or of their flocks; and
+      though they were glad to receive the support of the emperor, they were not
+      willing to acknowledge him as their head. Hence, when the council at
+      Antioch first elected Eusebius of Æmisa into the bishopric of Alexandria,
+      he chose to refuse the honour which they had only a doubtful right to
+      bestow, rather than to venture into the city in the face of his popular
+      rival. The council then elected Gregory, whose greater courage and
+      ambition led him to accept the office.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The council of Antioch then made some changes in the creed. A few years
+      later, a second council met in the same place, and drew up a creed more
+      near to what we now call the Athanasian; but it was firmly rejected by the
+      Egyptian and Roman churches. Gregory was no sooner elected to the
+      bishopric than he issued his commands as bishop, though, if he had the
+      courage, he had not at the time the power to enter Alexandria. But
+      Syrianus, the general of the Egyptian troops, was soon afterwards ordered
+      by the emperor to place him on his episcopal throne; and he led him into
+      the city, surrounded by the spears of five thousand soldiers, and followed
+      by the small body of Alexandrians that after this invasion of their
+      acknowledged rights still called themselves Arians. Gregory entered
+      Alexandria in the evening, meaning to take his seat in the church on the
+      next day; but the people in their zeal did not wait quietly for the
+      dreaded morning. They ran at once to the church, and passed the night
+      there with Athanasius in the greatest anxiety. In the morning, when
+      Gregory arrived at the church, accompanied with the troops, he found the
+      doors barricaded and the building full of men and women, denouncing the
+      sacrilege, and threatening resistance. But the general gave orders that
+      the church should be stormed, and the new bishop carried in by force of
+      arms; and Athanasius, seeing that all resistance was useless, ordered the
+      deacons to give out a psalm, and they all marched out at the opposite door
+      singing. After these acts of violence on the part of the troops, and of
+      resistance on the part of the people, the whole city was thrown into an
+      uproar, and the prefect was hardly strong enough to carry on the
+      government; the regular supply of grain for the poor citizens of
+      Alexandria, and for Constantinople, was stopped; and the blame of the
+      whole thrown upon Athanasius. He was a second time obliged to leave Egypt,
+      and he fled to Rome, where he was warmly received by the Emperor Constans
+      and the Roman bishop. But the zeal of the Athanasian party would not allow
+      Gregory to keep possession of the church which he had gained only by
+      force; they soon afterwards set fire to it and burned it to the ground,
+      choosing that there should be no church at all rather than that it should
+      be in the hands of the Arians; and the Arian clergy and bishops, though
+      supported by the favour of the emperor and the troops of the prefect, were
+      everywhere throughout Egypt driven from their churches and monasteries.
+      During this quarrel it seems to have been felt by both parties that the
+      choice of the people, or at least of the clergy, was necessary to make a
+      bishop, and that Gregory had very little claim to that rank in Alexandria.
+      Julius, the Bishop of Rome, warmly espoused the cause of Athanasius, and
+      he wrote a letter to the Alexandrian church, praising their zeal for their
+      bishop, and ordering them to re-admit him to his former rank, from which
+      he had been deposed by the council of Antioch, but to which he had been
+      restored by the Western bishops. Athanasius was also warmly supported by
+      Constans, the emperor of the West, who at the same time wrote to his
+      brother Constantius, begging him to replace the Alexandrian bishop, and
+      making the additional threat that if he would not reinstate him he should
+      be made to do so by force of arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Constantius, after taking the advice of his own bishops, thought it wisest
+      to yield to the wishes or rather the commands of his brother Constans, and
+      he wrote to Athanasius, calling him into his presence in Constantinople.
+      But the rebellious bishop was not willing to trust himself within the
+      reach of his offended sovereign; and it was not till after a second and a
+      third letter, pressing him to come and promising him his safety, that he
+      ventured within the limits of the Eastern empire. Strong in his high
+      character for learning, firmness, and political skill, carrying with him
+      the allegiance of the Egyptian nation, which was yielded to him much
+      rather than to the emperor, and backed by the threats of Constans,
+      Athanasius was at least a match for Constantius. At Constantinople the
+      emperor and his subject, the Alexandrian bishop, made a formal treaty, by
+      which it was agreed that, if Constantius would allow the Homoousian clergy
+      throughout his dominions to return to their churches, Athanasius would in
+      the same way throughout Egypt restore the Arian clergy; and upon this
+      agreement Athanasius himself returned to Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the followers of Athanasius was that important mixed race with whom
+      the Egyptian civilisation chiefly rested, a race that may be called
+      Koptic, but half Greek and half Egyptian in their language and religion as
+      in their forefathers. But in feelings they were wholly opposed to the
+      Greeks of Alexandria. Never since the last Nectanebo was conquered by the
+      Persians, eight hundred years earlier, did the Egyptians seem so near to
+      throwing off the foreign yoke and rising again as an independent nation.
+      But the Greeks, who had taught them so much, had not taught them the arts
+      of war; and the nation remained enslaved to those who could wield the
+      sword. The return of Athanasius, however, was only the signal for a fresh
+      uproar, and the Arians complained that Egypt was kept in a constant
+      turmoil by his zealous activity. Nor were the Arians his only enemies. He
+      had offended many others of his clergy by his overbearing manners, and
+      more particularly by his following in the steps of Alexander, the late
+      bishop, in claiming new and higher powers for the office of patriarch than
+      had ever been yielded to the bishops of Alexandria before their spiritual
+      rank had been changed into civil rank by the emperor&rsquo;s adoption of their
+      religion. Meletius headed a strong party of bishops, priests, and deacons
+      in opposing the new claims of the archiepiscopal see of Alexandria. His
+      followers differed in no point of doctrine from the Athanasian party, but
+      as they sided with the Arians they were usually called heretics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this time the statesmen and magistrates had gained a clear view of the
+      change which had come over the political state of the empire, first by the
+      spread of Christianity, and secondly by the emperor&rsquo;s embracing it. By
+      supporting Christianity the emperors gave rank in the state to an
+      organised and well-trained body, which immediately found itself in
+      possession of all the civil power. A bishopric, which a few years before
+      was a post of danger, was now a place of great profit, and secured to its
+      possessor every worldly advantage of wealth, honour, and power. An
+      archbishop in the capital, obeyed by a bishop in every city, with numerous
+      priests and deacons under them, was usually of more weight than the
+      prefect. While Athanasius was at the height of his popularity in Egypt,
+      and was supported by the Emperor of the West, the Emperor Constantius was
+      very far from being his master. But on the death of Constans, when
+      Constantius became sovereign of the whole empire, he once more tried to
+      make Alexandria and the Egyptian church obedient to his wishes. He was,
+      however, still doubtful how far it was prudent to measure his strength
+      against that of the bishop, and he chose rather to begin privately with
+      threats before using his power openly. He first wrote word to Athanasius,
+      as if in answer to a request from the bishop, that he was at liberty, if
+      he wished, to visit Italy; but he sent the letter by the hands of the
+      notary Diogenes, who added, by word of mouth, that the permission was
+      meant for a command, and that it was the emperor&rsquo;s pleasure that he should
+      immediately quit his bishopric and the province. But this underhand
+      conduct of the emperor only showed his own weakness. Athanasius steadily
+      refused to obey any unwritten orders, and held his bishopric for upwards
+      of two years longer, before Constantius felt strong enough to enforce his
+      wishes. Towards the end of that time, Syrianus, the general of the
+      Egyptian army, to whom this delicate task was entrusted, gathered together
+      from other parts of the province a body of five thousand chosen men, and
+      with these he marched quietly into Alexandria, to overawe, if possible,
+      the rebellious bishop. He gave out no reason for his conduct; but the
+      Arians, who were in the secret, openly boasted that it would soon be their
+      turn to possess the churches. Syrianus then sent for Athanasius, and in
+      the presence of Maximus the prefect again delivered to him the command of
+      Constantius, that he should quit Egypt and retire into banishment, and he
+      threatened to carry this command into execution by the help of the troops
+      if he met with any resistance. Athanasius, without refusing to obey,
+      begged to be shown the emperor&rsquo;s orders in writing; but this reasonable
+      request was refused. He then entreated them even to give him, in their own
+      handwriting, an order for his banishment; but this was also refused, and
+      the citizens, who were made acquainted with the emperor&rsquo;s wishes and the
+      bishop&rsquo;s firmness, waited in dreadful anxiety to see whether the prefect
+      and the general would venture to enforce their orders. The presbytery of
+      the church and the corporation of the city went up to Syrianus in solemn
+      procession to beg him either to show a written authority for the
+      banishment of their bishop, or to write to Constantinople to learn the
+      emperor&rsquo;s pleasure. To this request Syrianus at last yielded, and gave his
+      word to the friends of Athanasius that he would take no further steps till
+      the return of the messengers which he then sent to Constantinople.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="207 (55K)" src="images/207.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Syrianus had before received his orders, which were, if possible, to
+      frighten Athanasius into obedience, and, if that could not be done, then
+      to employ force, but not to expose the emperor&rsquo;s written commands to the
+      danger of being successfully resisted. He therefore only waited for an
+      opportunity of carrying them into effect; and at midnight, on the ninth of
+      February, A.D. 356, twenty-three days after the promise had been given,
+      Syrianus, at the head of his troops, armed for the assault, surrounded the
+      church where Athanasius and a crowded assembly were at prayers. The doors
+      were forcibly and suddenly broken open, the armed soldiers rushed forward
+      to seize the bishop, and numbers of his faithful friends were slain in
+      their efforts to save him. Athanasius, however, escaped in the tumult; but
+      though the general was unsuccessful, the bodies of the slain and the arms
+      of the soldiers found scattered through the church in the morning were
+      full proofs of his unholy attempt. The friends of the bishop drew up and
+      signed a public declaration describing the outrage, and Syrianus sent to
+      Constantinople a counter-protest declaring that there had been no
+      disturbance in the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Athanasius, with nearly the whole of the nation for his friends, easily
+      escaped the vengeance of the emperor; and, withdrawing for a third time
+      from public life, he passed the remainder of this reign in concealment. He
+      did not, however, neglect the interests of his flock. He encouraged them
+      with his letters, and even privately visited his friends in Alexandria. As
+      the greater part of the population was eager to befriend him, he was there
+      able to hide himself for six years. Disregarding the scandal that might
+      arise from it, he lived in the house of a young woman, who concealed him
+      in her chamber, and waited on him with untiring zeal. She was then in the
+      flower of her youth, only twenty years of age; and fifty years afterwards,
+      in the reign of Theodosius II., when the name of the archbishop ranked
+      with those of the apostles, this woman used to boast among the monks of
+      Alexandria that in her youth she had for six years concealed the great
+      Athanasius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though the general was not wholly successful, yet the Athanasian party
+      was for the time crushed. Sebastianus, the new prefect, was sent into
+      Egypt with orders to seize Athanasius dead or alive, wherever he should be
+      found within the province; and under his protection the Arian party in
+      Alexandria again ventured to meet in public, and proceeded to choose a
+      bishop. They elected to this high position the celebrated George of
+      Cappadocia, a man who, while he equalled his more popular rival in
+      learning and in ambition, fell far behind him in coolness of judgment, and
+      in that political skill which is as much wanted in the guidance of a
+      religious party as in the government of an empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      George was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, and was the son of a clothier,
+      but his ambition led him into the Church, as being at that time the
+      fairest field for the display of talent; and he rose from one station to
+      another till he reached the high post of Bishop of Alexandria. The fickle,
+      irritable Alexandrians needed no such firebrand to light up the flames of
+      discontent. George took no pains to conceal the fact that he held his
+      bishopric by the favour of the emperor and the power of the army against
+      the wishes of his flock. To support his authority, he opened his doors to
+      informers of the worst description; anybody who stood in the way of his
+      grasp at power was accused of being an enemy to the emperor. He proposed
+      to the emperor to lay a house-tax on Alexandria, thereby to repay the
+      expense incurred by Alexander the Great in building the city; and he made
+      the imperial government more unpopular than it had ever been since
+      Augustus landed in Egypt. He used the army as the means of terrifying the
+      Homoousians into an acknowledgment of the Arian opinions. He banished
+      fifteen bishops to the Great Oasis, besides others of lower rank. He beat,
+      tortured, and put to death; the persecution was more cruel than any
+      suffered from the pagans, except perhaps that in the reign of Diocletian;
+      and thirty Egyptian bishops are said to have lost their lives while George
+      was patriarch of Alexandria. Most of these accusations, however, are from
+      the pens of his enemies. At this time the countries at the southern end of
+      the Red Sea were becoming a little more known to Alexandria. Meropius,
+      travelling in the reign of Constantine for curiosity and the sake of
+      knowledge, had visited Auxum, the capital of the Hexumito, in Abyssinia.
+      His companion Frumentius undertook to convert the people to Christianity
+      and persuade them to trade with Egypt; and, as he found them willing to
+      listen to his arguments, he came home to Alexandria to tell of his success
+      and ask for support. Athanasius readily entered into a plan for spreading
+      the blessings of Christianity and the power of the Alexandrian church. To
+      increase the missionary&rsquo;s weight he consecrated him a bishop, and sent him
+      back to Auxum to continue his good work. His progress, however, was
+      somewhat checked by sectarian jealousy; for, when Athanasius was deposed
+      by Constantius, Frumentius was recalled to receive again his orders and
+      his opinions from the new patriarch. Constantius also sent an embassy to
+      the Homeritse on the opposite coast of Arabia, under Theophilus, a monk
+      and deacon in the Church. The Homerito were of Jewish blood though of
+      gentile faith, and were readily converted, if not to Christianity, at
+      least to friendship with the emperor. After consecrating their churches,
+      Theophilus crossed over to the African coast, to the Hexumito, to carry on
+      the work which Frumentius had begun. There he was equally successful in
+      the object of his embassy. Both in trade and in religion the Hexumito, who
+      were also of Jewish blood, were eager to be connected with the Europeans,
+      from whom they were cut off by Arabs of a wilder race. He found also a
+      little to the south of Auxum a settlement of Syrians, who were said to
+      have been placed there by Alexander the Great. These tribes spoke the
+      language called Ethiopie, a dialect of Arabic which was not used in the
+      country which we have hitherto called Ethiopia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0006" id="linkB0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/213.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="213.jpg Temple of Abu Simbel in Nubia " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Ethiopie version of the Bible was about this time made for their use.
+      It was translated out of the Greek from the Alexandrian copies, as the
+      Greek version was held in such value that it was not thought necessary to
+      look to the Hebrew original of the Old Testament. But these well-meant
+      efforts did little at the time towards making the Hexumitæ Christians.
+      Distance and the Blemmyes checked their intercourse with Alexandria. It
+      was not till two hundred years later that they could be said in the
+      slightest sense to be converted to Christianity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the origin of monastic life has sometimes been claimed for the
+      Essenes on the shores of the Dead Sea, yet it was in Egypt that it was
+      framed into a system, and became the model for the Christian world. It
+      took its rise in the serious and gloomy views of religion which always
+      formed part of the Egyptian polytheism, and which the Greeks remarked as
+      very unlike their own gay and tasteful modes of worship, and which were
+      readily engrafted by the Egyptian converts into their own Christian
+      belief. In the reigns of Constantine and his sons, hundreds of Christians,
+      both men and women, quitting the pleasures and trials of the busy world,
+      withdrew one by one into the Egyptian desert, where the sands are as
+      boundless as the ocean, where the sunshine is less cheerful than darkness,
+      to spend their lonely days and watchful nights in religious meditation and
+      in prayer. They were led by a gloomy view of their duty towards God, and
+      by a want of fellow-feeling for their neighbour; and they seemed to think
+      that pain and misery in this world would save them from punishment
+      hereafter. The lives of many of these Fathers of the Desert were written
+      by the Christians who lived at the same time; but a full account of the
+      miracles which were said to have been worked in their favour, or by their
+      means, would now only call forth a smile of pity, or perhaps even of
+      ridicule.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prosperity and peace,&rdquo; says Gibbon, &ldquo;introduced the distinction of the
+      vulgar and the ascetic Christians. The loose and imperfect practice of
+      religion satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or
+      magistrate, soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal, and
+      implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of
+      their interest, and the indulgence of their passions; but the ascetics,
+      who obeyed and abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired by
+      the severe enthusiasm which represents man as a criminal and God as a
+      tyrant. They seriously renounced the business and the pleasures of the
+      age; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage, chastised their
+      body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as the
+      price of eternal happiness. The ascetics fled from a profane and
+      degenerate world to perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the
+      first Christians of Jerusalem, they resigned the use, or the property, of
+      their temporal possessions; established regular communities of the same
+      sex and a similar disposition, and assumed the names of hermits, monks, or
+      anchorites, expressive of their lonely retreat in a natural or artificial
+      desert. They soon acquired the respect of the world, which they despised,
+      and the loudest applause was bestowed on this divine philosophy, which
+      surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the laborious virtues of
+      the Grecian schools. The monks might indeed contend with the Stoics in the
+      contempt of fortune, of pain, and of death; the Pythagorean silence and
+      submission were revived in their servile discipline; and they disdained,
+      as firmly as the Cynics themselves, all the forms and decencies of civil
+      society. But the votaries of this divine philosophy aspired to imitate a
+      purer and more perfect model. They trod in the footsteps of the prophets,
+      who had retired to the desert; and they restored the devout and
+      contemplative life, which had been instituted by the Essenians, in
+      Palestine and Egypt. The philosophic eye of Pliny had surveyed with
+      astonishment a solitary people who dwelt among the palm trees near the
+      Dead Sea; who subsisted without money, who were propagated without women,
+      and who derived from the disgust and repentance of mankind a perpetual
+      supply of voluntary associates. Antony, an illiterate youth of the lower
+      part of The-baid, distributed his patrimony, deserted his family and
+      native home, and executed his monastic penance with original and intrepid
+      fanaticism. After a long and painful novitiate among the tombs and in a
+      ruined tower, he boldly advanced into the desert three days&rsquo; journey to
+      the eastward of the Nile; discovered a lonely spot, which possessed the
+      advantages of shade and water, and fixed his last residence on Mount
+      Colzim near the Red Sea, where an ancient monastery still preserves the
+      name and memory of the saint. The curious devotion of the Christians
+      pursued him to the desert; and, when he was obliged to appear at
+      Alexandria, in the face of mankind, he supported his fame with discretion
+      and dignity. He enjoyed the friendship of Athanasius, whose doctrine he
+      approved; and the Egyptian peasant respectfully declined a respectful
+      invitation from the Emperor Constantine. The venerable patriarch (for
+      Antony attained the age of 105 years) beheld the numerous progeny which
+      had been formed by his example and his lessons. The prolific colonies of
+      monks multiplied on the sands of Libya, upon the rocks of the Thebaid, and
+      in the cities of the Nile. To the south of Alexandria, the mountain and
+      adjacent desert of Nitria were peopled by five thousand anchorites; and
+      the traveller may still investigate the ruins of fifty monasteries, which
+      were planted in that barren soil by the disciples of Antony. In the Upper
+      Thebaid, the vacant island of Tabenna was occupied by Pachomius and
+      fourteen hundred of his brethren. That holy abbot successively founded
+      nine monasteries of men and one of women; and the festival of Easter
+      sometimes collected fifty thousand religious persons, who followed his
+      angelic rules of discipline. The stately and populous city of
+      Oxyrrhynchos, the seat of Christian orthodoxy, had devoted the temples,
+      the public edifices, and even the ramparts, to pious and charitable uses,
+      and the bishop, who might preach in twelve churches, computed ten thousand
+      females and twenty thousand males of the monastic profession.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The monks borrowed many of their customs from the old Egyptian priests,
+      such as shaving the head; and Athanasius in his charge to them orders them
+      not to adopt the tonsure on the head, nor to shave the beard. He forbids
+      their employing magic or incantations to assist their prayers. He
+      endeavours to stop their emulation in fasting, and orders those whose
+      strength of body enabled them to fast longest not to boast of it. But he
+      orders them not even to speak to a woman, and wishes them not to bathe, as
+      being an immodest act. The early Christians, as being a sect of Jews, had
+      followed many Jewish customs, such as observing the Sabbath as well as the
+      Lord&rsquo;s day; but latterly the line between the two religions had been
+      growing wider, and Athanasius orders the monks not to keep holy the Jewish
+      Sabbath. After a few years their religious duties were clearly laid down
+      for them in several well-drawn codes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the earliest of these ascetics was Amnion, who on the morning of
+      his marriage is said to have persuaded his young wife of the superior
+      holiness of a single life, and to have agreed with her that they should
+      devote themselves apart to the honour of God in the desert. But, in thus
+      avoiding the pleasures, the duties, and the temptations of the world,
+      Amnion lost many of the virtues and even the decencies of society; he
+      never washed himself, or changed his garments, because he thought it wrong
+      for a religious man even to see himself undressed; and when he had
+      occasion to cross a canal, his biographer tells us that attendant angels
+      carried him over the water in their arms, lest, while keeping his vows, he
+      should be troubled by wet clothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the religious controversies, whether pagan or Christian, Rome had often
+      looked to Egypt for its opinions; Constans, when wanting copies of the
+      Greek Scriptures for Rome, had lately sent to Alexandria, and had received
+      the approved text from Athanasius. The two countries held nearly the same
+      opinions and had the same dislike of the Greeks; so when Jerome visited
+      Egypt he found the Church holding, he said, the true Roman faith as taught
+      by the apostles. Under Didymus, who was then the head of the catechetical
+      school, Jerome pursued his studies, having the same religious opinions
+      with the Egyptian, and the same dislike to Arianism. But no dread of
+      heresy stopped Jerome in his search for knowledge and for books. He
+      obtained copies of the whole of Origen&rsquo;s works, and read them with the
+      greatest admiration. It is true that he finds fault with many of his
+      opinions; but no admirer of Origen could speak in higher terms of praise
+      of his virtues and his learning, of the qualities of his head and of his
+      heart, than Jerome uses while he timidly pretends to think that he has
+      done wrong in reading his works.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time&mdash;the end of the eleventh century after the building of
+      the city&mdash;the emperor himself did not refuse to mark on his Roman
+      coins the <i>happy renewal of the years</i> by the old Egyptian
+      astrological fable of the return of the phoenix.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the treatise of Julius Fermicus against the pagan superstitions, it
+      would seem that the sacred animals of the Egyptians were no longer kept in
+      the several cities in which they used to be worshipped, and that many of
+      the old gods had been gradually dropped from the mythology, which was then
+      chiefly confined to the worship of Isis and Osiris. The great week of the
+      year was the feast of Isis, when the priests joined the goddess in her
+      grief for the loss of the good Osiris, who had been killed through
+      jealousy by the wicked Typhon. The priests shaved their heads, beat their
+      breasts, tore the skin off their arms, and opened up the old wounds of
+      former years, in grief for the death of Osiris, and in honour of the
+      widowed Isis. The river Nile was also still worshipped for the blessings
+      which it scatters along its banks, but we hear no more of Amon-Ra, Chem,
+      Horus, Aroëris, and the other gods of the Thebaid, whose worship ceased
+      with the fall of that part of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0007" id="linkB0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:36%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/220.jpg" alt="220.jpg Coin of Constantius " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      But great changes often take place with very little improvement; the fall
+      of idolatry only made way for the rise of magic and astrology. Abydos in
+      Upper Egypt had latterly gained great renown for the temple of Bîsû, whose
+      oracle was much consulted, not only by the Egyptians but by Greek
+      strangers, and by others who sent their questions in writing. Some of
+      these letters on parchment had been taken from the temple by informers,
+      and carried to the emperor, whose ears were never deaf to a charge against
+      the pagans. On this accusation numbers of all ranks were dragged out of
+      Egypt, to be tried and punished in Syria, with torture and forfeiture of
+      goods. Such indeed was the nation&rsquo;s belief in these oracles and prophecies
+      that it gave to the priests a greater power than it was safe to trust them
+      with. By prophesying that a man was to be an emperor, they could make him
+      a traitor, and perhaps raise a village in rebellion. As the devotedness of
+      their followers made it dangerous for the magistrates to punish the
+      mischief-makers, they had no choice but to punish those who consulted
+      them. Without forbidding the divine oracle to answer, they forbade anybody
+      to question it. Parnasius, who had been a prefect of Egypt, a man of
+      spotless character, was banished for thus illegally seeking a knowledge of
+      the future; and Demetrius Cythras, an aged philosopher, was put to the
+      rack on a charge of having sacrificed to the god, and only released
+      because he persisted through his tortures in asserting that he sacrificed
+      in gratitude and not from a wish thus to learn his future fate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the falling state of the empire the towns and villages of Egypt found
+      their rulers too weak either to guard them or to tyrannise over them, and
+      they sometimes formed themselves into small societies, and took means for
+      their own defence. The law had so far allowed this as in some cases to
+      grant a corporate constitution to a city. But in other cases a city kept
+      in its pay a courtier or government servant powerful enough to guard it
+      against the extortions of the provincial tax-gatherer, or would put itself
+      under the patronage of a neighbour rich enough and strong enough to guard
+      it. This, however, could not be allowed, even if not used as the means of
+      throwing off the authority of the provincial government; and accordingly
+      at this time we begin to find laws against the new crime of <i>patronage</i>.
+      These associations gave a place of refuge to criminals, they stopped the
+      worshipper in his way to the temple, and the tax-gatherer in collecting
+      the tribute. But new laws have little weight when there is no power to
+      enforce them, and the orders from Constantinople were little heeded in
+      Upper Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this <i>patronage</i> which the emperor wished to put down was weak
+      compared to that of the bishops and clergy, which the law allowed and even
+      upheld, and which was the great check to the tyranny of the civil
+      governor. While the emperor at a distance gave orders through his prefect,
+      the people looked up to the bishop as their head; and hence the power of
+      each was checked by the other. The emperors had not yet made the terrors
+      of religion a tool in the hands of the magistrate; nor had they yet
+      learned from the pontifex and augurs of pagan Rome the secret that civil
+      power is never so strong as when based on that of the Church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Constantius, in 361, Julian was at once acknowledged as
+      emperor, and the Roman world was again, but for the last time, governed by
+      a pagan. The Christians had been in power for fifty-five years under
+      Constantine and his sons, during which time the pagans had been made to
+      feel that their enemies had got the upper hand of them. But on the
+      accession of Julian their places were again changed; and the Egyptians
+      among others crowded to Constantinople to complain of injustice done by
+      the Christian prefect and bishop, and to pray for a redress of wrongs.
+      They were, however, sadly disappointed in their emperor; he put them off
+      with an unfeeling joke; he ordered them to meet him at Chalcedon on the
+      other side of the straits of Constantinople, and, instead of following
+      them according to his promise, he gave orders that no vessel should bring
+      an Egyptian from Chalcedon to the capital; and the Egyptians, after
+      wasting their time and money, returned home in despair. But though their
+      complaints were laughed at, they were not overlooked, and the author of
+      their grievances was punished; Artemius, the prefect of Egypt, was
+      summoned to Chalcedon, and not being able to disprove the crimes laid to
+      his charge by the Alexandrians, he paid his life as the forfeit for his
+      mis-government during the last reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Artemius was on his trial the pagans of Alexandria remained quiet,
+      and in daily fear of his return to power, for after their treatment at
+      Chalcedon they by no means felt sure of what would be the emperor&rsquo;s policy
+      in matters of religion; but they no sooner heard of the death of Artemius
+      than they took it as a sign that they had full leave to revenge themselves
+      on the Christians. The mob rose first against the Bishop George, who had
+      lately been careless or wanton enough publicly to declare his regret that
+      any of their temples should be allowed to stand; and they seized him in
+      the streets and trampled him to death. They next slew Dracontius, the
+      prefect of the Alexandrian mint, whom they accused of overturning a pagan
+      altar within that building. Their anger was then turned against Diodorus,
+      who was employed in building a church on a waste spot of ground that had
+      once been sacred to the worship of Mithra, but had since been given by the
+      Emperor Constantius to the Christians. In clearing the ground, the workmen
+      had turned up a number of human bones that had been buried there in former
+      ages, and these had been brought forward by the Christians in reproach
+      against the pagans as so many proofs of human sacrifices. In his Christian
+      zeal, Diodorus also had wounded at the same time their pride and
+      superstition by cutting off the single lock from the heads of the young
+      Egyptians. This lock had in the time of Ramses been the mark of youthful
+      royalty; under the Ptolemies the mark of high rank; but was now common to
+      all. Diodorus treated it as an offence against his religion. For this he
+      was attacked and killed, with George and Dracontius. The mob carried the
+      bodies of the three murdered men upon camels to the side of the lake, and
+      there burned them, and threw the ashes into the water, for fear, as they
+      said, that a church should be built over their remains, as had been
+      sometimes done, even at that early date, over the bodies of martyrs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0008" id="linkB0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/225.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="225.jpg a Young Egyptian Wearing the Royal Lock " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      When the news of this outrage against the laws was brought to the
+      philosophical emperor, he contented himself with threatening by an
+      imperial edict that if the offence were repeated, he would visit it with
+      severe punishment. But in every act of Julian we trace the scholar and the
+      lover of learning. George had employed his wealth in getting together a
+      large library, rich in historians, rhetoricians, and philosophers of all
+      sects; and, on the murder of the bishop, Julian wrote letter after letter
+      to Alexandria, to beg the prefect and his friend Porphyrius to save these
+      books, and send them to him in Cappadocia. He promised freedom to the
+      librarian if he gave them up, and torture if he hid them; and further
+      begged that no books in favour of Christianity should be destroyed, lest
+      other and better books should be lost with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is too much reason to believe that the friends of Athanasius were
+      not displeased at the murder of the Bishop George and their Arian
+      fellow-Christians; at any rate they made no effort to save them, and the
+      same mob that had put to death George as an enemy to paganism now joined
+      his rival, Athanasius, in a triumphal entry into the city, when, with the
+      other Egyptian bishops, he was allowed to return from banishment.
+      Athanasius could brook no rival to his power; the civil force of the city
+      was completely overpowered by his party, and the Arian clergy were forced
+      to hide themselves, as the only means of saving their lives. But, while
+      thus in danger from their enemies, the Arians pro-hooded to elect a
+      successor to their murdered bishop, and they chose Lucius to that post of
+      honour, but of danger. Athanasius, however, in reality and openly filled
+      the office of bishop; and he summoned a synod at Alexandria, at which he
+      re-admitted into the church Lucifer and Eusebius, two bishops who had been
+      banished to the Thebaid, and he again decreed that the three persons in
+      the Trinity were of one substance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Emperor Julian thought that George, the late bishop, had
+      deserved all that he suffered, as having been zealous in favour of
+      Christianity, and forward in putting down paganism and in closing the
+      temples, yet he was still more opposed to Athanasius. That able churchman
+      held his power as a rebel by the help of the Egyptian mob, against the
+      wishes of the Greeks of Alexandria and against the orders of the late
+      emperor; and Julian made an edict, ordering that he should be driven out
+      of the city within twenty-four hours of the command reaching Alexandria.
+      The prefect of Egypt was at first unable, or unwilling, to enforce these
+      orders against the wish of the inhabitants; and Athanasius was not driven
+      into banishment till Julian wrote word that, if the rebellious bishop were
+      to be found in any part of Egypt after a day then named, he would fine the
+      prefect and the officers under him one hundred pounds weight of gold. Thus
+      Athanasius was for the fourth time banished from Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the Christians were out of favour with the emperor, and never were
+      employed in any office of trust, yet they were too numerous for him to
+      venture on a persecution. But Julian allowed them to be ill-treated by his
+      prefects, and took no notice of their complaints. He made a law,
+      forbidding any Christians being educated in pagan literature, believing
+      that ignorance would stop the spread of their religion. In the churches of
+      Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria, this was felt as a heavy grievance; but it
+      was less thought of in Egypt. Science and learning were less cultivated by
+      the Christians in Alexandria since the overthrow of the Arian party; and a
+      little later, to charge a writer with Grascizing was the same as saying
+      that he wanted orthodoxy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Julian was a warm friend to learning and philosophy among the pagans. He
+      recalled to Alexandria the physician Zeno, who in the last reign had fled
+      from the Georgian faction, as the Christians were then called. He founded
+      in the same city a college for music, and ordered the Prefect Ecdicius to
+      look out for some young men of skill in that science, particularly from
+      among the pupils of Dioscorus; and he allotted them a maintenance from the
+      treasury, with rewards for the most skilful. At Canopus, a pagan
+      philosopher, Antoninus, the son of Eustathius, taking advantage of the
+      turn in public opinion, and copying the Christian monks of the The-baid,
+      drew round him a crowd of followers by his self-denial and painful torture
+      of the body. The Alexandrians flocked in crowds to his dwelling; and such
+      was his character for holiness that his death, in the beginning of the
+      reign of Theodosius, was thought by the Egyptians to be the cause of the
+      overthrow of paganism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Egyptian paganism, which had slumbered for fifty years under the
+      Christian emperors, was not again to be awaked to its former life. Though
+      the wars between the several cities for the honour of their gods, the
+      bull, the crocodile, or the fish, had never ceased, all reverence for
+      those gods was dead. The sacred animals, in particular the bulls Apis and
+      Mnevis, were again waited upon by their priests as of old; but it was a
+      vain attempt. Not only was the Egyptian religion overthrown, but the
+      Thebaid, the country of that religion, was fallen too low to be raised
+      again. The people of Upper Egypt had lost all heart, not more from the
+      tyranny of the Roman government in the north than from the attacks and
+      settlement of the Arabs in the south. All changes in the country, whether
+      for the better or the worse, were laid to the charge of these latter
+      unwelcome neighbours; and when the inquiring traveller asked to be shown
+      the crocodile, the river-horse, and the other animals for which Egypt had
+      once been noted, he was told with a sigh that they were seldom to be seen
+      in the Delta since the Thebaid had been peopled with the Blemmyes.
+      Falsehood, the usual vice of slaves, had taken a deep hold on the Egyptian
+      character. A denial of their wealth was the means by which they usually
+      tried to save it from the Roman tax-gatherer; and an Egyptian was ashamed
+      of himself as a coward if he could not show a back covered with stripes
+      gained in the attempt to save his money. Peculiarities of character often
+      descend unchanged in a nation for many centuries; and, after fourteen
+      hundred years of the same slavery, the same stripes from the lash of the
+      tax-gatherer still used to be the boast of the Egyptian peasant. Cyrene
+      was already a desert; the only cities of note in Upper Egypt were Koptos,
+      Hermopolis, and Antinoopolis; but Alexandria was still the queen of
+      cities, though the large quarter called the Bruchium had not been rebuilt;
+      and the Serapeum, with its library of seven hundred thousand volumes, was,
+      after the capitol of Rome, the chief building in the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This temple of Serapis was situated on a rising ground at the west end of
+      the city, and, though not built like a fortification, was sometimes called
+      the citadel of Alexandria. It was entered by two roads; that on one side
+      was a slope for carriages, and on the other a grand flight of a hundred
+      steps from the street, with each step wider than that below it. At the top
+      of this flight of steps was a portico, in the form of a circular roof,
+      upheld by four columns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0009" id="linkB0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/231.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="231.jpg an Egyptian Water-carrier " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Through this was the entrance into the great courtyard, in the middle of
+      which stood the roofless hall or temple, surrounded by columns and
+      porticoes, inside and out. In some of the inner porticoes were the
+      bookcases for the library which made Alexandria the very temple of science
+      and learning, while other porticoes were dedicated to the service of the
+      ancient religion. The roofs were ornamented with gilding, the capitals of
+      the columns were of copper gilt, and the walls were covered with
+      paintings. In the middle of the inner area stood one lofty column, which
+      could be seen by all the country round, and even from ships some distance
+      out at sea. The great statue of Serapis, which had been made under the
+      Ptolemies, having perhaps marble feet, but for the rest built of wood,
+      clothed with drapery, and glittering with gold and silver, stood in one of
+      the covered chambers, which had a small window so contrived as to let the
+      sun&rsquo;s rays kiss the lips of the statue on the appointed occasions. This
+      was one of the tricks employed in the sacred mysteries, to dazzle the
+      worshipper by the sudden blaze of light which on the proper occasions was
+      let into the dark room. The temple itself, with its fountain, its two
+      obelisks, and its gilt ornaments, has long since been destroyed; and the
+      column in the centre, under the name of Pompey&rsquo;s Pillar, alone remains to
+      mark the spot where it stood, and is one of the few works of Greek art
+      which in size and strength vie with the old Egyptian monuments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Julian, instead of raising paganism to its former strength,
+      had only shown that its life was spent; and under Jovian (A.D. 363&mdash;364)
+      the Christians were again brought into power. A Christian emperor,
+      however, would have been but little welcome to the Egyptians if, like
+      Constantius, and even Constantine in his latter years, he had leaned to
+      the Arian party; but Jovian soon showed his attachment to the Nicene
+      creed, and he re-appointed Athanasius to the bishopric of Alexandria. But
+      though Athanasius regained his rank, yet the Arian bishop Lucius was not
+      deposed. Each party in Alexandria had its own bishop; those who thought
+      that the Son was of the same substance with the Father looked up to
+      Athanasius, while those who gave to Jesus the lower rank of being of a
+      similar substance to the Creator obeyed Lucius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This curious metaphysical proposition was not, however, the only cause of
+      the quarrel which divided Egypt into such angry parties. The creeds were
+      made use of as the watchwords in a political struggle. Blood, language,
+      and geographical boundaries divided the parties; and religious opinions
+      seldom cross these unchanging and inflexible lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every Egyptian believed in the Nicene creed and the incorruptibility of
+      the body of Jesus, and hated the Alexandrian Greeks; while the more
+      refined Greeks were as united in explaining away the Nicene creed by the
+      doctrine of the two natures of Christ, and in despising the ignorant
+      Egyptians. Christianity, which speaks so forcibly to the poor, the
+      unlearned, and the slave, had educated the Egyptian population, had raised
+      them in their own eyes; and, as the popular party gained strength, the
+      Arians lost ground in Alexandria. At the same time the Greeks were falling
+      off: in learning and in science, and in all those arts of civilisation
+      which had given them the superiority. Like other great political changes,
+      this may not have been understood at the time; but in less than a hundred
+      years it was found that the Egyptians were no longer the slaves, nor the
+      Greeks the masters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Jovian, when Valentinian divided the Roman empire with his
+      brother, he took Italy and the West for his own kingdom, and gave to
+      Valens Egypt and the Eastern provinces, in which Greek was the language of
+      the government. Each emperor adopted the religion of his capital;
+      Valentinian held the Nicene faith, and Valens the Arian faith; and unhappy
+      Egypt was the only part of the empire whose religion differed from that of
+      its rulers. Had the creeds marked the limits of the two empires, Egypt
+      would have belonged to Rome; but, as geographical boundaries and language
+      form yet stronger ties, Egypt was given to Constantinople, or rather to
+      Antioch, the nearer of the two Eastern capitals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By Valens, Athanasius was forced for the fifth time to fly from
+      Alexandria, to avoid the displeasure which his disobedience again drew
+      down upon him. But his flock again rose in rebellion in favour of their
+      popular bishop; and the emperor was either persuaded or frightened into
+      allowing him to return to his bishopric, where he spent the few remaining
+      years of his life in peace. Athanasius died at an advanced age, leaving a
+      name more famous than that of any one of the emperors under whom he lived.
+      He taught the Christian world that there was a power greater than that of
+      kings, namely the Church. He was often beaten in the struggle, but every
+      victory over him was followed by the defeat of the civil power; he was
+      five times banished, but five times he returned in triumph. The temporal
+      power of the Church was in its infancy; it only rose upon the conversion
+      of Constantine, and it was weak compared to what it became in after ages;
+      but, when the Emperor of Germany did penance barefoot before Pope
+      Hildebrand, and a king of England was whipped at Becket&rsquo;s tomb, we only
+      witness the full-grown strength of the infant power that was being reared
+      by the Bishop of Alexandria. His writings are numerous and wholly
+      controversial, chiefly against the Arians. The Athanasian creed seems to
+      have been so named only because it was thought to contain his opinions, as
+      it is known to be by a later author.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Athanasius, the Homoousian party chose Peter as his
+      successor in the bishopric, overlooking Lucius, the Arian bishop, whose
+      election had been approved by the emperors Julian, Jovian, and Valens. But
+      as the Egyptian church had lost its great champion, the emperor ventured
+      to re-assert his authority. He sent Peter to prison, and ordered all the
+      churches to be given up to the Arians, threatening with banishment from
+      Egypt whoever disobeyed his edict. The persecution which the Homoousian
+      party throughout Upper Egypt then suffered from the Arians equalled, says
+      the ecclesiastical historian, anything that they had before suffered from
+      the pagans. Every monastery in Egypt was broken open by Lucius at the head
+      of an armed force, and the cruelty of the bishop surpassed that of the
+      soldiers. The breaking open of the monasteries seems to have been for the
+      purpose of making the inmates bear their share in the military service of
+      the state, rather than for any religious reasons. When Constantine
+      embraced Christianity, he immediately recognised all the religious
+      scruples of its professors; and not only bishops and presbyters but all
+      laymen who had entered the monastic orders were freed from the duty of
+      serving in the army. But under the growing dislike of military service,
+      and the difficulty of finding soldiers, when to escape from the army many
+      called themselves Christian monks, this excuse could no longer be listened
+      to, and Valens made a law that monastic vows should not save a man from
+      enlistment. But this law was not easily carried into force in the
+      monasteries on the borders of the desert, which were often well-built and
+      well-guarded fortresses; and on Mount Nitria, in particular, many monks
+      lost their lives in their resistance to the troops that were sent to fetch
+      recruits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0010" id="linkB0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/237.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="237.jpg Remains of a Christian Church in the Temple Of Luxor " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The monastic institutions of Egypt had already reached their full growth.
+      They were acknowledged by the laws of the empire as ecclesiastical
+      corporations, and allowed to hold property; and by a new law of this
+      reign, if a monk or nun died without a will or any known kindred, the
+      property went to the monastery as heir at law. One of the most celebrated
+      of these monasteries was on Tabenna, where Pachomius had gathered round
+      him thirteen hundred followers, who owned him as the founder of their
+      order, and gave him credit for the gift of prophecy. His disciples in the
+      other monasteries of Upper Egypt amounted to six thousand more. Anuph was
+      at the head of another order of monks, and he boasted that he could by
+      prayer obtain from heaven whatever he wished. Hor was at the head of
+      another monastery, where, though wholly unable to read or write, he spent
+      his life in singing psalms, and, as his followers and perhaps he himself
+      believed, in working miracles. Sera-pion was at the head of a thousand
+      monks in the Ar-sinoïte nome, who raised their food by their own labour,
+      and shared it with their poorer neighbours. Near Nitria, a place in the
+      Mareotic nome which gave its name to the nitre springs, there were as many
+      as fifty cells; but those who aimed at greater solitude and severer
+      mortification withdrew farther into the desert, to Scetis in the same
+      nome, a spot already sanctified by the trials and triumphs of St. Anthony.
+      Here, in a monastery surrounded by the sands, by the side of a lake whose
+      waters are Salter than the brine of the ocean, with no grass or trees to
+      rest the aching eye, where the dazzling sky is seldom relieved with a
+      cloud, where the breezes are too often laden with dry dust, these monks
+      cultivated a gloomy religion, with hearts painfully attuned to the scenery
+      around them. Here dwelt Moses, who in his youth had been a remarkable
+      sinner, and in his old age became even more remarkable as a saint. It was
+      said that for six years he spent every night in prayer, without once
+      closing his eyes in sleep; and that one night, when his cell was attacked
+      by four robbers, he carried them all off at once on his back to the
+      neighbouring monastery to be punished, because he would himself hurt no
+      man. Benjamin also dwelt at Scetis; he consecrated oil to heal the
+      diseases of those who washed with it, and during the eight months that he
+      was himself dying of a dropsy, he touched for their diseases all who came
+      to the door of his cell to be healed. Hellas carried fire in his bosom
+      without burning his clothes. Elias spent seventy years in solitude on the
+      borders of the Arabian desert near Antinoopolis. Apelles was a blacksmith
+      near Achoris; he was tempted by the devil in the form of a beautiful
+      woman, but he scorched the tempter&rsquo;s face with a red-hot iron. Dorotheus,
+      who though a Theban had settled near Alexandria, mortified his flesh by
+      trying to live without sleep. He never willingly lay down to rest, nor
+      indeed ever slept till the weakness of the body sunk under the efforts of
+      the spirit. Paul, who dwelt at Pherma, repeated three hundred prayers
+      every day, and kept three hundred pebbles in a bag to help him in his
+      reckoning. He was the friend of Anthony, and when dying begged to be wrapt
+      in the cloak given him by that holy monk, who had himself received it as a
+      present from Athanasius. His friends and admirers claimed for Paul the
+      honour of being the first Christian hermit, and they maintained their
+      improbable opinion by asserting that he had been a monk for ninety-seven
+      years, and that he had retired to the desert at the age of sixteen, when
+      the Church was persecuted in the reign of Valerian. All Egypt believed
+      that the monks were the especial favourites of Heaven, that they worked
+      miracles, and that divine wisdom flowed from their lips without the help
+      or hindrance of human learning. They were all Homoousians, believing that
+      the Son was of one substance with the Father; some as trinitarians holding
+      the opinions of Athanasius; some as Sabellians believing that Jesus was
+      the creator of the world, and that his body therefore was not liable to
+      corruption; some as anthropomorphites believing God was of human form like
+      Jesus; but all warmly attached to the Mcene creed, denying the two natures
+      of Christ, and hating the Arian Greeks of Alexandria and the other cities.
+      Gregory of Nazianzum remarks that Egypt was the most Christ-loving of
+      countries, and adds with true simplicity that, wonderful to say, after
+      having so lately worshipped bulls, goats, and crocodiles, it was now
+      teaching the world the worship of the Trinity in the truest form.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pagans, who were now no longer able to worship publicly as they chose,
+      took care to proclaim their opinions indirectly in such ways as the law
+      could not reach. In the hippodrome, which was the noisiest of the places
+      where the people met in public, they made a profession of their faith by
+      the choice of which horses they bet on; and Christians and pagans alike
+      showed their zeal for religion by hooting and clapping of hands. Prayers
+      and superstitious ceremonies were used on both sides to add to the horses&rsquo;
+      speed; and the monk Hilarion, the pupil of Anthony, gained no little
+      credit for sprinkling holy water on the horses of his party, and thus
+      enabling Christianity to outrun paganism in the hippodrome at Gaza.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During these reigns of weakness and misgovernment, it was no doubt a cruel
+      policy rather than humanity that led the tax-gatherers to collect the
+      tribute in kind. More could be squeezed out of a ruined people by taking
+      what they had to give than by requiring it to be paid in copper coin.
+      Hence Valons made a law that no tribute throughout the empire should be
+      taken in money; and he laid a new land-tax upon Egypt, to the amount of a
+      soldier&rsquo;s clothing for every thirty acres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Saracens* had for some time past been encroaching on the Eastern
+      frontiers of the empire, and had only been kept back by treaties which
+      proved the weakness of the Romans, as the armies of Constantinople were
+      still called, and which encouraged the barbarians in their attacks.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The name <i>Saraceni</i> was given by the Greeks and Romans to
+     the nomadic Arabs who lived on the borders of the desert.
+     During the Middle Ages, the Muhammedans, coming from
+     apparently the same localities, were also called Saracens.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      On the death of their king, the command over the Saracens fell to their
+      Queen Masvia, who broke the last treaty, laid waste Palestine and
+      Phoenicia with her armies, conquered or gained over the Arabs of Petra,
+      and pressed upon the Egyptians at the head of the Red Sea. On this, Valens
+      renewed the truce, but on terms still more favourable to the invaders.
+      Many of the Saracens were Christians, and by an article of the treaty they
+      were to have a bishop granted them for their church, and for this purpose
+      they sent Moses to Alexandria to be ordained. But the Saracens sided with
+      the Egyptians, in religion as well as policy, against the Arian Greeks.
+      Hence Moses refused to be ordained by Lucius, the patriarch of Alexandria,
+      and chose rather to receive his appointment from some of the Homoousian
+      bishops who were living in banishment in the Thebaid. After this advance
+      of the barbarians the interesting city of Petra, which since the time of
+      Trajan had been in the power or the friendship of Rome or Constantinople,
+      was lost to the civilised world. This rocky fastness, which was ornamented
+      with temples, a triumphal arch, and a theatre, and had been a bishop&rsquo;s
+      see, was henceforth closed against all travellers; it had no place in the
+      map till it was discovered by Burckhardt in our own days without a human
+      being dwelling in it, with oleanders and tamarisks choking up its entrance
+      through the cliff, and with brambles trailing their branches over the
+      rock-hewn temples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0011" id="linkB0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/243.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="243.jpg Temple Courtyard, Medinet Abu " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Theodosius, which extended from 379 to 395, is remarkable for
+      the blow then given to paganism. The old religion had been sinking even
+      before Christianity had become the religion of the emperors; it had been
+      discouraged by Constantine, who had closed many of the temples; but
+      Theodosius made a law in the first year of his reign that the whole of the
+      empire should be Christian, and should receive the trinitarian faith. He
+      soon afterwards ordered that Sunday should be kept holy, and forbade all
+      work and law-proceedings on that day; and he sent Cynegius, the prefect of
+      the palace, into Egypt, to see these laws carried into effect in that
+      province.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wishes of the emperor were ably followed up by Theophilus, Bishop of
+      Alexandria. He cleansed the temple of Mithra, and overthrew the statues in
+      the celebrated temple of Serapis, which seemed the very citadel of
+      paganism. He also exposed to public ridicule the mystic ornaments and
+      statues which a large part of his fellow-citizens still regarded as
+      sacred. It was not, however, to be supposed that this could be peaceably
+      borne by a people so irritable as the Alexandrians. The students in the
+      schools of philosophy put themselves at the head of the mob to stop the
+      work of destruction, and to revenge themselves upon their assailants, and
+      several battles were fought in the streets between the pagans and the
+      Christians, in which both parties lost many lives; but as the Christians
+      were supported by the power of the prefect, the pagans were routed, and
+      many whose rank would have made them objects of punishment were forced to
+      fly from Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner had the troops under the command of the prefect put down the
+      pagan opposition than the work of destruction was again carried forward by
+      the zeal of the bishop. The temples were broken open, their ornaments
+      destroyed, and the statues of the gods melted for the use of the
+      Alexandrian church. One statue of an Egyptian god was alone saved from the
+      wreck, and was set up in mockery of those who had worshipped it; and this
+      ridicule of their religion was a cause of greater anger to the pagans than
+      even the destruction of the other statues. The great statue of Serapis,
+      which was made of wood covered with plates of metal, was knocked to pieces
+      by the axes of the soldiers. The head and limbs were broken off, and the
+      wooden trunk was burnt in the amphitheatre amid the shouts and jeers of
+      the bystanders. A conjectured fragment of this statue is now in the
+      British Museum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the plunder of the temple of Serapis, the great library of more than
+      seven hundred thousand volumes was wholly broken up and scattered.
+      Orosius, the Spaniard, who visited Alexandria in the next reign, may be
+      trusted when he says that he saw in the temple the empty shelves, which,
+      within the memory of men then living, had been plundered of the books that
+      had formerly been got together after the library of the Bruchium was burnt
+      by Julius Cæsar. In a work of such lawless plunder, carried on by ignorant
+      zealots, many of these monuments of pagan genius and learning must have
+      been wilfully or accidentally destroyed, though the larger number may have
+      been carried off by the Christians for the other public and private
+      libraries of the city. How many other libraries this city of science may
+      have possessed we are not told, but there were no doubt many. Had
+      Alexandria during the next two centuries given birth to poets and orators,
+      their works, the offspring of native genius, might perhaps have been
+      written without the help of libraries; but the labours of the
+      mathematicians and grammarians prove that the city was still well
+      furnished with books, beside those on the Christian controversies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Christians were persecuted by the pagans, none but men of
+      unblemished lives and unusual strength of mind stood to their religion in
+      the day of trial, and suffered the penalties of the law; the weak, the
+      ignorant, and the vicious readily joined in the superstitions required of
+      them, and, embracing the religion of the stronger party, easily escaped
+      punishment. So it was when the pagans of Alexandria were persecuted by
+      Theophilus; the chief sufferers were the men of learning, in whose minds
+      paganism was a pure deism, and who saw nothing but ignorance and
+      superstition on the side of their oppressors; who thought their worship of
+      the Trinity only a new form of polytheism, and jokingly declared that they
+      were not arithmeticians enough to understand it. Olympius, who was the
+      priest of Serapis when the temple was sacked, and as such the head of the
+      pagans of Alexandria, was a man in every respect the opposite of the
+      Bishop Theophilus. He was of a frank, open countenance and agreeable
+      manners; and though his age might have allowed him to speak among his
+      followers in the tone of command, he chose rather in his moral lessons to
+      use the mild persuasion of an equal; and few hearts were so hardened as
+      not to be led into the paths of duty by his exhortations. Whereas the
+      furious monks, says the indignant pagan, were men only in form, but swine
+      in manners. Whoever put on a black coat, and was not ashamed to be seen
+      with dirty linen, gained a tyrannical power over the minds of the mob,
+      from their belief in his holiness; and these men attacked the temples of
+      the gods as a propitiation for their own enormous sins. Thus each party
+      reproached the other, and often unjustly. Among other religious frauds and
+      pretended miracles of which the pagan priests were accused, was that of
+      having an iron statue of Serapis hanging in the air in a chamber of the
+      temple, by means of a loadstone fixed in the ceiling. The natural
+      difficulties shield them from this charge, but other accusations are not
+      so easily rebutted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this attack upon the pagans, their religion was no longer openly
+      taught in Alexandria. Some of the more zealous professors withdrew from
+      the capital to Canopus, about ten miles distant, where the ancient
+      priestly learning was still taught, unpersecuted because unnoticed; and
+      there, under the pretence of studying hieroglyphics, a school was opened
+      for teaching magic and other forbidden rites. When the pagan worship
+      ceased throughout Egypt, the temples were very much used as churches, and
+      in some cases received in their ample courtyard a smaller church of Greek
+      architecture, as in that of Medinet Abu. In other cases Christian
+      ornaments were added to the old walls, as in the rock temple of Kneph,
+      opposite to Abu Simbel, where the figure of the Saviour with a glory round
+      his head has been painted on the ceiling. The Christians, in order to
+      remove from before their eyes the memorials of the old superstition,
+      covered up the sculpture on the walls with mud from the Nile and white
+      plaster. This coating we now take away, at a time when the idolatrous
+      figures are no longer dangerous to religion, and we find the sculpture and
+      painting fresh as when covered up fourteen hundred years ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0012" id="linkB0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/248.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="248.jpg Christian Picture at Abu Simbe " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It would be unreasonable to suppose that the Egyptians, upon embracing
+      Christianity, at once threw off all of their pagan rites. Among other
+      customs that they still clung to, was that of making mummies of the bodies
+      of the dead. St. Anthony had tried to dissuade the Christian converts from
+      that practice; not because the mummy-cases were covered with pagan
+      inscriptions, but he boldly asserted, what a very little reading would
+      have disproved, that every mode of treating a dead body, beside burial,
+      was forbidden in the Bible. St. Augustine, on the other hand, well
+      understanding that the immortality of the soul without the body was little
+      likely to be understood or valued by the ignorant, praises the Egyptians
+      for that very practice, and says that they were the only Christians who
+      really believed in the resurrection from the dead. The tapers burnt before
+      the altars were from the earliest times used to light up the splendours of
+      the Egyptian altars, in the darkness of their temples, and had been burnt
+      in still greater numbers in the yearly festival of the candles. The
+      playful custom of giving away sugared cakes and sweetmeats on the
+      twenty-fifth day of Tybi, our twentieth of January, was then changed to be
+      kept fourteen days earlier, and it still marks the Feast of Epiphany or
+      Twelfth-night. The division of the people into clergy and laity, which was
+      unknown to Greeks and Romans, was introduced into Christianity in the
+      fourth century by the Egyptians. While the rest of Christendom were
+      clothed in woollen, linen, the common dress of the Egyptians, was
+      universally adopted by the clergy as more becoming to the purity of their
+      manners. At the same time the clergy copied the Egyptian priests in the
+      custom of shaving the crown of the head bald.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The new law in favour of trinitarian Christianity was enforced with as
+      great strictness against the Arians as against the pagans. The bishops and
+      priests of that party wrere everywhere turned out of their churches, which
+      were then given up to the Homoousians. Theodosius summoned a council of
+      one hundred and fifty bishops at Constantinople, to re-enact the Nicene
+      creed; and in the future religious rebellions of the Egyptians they always
+      quoted against the Greeks this council of Constantinople, with that of
+      Nicasa, as the foundation of their faith. By this religious policy,
+      Theodosius did much to delay the fall of the empire. He won the friendship
+      of his Egyptian subjects, as well as of their Saracen neighbours, all of
+      whom, as far as they were Christian, held to the Nicene creed. Egypt
+      became the safest of his provinces; and, when his armies had been
+      recruited with so many barbarians that they could no longer be trusted,
+      these new levies wrere marched into Egypt under the command of Hormisdas,
+      and an equal number of Egyptians were drafted out of the army of Egypt,
+      and led into Thessaly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the season came for the overflow of the Nile, in the first summer
+      after the destruction of the temples, the waters happened to rise more
+      slowly than usual; and the Egyptians laid the blame upon the Christian
+      emperor, who had forbidden their sacrificing the usual offerings in honour
+      of the river-god.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0013" id="linkB0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/250.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="250.jpg Manfaloot, Showing the Height of The Nile In Summer " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The alarm for the loss of their crops carried more weight in the religious
+      controversy than any arguments that could be brought against pagan
+      sacrifices; and the anger of the people soon threatened a serious
+      rebellion. Evagrius the prefect, being disturbed for the peace of the
+      country, sent to Constantinople for orders; but the emperor remained firm;
+      he would make no change in the law against paganism, and the fears of the
+      Egyptians and Alexandrians were soon put an end to by a most plenteous
+      overflow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the time of Athanasius, and the overthrow of the Arian party in
+      Alexandria, the learning of that city was wholly in the hands of the
+      pagans, and was chiefly mathematical. Diophantus of Alexandria is the
+      earliest writer on algebra whose works are now remaining to us, and has
+      given his name to the Diophantine problems. Pappus wrote a description of
+      the world, and a commentary on Ptolemy&rsquo;s <i>Almagest</i>, beside a work on
+      geometry, published under the name of his <i>Mathematical Collections</i>.
+      Theon, a professor in the museum, wrote on the smaller astrolabe&mdash;the
+      instrument then used to measure the star orbits&mdash;and on the rise of
+      the Nile, a subject always of interest to the mathematicians of Egypt,
+      from its importance to the husbandman. From Theon&rsquo;s astronomical
+      observations we learn that the Alexandrian astronomers still made use of
+      the old Egyptian movable year of three hundred and sixty-five days only,
+      and without a leap-year. Paul the Alexandrian astrologer, on the other
+      hand, uses the Julian year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a
+      quarter, and he dates from the era of Diocletian. His rules for telling
+      the day of the week from the day of the month, and for telling on what day
+      of the week each year began, teach us that our present mode of dividing
+      time was used in Egypt. Horapollo, the grammarian, was also then a teacher
+      in the schools of Alexandria. He wrote in the Koptic language a work in
+      explanation of the old hieroglyphics, which has gained a notice far beyond
+      its deserts, because it is the only work on the subject that has come down
+      to us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only Christian writings of this time, that we know of, are the paschal
+      letters of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, which were much praised by
+      Jerome, and by him translated into Latin. They are full of bitter
+      reproaches against Origen and his writings, and they charge him with
+      having treated Jesus more cruelly than Pilate or the Jews had done. John,
+      the famous monk of the Thebaid, was no writer, though believed to have the
+      gift of prophecy. He was said to have foretold the victory of Theodosius
+      over the rebel Maximus; and, when the emperor had got together his troops
+      to march against Eugenius, another rebel who had seized the passes of the
+      Julian Alps, he sent his trusty eunuch Eutropius to fetch the holy
+      Egyptian, or at least to learn from him what would be the event of the
+      war. John refused to go to Europe, but he told the messenger that
+      Theodosius would conquer the rebel, and soon afterwards die; both of which
+      came to pass as might easily have been guessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Theodosius, in 395, the Roman empire was again divided.
+      Arcadius, his elder son, ruled Egypt and the East, while Honorius, the
+      younger, held the West; and the reins of government at once passed from
+      the ablest to the weakest hands. But the change was little felt in Egypt,
+      which continued to be governed by the patriarch Theophilus, without the
+      name but with very nearly the power of a prefect. He was a bold and wicked
+      man, but as his religious opinions were for the Homoousians as against the
+      Arians, and his political feelings were for the Egyptians as against the
+      Greeks, he rallied to his government the chief strength of the province.
+      As the pagans and Arians of Alexandria were no longer worthy of his
+      enmity, he fanned into a flame a new quarrel which was then breaking out
+      in the Egyptian church. The monks of Upper Egypt, who were mostly ignorant
+      and unlettered men, were anthropomorphites, or believers that God was in
+      outward shape like a man. They quoted from the Jewish Scriptures that he
+      made man in his own image, in support of their opinion. They held that he
+      was of a strictly human form, like Jesus, which to them seemed fully
+      asserted in the Nicene creed. In this opinion they were opposed by those
+      who were better educated, and it suited the policy of Theophilus to side
+      with the more ignorant and larger party. He branded with the name of
+      Origenists those who argued that God was without form, and who quoted the
+      writings of Origen in support of their opinion. This naturally led to a
+      dispute about Origen&rsquo;s orthodoxy; and that admirable writer, who had been
+      praised by all parties for two hundred years, and who had been quoted as
+      authority as much by Athanasius as by the Arians, was declared to be a
+      heretic by a council of bishops. The writings of Origen were accordingly
+      forbidden to be read, because they contradicted the anthropomorphite
+      opinions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The quarrel between the Origenists and the anthropomorphites did not end
+      in words. A proposition in theology, or a doubt in metaphysics, was no
+      better cause of civil war than the old quarrels about the bull Apis or the
+      crocodile; but a change of religion had not changed the national
+      character. The patriarch, finding his party the stronger, attacked the
+      enemy in their own monasteries; he marched to Mount Nitria at the head of
+      a strong body of soldiers, and, enrolling under his banners the
+      anthropomorphite monks, attacked Dioscorus and the Origenists, set fire to
+      their monasteries, and laid waste the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Theophilus next quarrelled with Peter, the chief of the Alexandrian
+      presbyters, whom he accused of admitting to the sacraments of the church a
+      woman who had not renounced the Manichean heresy; and he then quarrelled
+      with Isidorus, who had the charge of the poor of the church, because he
+      bore witness that Peter had the orders of Theophilus himself for what he
+      did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this century there was a general digging up of the bodies of the most
+      celebrated Christians of former ages, to heal the diseases and strengthen
+      the faith of the living; and Constantinople, which as the capital of the
+      empire had been ornamented by the spoils of its subject provinces, had
+      latterly been enriching its churches with the remains of numerous
+      Christian saints. The tombs of Egypt, crowded with mummies that had lain
+      there for centuries, could of course furnish relics more easily than most
+      countries, and in this reign Constantinople received from Alexandria a
+      quantity of bones which were supposed to be those of the martyrs slain in
+      the pagan persecutions. The archbishop John Chrysostom received them
+      gratefully, and, though himself smarting under the reproach that he was
+      not orthodox enough for the superstitious Egyptians, he thanks God that
+      Egypt, which sent forth its grain to feed its hungry neighbours, could
+      also send the bodies of so many martyrs to sanctify their churches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have traced the fall of the Greek party in Alexandria, in the victories
+      over the Arians during the religious quarrels of the last hundred years;
+      and in the laws we now read the city&rsquo;s loss of wealth and power. The
+      corporation of Alexandria was no longer able to bear the expense of
+      cleansing the river and keeping open the canals; and four hundred <i>solidi</i>&mdash;about
+      twelve hundred dollars&mdash;were each year set apart from the
+      custom-house duties of the city for that useful work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrival of new settlers in Alexandria had been very much checked by
+      the less prosperous state of the country since the reign of Diocletian. We
+      still find, however, that many of the men of note were not born in Egypt.
+      Paulus, the physician, was a native of Ægina. He has left a work on
+      diseases and their remedies. The chief man of learning was Synesius, a
+      platonic philosopher whom the patriarch Theophilus persuaded to join the
+      Christians. As a platonist he naturally leaned towards many of the
+      doctrines of the popular religion, but he could not believe in a
+      resurrection; and it was not till after Theophilus had ordained him Bishop
+      of Ptolemais near Cyrene that he acknowledged the truth of that doctrine.
+      Nor would he then put away or disown his wife, as the custom of the Church
+      required; indeed, he accepted the bishopric very unwillingly. He was as
+      fond of playful sport as he was of books, and very much disliked business.
+      He has left a volume of writings, which has saved the names of two
+      prefects of Cyrene; the one Anysius, under whose good discipline even the
+      barbarians of Hungary behaved like Roman legionaries, and the other
+      Poonius, who cultivated science in this barren spot. To encourage Pasonius
+      in his praiseworthy studies he made him a present of an astrolabe, to
+      measure the distances of the stars and planets, an instrument which was
+      constructed under the guidance of Hypatia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trade and industry were checked by the unsettled state of the country, and
+      misery and famine were spreading over the land. The African tribes of
+      Mazices and Auxoriani, leaving the desert in hope of plunder, overran the
+      province of Libya, and laid waste a large part of the Delta. The
+      barbarians and the sands of the desert were alike encroaching on the
+      cultivated fields. Nature seemed changed. The valley of the Nile was
+      growing narrower. Even within the valley the retreating wraters left
+      behind them harvests less rich, and fever more putrid. The quarries were
+      no longer worth working for their building stone. The mines yielded no
+      more gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Arcadius, his son Theodosius was only eight years old, but
+      he was quietly acknowledged as Emperor of the East in 408, and he left the
+      government of Egypt, as heretofore, very much in the hands of the
+      patriarch. In the fifth year of his reign Theophilus died; and, as might
+      be supposed, a successor was not appointed without a struggle for the
+      double honour of Bishop of Alexandria and Governor of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0014" id="linkB0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/257.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="257.jpg Quarries at Toorah on the Nile " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The remains of the Greek and Arian party proposed Timotheus, an archdeacon
+      in the church; but the Egyptian party were united in favour of Cyril, a
+      young man of learning and talent, who had the advantage of being the
+      nephew of the late bishop. Whatever were the forms by which the election
+      should have been governed, it was in reality settled by a battle between
+      the two parties in the streets; and though Abundantius, the military
+      prefect, gave the weight of his name, if not the strength of his cohort,
+      to the party of Timotheus, yet his rival conquered, -and Cyril was carried
+      into the cathedral with a pomp more like a pagan triumph than the modest
+      ordination of a bishop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cyril was not less tyrannical in his bishopric than his uncle had been
+      before him. His first care was to put a stop to all heresy in Alexandria,
+      and his second to banish the Jews. The theatre was the spot in which the
+      riots between Jews and Christians usually began, and the Sabbath was the
+      time, as being the day on which the Jews chiefly crowded in to see the
+      dancing. On one occasion the quarrel in the theatre ran so high that the
+      prefect with his cohort was scarcely able to keep them from blows; and the
+      Christians reproached the Jews with plotting to burn down the churches.
+      But the Christians were themselves guilty of the very crimes of which they
+      accused their enemies. The next morning, as soon as it was light, Cyril
+      headed the mob in their attacks upon the Jewish synagogues; they broke
+      them open and plundered them, and in one day drove every Jew out of the
+      city. No Jew had been allowed to live in Alexandria or any other city
+      without paying a poll-tax, for leave to worship his God according to the
+      manner of his forefathers; but religious zeal is stronger than the love of
+      money; the Jews were driven out, and the tax lost to the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0015" id="linkB0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/258b.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="258b.jpg Street and Mosque of Mahdjiar " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="258b-text (4K)" src="images/258b-text.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Orestes, the prefect of Alexandria, had before wished to check the power
+      of the bishop; and he in vain tried to save the Jews from oppression, and
+      the state from the loss of so many good citizens. But it was useless to
+      quarrel with the patriarch, who was supported by the religious zeal of the
+      whole population. The monks of Mount Nitria and of the neighbourhood
+      burned with a holy zeal to fight for Cyril, as they had before fought for
+      Theophilus; and when they heard that a jealousy had sprung up between the
+      civil and ecclesiastical authorities, more than five hundred of them
+      marched into Alexandria to avenge the affronted bishop. They met the
+      prefect Orestes as he was passing through the streets in his open chariot,
+      and began reproaching him with being a pagan and a Greek. Orestes answered
+      that he was a Christian, and he had been baptised at Constantinople. But
+      this only cleared him of the lesser charge, he was certainly a Greek; and
+      one of these Egyptian monks taking up a stone threw it at his head, and
+      the blow covered his face with blood. They then fled from the guards and
+      people who came up to help the wounded prefect; but Ammonius, who threw
+      the stone, was taken and put to death with torture. The grateful bishop
+      buried him in the church with much pomp; he declared him to be a martyr
+      and a saint, and gave him the name of St. Thaumasius. But the Christians
+      were ashamed of the new martyr: and the bishop, who could not withstand
+      the ridicule, soon afterwards withdrew from him the title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bad as was this behaviour of the bishop and his friends, the most
+      disgraceful tale still remains to be told. The beautiful and learned
+      Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician, was at that time the
+      ornament of Alexandria and the pride of the pagans. She taught philosophy
+      publicly in the platonic school which had been founded by Ammonius, and
+      which boasted of Plotinus as its pupil. She was as modest as she wras
+      graceful, eloquent, and learned; and though, being a pagan, she belonged
+      to neither of the rival Christian parties, yet, as she had more hearers
+      among the Greek friends of the prefect than among the ignorant followers
+      of the bishop, she became an object of jealousy with the Homoousian party.
+      A body of these Christians, says the orthodox historian, attacked this
+      admirable woman in the street; they dragged her from her chariot, and
+      hurried her off into the church named Cæsar&rsquo;s temple, and there stripped
+      her and murdered her with some broken tiles. She had written commentaries
+      on the mathematical works of Diophantus, and on the conic sections of
+      Apollonius. The story of her life has been related in the nineteenth
+      century by Charles Kingsley in the novel which bears her name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Arianism took refuge from the Egyptians within the camps of the Greek
+      soldiers. One church was dedicated to the honour of St. George, the late
+      bishop, within the lofty towers of the citadel of Babylon, which was the
+      strongest fortress in Egypt; and a second in the city of Ptolemais, where
+      a garrison was stationed to collect the toll of the Thebaid. St. George
+      became a favourite saint with the Greeks in Egypt, and in those spots
+      where the Greek soldiers were masters of the churches this Arian and
+      unpopular bishop was often painted on the walls riding triumphantly on
+      horseback and slaying the dragon of Athanasian error. On the other hand,
+      in Alexandria, where his rival&rsquo;s politics and opinions held the upper
+      hand, the monastery of St. Athanasius was built in the most public spot in
+      the city, probably that formerly held by the Soma or royal burial-place;
+      and in Thebes a cathedral church was dedicated to St. Athanasius within
+      the great courtyard of Medinet-Abu, where the small and paltry Greek
+      columns are in strange contrast to the grand architecture of Ramses III.
+      which surrounds them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In former reigns the Alexandrians had been in the habit of sending
+      embassies to Constantinople to complain of tyranny or misgovernment, and
+      to beg for a redress of grievances, when they thought that justice could
+      be there obtained when it was refused in Alexandria. But this practice was
+      stopped by Theodosius, who made a law that the Alexandrians should never
+      send an embassy to Constantinople, unless it were agreed to by a decree of
+      the town council, and had the approbation of the prefect. The weak and
+      idle emperor would allow no appeal from the tyranny of his own governor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We may pass over the banishment of John Chrysostom, Bishop of
+      Constantinople, as having less to do with the history of Egypt, though, as
+      in the cases of Arius and Nestorius, the chief mover of the attack upon
+      him was a bishop of Alexandria, who accused him of heresy, because he did
+      not come up to the Egyptian standard of orthodoxy. But among the bishops
+      who were deposed with Chrysostom was Palladius of Galatia, who was sent a
+      prisoner to Syênê. As soon as he was released from his bonds, instead of
+      being cast down by his misfortunes, he proposed to take advantage of the
+      place of his banishment, and he set forward on his travels through
+      Ethiopia for India, in search of the wisdom of the Brahmins. He arrived in
+      safety at Adule, the port on the Red Sea in latitude 15°, now known as
+      Zula, where he made acquaintance with Moses, the bishop of that city, and
+      persuaded him to join him in his distant and difficult voyage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Adule the two set sail in one of the vessels employed in the Indian
+      trade; but they were unable to accomplish their purpose, and Palladius
+      returned to Egypt worn out with heat and fatigue, having scarcely touched
+      the shores of India. On his return through Thebes he met with a traveller
+      who had lately returned from the same journey, and who consoled him under
+      his disappointment by recounting his own failure in the same undertaking.
+      His new friend had himself been a merchant in the Indian trade, but had
+      given up business because he was not successful in it; and, having taken a
+      priest as his companion, had set out on the same voyage in search of
+      Eastern wisdom. They had sailed to Adule on the Abyssinian shore, and then
+      travelled to Auxum, the capital of that country. From that coast they set
+      sail for the Indian ocean, and reached a coast which they thought was
+      Taprobane or Ceylon. But there they were taken prisoners, and, after
+      spending six years in slavery, and learning but little of the philosophy
+      that they were in search of, were glad to take the first opportunity of
+      escaping and returning to Egypt. Palladius had travelled in Egypt before
+      he was sent there into banishment, and he had spent many years in
+      examining the monasteries of the Thebaid and their rules, and he has left
+      a history of the lives of many of those holy men and woman, addressed to
+      his friend Lausus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Nestorius was deposed from the bishopric of Constantinople for
+      refusing to use the words &ldquo;Mother of God&rdquo; as the title of Jesus&rsquo; mother,
+      and for falling short in other points of what was then thought orthodoxy,
+      he was banished to Hibe in the Great Oasis. While he was living there, the
+      Great Oasis was overrun by the Blemmyes, the Roman garrison was defeated,
+      and those that resisted were put to the sword. The Blemmyes pillaged the
+      place and then withdrew; and, being themselves at war with the Mazices,
+      another tribe of Arabs, they kindly sent their prisoners to the Thebaid,
+      lest they should fall into the hands of the latter. Nestorius then went to
+      Panopolis to show himself to the governor, lest he should be accused of
+      running away from his place of banishment, and soon afterwards he died of
+      the sufferings brought on by these forced and painful journeys through the
+      desert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About the same time Egypt was visited by Cassianus, a monk of Gaul, in
+      order to study the monastic institutions of the Thebaid. In his work on
+      that subject he has described at length the way of life and the severe
+      rules of the Egyptian monks, and has recommended them to the imitation of
+      his countrymen. But the natives of Italy and the West do not seem to have
+      been contented with copying the Theban monks at a distance. Such was the
+      fame of the Egyptian monasteries that many zealots from Italy flocked
+      there, to place themselves under the severe discipline of those holy men.
+      As these Latin monks did not understand either Koptic or Greek, they found
+      some difficulty in regulating their lives with the wished-for exactness;
+      and the rules of Pachomius, of Theodorus, and of Oresiesis, the most
+      celebrated of the founders, were actually sent to Jerome at Rome, to be by
+      him translated into Latin for the use of these settlers in the Thebaid.
+      These Latin monks made St. Peter a popular saint in some parts of Egypt;
+      and in the temple of Asseboua, in Nubia, when the Christians plastered
+      over the figure of one of the old gods, they painted in its place the
+      Apostle Peter holding the key in his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0016" id="linkB0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:41%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/264.jpg"
+       alt="264.jpg Ramses II. And St. Peter " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      They did not alter the rest of the sculpture; so that Ramses II. is there
+      now seen presenting his offering to the Christian saint. The mixed group
+      gives us proof of the nation&rsquo;s decline in art rather than of its
+      improvement in religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the monks of Egypt there were also some men of learning and
+      industry, who in their cells in the desert had made at least three
+      translations of the New Testament into the three dialects of the Koptic
+      language; namely, the Sahidic of Upper Egypt, the Bashmuric of the
+      Bashmour province of the eastern half of the Delta, and the Koptic proper
+      of Memphis and the western half of the Delta. To these were afterwards
+      added the Acts of the council of Nicæa, the lives of the saints and
+      martyrs, the writings of many of the Christian fathers, the rituals of the
+      Koptic church, and various treatises on religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other monks were as busy in making copies of the Greek manuscripts of the
+      Old and New Testament; and, as each copy must have needed the painful
+      labour of months, and often years, their industry and zeal must have been
+      great. Most of these manuscripts were on papyrus, or on a manufactured
+      papyrus which might be called paper, and have long since been lost; but
+      the three most ancient copies on parchment which are the pride of the
+      Vatican, the Paris library, and the British Museum, are the work of the
+      Alexandrian penmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Copies of the Bible were also made in Alexandria for sale in western
+      Europe; and all our oldest manuscripts show their origin by the Egyptian
+      form of spelling in some of the words. The Beza manuscript at Cambridge,
+      and the Clermont manuscript at Paris, which have Greek on one side of the
+      page and Latin on the other, were written in Alexandria. The Latin is that
+      more ancient version which was in use before the time of Jerome, and which
+      he corrected, to form what is now called the Latin Vulgate. This old
+      version was made by changing each Greek word into its corresponding Latin
+      word, with very little regard to the different characters of the two
+      languages. It was no doubt made by an Alexandrian Greek, who had a very
+      slight knowledge of Latin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Already the papyrus on which books were written was, for the most part, a
+      manufactured article and might claim the name of paper. In the time of
+      Pliny in the first century the sheets had been made in the old way; the
+      slips of the plant laid one across the other had been held together by
+      their own sticky sap without the help of glue. In the reign of Aurelian,
+      in the third century, if not earlier, glue had been largely used in the
+      manufacture; and it is probable that at this time, in the fifth century,
+      the manufactured article almost deserved the name of paper. But this
+      manufactured papyrus was much weaker and less lasting than that made after
+      the old and more simple fashion. No books written upon it remain to us. At
+      a later period, the stronger fibre of flax was used in the manufacture,
+      but the date of this improvement is also unknown, because at first the
+      paper so made, like that made from the papyrus fibre, was also too weak to
+      last. It was doubtless an Alexandrian improvement. Flax was an Egyptian
+      plant; paper-making was an Egyptian trade; and Theophilus, a Roman writer
+      on manufactures, when speaking of paper made from flax, clearly points to
+      its Alexandrian origin, by giving it the name of Greek parchment. Between
+      the papyrus of the third century, and the strong paper of the eleventh
+      century, no books remain to us but those written on parchment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0017" id="linkB0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:27%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/267.jpg" alt="267.jpg the Papyrus Plant " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The monks of Mount Sinai suffered much during these reigns of weakness
+      from the marauding attacks of the Arabs. These men had no strong
+      monastery; but hundreds of them lived apart in single cells in the side of
+      the mountains round the valley of Feiran, at the foot of Mount Serbal, and
+      they had nothing to protect them but their poverty. They were not
+      protected by Egypt, and they made treaties with the neighbouring Arabs,
+      like an independent republic, of which the town of Feiran was the capital.
+      The Arabs, from the Jordan to the Red Sea, made robbery the employment of
+      their lives, and they added much to the voluntary sufferings of the monks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nilus, a monk who had left his family in Egypt, to spend his life in
+      prayer and study on the spot where Moses was appointed the legislator of
+      Israel, describes these attacks upon his brethren, and he boasts over the
+      Israelites that, notwithstanding their sufferings, the monks spent their
+      whole lives cheerfully in those very deserts which God&rsquo;s chosen people
+      could not even pass through without murmuring. Nilus has left some letters
+      and exhortations. It was then, probably, that the numerous inscriptions
+      were made on the rocks at the foot of Mount Serbal, and on the path
+      towards its sacred peak, which have given to one spot the name of
+      Mokatteb, or the valley of writing. A few of these inscriptions are in the
+      Greek language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Egyptian physicians had of old always formed a part of the priesthood,
+      and they seem to have done much the same after the spread of Christianity.
+      We find some monks named <i>Parabalani</i>, who owned the Bishop of
+      Alexandria as their head, and who united the offices of physician and
+      nurse in waiting on the sick and dying. As they professed poverty they
+      were maintained by the state and had other privileges; and hence it was a
+      place much sought after, and even by the wealthy. But to lessen this abuse
+      it was ordered by an imperial rescript that none but poor people who had
+      been rate-payers should be <i>Parabalani</i>; and their number was
+      limited, first to five hundred, but afterwards, at the request of the
+      bishop, to six hundred. A second charitable institution in Alexandria had
+      the care of strangers and the poor, and was also managed by one of the
+      priests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alexandria was fast sinking in wealth and population, and several new laws
+      were now made to lessen its difficulties. One was to add a hundred and ten
+      bushels of grain to the daily alimony of the city, the supply on which the
+      riotous citizens were fed in idleness. By a second and a third law the
+      five chief men in the corporation, and every man that had filled a civic
+      office for thirty years, were freed from all bodily punishment, and only
+      to be fined when convicted of a crime. Theodosius built a large church in
+      Alexandria, which was called after his name; and the provincial judges
+      were told in a letter to the prefect that, if they wished to earn the
+      emperor&rsquo;s praise, they must not only restore those buildings which were
+      falling through age and neglect but must also build new ones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the pagan philosophy had been much discouraged at Alexandria by the
+      destruction of the temples and the cessation of the sacrifices, yet the
+      philosophers were still allowed to teach in the schools. Syrianus was at
+      the head of the Platonists, and he wrote largely on the Orphic,
+      Pythagorean, and Platonic doctrines. In his Commentary on Aristotle&rsquo;s
+      Metaphysics he aims at showing how a Pythagorean or a Platonist would
+      successfully answer Aristotle&rsquo;s objections. He seems to look upon the
+      writings of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus as the true fountains of
+      Platonic wisdom, quite as much as the works of the great philosopher who
+      gave his name to the sect. Syrianus afterwards removed to Athens, to take
+      charge of the Platonic school in that city, and Athens became the chief
+      seat of Alexandrian Platonism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Olympiodorus was at the same time undertaking the task of forming a
+      Peripatetic school in Alexandria, in opposition to the new Platonism, and
+      he has left some of the fruits of his labour in his Commentaries on
+      Aristotle. But the Peripatetic philosophy was no longer attractive to the
+      pagans, though after the fall of the catechetical school it had a strong
+      following of Christian disciples. Olympiodorus also wrote a history, but
+      it has long since been lost, with other works of a second-rate merit. He
+      was a native of the Thebaid, and travelled over his country. He described
+      the Great Oasis as still a highly cultivated spot, where the husbandman
+      watered his fields every third day in summer, and every fifth day in
+      winter, from wells of two and three hundred feet in depth, and thereby
+      raised two crops of barley, and often three of millet, in a year.
+      Olympiodorus also travelled beyond Syênê into Nubia, with some danger from
+      the Blemmyes, but he was not able to see the emerald mines, which were
+      worked on Mount Smaragdus in the Arabian desert between Koptos and
+      Berenice, and which seem to have been the chief object of his journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Proclus came to Alexandria about the end of this reign, and studied many
+      years under Olympiodorus, but not to the neglect of the platonic
+      philosophy, of which he afterwards became such a distinguished ornament
+      and support. The other Alexandrians under whom Proclus studied were Hero,
+      the mathematician, a devout and religious pagan, Leonas, the rhetorician,
+      who introduced him to all the chief men of learning, and Orion, the
+      grammarian, who boasted of his descent from the race of Theban priests.
+      Thus the pagans still held up their heads in the schools. Nor were the
+      ceremonies of their religion, though unlawful, wholly stopped. In the
+      twenty-eighth year of this reign, when the people were assembled in a
+      theatre at Alexandria to celebrate the midnight festival of the Nile, a
+      sacrifice which had been forbidden by Constantine and the council of
+      Nicsea, the building fell beneath the weight of the crowd, and upwards of
+      five hundred persons were killed by the fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0018" id="linkB0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/271.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="271.jpg Arabs Resting in the Desert " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      It will be of some interest to review here the machinery of officers and
+      deputies, civil as well as military, by which Egypt was governed under the
+      successors of Constantine. The whole of the Eastern empire was placed
+      under two prefects, the pretorian prefect of the East and the pretorian
+      prefect of Illyricum, who, living at Constantinople, like modern
+      secretaries of state, made edicts for the government of the provinces and
+      heard the appeals. Under the prefect of the East were fifteen consular
+      provinces, together with Egypt, which was not any longer under one
+      prefect. There was no consular governor in Egypt between the prefect at
+      Constantinople and the six prefects of the smaller provinces. These
+      provinces were Upper Libya or Cyrene, Lower Libya or the Oasis, the
+      Thebaid, Ægyptiaca or the western part of the Delta, Augustanica or the
+      eastern part of the Delta, and the Heptanomis, now named Arcadia, after
+      the late emperor. Each of these was under an Augustal prefect, attended by
+      a <i>Princeps, a Cornicula-rius, an Adjutor</i>, and others, and was
+      assisted in civil matters by a <i>Commentariensis</i>, a corresponding
+      secretary, a secretary <i>ab actis</i>, with a crowd of <i>numerarii</i>
+      or clerks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The military government was under a count with two dukes, with a number of
+      legions, cohorts, troops, and wedges of cavalry, stationed in about fifty
+      cities, which, if they had looked as well in the field as they do upon
+      paper, would have made Theodosius II. as powerful as Augustus. But the
+      number of Greek and Roman troops was small. The rest were barbarians who
+      held their own lives at small price, and the lives of the unhappy
+      Egyptians at still less. The Greeks were only a part of the fifth
+      Macedonian legion, and Trajan&rsquo;s second legion, which were stationed at
+      Memphis, at Parembole, and at Apollinopolis; while from the names of the
+      other cohorts we learn that they were Franks, Portuguese, Germans, Quadri,
+      Spaniards, Britons, Moors, Vandals, Gauls, Sarmati, Assyrians, Galatians,
+      Africans, Numid-ians, and others of less known and more remote places.
+      Egypt itself furnished the Egyptian legion, part of which was in
+      Mesopotamia, Diocletian&rsquo;s third legion of Thebans, the first Maximinian
+      legion of Thebans which was stationed in Thrace, Constantine&rsquo;s second
+      Flavian legion of Thebans, Valens&rsquo; second Felix legion of Thebans, and the
+      Julian Alexandrian legion, stationed in Thrace. Beside these, there were
+      several bodies of native militia, from Abydos, Syênê, and other cities,
+      which were not formed into legions. The Egyptian cavalry were a first and
+      second Egyptian troop, several bodies of native archers mounted, three
+      troops on dromedaries, and a body of Diocletian&rsquo;s third legion promoted to
+      the cavalry. These Egyptian troops were chiefly Arab settlers in the
+      Thebaid, for the Kopts had long since lost the use of arms. The Kopts were
+      weak enough to be trampled on; but the Arabs were worth bribing by
+      admission into the legions. The taxes of the province were collected by a
+      number of counts of the sacred largesses, who wrere under the orders of an
+      officer of the same title at Constantinople, and were helped by a body of
+      counts of the exports and imports, prefects of the treasury and of the
+      mints, with an army of clerks of all titles and all ranks. From this
+      government the Alexandrians were exempt, living under their own military
+      prefect and corporation, and, instead of paying any taxes beyond the
+      custom-house duties at the port, they received a bounty in grain out of
+      the taxes of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after this we find the political division of Egypt slightly altered.
+      It is then divided into eight governments; the Upper Thebaid with eleven
+      cities under a duke; the Lower Thebaid with ten cities, including the
+      Great Oasis and part of the Heptanomis, under a general; Upper Libya or
+      Cyrene under a general; Lower Libya or Parastonium under a general;
+      Arcadia, or the remainder of the Heptanomis, under a general; Ægyptiaca,
+      or the western half of the Delta, under an Augustalian prefect; the first
+      Augustan government, or the rest of the Delta, under a <i>Corrector</i>;
+      and the second Augustan government, from Bubastis to the Red Sea, under a
+      general. We also meet with several military stations named after the late
+      emperors: a Maximianopolis and a Dioclesianopolis in the Upper Thebaid; a
+      Theodosianopolis in the Lower Thebaid, and a second Theodosianopolis in
+      Arcadia. But it is not easy to determine what villages were meant by these
+      high-sounding names, which were perhaps only used in official documents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The empire of the East was gradually sinking in power during this long and
+      quiet reign of Theodosius II.; but the empire of the West was being
+      hurried to its fall by the revolt of the barbarians in every one of its
+      widespread provinces. Henceforth in the weakness of the two countries
+      Egypt and Rome are wholly separated. After having influenced one another
+      in politics, in literature, and in religion for seven centuries, they were
+      now as little known to one another as they were before the day when Fabius
+      arrived at Alexandria on an embassy from the senate to Ptolemy
+      Philadelphus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Theological and political quarrels, under the name of the Homoousian and
+      Arian controversy, had nearly separated Egypt from the rest of the empire
+      during the reigns of Constantius and Valens, but they had been healed by
+      the wisdom of the first Theodosius, who governed Egypt by means of a
+      popular bishop; and the policy which he so wisely began was continued by
+      his successors through weakness. But in the reign of Marcian (450&mdash;457)
+      the old quarrel again broke out, and, though it was under a new name, it
+      again took the form of a religious controversy. Cyril, the Bishop of
+      Alexandria, died in the last reign; and as he had succeeded his uncle, so
+      on his death the bishopric fell to Dioscorus, a relation of his own, a man
+      of equal religious violence and of less learning, who differed from him
+      only in the points of doctrine about which he should quarrel with his
+      fellow-Christians. About the same time Eutyches, a priest of
+      Constantinople, had been condemned by his superiors and expelled from the
+      Church for denying the two natures of Christ, and for maintaining that he
+      was truly God, and in no respect a man. This was the opinion of the
+      Egyptian church, and therefore Dioscorus, the Bishop of Alexandria, who
+      had no right whatever to meddle in the quarrels at Constantinople, yet,
+      acting on the forgotten rule that each bishop&rsquo;s power extended over all
+      Christendom, undertook of his own authority to absolve Eutyches from his
+      excommunication, and in return to excommunicate the Bishop of
+      Constantinople who had condemned him. To settle this quarrel, a general
+      council was summoned at Chalcedon; and there six hundred and thirty-two
+      bishops met and condemned the faith of Eutyches, and further explained the
+      Nicene creed, to which Eutyches and the Egyptians always appealed. They
+      excommunicated Eutyches and his patron Dioscorus, who were banished by the
+      emperor; and they elected Proterius to the then vacant bishopric of
+      Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In thus condemning the faith of Eutyches, the Greeks were excommunicating
+      the whole of Egypt. The Egyptian belief in the one nature of Christ, which
+      soon afterwards took the name of the Jacobite faith from one of its
+      popular supporters, might perhaps be distinguished by the microscopic eye
+      of the controversialist from the faith of Eutyches; but they equally fell
+      under the condemnation of the council of Chalcedon. Egypt was no longer
+      divided in its religious opinions. There had been a party who, though
+      Egyptian in blood, held the Arian and half-Arian opinions of the Greeks,
+      but that party had ceased to exist. Their religion had pulled one way and
+      their political feelings another; the latter were found the stronger, as
+      being more closely rooted to the soil; and their religious opinions had by
+      this time fitted themselves to the geographical boundaries of the country.
+      Hence the decrees of the council of Chalcedon were rejected by the whole
+      of Egypt; and the quarrel between the Chalcedonian and Jacobite party,
+      like the former quarrel between the Athanasians and the Arians, was little
+      more than another name for the unwillingness of the Egyptians to be
+      governed by Constantinople.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Proterius, the new bishop, entered Alexandria supported by the prefect
+      Floras at the head of the troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this was the signal for a revolt of the Egyptians, who overpowered the
+      cohort with darts and stones; and the magistrates were driven to save
+      their lives in the celebrated temple of Serapis. But they found no safety
+      there; the mob surrounded the building and set fire to it, and burned
+      alive the Greek magistrates and friends of the new bishop; and the city
+      remained in the power of the rebellious Egyptians. When the news of this
+      rising reached Constantinople the emperor sent to Egypt a further force of
+      two thousand men, who stormed Alexandria and sacked it like a conquered
+      city, and established Proterius in the bishopric. As a punishment upon the
+      city for its rebellion, the prefect stopped for some time the public games
+      and the allowance of grain to the citizens, and only restored them after
+      the return to peace and good order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the weak state of the empire, the Blemmyes, and Nubades, or Nobatæ, had
+      latterly been renewing their inroads upon Upper Egypt; they had
+      overpowered the Romans, as the Greek and barbarian troops of
+      Constantinople were always called, and had carried off a large booty and a
+      number of prisoners. Maximinus, the imperial general, then led his forces
+      against them; he defeated them, and made them beg for peace. The
+      barbarians then proposed, as the terms of their surrender, never to enter
+      Egypt while Maximinus commanded the troops in the Thebaid; but the
+      conqueror was not contented with such an unsatisfactory submission, and
+      would make no treaty with them till they had released the Roman prisoners
+      without ransom, paid for the booty that they had taken, and given a number
+      of the nobles as hostages. On this Maximums agreed to a truce of a hundred
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people now called the Nubians, living on both sides of the cataract of
+      Syênê, declared themselves of the true Egyptian race by their religious
+      practices. They had an old custom of going each year to the temple of Isis
+      on the isle of Elephantine, and of carrying away one of the statues with
+      them and returning it to the temple when they had consulted it. But as
+      they were now being driven out of the province, they bargained with
+      Maximums for permission to visit the temple each year without hindrance
+      from the Roman guards. The treaty was written on papyrus and nailed up in
+      this temple. But friendship in the desert, says the proverb, is as weak
+      and wavering as the shade of the acacia tree; this truce was no sooner
+      agreed upon than Maximinus fell ill and died; and the Nubades at once
+      broke the treaty, regained by force their hostages, who had not yet been
+      carried out of the Thebaid, and overran the province as they had done
+      before their defeat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0019" id="linkB0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:21%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/279.jpg" alt="279.jpg Isis As the Dog-star " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      By this success of the Nubians, Christianity was largely driven out of
+      Upper Egypt; and about seventy years after the law of Thedosius L, by
+      which paganism was supposed to be crushed, the religion of Isis and
+      Serapis was again openly professed in the Thebaid, where it had perhaps
+      always been cultivated in secret. A certain master of the robes in one of
+      the Egyptian temple came at this time to the temple of Isis in the island
+      of Philæ, and his votive inscription there declares that he was the son of
+      Pachomius, a prophet, and successor by direct descent from a yet more
+      famous Pachomius, a prophet, who we may easily believe was the Christian
+      prophet who gathered together so many followers in the island of Tabenna,
+      near Thebes, and there founded an order of Christian monks. These
+      Christians now all returned to their paganism. Nearly all the remains of
+      Christian architecture which we meet with in the The-baid were built
+      during the hundred and sixty years between the defeat of the Nubians by
+      Diocletian, and their victories in the reign of Marcian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Nubians were far more civilised than their neighbours, the Blemmyes,
+      whom they were usually able to drive back into their native deserts. We
+      find an inscription in bad Greek, in the great temple at Talmis, now the
+      village of Kalabshe, which was probably written about this time. A
+      conqueror of the name of Silco there declares that he is king of the
+      Nubians and all the Ethiopians; that in the upper part of his kingdom he
+      is called Mars, and in the lower part Lion; that he is as great as any
+      king of his day; that he has defeated the Blemmyes in battle again and
+      again; and that he has made himself master of the country between Talmis
+      and Primis. While such were the neighbours and inhabitants of the Thebaid,
+      the fields were only half-tilled, and the desert was encroaching on the
+      paths of man. The sand was filling up the temples, covering the overthrown
+      statues, and blocking up the doors to the tombs; but it was at the same
+      time saving, to be dug out in after ages, those records which the living
+      no longer valued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of the Emperor Marcian, the Alexandrians, taking advantage of
+      the absence of the military prefect Dionysius, who was then fighting
+      against the Nubades in Upper Egypt, renewed their attack upon the Bishop
+      Proterius, and deposed him from his office. To fill his place they made
+      choice of a monk named Timotheus Ælurus, who held the Jacobite faith, and,
+      having among them two deposed bishops, they got them to ordain him Bishop
+      of Alexandria, and then led him by force of arms into the great church
+      which had formerly been called Caesar&rsquo;s temple. Upon hearing of the
+      rebellion, the prefect returned in haste to Alexandria; but his approach
+      was only the signal for greater violence, and the enraged people murdered
+      Proterius in the baptistery, and hung up his body at the Tetrapylon in
+      mockery. This was not a rebellion of the mob. Timotheus was supported by
+      the men of chief rank in the city; the <i>Honorati</i> who had borne state
+      offices, the <i>Politici</i> who had borne civic offices, and the <i>Navicularii</i>,
+      or contractors for the freight of the Egyptian tribute, were all opposed
+      to the emperor&rsquo;s claim to appoint the officer whose duties were much more
+      those of prefect of the city than patriarch of Egypt. With such an
+      opposition as this, the emperor would do nothing without the greatest
+      caution, for he was in danger of losing Egypt altogether. But so much were
+      the minds of all men then engrossed in ecclesiastical matters that this
+      political struggle wholly took the form of a dispute in controversial
+      divinity, and the emperor wrote a letter to the chief bishops in
+      Christendom to ask their advice in his difficulty. These theologians were
+      too busily engaged in their controversies to take any notice of the danger
+      of Egypt&rsquo;s revolting from the empire and joining the Persians; so they
+      strongly advised Leo not to depart from the decrees of the council of
+      Chalcedon, or to acknowledge as Bishop of Alexandria a man who denied the
+      two natures of Christ. Accordingly, the emperor again risked breaking the
+      slender ties by which he held Egypt; he banished the popular bishop, and
+      forced the Alexandrians to receive in his place one who held the
+      Chalcedonian faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the death of Leo, he was succeeded by his grandson, Leo the Younger,
+      who died in 473, after a reign of one year, and was succeeded by his
+      father Zeno, the son-in-law of the elder Leo. Zeno gave himself up at once
+      to debauchery and vice, while the empire was harassed on all sides by the
+      barbarians, and the provinces were roused into rebellion by the cruelty of
+      the prefects. The rebels at last found a head in Basilicus, the
+      brother-in-law of Leo. He declared himself of the Jacobite faith, which
+      was the faith of the barbarian enemies, of the barbarian troops, and of
+      the barbarian allies of the empire, and, proclaiming himself emperor, made
+      himself master of Constantinople without a battle, and drove Zeno into
+      banishment in the third year of his reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first step of Basilicus was to recall from banishment Timotheus
+      Ælurus, the late Bishop of Alexandria, and to restore him to the bishopric
+      (A.D. 477). He then addressed to him and the other recalled bishops a
+      circular letter, in which he repeals the decrees of the council of
+      Chalcedon, and re-establishes the Nicene creed, declaring that Jesus was
+      of one substance with the Father, and that Mary was the mother of God. The
+      march of Timotheus to the seat of his own government, from Constantinople
+      whither he had been summoned, was more like that of a conqueror than of a
+      preacher of peace. He deposed some bishops and restored others, and, as
+      the decrees of the council of Chalcedon were the particular objects of his
+      hatred, he restored to the city of Ephesus the patriarchal power which
+      that synod had taken away from it. Basilicus reigned for about two years,
+      when he was defeated and put to death by Zeno, who regained the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Zeno was again master of the empire, he re-established the
+      creed of the council of Chalcedon, and drove away the Jacobite bishops
+      from their bishoprics. Death, however, removed Timotheus Ælurus before the
+      emperor&rsquo;s orders were put in force in Alexandria, and the Egyptians then
+      chose Peter Mongus as his successor, in direct opposition to the orders
+      from Constantinople. But the emperor was resolved not to be beaten; the
+      bishopric of Alexandria was so much a civil office that to have given up
+      the appointment to the Egyptians would have been to allow the people to
+      govern themselves; so he banished Peter, and recalled to the head of the
+      Church Timotheus Salophaciolus, who had been living at Canopus ever since
+      his loss of the bishopric.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as the patriarch of Alexandria enjoyed the ecclesiastical revenues,
+      and was still in appearance a teacher of religion, the Alexandrians, in
+      recollection of the former rights of the Church, still claimed the
+      appointment. They sent John, a priest of their own faith and dean of the
+      church of John the Baptist, as their ambassador to Constantinople, not to
+      remonstrate against the late acts of the emperor, but to beg that on
+      future occasions the Alexandrians might be allowed the old privilege of
+      choosing their own bishop. The Emperor Zeno seems to have seen through the
+      ambassador&rsquo;s earnestness, and he first bound him by an oath not to accept
+      the bishopric if he should even be himself chosen to it, and he then sent
+      him back with the promise that the Alexandrians should be allowed to
+      choose their own patriarch on the next vacancy. But unfortunately John&rsquo;s
+      ambition was too strong for his oath, and on the death of Timotheus, which
+      happened soon afterwards, he spent a large sum of money in bribes among
+      the clergy and chief men of the city, and thereby got himself chosen
+      patriarch. On this, the emperor seems to have thought only of punishing
+      John, and he at once gave up the struggle with the Egyptians. Believing
+      that, of the two patriarchs who had been chosen by the people, Peter
+      Mongus, who was living in banishment, would be found more dutiful than
+      John, who was on the episcopal throne, he banished John and recalled
+      Peter; and the latter agreed to the terms of an imperial edict which Zeno
+      then put forth, to heal the disputes in the Egyptian church, and to recall
+      the province to obedience. This celebrated peace-making edict, usually
+      called the Henoticon, is addressed to the clergy and laity of Alexandria,
+      Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis, and is an agreement between the emperor
+      and the bishops who countersigned it, that neither party should ever
+      mention the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, which were the great
+      stumbling-block with the Egyptians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0020" id="linkB0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/285.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="285.jpg Street Sprinkler at Alexandria " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      But in all other points the Henoticon is little short of a surrender to
+      the people of the right to choose their own creed; it styles Mary the
+      mother of God, and allows that the decrees of the council of Nicæa and
+      Constantinople contain all that is important of the true faith. John, when
+      banished by Zeno, like many of the former deposed bishops, fled to Rome
+      for comfort and for help. There he met with the usual support; and Felix,
+      Bishop of Rome, wrote to Constantinople, remonstrating with Zeno for
+      dismissing the patriarch. But this was only a small part of the emperor&rsquo;s
+      want of success in his attempt at peace-making; for the crafty Peter, who
+      had gained the bishopric by subscribing to the peace-making edict, was no
+      sooner safely seated on his episcopal throne than he denounced the council
+      of Chalcedon and its decrees as heretical, and drove out of their
+      monasteries all those who still adhered to that faith. Nephalius, one of
+      these monks, wrote to the emperor at Constantinople in complaint, and Zeno
+      sent Cosmas to the bishop to threaten him with his imperial displeasure,
+      and to try to re-establish peace in the Church. But the arguments of
+      Cosmas were wholly unsuccessful; and Zeno then sent an increase of force
+      to Arsenius, the military prefect, who settled the quarrel for the time by
+      sending back the most rebellious of the Alexandrians as prisoners to
+      Constantinople.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after this dispute Peter Mongus died, and fortunately he was
+      succeeded in the bishopric by a peacemaker. Athanasius, the new bishop,
+      very unlike his great predecessor of the same name, did his best to heal
+      the angry disputes in the Church, and to reconcile the Egyptians to the
+      imperial government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hierocles, the Alexandrian, was at this time teaching philosophy in his
+      native city, where his zeal and eloquence in favour of Platonism drew upon
+      him the anger of the Christians and the notice of the government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was sent to Constantinople to be punished for not believing in
+      Christianity, for it does not appear that, like the former Hierocles, he
+      ever wrote against it. There he bore a public scourging from his Christian
+      torturers, with a courage equal to that formerly shown by their
+      forefathers when tortured by his. When some of the blood from his
+      shoulders flew into his hand, he held it out in scorn to the judge, saying
+      with Ulysses, &ldquo;Cyclops, since human flesh has been thy food, now taste
+      this wine.&rdquo; After his punishment he was banished, but was soon allowed to
+      return to Alexandria, and there he again taught openly as before. Paganism
+      never wears so fair a dress as in the writings of Hierocles; his
+      commentary on the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans is full of the
+      loftiest and purest morality, and not less agreeable are the fragments
+      that remain of his writings on our duties, and his beautiful chapter on
+      the pleasures of a married life. In the Facetiæ of Hierocles we have one
+      of the earliest jest-books that has been saved from the wreck of time. It
+      is a curious proof of the fallen state of learning; the Sophists had long
+      since made themselves ridiculous; books alone will not make a man of
+      sense; and in the jokes of Hierocles the blunderer is always called a man
+      of learning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ætius, the Alexandrian physician, has left a large work containing a full
+      account of the state of Egyptian medicine at this time. He describes the
+      diseases and their remedies, quoting the recipes of numerous authors, from
+      the King Nechepsus, Galen, Hippocrates, and Hioscorides, down to
+      Archbishop Cyril. He is not wholly free from superstition, as when making
+      use of a green jasper set in a ring; but he observes that the patients
+      recovered as soon when the stone was plain as when a dragon was engraved
+      upon it according to the recommendation of Nechepsus. In Nile water he
+      finds every virtue, and does not forget dark paint for the ladies&rsquo;
+      eyebrows, and Cleopatra-wash for the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anastasius, the next emperor, succeeding in 491, followed the wise policy
+      which Zeno had entered upon in the latter years of his reign, and he
+      strictly adhered to the terms of the peace-making edict. The four
+      patriarchs of Alexandria who were chosen during this reign, John, a second
+      John, Dioscorus, and Timotheus, were all of the Jacobite faith; and the
+      Egyptians readily believed that the emperor was of the same opinion. When
+      called upon by the quarrelling theologians, he would neither reject nor
+      receive the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, and by this wise conduct
+      he governed Egypt without any religious rebellion during a long reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The election of Dioscorus, however, the third patriarch of this reign, was
+      not brought about peaceably. He was the cousin of a former patriarch,
+      Timotheus Ælurus, which, if we view the bishopric as a civil office, might
+      be a reason for the emperor&rsquo;s wishing him to have the appointment. But it
+      was no good reason with the Alexandrians, who declared that he had not
+      been chosen according to the canons of the apostles; and the magistrates
+      of the city were forced to employ the troops to lead him in safety to his
+      throne. After the first ceremony, he went, as was usual at an
+      installation, to St. Mark&rsquo;s Church, and there the clergy robed him in the
+      patriarchal state robes. The grand procession then moved through the
+      streets to the church of St. John, where the new bishop went through the
+      communion service. But the city was much disturbed during the whole day,
+      and in the riot Theodosius, the son of Calliopus, a man of Augustalian
+      rank, was killed by the mob. The Alexandrians treated the affair as
+      murder, and punished with death those who were thought guilty; but the
+      emperor looked upon it as a rebellion of the citizens, and the bishop was
+      obliged to go on an embassy to Constantinople to appease his just anger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anastasius, who had deserved the obedience of the Egyptians by his
+      moderation, pardoned their ingratitude when they offended; but he was the
+      last Byzantine emperor who governed Egypt with wisdom, and the last who
+      failed to enforce the decrees of the council of Chalcedon. It may well be
+      doubted whether any wise conduct on the part of the rulers could have
+      healed the quarrel between the two countries, and made the Egyptians
+      forget the wrongs that they had suffered from the Greeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the tenth year of the reign of Anastasius, A.D. 501, the Persians,
+      after overrunning a large part of Syria and defeating the Roman generals,
+      passed Pelusium and entered Egypt. The army of Kobades laid waste the
+      whole of the Delta up to the very walls of Alexandria. Eustatius, the
+      military prefect, led out his forces against the invaders and fought many
+      battles with doubtful success; but as the capital was safe the Persians
+      were at last obliged to retire, leaving the people ruined as much by the
+      loss of a harvest as by the sword. Alexandria suffered severely from
+      famine and the diseases which followed in its train; and history has
+      gratefully recorded the name of Urbib, a Christian Jew of great wealth,
+      who relieved the starving poor of that city with his bounty. Three hundred
+      persons were crushed to death in the church of Arcadius on Easter Sunday
+      in the press of the crowd to receive his alms. As war brought on disease
+      and famine, they also brought on rebellion. The people of Alexandria, in
+      want of grain and oil, rose against the magistrates, and many lives were
+      lost in the attempt to quell the riots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the early part of this history we have seen ambitious bishops quickly
+      disposed of by banishment to the Great Oasis; and again, as the country
+      became more desolate, criminals were sufficiently separated from the rest
+      of the empire by being sent to Thebes. Alexandria was then the last place
+      in the world in which a pretender to the throne would be allowed to live.
+      But Egypt was now ruined; and Anastasius began his reign by banishing, to
+      the fallen Alexandria, Longinus, the brother of the late king, and he had
+      him ordained a presbyter, to mark him as unfit for the throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Julianus, who was during a part of this reign the prefect of Egypt, was
+      also a poet, and he has left us a number of short epigrams that form part
+      of the volume of Greek Anthology which was published at Constantinople
+      soon after this time. Christodorus of Thebes was another poet who joined
+      with Julianus in praising the Emperor Anastasius. He also removed to
+      Constantinople, the seat of patronage; and the fifth book of the Greek
+      Anthology contains his epigrams on the winners in the horse-race in that
+      city and on the statues which stood around the public gymnasium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0021" id="linkB0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/291.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="291.jpg Illustrations from Copy of Dioscoride " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The poet&rsquo;s song, like the traveller&rsquo;s tale, often related the wonders of
+      the river Nile. The overflowing waters first manured the fields, and then
+      watered the crops, and lastly carried the grain to market; and one writer
+      in the Anthology, to describe the country life in Egypt, tells the story
+      of a sailor, who, to avoid the dangers of the ocean, turned husbandman,
+      and was then shipwrecked in his own meadows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The book-writers at this time sometimes illuminated their more valuable
+      parchments with gold and silver letters and sometimes employed painters to
+      ornament them with small paintings. The beautiful copy of the work of
+      Dioscorides on Plants in the library at Vienna was made in this reign for
+      the Princess Juliana of Constantinople. In one painting the figure of
+      science or invention is holding up a plant, while on one side of her is
+      the painter drawing it on his canvas, and on the other side is the author
+      describing it in his book. Other paintings are of the plants and animals
+      mentioned in the book. A copy of the Book of Genesis, also in the library
+      at Vienna, is of the same class and date. A large part of it is written in
+      gold and silver; and it has eighty-eight small paintings of various
+      historical subjects. In these the story is well told, though the drawing
+      and perspective are bad and the figures crowded. But these Alexandrian
+      paintings are better than those made in Rome or Constantinople at this
+      time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the spread of Christianity theatrical representations had been
+      gradually going out of use. The Greek tragedies, as we see in the works of
+      Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, those models of pure taste in poetry,
+      are founded on the pagan mythology; and in many of them the gods are made
+      to walk and talk upon the stage. Hence they of necessity fell under the
+      ban of the clergy. As the Christians became more powerful the several
+      cities of the empire had one by one discontinued these popular spectacles,
+      and horse-races usually took their place. But the Alexandrians were the
+      last people to give up a favourite amusement; and by the end of this reign
+      Alexandria was the only city in the empire where tragic and comic actors
+      and Eastern dancers were to be seen in the theatre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tower or lighthouse on the island of Pharos, the work of days more
+      prosperous than these, had latterly been sadly neglected with the other
+      buildings of the country. For more than seven hundred years, the pilot on
+      approaching this flat shore after dark had pointed out to his shipmate
+      what seemed a star on the horizon, and comforted him with the promise of a
+      safe entrance into the haven, and told him of Alexander&rsquo;s tower. But the
+      waves breaking against its foot had long since carried away the outworks,
+      and laid bare the foundations; the wall was undermined and its fall seemed
+      close at hand. The care of Anastasius, however, surrounded it again with
+      piles and buttresses; and this monument of wisdom and science, which
+      deserved to last for ever, was for a little while longer saved from ruin.
+      An epigram in the Anthology informs us that Ammonius was the name of the
+      builder who performed this good work, and to him and to Neptune the
+      grateful sailors then raised their hands in prayer and praise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 518 Justin I. succeeded Anastasius on the throne of Constantinople, and
+      in the task of defending the empire against the Persians. And this task
+      became every year more difficult, as the Greek population of his Egyptian
+      and Asiatic provinces fell off in numbers. For some years after the
+      division of the empire under the sons of Constantine, Antioch in Syria had
+      been the capital from which Alexandria received the emperor&rsquo;s commands.
+      The two cities became very closely united; and now that the Greeks were
+      deserting Antioch, a part of the Syrian church began to adopt the more
+      superstitious creed of Egypt. Severus, Bishop of Antioch, was successful
+      in persuading a large party in the Syrian church to deny the humanity of
+      Christ, and to style Mary the mother of God. But the chief power in
+      Antioch rested with the opposite party. They answered his arguments by
+      threats of violence, and he had to leave the city for safety. He fled to
+      Alexandria, and with him began the friendship between the two churches
+      which lasted for several centuries. In Alexandria he was received with the
+      honour due to his religious zeal. But though in Antioch his opinions had
+      been too Egyptian for the Syrians, in Alexandria they were too Syrian for
+      the Egyptians. The Egyptians, who said that Jesus had been crucified and
+      died only in appearance, always denied that his body was liable to
+      corruption. Severus, however, argued that it was liable to corruption
+      before the resurrection; and this led him into a new controversy, in which
+      Timotheus, the Alexandrian bishop, took part against his own more
+      superstitious flock, and sided with his friend, the Bishop of Antioch.
+      Severus has left us, in the Syriac language, the baptismal service as
+      performed in Egypt. The priest breathes three times into the basin to make
+      the water holy, he makes three crosses on the child&rsquo;s forehead, he adjures
+      the demons of wickedness to quit him, he again makes three crosses on his
+      forehead with oil, he again blows three times into the water in the form
+      of a cross, he anoints his whole body with oil, and then plunges him in
+      the water. Many other natives of Syria soon followed Severus to
+      Alexandria; so many indeed that as Greek literature decayed in that city,
+      Syriac literature rose. Many Syrians also came to study the religious life
+      in the monasteries of Egypt, and after some time the books in the library
+      of the monastery at Mount Nit-ria were found to be half Arabic and half
+      Syriac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Justin, the new emperor, again lighted up in Alexandria the flames of
+      discord which had been allowed to slumber since the publication of Zeno&rsquo;s
+      peace-making edict. But in the choice of the bishop he was not able to
+      command without a struggle. In the second year of his reign, on the death
+      of Timotheus, the two parties again found themselves nearly equal in
+      strength; and Alexandria was for several years kept almost in a state of
+      civil war between those who thought that the body of Jesus had been liable
+      to corruption, and those who thought it incorruptible. The former chose
+      Gaianas, whom his adversaries called a Manichean; and the latter
+      Theodosius, a Jacobite, who had the support of the prefect; and each of
+      these in his turn was able to drive his rival out of Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those Persian forces which in the last reign overran the Delta were
+      chiefly Arabs from the opposite coast of the Red Sea. To make an end of
+      these attacks, and to engage their attention in another quarter, was the
+      natural wish of the statesmen of Constantinople; and for this purpose
+      Anastasius had sent an embassy to the Homeritæ on the southern coast of
+      Arabia, to persuade them to attack their northern neighbours. The Homeritæ
+      held the strip of coast now called Hadramout. They were enriched, though
+      hardly civilised, by being the channel along which much of the Eastern
+      trade passed from India to the Nile, to avoid the difficult navigation of
+      the ocean. They were Jewish Arabs, who had little in common with the Arabs
+      of Yemen, but had frequent intercourse with Abyssinia and the merchants of
+      the Red Sea. Part of the trade of Solomon and the Tyrians was probably to
+      their coast. To this distant and little tribe the Emperor of
+      Constantinople now sent a second pressing embassy. Julianus, the
+      ambassador, went up the Nile from Alexandria, and then crossed the Red
+      Sea, or Indian Sea as it was also called, to Arabia. He was favourably
+      received by the Homeritæ. Arethas, the king, gave him an audience in grand
+      barbaric state. He was standing in a chariot drawn by four elephants; he
+      wore no clothing but a cloth of gold around his loins; his arms were laden
+      with costly armlets and bracelets; he held a shield and two spears in his
+      hands, and his nobles stood around him armed, and singing to his honour.
+      When the ambassador delivered the emperor&rsquo;s letter, Arethas kissed the
+      seal, and then kissed Julianus himself. He accepted the gifts which Justin
+      had sent, and promised to move his forces northward against the Persians
+      as requested, and also to keep the route open for the trade to Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Justinian, the successor of Justin in 527, settled the quarrel between the
+      two Alexandrian bishops by summoning them both to Constantinople, and then
+      sending them into banishment. But this had no effect in healing the
+      divisions in the Egyptian church; and for the next half-century the two
+      parties ranged themselves, in their theological or rather political
+      quarrel, under the names of their former bishops, and called themselves
+      Gaianites and Theodosians. Nor did the measures of Justinian tend to
+      lessen the breach between Egypt and Constantinople. He appointed Paul to
+      the bishopric, and required the Egyptians to receive the decrees of the
+      council of Chalcedon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After two years Paul was displaced either by the emperor or by his flock;
+      and Zoilus was then seated on the episcopal throne by the help of the
+      imperial forces. He maintained his dangerous post for about six years,
+      when the Alexandrians rose in open rebellion, overpowered the troops, and
+      forced him to seek safety in flight; and the Jacobite party then turned
+      out all the bishops who held the Greek faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Justinian heard that the Jacobites were masters of Egypt he appointed
+      Apollinarius to the joint office of prefect and patriarch of Alexandria,
+      and sent him with a large force to take possession of his bishopric.
+      Apollinarius marched into Alexandria in full military dress at the head of
+      his troops; but when he entered the church he laid aside his arms, and
+      putting on the patriarchal robes began to celebrate the rites of his
+      religion. The Alexandrians were by no means overawed by the force with
+      which he had entered the city; they pelted him with a shower of stones
+      from every corner of the church, and he was forced to withdraw from the
+      building in order to save his life. But three days afterwards the bells
+      were rung through the city, and the people were summoned to meet in the
+      church on the following Sunday, to hear the emperor&rsquo;s letter read. When
+      Sunday came the whole city flocked to hear and to disobey Justinian&rsquo;s
+      orders. Apollinarius began his address by threatening his hearers that, if
+      they continued obstinate in their opinions, their children should be made
+      orphans and their widows given up to the soldiery; and he was as before
+      stopped with a shower of stones. But this time he was prepared for the
+      attack; this Christian bishop had placed his troops in ambush round the
+      church, and on a signal given they rushed out on his unarmed flock, and by
+      his orders the crowds within and without the church were put to rout by
+      the sword, the soldiers waded up to their knees in blood, and the city and
+      whole country yielded its obedience for the time to bishops who held the
+      Greek faith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Henceforth the Melchite or royalist patriarchs, who were appointed by the
+      emperor and had the authority of civil prefects, and were supported by the
+      power of the military prefect, are scarcely mentioned by the historian of
+      the Koptic church. They were too much engaged in civil affairs to act the
+      part of ministers of religion. They collected their revenues principally
+      in grain, and carried on a large export trade, transporting their stores
+      to those parts of Europe where they would bring the best price. On one
+      occasion we hear of a small fleet belonging to the church of Alexandria,
+      consisting of thirteen ships of about thirty tons burden each, and bearing
+      ten thousand bushels of grain, being overtaken by a storm on the coast of
+      Italy. The princely income of the later patriarchs, raised from the
+      churches of all Egypt under the name of the offerings of the pious,
+      sometimes amounted to two thousand pounds of gold, or four hundred
+      thousand dollars. But while these Melchite or royalist bishops were
+      enjoying the ecclesiastical revenues, and administering the civil affairs
+      of the diocese and of the great monasteries, there was a second bishop who
+      held the Jacobite faith, and who, having been elected by the people
+      according to the ancient forms of the Church, equally bore the title of
+      patriarch, and administered in his more humble path to the spiritual wants
+      of his flock. The Jacobite bishop was always a monk. At his ordination he
+      was declared to be elected by the popular voice, by the bishops, priests,
+      deacons, monks, and all the people of Lower Egypt; and prayers were
+      offered up through the intercession of the Mother of God, and of the
+      glorious Apostle Mark. The two churches no longer used the same
+      prayer-book. The Melchite church continued to use the old liturgy, which,
+      as it had been read in Alexandria from time immemorial, was called the
+      liturgy of St. Mark, altered however to declare that the Son was of the
+      same substance with the Father. But the Koptic church made use of the
+      newer liturgies by their own champions, Bishop Cyril, Basil of Cæsaræ, and
+      Gregory Nazianzen. These three liturgies were all in the Koptic language,
+      and more clearly denied the two natures of Christ. Of the two churches the
+      Koptic had less learning, more bigotry, and opinions more removed from the
+      teachings of the New Testament; but then the Koptic bishop alone had any
+      moral power to lead the minds of his flock towards piety and religion. Had
+      the emperors been at all times either humane or politic enough to employ
+      bishops of the same religion as the people, they would perhaps have kept
+      the good-will of their subjects; but as it was, the Koptic church,
+      smarting under its insults, and forgetting the greater evils of a foreign
+      conquest, would sometimes look with longing eyes to the condition of their
+      neighbours, their brethren in faith, the Arabic subjects of Persia.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Christianity of the Egyptians was mostly superstition; and as it
+      spread over the land it embraced the whole nation within its pale, not so
+      much by purifying the pagan opinions as by lowering itself to their level,
+      and fitting itself to their corporeal notions of the Creator. This was in
+      a large measure induced by the custom of using the old temples for
+      Christian churches; the form of worship was in part guided by the form of
+      the building, and even the old traditions were engrafted on the new
+      religion. Thus the traveller Antonius, after visiting the remarkable
+      places in the Holy Land, came to Egypt to search for the chariots of the
+      Egyptians who pursued Moses, petrified into rocks at the bottom of the Red
+      Sea, and for the footsteps left in the sands by the infant Jesus while he
+      dwelt in Egypt with his parents. At Memphis he enquired why one of the
+      doors in the great temple of Phtah, then used as a church, was always
+      closed, and he was told that it had been rudely shut against the infant
+      Jesus five hundred years before, and mortal strength had never since been
+      able to open it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The records of the empire declared that the first Cæsars had kept six
+      hundred and forty-five thousand men under arms to guard Italy, Africa,
+      Spain, and Egypt, a number perhaps much larger than the truth; but
+      Justinian could with difficulty maintain one hundred and fifty thousand
+      ill-disciplined troops, a force far from large enough to hold even those
+      provinces that remained to him. During the latter half of his reign the
+      eastern frontier of this falling empire was sorely harassed by the
+      Persians under their king Chosroes. They overran Syria, defeated the army
+      of the empire in a pitched battle, and then took Antioch. By these defeats
+      the military roads were stopped; Egypt was cut off from the rest of the
+      empire and could be reached from the capital only by sea. Hence the
+      emperor was driven to a change in his religious policy. He gave over the
+      persecution of the Jacobite opinions, and even went so far in one of his
+      decrees as to call the body of Jesus incorruptible, as he thought that
+      these were the only means of keeping the allegiance of his subjects or the
+      friendship of his Arab neighbours, all of whom, as far as they were
+      Christians, held the Jacobite view of the Nicene creed, and denied the two
+      natures of Christ.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the forces of Constantinople were driven back by the victorious armies
+      of the Persians, the emperors had lost, among other fortresses, the
+      capital of Arabia Nabataæ, that curious rocky fastness that well deserved
+      the name of Petra, and which had been garrisoned by Romans from the reign
+      of Trajan till that of Valens. On this loss it became necessary to fortify
+      a new frontier post on the Egyptian side of the Elanitic Gulf. Justinian
+      then built the fortified monastery near Mount Sinai, to guard the only
+      pass by which Egypt could be entered without the help of a fleet; and when
+      it was found to be commanded by one of the higher points of the mountain
+      he beheaded the engineer who built it, and remedied the fault, as far as
+      it could be done, by a small fortress on the higher ground. This monastery
+      was held by the Egyptians, and maintained out of the Egyptian taxes. When
+      the Egyptians were formerly masters of their own country, before the
+      Persian and Greek conquests, they were governed by a race of priests, and
+      the temples were their only fortresses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0022" id="linkB0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:44%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/302.jpg"
+       alt="302.jpg Fortress Near Mount Sinai " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The temples of Thebes were the citadels of the capital, and the temples of
+      Elephantine guarded the frontier. So now, when the military prefect is too
+      weak to make himself obeyed, the emperor tries to govern through means of
+      the Christian priesthood; and when it is necessary for the Egyptians to
+      defend their own frontier, he builds a monastery and garrisons it with
+      monks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Part of the Egyptian trade to the East was carried on through the islands
+      of Ceylon and Socotra; but it was chiefly in the hands of uneducated Arabs
+      of Ethiopia, who were little able to communicate to the world much
+      knowledge of the countries from which they brought their highly valued
+      goods. At Ceylon they met with traders from beyond the Ganges and from
+      China, of whom they bought the silk which Europeans had formerly thought a
+      product of Arabia. At Ceylon was a Christian church, with a priest and a
+      deacon, frequented by the Christians from Persia, while the natives of the
+      place were pagans. The coins there used were Roman, borne thither by the
+      course of trade, which during so many centuries carried the gold and
+      silver eastward. The trade was lately turned more strongly into this
+      channel because a war had sprung up between the two tribes of Jewish
+      Arabs, the Hexumitæ of Abyssinia on the coast of the Red Sea near Adule,
+      and the Homeritæ who dwelt in Arabia on the opposite coast, at the
+      southern end of the Red Sea. The Homeritæ had quarrelled with the
+      Alexandrian merchants in the Indian trade, and had killed some of them as
+      they were passing their mountains from India to the country of the
+      Hexumitae.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately after these murders the Hexumitæ found the trade injured, and
+      they took up arms to keep the passage open for the merchants. Hadad their
+      king crossed the Red Sea and conquered his enemies; he put to death
+      Damianus, the King of the Homeritse, and made a new treaty with the
+      Emperor of Constantinople. The Hexumitæ promised to become Christians.
+      They sent to Alexandria to beg for a priest to baptise them, and to ordain
+      their preachers; and Justinian sent John, a man of piety and high
+      character, the dean of the church of St. John, who returned with the
+      ambassadors and became bishop of the Hexumitae.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was possibly this conquest of the Homeritae by Hadad, King of the
+      Hexumitae, which was recorded on the monument of Adule, at the foot of the
+      inscription set up eight centuries earlier by Ptolemy Euergetes. The
+      monument is a throne of white marble. The conqueror, whose name had been
+      broken away before the inscription was copied, there boasts that he
+      crossed over the Red Sea and made the Arabians and Sabaaans pay him
+      tribute. On his own continent he defeated the tribes to the north of him,
+      and opened the passage from his own country to Egypt; he also marched
+      eastward, and conquered the tribes on the African incense coast; and
+      lastly, he crossed the Astaborus to the snowy mountains in which that
+      branch of the Nile rises, and conquered the tribes between that stream and
+      the Astapus. This valuable inscription, which tells us of snowy mountains
+      within the tropics, was copied by Cosmas, a merchant of Alexandria, who
+      passed through Adule on his way to India.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Former emperors, Anastasius and Justin, had sent several embassies to
+      these nations at the southern end of the Red Sea; to the Homeritae, to
+      persuade them to attack the Persian forces in Arabia, and to the
+      Hexumitae, for the encouragement of trade. Justinian also sent an embassy
+      to the Homeritae under Abram; and, as he was successful in his object, he
+      entrusted a second embassy to Abram&rsquo;s son. Nonnosus landed at Adule on the
+      Abyssinian coast, and then travelled inward for fifteen days to Auxum, the
+      capital. This country was then called Ethiopia; it had gained the name
+      which before belonged to the valley of the Nile between Egypt and Meroë.
+      On his way to Auxum, he saw troops of wild elephants, to the number, as he
+      supposed, of five thousand. After delivering his message to Elesbaas, then
+      King of Auxum, he crossed the Red Sea to Caisus, King of the Homeritæ, a
+      grandson of that Arethas to whom Justin had sent his embassy.
+      Notwithstanding the natural difficulties of the journey, and those arising
+      from the tribes through which he had to pass, Nonnosus performed his task
+      successfully, and on his return home wrote a history of his embassies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The advantage gained to the Hexumitæ by their invasion of the Homeritæ was
+      soon lost, probably as soon as their forces were withdrawn. The trade
+      through the country of the Homeritae was again stopped; and such was the
+      difficulty of navigation from the incense coast of Africa to the mouths of
+      the Indus, that the loss was severely felt at Auxum. Elesbæs therefore
+      undertook to repeat the punishment which had been before inflicted on his
+      less civilised neighbours, and again to open the trade to the merchants
+      from the Nile. It was while he was preparing his forces for this invasion
+      that Cosmas, the Alexandrian traveller, passed through Adule; and he
+      copied for the King of Auxum the inscription above spoken of, which
+      recorded the victories of his predecessor over the enemies he was himself
+      preparing to attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The invasion by Elesbæs, or Elesthæus as he is also named, was immediately
+      successful. The Homeritæ were conquered, their ruler was overthrown; and,
+      to secure their future obedience, the conqueror set over these Jewish
+      Arabs an Abyssinian Christian for their king. Esimaphæus was chosen for
+      that post; and his first duty was to convert his new subjects to
+      Christianity. Political reasons as well as religious zeal would urge him
+      to this undertaking, to make the conquered bear the badge of the
+      conqueror. For this purpose he engaged the assistance of Gregentius, a
+      bishop, who was to employ his learning and eloquence in the cause.
+      Accordingly, in the palace of Threlletum, in the presence of their new
+      king, a public dispute was held between the Christian bishop and Herban, a
+      learned Jew. Gregentius has left us an account of the controversy, in
+      which he was wholly successful, being helped, perhaps, by the threats and
+      promises of the king. The arguments used were not quite the same as they
+      would be now. The bishop explained the Trinity as the Holy Spirit
+      proceeding from the Mind or Father, and resting on the Word or Son, which
+      was then the orthodox view of this mysterious doctrine. On the other hand,
+      the Jew quoted the Old Testament to show that the Lord their God was one
+      Lord. It is related that suddenly the Jews present were struck blind.
+      Their sight, however, was restored to them on the bishop&rsquo;s praying for
+      them; and they were then all thereby converted and baptised on the spot.
+      The king stood godfather to Herban, and rewarded him with a high office
+      under his government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0023" id="linkB0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/307.jpg" width="100%" alt="307.jpg Pyramid of Medum " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Esimaphasus did not long remain King of the Homeritæ. A rebellion soon
+      broke out against him, and he was deposed. Elesbaas, King of Auxum, again
+      sent an army to recall the Homeritæ to their obedience, but this time the
+      army joined in the revolt; and Elesbæ then made peace with the enemy, in
+      hopes of thus gaining the advantages which he was unable to grasp by force
+      of arms. From a Greek inscription on a monument at Auxum we learn the name
+      of Æizanas, another king of that country, who also called himself, either
+      truly or boastfully, king of the opposite coast. He set up the monument to
+      record his victories over the Bougoto, a people who dwelt between Auxum
+      and Egypt, and he styles himself the invincible Mars, king of kings, King
+      of the Hexumito, of the Ethiopians, of the Saboans, and of the Homerito.
+      These kings of the Hexumito ornamented the city of Auxum with several
+      beautiful and lofty obelisks, each made of a single block of granite like
+      those in Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Egypt in its mismanaged state seemed to be of little value to the empire
+      save as a means of enriching the prefect and the tax-gatherers; it yielded
+      very little tribute to Constantinople beyond the supply of grain, and that
+      by no means regularly. To remedy these abuses Justinian made a new law for
+      the government of the province, with a view of bringing about a thorough
+      reform. By this edict the districts of Menelaites and Mareotis, to the
+      west of Alexandria, were separated from the rest of Egypt, and they were
+      given to the prefect of Libya, whose seat of government was at Parotonium,
+      because his province was too poor to pay the troops required to guard it.
+      The several governments of Upper Egypt, of Lower Egypt, of Alexandria, and
+      of the troops were then given to one prefect. The two cohorts, the
+      Augustalian and the Ducal, into which the two Boman legions had gradually
+      dwindled, were henceforth to be united under the name of the Augustalian
+      Cohort, which was to contain six hundred men, who were to secure the
+      obedience and put down any rebellion of the Egyptian and barbarian
+      soldiers. The somewhat high pay and privileges of this favoured troop were
+      to be increased; and, to secure its loyalty and to keep out Egyptians,
+      nobody was to be admitted into it till his fitness had been inquired into
+      by the emperor&rsquo;s examiners. The first duty of the cohort was to collect
+      the supply of grain for Constantinople and to see it put on board the
+      ships; and as for the supply which was promised to the Alexandrians, the
+      magistrates were to collect it at their own risk, and by means of their
+      own cohort. The grain for Constantinople was required to be in that city
+      before the end of August, or within four months after the harvest, and the
+      supply for Alexandria not more than a month later. The prefect was made
+      answerable for the full collection, and whatever was wanting of that
+      quantity was to be levied on his property and his heirs, at the rate of
+      one solidus for three artabo of grain, or about three dollars for fifteen
+      bushels; while in order to help the collection, the export of grain from
+      Egypt was forbidden from every port but Alexandria, except in small
+      quantities. The grain required for Alexandria and Constantinople, to be
+      distributed as a free gift among the idle citizens, was eight hundred
+      thousand artabo, or four millions of bushels, and the cost of collecting
+      it was fixed at eighty thousand solidi, or about three hundred thousand
+      dollars. The prefect was ordered to assist the collectors at the head of
+      his cohort, and if he gave credit for the taxes which he was to collect he
+      was to bear the loss himself. If the archbishop interfered, to give credit
+      and screen an unhappy Egyptian, then he was to bear the loss, and if his
+      property was not enough the property of the Church was to make it good;
+      but if any other bishop gave credit, not only was his property to bear the
+      loss, but he was himself to be deposed from his bishopric; and lastly, if
+      any riot or rebellion should arise to cause the loss of the Egyptian
+      tribute, the tribunes of the Augustalian Cohort were to be punished with
+      forfeiture of all property, and the cohort was to be removed to a station
+      beyond the Danube.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the new law which Justinian, the great Roman lawgiver, proposed
+      for the future government of Egypt. The Egyptians were treated as slaves,
+      whose duty was to raise grain for the use of their masters at
+      Constantinople, and their taskmasters at Alexandria. They did not even
+      receive from the government the usual benefit of protection from their
+      enemies, and they felt bound to the emperor by no tie either of love or
+      interest. The imperial orders wrere very little obeyed beyond those places
+      where the troops were encamped; the Arabs were each year pressing closer
+      upon the valley of the Nile, and helping the sands of the desert to defeat
+      the labours of the disheartened husbandmen; and the Greek language, which
+      had hitherto followed and marked the route of commerce from Alexandria to
+      Syênê, and to the island of Socotra, was now but seldom heard in Upper
+      Egypt. The Alexandrians were sorely harassed by Haephasstus, a lawyer, who
+      had risen by court favour to the chief post in the city. He made
+      monopolies in his own favour of all the necessaries of life, and secured
+      his ill-gotten gains by ready loans of part of it to Justinian. His zeal
+      for the emperor was at the cost of the Alexandrians, and to save the
+      public granaries he lessened the supply of grain which the citizens looked
+      for as a right. The city was sinking fast; and the citizens could ill bear
+      this loss, for its population, though lessened, was still too large for
+      the fallen state of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grain of the merchants was shipped from Alexandria to the chief ports
+      of Europe, between Constantinople in the east and Cornwall in the west.
+      Britain had been left by the Romans, as too remote for them to hold in
+      their weakened condition; and the native Britons were then struggling
+      against their Saxon invaders, as in a distant corner of the world, beyond
+      the knowledge of the historian. But to that remote country the Alexandrian
+      merchants sailed every year with grain to purchase tin, enlightening the
+      natives, while they only meant to enrich themselves. Under the most
+      favourable circumstances they sometimes performed the voyage in twenty
+      days. The wheat was sold in Cornwall at the price of a bushel for a piece
+      of silver, perhaps worth about twenty cents, or for the same weight of
+      tin, as the tin and the silver were nearly of equal worth. This was the
+      longest of the ancient voyages, being longer than that from the Red Sea to
+      the island of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean; and it had been regularly
+      performed for at least eight centuries without ever teaching the British
+      to venture so far from their native shores.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suffering and riotous citizens made Alexandria a very unpleasant place
+      of abode for the prefect and magistrates. They therefore built palaces and
+      baths for their own use, at the public cost, at Taposiris, about a day&rsquo;s
+      journey to the west of the city, at a spot yet marked by the remains of
+      thirty-six marble columns, and a lofty tower, once perhaps a lighthouse.
+      At the same time it became necessary to fortify the public granaries
+      against the rebellious mob. The grain was brought from the Nile by barges
+      on a canal to the village of Chaereum, and thence to a part of Alexandria
+      named Phialæ, or <i>The Basins</i>, where the public granaries stood. In
+      all riots and rebellions this place had been a natural point of attack;
+      and often had the starving mob broken open these buildings, and seized the
+      grain that was on its way to Constantinople. But Justinian surrounded them
+      with a strong wall against such attacks for the future, and at the same
+      time he rebuilt the aqueduct that had been destroyed in one of the sieges
+      of the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In civil suits at law an appeal had always been allowed from the prefect
+      of the province to the emperor, or rather to the prefect of the East at
+      Constantinople; but as this was of course expensive, it was found
+      necessary to forbid it when the sum of money in dispute was small.
+      Justinian forbade all Egyptian appeals for sums less than ten pounds
+      weight of gold, or about two thousand five hundred dollars; for smaller
+      sums the judgment of the prefect was to be final, lest the expense should
+      swallow up the amount in dispute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this reign the Alexandrians, for the first time within the records of
+      history, felt the shock of an earthquake. Their naturalists had very
+      fairly supposed that the loose alluvial nature of the soil of the Delta
+      was the reason why earthquakes were unknown in Lower Egypt, and believed
+      that it would always save them from a misfortune which often overthrew
+      cities in other countries. Pliny thought that Egypt had been always free
+      from earthquakes. But this shock was felt by everybody in the city; and
+      Agathias, the Byzantine historian, who, after reading law in the
+      university of Beirut, was finishing his studies at Alexandria, says that
+      it was strong enough to make the inhabitants all run into the street for
+      fear the houses should fall upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Justinian is remarkable for another blow then given to
+      paganism throughout the empire, or at least through those parts of the
+      empire where the emperor&rsquo;s laws were obeyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0024" id="linkB0024">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:26%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/313.jpg"
+       alt="313.jpg a Modern House in the Delta at Rosetta " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Under Justinian the pagan schools were again and from that time forward
+      closed. Isidorus the platonist and Salustius the Cynic were among the
+      learned men of greatest note who then withdrew from Alexandria. Isidorus
+      had been chosen by Marinus as his successor in the platonic chair at
+      Athens, to fill the high post of the platonic successor; but he had left
+      the Athenian school to Zenodotus, a pupil of Proclus, and had removed to
+      Alexandria. Salustius the Cynic was a Syrian, who had removed with
+      Isidorus from Athens to Alexandria. He was virtuous in his morals though
+      jocular in his manners, and as ready in his witty attacks upon the
+      speculative opinions of his brother philosophers as upon the vices of the
+      Alexandrians. These learned men, with Damascius and others from Athens,
+      were kindly received by the Persians, who soon afterwards, when they made
+      a treaty of peace with Justinian, generously bargained that these men, the
+      last teachers of paganism, should be allowed to return home, and pass the
+      rest of their days in quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the flight of the pagan philosophers, but little learning was left
+      in Alexandria. One of the most remarkable men in this age of ignorance was
+      Cosmas, an Alexandrian merchant, who wished that the world should not only
+      be enriched but enlightened by his travels. After making many voyages
+      through Ethiopia to India for the sake of gain, he gave up trade and
+      became a monk and an author. When he writes as a traveller about the
+      Christian churches of India and Ceylon, and the inscriptions which he
+      copied at Adule in Abyssinia, everything that he tells us is valuable; but
+      when he reasons as a monk, the case is sadly changed. He is of the
+      dogmatical school which forbids all inquiry as heretical. He fights the
+      battle which has been so often fought before and since, and is even still
+      fought so resolutely, the battle of religious ignorance against scientific
+      knowledge. He sets the words of the Bible against the results of science;
+      he denies that the world is a sphere, and quotes the Old Testament against
+      the pagan astronomers, to show that it is a plane, covered by the
+      firmament as by a roof, above which he places the kingdom of heaven. His
+      work is named <i>Christian Topography</i>, and he is himself usually
+      called Cosmas Indicopleustes, from the country which he visited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the latter years of the government of Apollinarius, such was his
+      unpopularity as a spiritual bishop that both the rival parties, the
+      Gaianites and the Theodosians, had been building places of worship for
+      themselves, and the more zealous Jacobites had quietly left the churches
+      to Apollinarius and the Royalists. But on the death of an archdeacon they
+      again came to blows with the bishop; and a monk had his beard torn off his
+      chin by the Gaianites in the streets of Alexandria. The emperor was
+      obliged to interfere, and he sent the Abbot Photinus to Egypt to put down
+      this rebellion, and heal the quarrel in the Church. Apollinarius died soon
+      afterwards, and Justinian then appointed John to the joint office of
+      prefect of the city and patriarch of the Church. The new archbishop was
+      accused of being a Manichean; but this seems to mean nothing but that he
+      was too much of the Egyptian party, and that, though he was the imperial
+      patriarch, and not acknowledged by the Koptic church, yet his opinions
+      were disliked by the Greeks. On his death, which happened in about three
+      years, they chose Peter, who held the Jacobite or Egyptian opinions, and
+      whose name is not mentioned in the Greek lists of the patriarchs. Peter&rsquo;s
+      death occurred in the same year as that of the emperor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under Justinian we again find some small traces of a national coinage in
+      Egypt. Ever since the reign of Diocletian, the old Egyptian coinage had
+      been stopped, and the Alexandrians had used money of the same weight, and
+      with the same Latin inscriptions, as the rest of the empire. But under
+      Justinian, though the inscriptions on the coins are still Latin, they have
+      the name of the city in Greek letters. Like the coins of Constantinople,
+      they have a cross, the emblem of Christianity; but while the other coins
+      of the empire have the Greek numeral letters, E, I, K, A, or M, to denote
+      the value, meaning 5, 10, 20, 30, or 40, the coins of Alexandria have the
+      letters 1 B for 12, showing that they were on a different system of
+      weights from those of Constantinople. On these the head of the emperor is
+      in profile. But later in his reign the style was changed, the coins were
+      made larger, and the head of the emperor had a front face. On these larger
+      coins the numeral letters are [A r] for 33. We thus learn that the
+      Alexandrians at this time paid and received money rather by weight than by
+      tale, and avoided all depreciation of the currency. As the early coins
+      marked 12 had become lighter by wear, those which were meant to be of
+      about three times their value were marked 33.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the period from 566 to 602 Justin II. reigned twelve years,
+      Tiberius reigned four years, and Mauricius, his son-in-law, twenty; and
+      under these sovereigns the empire gained a little rest from its enemies by
+      a rebellion among the Persians, which at last overthrew their king
+      Chosroes. He fled to Mauricius for help, and was by him restored to his
+      throne, after which the two kingdoms remained at peace to the end of his
+      reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0025" id="linkB0025">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/316.jpg" width="100%" alt="316.jpg Coins of Justinian " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Emperor Mauricius was murdered by Phocas, who, in 602, succeeded him
+      on the throne of Constantinople. No sooner did the news of his death reach
+      Persia than Chosroes, the son of Hormuz, who had married Maria, the
+      daughter of Mauricius, declared the treaty with the Romans at an end, and
+      moved his forces against the new emperor, the murderer of his
+      father-in-law. During the whole of his reign Constantinople was kept in a
+      state of alarm and almost of siege by the Persians; and the crimes and
+      misfortunes of Phocas alike prepared his subjects for a revolt. In the
+      seventh year Alexandria rebelled in favour of the young Heraclius, son of
+      the late prefect of Cyrene; and the patriarch of Egypt was slain in the
+      struggle. Soon afterwards Heraclius entered the port of Constantinople
+      with his fleet, and Phocas was put to death after an unfortunate reign of
+      eight years, in which he had lost every province of the empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the first three years of the reign of Heraclius, Theodoras was
+      Bishop of Alexandria; but upon his death the wishes of the Alexandrians so
+      strongly pointed to John, the son of the prefect of Cyprus, that the
+      emperor, yielding to their request, appointed him to the bishopric.
+      Alexandria was not a place in which a good man could enjoy the pleasures
+      of power without feeling the weight of its duties. It was then suffering
+      under all those evils which usually befall the capital of a sinking state.
+      It had lost much of its trade, and its poorer citizens no longer received
+      a free supply of grain. The unsettled state of the country was starving
+      the larger cities, and the population of Alexandria was suffering from
+      want of employment. The civil magistrates had removed their palace to a
+      distance. But the new bishop seemed formed for these unfortunate times,
+      and, though appointed by the emperor, he was in every respect worthy of
+      the free choice of the citizens. He was foremost in every work of
+      benevolence and charity. The five years of his government were spent in
+      lightening the sufferings of the people, and he gained the truly Christian
+      name of John the Almsgiver. Beside his private acts of kindness he
+      established throughout the city hospitals for the sick and almshouses for
+      the poor and for strangers, and as many as seven lying-in hospitals for
+      poor women. John was not less active in outrooting all that he thought
+      heresy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first years of the reign of Heraclius are chiefly marked by the
+      successes of the Persians. While Chosroes, their king, was himself
+      attacking Constantinople, one general was besieging Jerusalem and a second
+      overrunning Lower Egypt. Crowds fled before the invading army to
+      Alexandria as a place of safety, and the famine increased as the province
+      of the prefect grew narrower and the population more crowded. To add to
+      the distress the Nile rose to a less height than usual; the seasons seemed
+      to assist the enemy in the destruction of Egypt. The patriarch John, who
+      had been sending money, grain, and Egyptian workmen to assist in the pious
+      work of rebuilding the church of Jerusalem which the Persians had
+      destroyed, immediately found all his means needed, and far from enough,
+      for the poor of Alexandria. On his appointment to the bishopric he found
+      in its treasury eight thousand pounds of gold; he had in the course of
+      five years received ten thousand more from the offerings of the pious, as
+      his princely ecclesiastical revenue was named; but this large sum of four
+      million dollars had all been spent in deeds of generosity or charity, and
+      the bishop had no resource but borrowing to relieve the misery with which
+      he was surrounded. In the fifth year the unbelievers were masters of
+      Jerusalem, and in the eighth they entered Alexandria, and soon held all
+      the Delta; and in that year the grain which had hitherto been given to the
+      citizens of Constantinople was sold to them at a small price, and before
+      the end of the year the supply from Egypt was wholly stopped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Persians entered Egypt, the patrician Nicetas, having no forces
+      with which he could withstand their advance, and knowing that no succour
+      was to be looked for from Constantinople, and finding that the
+      Alexandrians were unwilling to support him, fled with the patriarch John
+      the Almsgiver to Cyprus, and left the province to the enemy. As John
+      denied that the Son of God had suffered on the cross, his opinions would
+      seem not to have been very unlike those of the Egyptians; but as he was
+      appointed to the bishopric by the emperor, though at the request of the
+      people, he is not counted among the patriarchs of the Koptic church; and
+      one of the first acts of the Persians was to appoint Benjamin, a Jacobite
+      priest, who already performed the spiritual office of Bishop of
+      Alexandria, to the public exercise of that duty, and to the enjoyment of
+      the civil dignity and revenues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The troops with which Chosroes conquered and held Egypt were no doubt in
+      part Syrians and Arabs, people with whom the fellahs or labouring class of
+      Egyptians were closely allied in blood and feelings. Hence arose the
+      readiness with which the whole country yielded when the Roman forces were
+      defeated. But hence also arose the weakness of the Persians, and their
+      speedy loss of this conquest when the Arabs rebelled. Their rule, however,
+      in Egypt was not quite unmarked in the history of these dark ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time Thomas, a Syrian bishop, came to Alexandria to correct the
+      Syriac version of the New Testament, which had been made about a century
+      before by Philoxenus. He compared the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles with the
+      Greek manuscripts in the monastery of St. Anthony in the capital; and we
+      still possess the fruits of his learned labour, in which he altered the
+      ancient text to make it agree with the newer Alexandrian manuscripts. From
+      his copy the Philoxenian version is now printed. A Syriac manuscript of
+      the New Testament written by Alexandrian penmen in the sixth year of
+      Heraclius, is now to be seen in the library of the Augustan friars in
+      Rome. At the same time another Syrian scholar, Paul of Tela, in
+      Mesopotamia, was busy in the Alexandrian monastery of St. Zacchæus in
+      translating the Old Testament into Syriac, from the Septuagint Greek; and
+      he closes his labours with begging the reader to pray for the soul of his
+      friend Thomas. Such was now the reputation of the Alexandrian edition of
+      the Bible, that these scholars preferred it both to the original Hebrew of
+      the Old and to the earlier manuscripts of the New Testament. Among other
+      works of this time were the medical writings of Aaron the physician of
+      Alexandria, formerly written in Syriac, and afterwards much valued by the
+      Arabs. The Syrian monks in numbers settled in the monastery of Mount
+      Nitria; and in that secluded spot there remained a colony of these monks
+      for several centuries, kept up by the occasional arrival of newcomers from
+      the churches on the eastern side of the Euphrates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For ten years the Egyptians were governed by the Persians, and had a
+      patriarch of their own religion and of their own choice; and the building
+      of the Persian palace in Alexandria proves how quietly they lived under
+      their new masters. But Heraclius was not idle under his misfortunes. The
+      Persians had been weakened by the great revolt of the Arabs, who had
+      formed their chief strength on the side of Constantinople and Egypt; and
+      Heraclius, leading his forces bravely against Chosroes, drove him back
+      from Syria and became in his turn the invader, and he then recovered
+      Egypt. The Jacobite patriarch Benjamin fled with the Persians; and
+      Heraclius appointed George to the bishopric, which was declared to have
+      been empty since John the Almsgiver fled to Cyprus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The revolt of the Arabs, which overthrew the power of the Persians in
+      their western provinces and for a time restored Egypt to Constantinople,
+      was the foundation of the mighty empire of the caliphs; and the Hegira, or
+      flight of Muhammed, from which the Arabic historians count their lunar
+      years, took place in 622, the twelfth year of Heraclius. The vigour of the
+      Arab arms rapidly broke the Persian yoke, and the Moslems then overran
+      every province in the neighbourhood. This was soon felt by the Romans, who
+      found the Arabs, even in the third year of their freedom, a more
+      formidable enemy than the Persians whom they had overthrown; and, after a
+      short struggle of only two years, Heraclius was forced to pay a tribute to
+      the Moslems for their forbearance in not conquering Egypt. For eight years
+      he was willing to purchase an inglorious peace by paying tribute to the
+      caliph; but when his treasure failed him and the payment was discontinued,
+      the Arabs marched against the nearest provinces of the empire, offering to
+      the inhabitants their choice of either paying tribute or receiving the
+      Muhammedan religion; and they then began on their western frontier that
+      rapid career of conquest which they had already begun on the eastern
+      frontier against their late masters, the Persians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkB0026" id="linkB0026">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/322.jpg" width="100%" alt="322.jpg Tailpiece " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="linkC2HCH0001" id="linkC2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <a name="linkCimage-0004" id="linkCimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/323.jpg" width="100%" alt="323.jpg Page Image " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III.&mdash;EGYPT DURING THE MUHAMMEDAN PERIOD
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <i>The Rise of Muhammedanism: The Arabic Conquest of Egypt: The Ommayad
+      and Abbasid Dynasties.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The course of history now follows the somewhat uneventful period which
+      introduced Arabian rule into the valley of the Nile. It is only necessary
+      to remind the reader of the striking incidents in the life of Muhammed. He
+      was born at Mecca, in Arabia, in July, 571, and spent his earliest years
+      in the desert. At the age of twelve he travelled with a caravan to Syria,
+      and probably on this occasion first came into contact with the Jews and
+      Christians. After a few youthful adventures, his poetic and religious
+      feelings were awakened by study. He gave himself up to profound meditation
+      upon both the Jewish and Christian ideals, and subsequently beholding the
+      archangel Gabriel in a vision, he proclaimed himself as a prophet of God.
+      After preaching his doctrine for three years, and gaining a few converts
+      (the first of whom was his wife, Khadija), the people of Mecca rose
+      against him and he was forced to flee from the city in 614. New visions
+      and subsequent conversions of influential Arabs strengthened his cause,
+      especially in Medina, whither Muhammed was forced to flee a second time
+      from Mecca in 622, this second flight being known as the Hegira, from
+      which dates the Muhammedan era. In the next year, at Medina, he built his
+      first mosque and married Ayesha, and in 624 was compelled to defend his
+      pretensions by an appeal to arms. He was at first successful, and
+      thereupon appointed Friday as a day of public worship, and, being
+      embittered against the Jews, ordered that the attitude of prayer should no
+      longer be towards Jerusalem, but towards his birthplace, Mecca. In 625 the
+      Muhammedans were defeated by the Meccans, but one tribe after another
+      submitted to him, and after a series of victories Muhammed prepared, in
+      629, for further conquests in Syria, but he died in 632 before they could
+      be accomplished. His successors were known as caliphs, but from the very
+      first his disciples quarrelled about the leadership, some affirming the
+      rights of Ali, who had married Muhammed&rsquo;s daughter, Fatima, and others
+      supporting the claims of Abu Bekr, his father-in-law. There was also a
+      religious quarrel concerning certain oral traditions relating to the
+      Koran, or the Muhammedan sacred scriptures. Those who accepted the
+      tradition were known as Sunnites, and those who rejected it as Shiites,
+      the latter being the supporters of Ali, both sects, however, being known
+      as Moslems or Islamites. Omar, a Sunnite, obtained the leadership in 634,
+      and proceeded to carry out the prophet&rsquo;s ambitious schemes of conquest. He
+      subdued successively Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia, and in 639 directed
+      operations against Egypt. The general in charge of this expedition was
+      Amr, who led four thousand men against Pelusium, which surrendered after a
+      siege of thirty days. This easy victory was crowned by the capture of
+      Alexandria. Amr entered the city on December 22, 640, and he seems to have
+      been surprised at his own success. He immediately wrote to the caliph a
+      letter in which he says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have conquered the town of the West, and I cannot recount all it
+      contains within its walls. It contains four thousand baths and twelve
+      thousand venders of green vegetables, four thousand Jews who pay tribute,
+      and four thousand musicians and mountebanks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0005" id="linkCimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:29%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/325.jpg" alt="325.jpg Coin of Omar " />
+    </div>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:31%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/326.jpg" alt="326 (33K)" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Amr was anxious to conciliate and gain the affection of the new subjects
+      he had added to the caliph&rsquo;s empire, and during his short stay in
+      Alexandria received them with kindness and personally heard and attended
+      to their demands. It is commonly believed that in this period the
+      Alexandrian Library was dismantled; but, as we have already seen, the
+      books had been destroyed by the zeal of contending Christians. The story
+      that attributes the destruction of this world-famous institution to the
+      Arabian conquerors is so much a part of history, and has been so generally
+      accepted as correct, that the traditional version should be given here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the inhabitants of Alexandria whom Amr had so well received, says
+      the monkish chronicler, was one John the Grammarian, a learned Greek,
+      disciple of the Jacobite sect, who had been imprisoned by its persecutors.
+      Since his disgrace, he had given himself up entirely to study, and was one
+      of the most assiduous readers in the famous library. With the change of
+      masters he believed the rich treasure would be speedily dispersed, and he
+      wished to obtain a portion of it himself. So, profiting by the special
+      kindness Amr had shown him, and the pleasure he appeared to take in his
+      conversation, he ventured to ask for the gift of several of the
+      philosophic books whose removal would put an end to his learned
+      researches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first Amr granted this request without hesitation, but in his gratitude
+      John the Grammarian expatiated so unwisely on the extreme rarity of the
+      manuscripts and their inestimable value, that Amr, on reflection, feared
+      he had overstepped his power in granting the learned man&rsquo;s request. &ldquo;I
+      will refer the matter to the caliph,&rdquo; he said, and thereupon wrote
+      immediately to Omar and asked the caliph for his commands concerning the
+      disposition of the whole of the precious contents of the library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The caliph&rsquo;s answer came quickly. &ldquo;If,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;the books contain only
+      what is in the book of God (the Koran), it is enough for us, and these
+      books are useless. If they contain anything contrary to the holy book,
+      they are pernicious. In any case, burn them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Amr wished to organise his new government, and, having left a sufficient
+      garrison in Alexandria, he gave orders to the rest of his army to leave
+      the camp in the town and to occupy the interior of Egypt. &ldquo;Where shall we
+      pitch our new camp?&rdquo; the soldiers asked each other, and the answer came
+      from all parts, &ldquo;Round the general&rsquo;s tent.&rdquo; The army, in fact, did camp on
+      the banks of the Nile, in the vicinity of the modern Cairo, where Amr had
+      ordered his tent to be left; and round this tent, which had become the
+      centre of reunion, the soldiers built temporary huts which were soon
+      changed into solid, permanent habitations. Spacious houses were built for
+      the leaders, and palaces for the generals, and this collection of
+      buildings soon became an important military town, with strongly marked
+      Muhammedan characteristics. It was called Fostât (tent) in memory of the
+      event, otherwise unimportant, which was the origin of its creation. Amr
+      determined to make his new town the capital of Egypt; whilst still
+      preserving the name of Fostât, he added that of Misr,&mdash;a title always
+      borne by the capital of Egypt, and which Memphis had hitherto preserved in
+      spite of the rivalry of Alexandria.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fostât was then surrounded by fortifications, and Amr took up his
+      residence there, forming various establishments and giving himself up
+      entirely to the organisation of the vast province whose government the
+      caliph had entrusted to him. The personal tax, which was the only one, had
+      been determined in a fixed manner by the treaty of submission he had
+      concluded with the Kopts; and an unimportant ground rent on landed
+      property was added in favour of the holy towns of Mecca and Medina, as
+      well as to defray some expenses of local administration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0006" id="linkCimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/329.jpg" width="100%" alt="329.jpg Old Cairo (fostat) " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Egypt was entirely divided into provincial districts, all of which had
+      their own governor and administrators taken from among the Kopts
+      themselves. The lands which had belonged to the imperial government of
+      Constantinople, and those of the Greeks who had abandoned Egypt or been
+      killed in the war against the Mussulmans, were either declared to be the
+      property of the new government or given out again as fiefs or rewards to
+      the chief officers of the army. All these lands were leased to the Koptic
+      farmers, and the respective rights of the new proprietors or tenant
+      farmers and of the peasant proprietors were determined by decisive and
+      invariable rules. Thus the agricultural population enjoyed under the
+      Mussulmans a security and ease which replaced the tyrannical annoyances
+      and arbitrary exactions of the Christian agents of the treasury of
+      Constantinople; for, in fact, little by little, there had disappeared
+      under these Greek agents the sound principles of the old administration
+      that had been established by the wise kings of ancient Egypt, and which
+      the Ptolemies had scrupulously preserved, as did also the first governors
+      under the Cæsars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all these improvements in the internal administration, the governor
+      turned his attention to the question of justice, which until that moment
+      had been subject to the decision of financial agents, or of the soldiers
+      of the Greek government. Amr now created permanent and regular tribunals
+      composed of honourable, independent, and enlightened men, who enjoyed
+      public respect and esteem. To Amr dates back the first of those <i>divans</i>,
+      chosen from the élite of the population, as sureties of the fairness of
+      the <i>cadis</i>, which received appeals from first judgments to confirm
+      them, or, in the case of wrongful decisions, to alter them. The decrees of
+      the Arab judges had force only for those Mussulmans who formed a part of
+      the occupying army. Whenever a Koptic inhabitant was a party in an action,
+      the Koptic authorities had the right to intervene, and the parties were
+      judged by their equals in race and religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One striking act of justice succeeded in winning for Amr the hearts of
+      all. Despite the terror inspired by the religious persecutions which
+      Heraclius had carried on with so much energy, one man, the Koptic
+      patriarch Benjamin, had bravely kept his faith intact. He belonged to the
+      Jacobite sect and abandoned none of its dogmas, and in their intolerance
+      the all-powerful Melchites did not hesitate to choose him as their chief
+      victim. Benjamin was dispossessed of his patriarchal throne, his liberty
+      and life were threatened, and he only succeeded in saving both by taking
+      flight. He lived thus forgotten in the various refuges that the desert
+      monasteries afforded him, while Heraclius replaced him by an ardent
+      supporter of the opinions favoured at court. The whole of Egypt was then
+      divided into two churches separated from each other by an implacable
+      hatred. At the head of the Melchites was the new patriarch, who was
+      followed by a few priests and a small number of partisans who were more
+      attached to him by fear than by faith. The Jacobites, on the other hand,
+      comprised the immense majority of the population, who looked upon the
+      patriarch as an intruder chosen by the emperor. The church still
+      acknowledged as its real head Benjamin, the patriarch who had been for
+      thirteen years a wanderer, and whose return was ardently desired. This
+      wish found public expression as soon as the downfall of the imperial power
+      in Egypt permitted its free manifestation. Amr listened to the
+      supplications that were addressed to him, and, turning out the usurper in
+      his turn, recalled Benjamin from his long exile and replaced him on the
+      patriarchal throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But even here Amr&rsquo;s protection of the Koptic religion did not end. He
+      opened the door of his Mussulman town, and allowed them to live in Fostât
+      and to build churches there in the midst of the Mussulman soldiers, even
+      when Islamism was still without a temple in the city, or a consecrated
+      place worthy of the religion of the conquerors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amr at length resolved to build in his new capital a magnificent mosque in
+      imitation of the one at Mecca. Designs were speedily drawn up, the
+      location of the new temple being, according to Arab authors, that of an
+      ancient pyre consecrated by the Persians, and which had been in ruins
+      since the time of the Ptolemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0007" id="linkCimage-0007">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/333.jpg" width="100%" alt="333.jpg a Modern Kopt " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The monuments of Memphis had often been pillaged by Greek and Roman
+      emperors, and now they were once again despoiled to furnish the mosque of
+      Amr with the beautiful colonnades of marble and porphyry which adorn the
+      walls, and on which, the Arab historians assure us, the whole Koran was
+      written in letters of gold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Omar died in 644, and under his successor, Othman, the Arabian conquests
+      were extended in Northern Africa. Othman dying in 656, the claims of Ali
+      were warmly supported, but not universally recognised, many looking to
+      Muawia as an acceptable candidate for the caliphate. This was especially
+      the view of the Syrian Muham-medans, and in 661 Muawia I. was elected
+      caliph. He promptly transferred the capital from Medina to Damascus, and
+      became in fact the founder of a dynasty known as the Ommayads, the new
+      caliph being a descendant of the famous Arabian chieftain Ommayad. Egypt
+      acknowledged the new authority and remained quiet and submissive. It
+      furnished Abd el-Malik, who became caliph in 685, not only with rich
+      subsidies and abundant provisions, but also with part of his troops.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The attachment of the Egyptians to their new masters was chiefly owing to
+      the gentleness and wisdom of Abd el-Aziz ibn Merwan, who administered the
+      country after Amr was put to death in 689. He visited all the provinces of
+      Egypt, and, arriving at Alexandria, he ordered the building of a bridge
+      over the canal, recognising the importance of this communication between
+      the town and country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Benefiting by the religious liberty that Mussulman sovereignship had
+      secured them, the Kopts no longer attended to the quarrels of their
+      masters. They only occupied themselves in maintaining the quiet
+      peaceful-ness they had obtained by regular payment of their taxes, and by
+      supplying men and commodities when occasion demanded it. During the reign
+      of Abd el-Malik in Egypt the only remarkable event there was the election,
+      in 688, of the Jacobite Isaac as patriarch of Alexandria. The Koptic
+      clergy give him no other claim to historical remembrance than the
+      formulating of a decree ordaining &ldquo;that the patriarch can only be
+      inaugurated on a Sunday.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0008" id="linkCimage-0008">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/335.jpg" width="100%" alt="335.jpg Mosque of Amr " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Isaac was succeeded by Simon the Syrian, whom the Koptic church looks upon
+      as a saint, and for whom is claimed the power of reviving the dead. He
+      nevertheless died from the effects of poison given him at the altar by
+      some jealous rival. Arab historians relate how deputies came to Simon from
+      India to ask for a bishop and some priests. The patriarch refused to
+      comply with this request, but Abd el-Aziz, thinking that this relation
+      with India might prove politically useful, gave the order to other and
+      more docile priests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The patriarchal seat was empty for three years after the death of Simon.
+      The Kopts next appointed a patriarch named Alexander, who held the office
+      for a little over twenty years. The Koptic writers who recount the history
+      of this patriarch mention their discontent with the governor Abd el-Aziz.
+      The monks and other members of the clergy had grown very numerous in Egypt
+      and claimed to be exempt from taxation. Abd el-Aziz, whose yearly tax was
+      fixed, thought it unjust that the poorest classes of the people should be
+      made to pay while the priests, the bishop, and the patriarch, all
+      possessing abundance, should be privileged by exemption. He therefore had
+      a census made of all the monks and put on them a tax of one dinar (about
+      $2.53), while he exacted from the patriarch an annual payment of three
+      thousand dinars, or about $7,600. This act of justice was the cause of
+      many complaints among the clergy, but they were soon suppressed and were
+      without result.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0009" id="linkCimage-0009">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:30%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/337a.jpg" alt="337a.jpg Coin of Abu Bekr " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      After more than twenty years of a prosperous government of Egypt, Abd
+      el-Aziz ibn Merwan died at Fostât in the year 708 (a.h. 86) at the very
+      time when, with many fresh plans for the future, he had completed the
+      building of a large and magnificent palace called ed-Dar el-mudahaba (the
+      golden house), and a quarter of the town called Suk el-hammam (the pigeon
+      market). The Caliph Abd el-Malik felt deeply the loss of this brother,
+      whose qualities he highly appreciated and whom he had appointed as his
+      successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He now named as his heir to the caliphate Walid, his eldest son, and
+      replaced Abd el-Aziz in the government of Egypt with his second son, Abd
+      Allah ibn Abd el-Malik. The Kopts hoped to obtain from the new governor
+      the repeal of the act that exacted yearly tribute from the clergy, but Abd
+      Allah did not think it fair to grant this unjust discrimination against
+      the poorer classes of the Egyptians. Those monks who have written the
+      history of the patriarchs have therefore painted Abd Allah in even blacker
+      colours than they did his predecessor. For the rest, Abd Allah only held
+      the reins of government in Egypt until the death of his father, which
+      occurred a few months later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0010" id="linkCimage-0010">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:29%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/337b.jpg" alt="337b.jpg Coin of Othman " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Suleiman succeeded his brother Walid I. The new caliph vigorously put into
+      execution all the plans his brother had formed for the propagation of the
+      religion of the Prophet. In the first year of his reign he conquered
+      Tabaristan and Georgia, and sent his brother Maslama to lay fresh siege to
+      Constantinople. On his accession to the throne Suleiman placed the
+      government of Egypt in the hands of Assama ibn Yazid, with the title of
+      agent-general of finances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Koptic clerical historians, according to their usual habit, portray
+      this governor as still worse than his predecessors, but in this case the
+      Mussulman authorities are in agreement in accusing him of the most
+      iniquitous extortions and most barbarous massacres. The gravest reproach
+      they bring against him is that, calling all the monks together, he told
+      them that not only did he intend to maintain the old regulations of Abd
+      el-Aziz, by which they had to pay an annual tax of one dinar ($2.53), but
+      also that they would be obliged to receive yearly from his agents an iron
+      ring bearing their name and the date of the financial transaction, for
+      which ring they were to make personal contribution. He forced the wearing
+      of this ring continually, and the hand found without this strange form of
+      receipt was to be cut off. Several monks who endeavoured to evade this
+      strict order were pitilessly mutilated, while a number of them, rebelling
+      against the payment of the tax, retired into convents, thinking they could
+      safely defraud the treasury. Assama, however, sent his soldiers to search
+      these retreats, and all the monks found without rings were beheaded or put
+      to death by the bastinado.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0011" id="linkCimage-0011">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:45%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/338.jpg" alt="338.jpg Coin of Malik " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Careful about all that related to the Egyptian revenues, Assama commanded
+      the keeping up of the various Nilometers, which still served to regulate
+      the assessment of the ground tax. In the year 718 he learned that the
+      Nilometer established at Helwan, a little below Fostât, had fallen in, and
+      hastened to report the fact to the caliph. By the orders of this prince
+      the ruined Nilometer was abandoned, and a new one built at the meridional
+      point of the island now called Rhodha, just between Fostât and Gizeh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of all the financial transactions of Assama, the one that vexed most
+      the inhabitants of Egypt, and which brought down on him the most violent
+      and implacable hatred, was the ordinance by which all ascending or
+      descending the Nile were obliged to provide themselves with a passport
+      bearing a tax. This exorbitant claim was carried out with an abusive and
+      arbitrary sternness. A poor widow, the Oriental writers say, was
+      travelling up the Nile with her son, having with her a correct passport,
+      the payment of which had taken nearly all she possessed. The young man,
+      while stretched along the boat to drink of the river&rsquo;s water, was seized
+      by a crocodile and swallowed, together with the passport he carried in his
+      breast. The treasury officers insisted that the wretched widow should take
+      a fresh one; and to obtain payment for it she sold all she had, even to
+      the very clothes she wore. Such intolerable exactions and excesses ended
+      by thoroughly rousing the indignant Egyptians. The malcontents assembled,
+      and a general revolt would have been the result but for the news of the
+      death of the Caliph Suleiman (717), which gave birth to the hope that
+      justice might be obtained from his successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0012" id="linkCimage-0012">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/339.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="339.jpg Citadel of Cairo (fostat). " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The next caliph was Omar II., a grandson of Merwan I., who had been
+      nominated as his successor by Suleiman. In his reign the Muhammedans were
+      repulsed from Constantinople, and the political movement began which
+      finally established the Abbasid dynasty at Baghdad. Omar dying in the year
+      720, Yazid II., a son of Abd el-Malik, succeeded to the caliphate, and
+      reigned for four years, history being for the most part silent as to the
+      general condition of Egypt under these two caliphs. It is recorded that in
+      the year 720, one of Yazid&rsquo;s brothers, by name Muhammed ibn Abd el-Malik,
+      ruled over Egypt. The Kopts complained of his rule, and declared that
+      during the whole reign of Yazid ibn Abd el-Malik the Christians were
+      persecuted, crosses overthrown, and churches destroyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0013" id="linkCimage-0013">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:28%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/341.jpg"
+       alt="341.jpg a Crocodile Used As A Talisman " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Yazid was succeeded, in 724 A.D., by his brother Hisham, surnamed
+      Abu&rsquo;l-Walid, the fourth son of Abd el-Malik to occupy the throne of Islam,
+      who, having been appointed by his brother as his successor, took
+      possession of the throne on the very day of his death. Muhammed was
+      replaced in Egypt by his cousin, Hassan ibn Yusuf, who only held office
+      for three years, resigning voluntarily in the year 730 a.d., or 108 of the
+      Hegira. The Caliph Hisham replaced him by Hafs ibn Walid, who was deposed
+      a year later, and in the year 109 of the Hegira the caliph appointed in
+      his place Abd el-Malik ibn Rifa, who had already governed Egypt during the
+      caliphate of Walid I. Hisham made many changes in the governorship of
+      Egypt, and amid a succession of rulers appointed Handhala to the post. He
+      had already been governor of Egypt under Yazid II. He administered the
+      province for another six years, and, according to the Christian historians
+      of the East, pursued the same course of intolerance and tyranny that he
+      had adopted when he governed Egypt for the first time under Yazid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Caliph Hisham enjoined Handhala to be gentle with his subjects and to
+      treat the Christians with kindness, but far from conforming with these
+      wise and kindly intentions, he overwhelmed them with vexations and
+      tyrannous acts. He doubled the taxes by a general census, subjecting not
+      only men but also their animals to an impost. The receipts for the new
+      duty had to be stamped with the impression of a lion, and every Christian
+      found without one of these documents was deprived of one of his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 746 (a.h. 124), on being informed of these abuses, the caliph
+      deprived him of the government of Egypt, and, giving him the
+      administration of Mauritania, appointed as his successor Hafs ibn Walid,
+      who, according to some accounts, had previously governed Egypt for sixteen
+      years, and who had left pleasanter recollections behind him. Hafs,
+      however, now only held office for a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing of political importance happened in Egypt under the long reign of
+      Hisham, the only events noticed by the Christian historians being those
+      which relate solely to their ecclesiastical history. The 108th year of the
+      Hegira saw the death of Alexander, the forty-third Koptic Patriarch of
+      Alexandria. Since the conquest of Egypt by Omar, for a period of about
+      twenty-four years, the patriarchate had been in the hands of the
+      Jacobites; all the bishops in Egypt belonged to that sect, and they had
+      established Jacobite bishops even in Nubia, which they had converted to
+      their religion. The orthodox Christians elected Kosmas as their patriarch.
+      At that time the heretics had taken possession of all the churches in
+      Egypt, and the patriarch only retained that of Mar-Saba, or the Holy
+      Sabbath. Kosmas, by his solicitations, obtained from Hisham an order to
+      his financial administrator in Egypt, Abd Allah ibn es-Sakari, to see that
+      all the churches were returned to the sect to which they belonged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After occupying the patriarchal throne for only fifteen months, Kosmas
+      died. In the 109th year of the Hegira (a. d. 727-28) Kosmas was succeeded
+      by the patriarch Theodore. He occupied the seat for eleven years. His
+      patriarchate was a period of peace and quiet for the church of Alexandria,
+      and caused a temporary cessation of the quarrels between the Melchites and
+      the Jacobites. A vacancy of six years followed his death until, in the
+      year 127 of the Hegira (749 a. d.), Ibn Khalil was promoted to the office
+      of patriarch, and held his seat for twenty-three years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walid II. succeeded to the caliphate in the year 749. One of his first
+      acts was to take the government of Egypt from Hafs, in spite of the
+      kindness of his rule, the wisdom and moderation of which had gained for
+      him the affection of all the provinces which he governed. He was replaced
+      by Isa ibn Abi Atta, who soon created a universal discontent, as his
+      administrative measures were oppressive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 750 the Ommayads were supplanted by the Abbasids, who
+      transferred the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. The first Abbasid caliph
+      was Abu&rsquo;l-Abbas, who claimed descent from Abbas, the uncle of Muhammed.
+      The caliph Merwan II., the last of the Ommayads, in his flight from his
+      enemies came to Egypt and sent troops from Fostât to hold Alexandria. He
+      was now pursued to his death by the Abbasid general Salih ibn Ali, who
+      took possession of Postât for the new dynasty in 750. The change from the
+      Ommayad to the Abbasid caliphs was effected with little difficulty, and
+      Egypt continued to be a province of the caliphate and was ruled by
+      governors who were mostly Arabs or members of the Abbasid family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Abu&rsquo;l-Abbas, after being inaugurated, began his rule by recalling all the
+      provincial governors, whom he replaced by his kinsmen and partisans. He
+      entrusted the government of Egypt to his paternal uncle, Salih ibn Ali,
+      who had obtained the province for him. Salih, however, did not rule in
+      person, but was represented by Abu Aun Abd el-Malik ibn Yazid, whom he
+      appointed vice-governor. The duties of patriarch of Alexandria were then
+      performed by Michel, commonly called Khail by the Kopts. This patriarch
+      was of the Jacobite sect and the forty-fifth successor of St. Mark: he
+      held the office about three years. He in turn was succeeded by the
+      patriarch Myna, a native of Semennud (the ancient Sebennytus).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 754 Abu&rsquo;l-Abbas died at the age of thirty-two, after reigning
+      four years, eight months, and twenty-six days, the Arabian historians
+      being always very precise in recording the duration of the reign of the
+      caliphs. He was the first of the caliphs to appoint a vizier, the Ommayad
+      caliphs employing only secretaries during their administration. The
+      successor of Abu&rsquo;l-Abbas was his brother Abu Jafar, surnamed El-Man-sur.
+      Three years after his accession he took the government of Egypt from his
+      uncle, and in less than seven years Egypt passed successively through the
+      hands of six different governors. These changes were instigated by the
+      mistrustful disposition of the caliph, who saw in every man a traitor and
+      conspirator, dismissing on the slightest provocation his most devoted
+      adherents, some of whom were even put to death by his orders. His last
+      choice, Yazid ibn Hatim, governed Egypt for eight years, and the caliph
+      bestowed the title of Prince of Egypt (Emir Misri) upon him, which title
+      was also borne by his successors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These continual changes in the government of Egypt had not furthered the
+      prosperity and well-being of the inhabitants. Each ruler, certain of
+      speedy dismissal, busied himself with his personal affairs to the
+      detriment of the country, anxious only to amass by every possible means
+      sufficient money to compensate him for his inevitable deposition.
+      Moreover, each governor increased the taxation levied by his predecessor.
+      Such was the greed and rapacity of these governors that every industry was
+      continually subjected to increased taxation; the working bricklayer, the
+      vender of vegetables, the camel-driver, the gravedigger, all callings,
+      even that of mendicant, were taxed, and the lower classes were reduced to
+      eating dog&rsquo;s flesh and human remains. At the moment when Egypt, unable to
+      support such oppression longer, was on the verge of insurrection, the
+      welcome tidings of the death of El-Mansur arrived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Muhammed el-Mahdi, son of El-Mansur, succeeded his father and was the
+      third caliph of the house of Abbas. He was at Baghdad when his father
+      expired near Mecca, but, despite his absence, was immediately proclaimed
+      caliph. El-Mahdi betrayed in his deeds that same fickleness which had
+      signalised the caliphate of his father, El-Mansur. He appointed a
+      different governor of Egypt nearly every year. These many changes resulted
+      probably from the political views held by the caliph, or perhaps he
+      already perceived the tendency shown by each of his provinces to separate
+      itself from the centre of Islamism. Perhaps also he already foresaw those
+      divisions which destroyed the empire about half a century later. Thus his
+      prudence sought, in allowing but a short period of power to each governor,
+      to prevent their strengthening themselves sufficiently in their provinces
+      to become independent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0014" id="linkCimage-0014">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:34%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/347.jpg"
+       alt="347.jpg Door of an Arabian House. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Egypt remained calm and subdued under these constant changes of
+      government. Syria and the neighbouring provinces followed suit, and the
+      Caliph el-Mahdi profited by this peaceful state of things to attack the
+      Emperor of the Greeks. His second son, Harun, undertook the continuation
+      of this war, and the young prince displayed such talent and bravery that
+      he gained brilliant victories, and returned to Baghdad after having
+      captured several cities from the Greeks, overthrown their generals, and
+      forced Constantinople to pay an annual tribute of seventy thousand dinars
+      (about $180,000). The Caliph el-Mahdi rewarded Harun by solemnly naming
+      him the future successor of his eldest son, Musa el-Hadi, whom he had just
+      definitely declared his heir to the throne. Shortly after this decision,
+      el-Mahdi died, in the year 785, having reigned ten years and two months.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Musa el-Hadi, his eldest son, succeeded him, being the fourth caliph of
+      the race of Abbasids. On ascending the throne, he withdrew the government
+      of Egypt from Fadl ibn Salih, appointing in his place Ali ibn Suleiman,
+      also a descendant of Abbas. El-Hadi plotted against the claims of Harun to
+      the succession, but he died before his plans had matured, and Harun became
+      caliph in the year 786.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Harun er-Rashid was the most brilliant epoch of the empire of
+      Islamism, and his glory penetrated from the far East to the western
+      countries of Europe, where his name is still celebrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Harun seems to have been as reluctant as his father and grandfather were
+      before him to leave a province too long in the hands of a governor, and he
+      even surpassed them in his precautionary measures. In the year 171 of the
+      Hegira, he recalled Ali ibn Suleiman, and gave the government of Egypt to
+      Musa ibn Isa, a descendant of the Caliph Ali.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thereafter the governors were changed on an average of once a year, and
+      their financial duties were separately administered. Musa ibn Isa,
+      however, held the appointment of Governor of Egypt on three separate
+      occasions, and of his third period Said ibn Batrik tells the following
+      anecdote:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;While Obaid Allah ibn el-Mahdi was ruling in Egypt,&rdquo; he relates, &ldquo;he sent
+      a beautiful young Koptic slave to his brother, the caliph, as a gift. The
+      Egyptian odalisk so charmed the caliph that he fell violently in love with
+      her. Suddenly, however, the favourite was laid prostrate by a malady which
+      the court physicians could neither cure nor even diagnose. The girl
+      insisted that, being Egyptian, only an Egyptian physician could cure her.
+      The caliph instantly ordered his brother to send post haste the most
+      skilful doctor in Egypt. This proved to be the Melchite patriarch, for in
+      those days Koptic priests practised medicine and cultivated other
+      sciences. The patriarch set out for Baghdad, restored the favourite to
+      health, and in reward received from the caliph an imperial diploma, which
+      restored to the orthodox Christians or Melchites all those privileges of
+      which they had been deprived by the Jacobite heretics since their union
+      with the conqueror Amr ibn el-Asi.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If this story be true, one cannot but perceive the plot skilfully laid and
+      carried out by the powerful clergy, to whom any means, even the sending of
+      a concubine to the caliph, seemed legitimate to procure the restoration of
+      their supremacy and the humiliation of their adversaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0015" id="linkCimage-0015">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:34%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/349.jpg" alt="349.jpg a Veiled Beauty " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The year 204 of the Hegira was memorable for the death of the Iman
+      Muhammed ibn Idris, surnamed esh-Shafi. This celebrated doctor was the
+      founder of one of the four orthodox sects which recognised the Moslem
+      religion, and whose followers take the name &ldquo;Shafites&rdquo; from their chief.
+      The Iman esh-Shafi died at Fostât when but forty-three years old. His
+      dogmas are more especially followed in Egypt, where his sect is still
+      represented and presided over by one of the four Imans at the head of the
+      famous Mosque Jam el-Azar, or mosque of flowers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The distance of Egypt from Baghdad, the caliph&rsquo;s capital, was the cause of
+      the neglect of many of his commands, and upon more than one occasion was
+      his authority slighted. Thus it happened that for more than five years the
+      government of Egypt was in the hands of Abd Allah ibn es-Sari, whom the
+      soldiers elected, but whose appointment was never confirmed by the caliph.
+      Abd Allah ibn Tahir, the son of the successful general, had, in the year
+      a.h. 210, settled at Belbeys in Egypt. With a large number of partisans,
+      he assumed almost regal privileges. In 211 a.h. he proceeded to Fostât and
+      there dismissed Abd Allah ibn es-Sari and replaced him by Ayad ibn
+      Ibrahim, whom he also dismissed the following year, giving the
+      governorship to Isa ibn Yazid, surnamed el-Jalud. In the year 213, the
+      Caliph el-Mamun ordered Abd Allah ibn Tahir to retire, and confided the
+      government of Egypt and also that of Syria to his own brother el-Mutasim,
+      third son of the Caliph Ilarun er-Rashid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 218 of the Hegira (a. d. 833), Muhammed el-Mutasim succeeded
+      his brother el-Mamun. He was the first caliph who brought the name of God
+      into his surname. On ascending the throne, he assumed the title el-Mutasim
+      b&rsquo;lllah, that is &ldquo;strengthened by God,&rdquo; and his example was followed by
+      all his successors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the commencement of this reign, el-Mutasim b&rsquo;lllah was forced to
+      defend himself against insurgents and aspirants to the caliphate. In the
+      year 219 of the Hegira, Kindi, the Governor of Egypt, died, and the caliph
+      named his son, Mudhaffar ibn Kindi, as his successor. Mudhaffar ibn Kindi,
+      dying the following year, was succeeded by Musa, son of Abu&rsquo;l-Abbas,
+      surnamed esh-Shirbani by some writers, esh-Shami (the Syrian) by others.
+      In the year 224 Musa was recalled and his place taken by Malik, surnamed
+      by some el-Hindi (the Indian), by others ibn el-Kindi. A year later the
+      caliph dismissed Malik, and sent Ashas to Egypt in his place. This was the
+      last governor appointed by el-Mutasim b&rsquo;lllah, for the caliph died of
+      fever in the year 227 of the Hegira.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oriental historians have noticed that the numeral eight affected this
+      caliph in a singular manner. Between himself and Abbas, the head of his
+      house, there were eight generations; he was born in the month of Shaban,
+      the eighth month of the Mussulman year; he was the eighth Abbasidian
+      caliph, and ascended the throne in the year 218, aged thirty-eight years
+      and eight months; he reigned eight years, eight months, and eight days,
+      and died in the forty-eighth year of his age, leaving eight sons and eight
+      daughters. He fought in eight battles, and on his death eight million
+      dinars and eighty thousand dirhems were discovered in his private
+      treasury. It is this singular coincidence which gave him the name Mutamma.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0016" id="linkCimage-0016">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:46%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/351.jpg" alt="351.jpg Tomb of a Sheikh " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      But a sadder fatality exercised its influence over the Caliph Mutamma, for
+      from him dates the beginning of the decadence of his dynasty, and to him
+      its first cause may be ascribed. The fact is, Mutasim was uneducated,
+      without ability, and lacking in moral principles; he was unable even to
+      write. Endowed with remarkable strength and muscles of iron, he was able,
+      so Arab historians relate, to lift and carry exceptionally heavy weights;
+      to this strength was added indomitable courage and love of warfare, fine
+      weapons, horses, and warriors. This taste led him, even before the death
+      of his father, to organise a picked corps, for which he selected the
+      finest, handsomest, and strongest of the young Turkish slaves taken in
+      war, or sent as tribute to the caliph.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The vast nation, sometimes called Turks, sometimes Tatars, was
+      distributed, according to all Oriental geographers, over all the countries
+      of Northern Asia, from the river Jihun or Oxus to Kathay or China. That
+      the Turks and the Arabs, both bent upon a persistent policy of conquest,
+      should come into more or less hostile contact was inevitable. The struggle
+      was a long one, and during the numerous engagements many prisoners were
+      taken on both sides. Those Turks who fell into the hands of the Arabs were
+      sent to the different provinces of their domain, where they became slaves
+      of the chief emirs and of the caliphs themselves, where, finding favour in
+      the eyes of the caliphs, they were soon transferred to their personal
+      retinue. The distrust which the caliphs felt for the emirs of their court,
+      whose claims they were only able to appease by making vassals of them,
+      caused them to commit the grave error of confiding in these alien slaves,
+      who, barbaric and illiterate as they were, now living in the midst of
+      princes, soon acquired a knowledge of Muhammedanism, the sciences, and,
+      above all, the politics of the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not long before they were able to fill the most responsible
+      positions, and, given their freedom by the caliphs, were employed by the
+      government according to their abilities. Not only were they given the
+      chief positions at court, but the government of the principal provinces
+      was entrusted to them. They repaid these favours later by the blackest
+      ingratitude, especially when the formation of a Turkish guard brought a
+      number of their own countrymen under their influence. Ever anxious to
+      augment his own body-guard, and finding the number of Turks he annually
+      received as tribute insufficient, el-Mutasim purchased a great many for
+      the purpose of training them for that particular service. But these youths
+      speedily abused the confidence shown them by the caliph, who, perceiving
+      that their insolence was daily growing more insupportable to the
+      inhabitants of Baghdad, resolved to leave the capital, rebuild the ancient
+      city of Samarrah and again make it the seat of the empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time the captain of the caliph&rsquo;s guard was one Tulun, a freedman,
+      whom fate would seem to have reduced to servitude for the purpose of
+      showing that a slave might found a dynasty destined to rule over Egypt and
+      Syria. Tulun belonged to the Toghus-ghur, one of the twenty-four tribes
+      composing the population of Turkestan. His family dwelt near Lake Lop, in
+      Little Bukhara. He was taken prisoner in battle by Nuh ibn Assad
+      es-Samami, then in command at Bukhara. This prince, who was subject to the
+      Caliph Mamun, paid an annual tribute of slaves, Turkish horses, and other
+      valuables. In the year 815 a. d., Tulun was among the slaves sent as
+      tribute to the caliph, who, attracted by his bearing, enrolled him in his
+      own body-guard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before long he had so gained the caliph&rsquo;s confidence that Mamun gave him
+      his freedom and the command of the guard, at the same time appointing him
+      Emir es-sitri, prince of the veil or curtain. This post, which was a mark
+      of the greatest esteem, comprised the charge of the personal safety of the
+      sovereign, by continually keeping watch without the curtain or rich
+      drapery which hung before the private apartments, and admitting no one
+      without a special order. Tulun spent twenty years at the court of el-Mamun
+      and of his successor, Mutasim, and became the father of several children,
+      one of which, Ahmed ibn Tulun,* known later as Abu l&rsquo;Abbas, was the
+      founder of the Tulunide dynasty in Egypt and Syria.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Ahmed ibn Tulun was, according to some historians, born at
+     Baghdad in the year 220 of the Hegira, in the third year of
+     the reign of el-Mutasim b&rsquo; Illah. Others claim Samarrah as
+     his birthplace. His mother, a young Turkish slave, was named
+     Kassimeh, or some say, Hachimeh. Some historians have denied
+     that Ahmed was the son of Tulun, one of them, Suyuti, in a
+     manuscript belonging to Marcel, quotes Abu Asakar in
+     confirmation of this assertion, who pretends he was told by
+     an old Egyptian that Ahmed was the son of a Turk named Mahdi
+     and of Kassimeh, the slave of Tulun. Suyuti adds that Tulun
+     adopted the child on account of his good qualities, but this
+     statement is unsupported and seems contradicted by
+     subsequent events.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Before Ahmed ibn Tulun had reached an age to take part in political
+      affairs, two caliphs succeeded Mutasim b&rsquo;lllah. The first was his son
+      Harun abu Jafar, who, upon his accession, assumed the surname el-Wathik
+      b&rsquo;lllah (trusting in God). Wathik carried on the traditional policy of
+      continually changing the governors of the provinces, and, dying in the
+      year 847, was succeeded by his half-brother Mutawakkil. In the following
+      year the new caliph confided the government of Egypt to Anbasa, but
+      dismissed him a few months later in favour of his own son el-Muntasir ibn
+      el-Mutawakkil, whom two years afterwards the caliph named as his successor
+      to the throne. El-Muntasir was to be immediately succeeded by his two
+      younger brothers, el-Mutazz b&rsquo;lllah and el-Mujib b&rsquo;lllah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mutawakkil then proceeded to divide his kingdom, giving Africa and all his
+      Eastern possessions, from the frontier of Egypt to the eastern boundary of
+      his states, to his eldest son. His second son, el-Mutazz, received
+      Khorassan, Tabaristan, Persia, Armenia, and Aderbaijan as his portion, and
+      to el-Mujib, his third son, he gave Damascus, Hemessa, the basin of the
+      Jordan, and Palestine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These measures, by which the caliph hoped to satisfy the ambitions of his
+      sons, did not have the desired effect. Despite the immense concessions he
+      had received, el-Muntasir, anxious to commence his rule over the whole of
+      the Islam empire, secretly conspired against his father and meditated
+      taking his life. Finding that in Egypt he was too far from the scene of
+      his intrigues, he deputed the government of that country to Yazid ibn Abd
+      Allah, and returned to his father&rsquo;s court to encourage the malcontents and
+      weave fresh plots. His evil schemes soon began to bear fruit, for, in the
+      year 244 of the Hegira, his agents stirred up the Turkish soldiery at
+      Damascus to insurrection on the ground of deferred payment. Whereupon the
+      caliph paid them the arrears, and left Damascus to retire to Samarrah.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0017" id="linkCimage-0017">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/356.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="356.jpg the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, Cairo. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      At length, in the year 861 (a.h. 247), Mutawakkil discovered the scarcely
+      concealed treachery of his son, and reproved him publicly. Some days later
+      the caliph was murdered at night by the captain of his Turkish Guard, and
+      Muntasir, who is commonly supposed to have instigated the crime, was
+      immediately proclaimed as his successor in the government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most important event in Egypt during the reign of Mutawakkil was the
+      falling in of the Nilometer at Fostât. This disaster, was the result of an
+      earthquake of considerable violence, which was felt throughout Syria. The
+      caliph ordered the reconstruction of the Nilometer, which was accomplished
+      the same year, and the Nilometer of the Island of Rhodha was then called
+      Magaz el-jedid, or the New Nilometer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After reigning scarcely a year, Muntasir himself succumbed, most probably
+      to poison, and his cousin Ahmed was elected to the caliphate by the
+      Turkish soldiery, with the title of Mustain. During his brief reign the
+      Moslems were defeated by the Byzantines at Awasia, and in 866 the Turkish
+      soldiers revolted against the caliph and elected his brother Mutazz in his
+      place. Mustain was, however, allowed to retire to Ma&rsquo;szit. He was
+      permitted to take an attendant with him, and his choice fell upon Ahmed,
+      the son of Tulun, already mentioned. Ahmed served the dethroned prince
+      truly, and had no part in the subsequent murder of this unhappy man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the meantime the mother of Ahmed had married the influential General
+      Baik-Bey, and when the latter was given the rulership of Egypt in the year
+      868 a. d. (254 a.h.), he sent his stepson as proxy, according to the
+      custom of the time. On the 23d Ramadhan 254 (15th September, 868), Ahmed
+      ibn Tulun arrived at Fostât. He encountered great difficulties, and
+      discovered that at Alexandria and also in other districts there were
+      independent emirs, who were not directly under the ruler. Soon after his
+      arrival an insurrection broke out in Upper Egypt. Ahmed showed himself
+      born to the place; he crushed the uprising and also suppressed a second
+      revolt that was threatening. By degrees he cleverly undermined the power
+      of his colleagues, and made his own position in Fostât secure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0018" id="linkCimage-0018">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:43%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/359.jpg"
+       alt="359.jpg Sanctuary of the Mosque Of Ibn Tulun " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      When Muaffik was nominated commander-in-chief of the West by his brother
+      Mustamid (elected caliph in 870), Ahmed managed to secure the good-will of
+      the vizier of the caliph and thus to obtain the command in Egypt. He kept
+      the regent in Baghdad in a state of complacency, occasionally sending him
+      tribute; but, as wars with the Sinds began to trouble the caliphate, he
+      did not think it worth while to trouble himself further about Baghdad, and
+      decided to keep his money for himself. Muaffik was not the man to stand
+      this, and prepared to attack Ahmed, but the disastrous results of the last
+      war had not yet passed away. When the army intended for Egypt was camping
+      in Mesopotamia, there was not enough money to pay the troops, and the
+      undertaking had to be deferred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ahmed had a free hand over the enormous produce of Egypt. The compulsory
+      labour of the industrious Kopt brought in a yearly income of four million
+      gold dinars ($10,120,000), and yet these people felt themselves better off
+      than formerly on account of the greater order and peace that existed under
+      his energetic government. It cannot be denied that Ahmed in the course of
+      years became much more extravagant and luxurious, but he used his large
+      means in some measure for the betterment of the country. He gave large
+      sums not only for the erection of palaces and barracks, but also for
+      hospitals and educational advancement. To this day is to be seen the
+      mosque of Ibn Tulun, built by him in the newer part of Fostât,&mdash;a
+      district which was later annexed to the town of Cairo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The numerous wars in which Muaffik was involved gave Ahmed the opportunity
+      of extending his power beyond the boundaries of Egypt. The ruler of the
+      caliphate of Damascus died in the year 897, and soon after Ahmed marched
+      into Syria, and, with the exception of Antioch, which had to be taken by
+      force, the whole country fell into the hands of the mighty emir. The
+      commanders of isolated districts did not feel themselves encouraged to
+      offer any resistance, for they had no feeling of faithfulness for the
+      government, nor had they any hope of assistance from Baghdad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The triumphant march of Tulun was hindered in the year 879 by bad news
+      from Fostât. One of his sons, El-Abbas, had quarrelled with his father,
+      and had marched to Barca, with troops which he led afterwards to disaster,
+      and had taken with him money to the amount of 1,000,000 dinars
+      ($2,530,000). He thought himself safe from his enraged father there, but
+      the latter quickly returned to Fostât, and the news of the ample
+      preparations which he was hastening for the subjection of his rebel son
+      caused El-Abbas to place himself still farther out of his reach. He
+      suddenly attacked the state of Ibrahim II. (the Aghlabite), and caused
+      serious trouble with his soldiery in the eastern districts of Tripolis.
+      The neighbouring Berbers gave Ibrahim their assistance, and Abbas was
+      defeated and retreated to Barca in 880. He remained there some time until
+      an army sent by Ahmed annihilated his troops and he himself was taken
+      prisoner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rebellion of his son was the turning-point in Ahmed&rsquo;s career: Lulu,
+      his general in Mesopotamia, deserted him for Muaffik, and an endeavour to
+      conquer Mecca was frustrated by the unexpected resistance of numbers of
+      newly arrived pilgrims. Ahmed now caused the report to be spread that
+      Muaffik was a conspirator against the representatives of the Prophet, thus
+      depriving him of his dignity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0019" id="linkCimage-0019">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/361.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="361.jpg the Mosque of Ibn Tulun " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The emir had also besieged in vain at Tarsus his former general Jasman,
+      who had become presumptuous on account of his victory over the Byzantines.
+      He would eventually have made up for this defeat, but an illness overcame
+      him while encamped before Tarsus. He obeyed his doctor&rsquo;s orders as little
+      as the caliph&rsquo;s, and his malady, aggravated by improper diet, caused his
+      death in his fifty-first year at Fostât in 884, whither he had withdrawn.
+      He left seventeen sons,&mdash;enough to assure a dynasty of a hundred
+      years. Khumarawaih, who inherited the kingdom, had not many of his
+      father&rsquo;s characteristics. He was a good-natured, pleasure-loving young
+      man, barely twenty years old, and with a marked distaste for war. He did,
+      however, notwithstanding his peace-loving proclivities, fight the caliph&rsquo;s
+      forces near Damascus, and defeat them, never having seen a battle before.
+      The emir fled from the scene in a panic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Muatadid became caliph in 892, he offered his daughter Katr en-Neda
+      (Dewdrop) in marriage to the caliph&rsquo;s son. The Arabic historians relate
+      that Khuma-rawaih was fearful of assassination, and had his couch guarded
+      by a trained lion, but he was finally put to death (a.h. 282), according
+      to some accounts by women, and according to others by his eunuchs. The
+      death of Khu-marawaih was the virtual downfall of the Tulunid dynasty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The officers of the army then at first made Gaish Abu&rsquo;l-Asakir (one of
+      Khumarawaih&rsquo;s sons) emir; but, when this fourteen-year-old boy seemed
+      incapable of anything but stupid jokes, they put his brother Harun on the
+      throne. Every commanding officer, however, did as he liked. Rajib, the
+      commander of the army of defence, declared himself on the side of the
+      caliph, and the Syrian emirs gave themselves up to his general, Muhammed
+      ibn Suleiman, without any resistance. At the close of the year he was
+      before Fostât, and at the same time a fleet appeared at Damietta. A
+      quarrel arose amongst Harun&rsquo;s body-guard, in which the unlucky prince was
+      killed (904). His uncle Shaiban, a worthy son of Ahmed, made a last stand,
+      but was obliged to give in to the superior force.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Muhammed behaved with his Turks in the most outrageous way in Fostât: the
+      plundering was unrestrained, and that part of Fostât which Ahmed had built
+      was almost entirely destroyed. The adherents of the reigning family were
+      grossly maltreated, many of them killed, and others sent to Baghdad. The
+      governors changed in rapid succession; disorder, want, and wretchedness
+      existed throughout the entire country west of the caliph&rsquo;s kingdom. At
+      this period the provinces of the empire had already fallen into the hands
+      of the numerous minor princes, who, presuming on the caliph&rsquo;s weakness,
+      had declared themselves independent sovereigns. Nothing remained to the
+      Abbasids but Baghdad, a few neighbouring provinces, and Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under the Caliphs Muktadir, Kahir, and Rahdi, Egypt had an almost constant
+      change of governors. One of them, Abu Bekr Muhammed, ultimately became the
+      founder of a new dynasty,&mdash;the Ikshidite,&mdash;destined to rule over
+      Egypt and Syria. Abu Bekr Muhammed was the son of Takadj, then governor of
+      Damascus. His father had been chief emir at the court of the Tulunid
+      princes, and, after the fall of this dynasty, remained in Egypt, where he
+      occupied a post under the government. Intrigues, however, drove him to
+      Syria, whither his partisans followed him. He first entered the army of
+      the caliph, and, capturing the town of Ramleh, was given the governorship
+      of Damascus as reward. His son Abu Bekr Muhammed did not go to Egypt to
+      fulfil the duties with which he had been invested, and only retained the
+      title for one month. He was subsequently reinstated, and this time
+      repaired thither. But Ahmed ibn Kighlagh, who was then governing Egypt,
+      refused to retire and was only defeated after several engagements, when he
+      and his followers proceeded to Barca in Africa.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 328 of the Hegira, the caliph Radhi bestowed the honour of
+      Emir el-Umara (Prince of Princes) upon Muhammed ibn Raik. This officer,
+      discontented with the government of Palestine, led an army into Syria and
+      expelled Badra, the lieutenant of Muhammed el-Ikshid. The latter left
+      Egypt at once, entrusting the government of that country to his brother,
+      el-Hassan, and brought his forces to Faramah, where the troops of Muhammed
+      ibn Raik were already stationed. Thanks to the mediation of several emirs,
+      matters were concluded peacefully, and Muhammed el-Ikhshid returned to
+      Fostât. Upon his arrival, however, he learnt that Muhammed ibn Raik had
+      again left Damascus and was preparing to march upon Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This intelligence obliged Muhammed el-Ikshid to return at once to Syria.
+      He encountered the advance-guard of the enemy and promptly led the attack;
+      his right wing was scattered, but the centre, commanded by himself,
+      remained firm, and Muhammed ibn Raik retreated towards Damascus. Husain,
+      brother of el-Ikshid, lost his life in the combat. Despite the enmity
+      between them, Muhammed ibn Raik sent his own son to el-Ikshid, charged
+      with messages of condolence for the loss he had sustained and bearing
+      proposals of peace. Muhammed el-Ikshid received the son of his enemy with
+      much respect, and invested him with a mantle of honour. He then consented
+      to cede Damascus, in consideration of an annual tribute of 140,000 pieces
+      of gold, and the restoration of all that portion of Palestine between
+      Ramleh and the frontiers of Egypt. After having concluded all the
+      arrangements relative to this treaty, Muhammed el-Ikshid returned to Egypt
+      in the year 329 of the Hegira.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0020" id="linkCimage-0020">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figleft" style="width:37%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/365.jpg" alt="365.jpg Coin of Abu Bekr. " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The Caliph Rahdi died in the same year (940 a. d.). He was thirty years of
+      age, and had reigned six years, ten months, and ten days. His brother, Abu
+      Ishak Ibrahim, succeeded him, and was henceforth known by the name of
+      Muttaki. A year later Muhammed el-Ikshid was acknowledged Prince of Egypt
+      by the new caliph. Shortly after, he learnt that his former enemy,
+      Muhammed ibn Raik had been killed by the Hamdanites; he thereupon seized
+      the opportunity to recover those provinces he had granted him, and,
+      marching into Syria, captured Damascus and all the possessions he had
+      relinquished upon the conclusion of their treaty. Feeling now that his
+      position was secure, he caused his son Kasim to be recognised by the emirs
+      and the entire army as his successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The year 332 of the Hegira was a disastrous one in Baghdad. The office of
+      Prince of Princes, bestowed according to the caprice of the Turkish
+      officers upon any of their leaders, was now become a position superior
+      even to that of caliph. It was held at this time by a Turk named Turun,
+      who so oppressed the caliph Muttaki that the latter was forced to fly from
+      his capital and retire to Mosul. He then besought help from the
+      Hamdanites, who immediately rallied their forces and, accompanied by the
+      caliph, marched upon Baghdad. They were, however, completely routed by
+      Turun and obliged to retreat. Muttaki showed his gratitude to the two
+      princes by conferring a mantle of honour upon them, which, for some time
+      past, had been the only gift that Islam sovereigns had been able to
+      bestow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving Mosul, the caliph proceeded to Rakkah, and there was invited by
+      Turun to return to Baghdad. Seeing that his adherents, the Hamdanites,
+      were greatly discouraged by their recent reverses, Muttaki resolved to
+      accept the offer. When Muhammed el-Ikshid heard this, he hastened to
+      Rakkah and offered the caliph refuge in Egypt. But the caliph refused,
+      agreeing, however, as Muhammed el-Ikshid promised to supply him with the
+      necessary funds, not to return to Baghdad and place himself in the power
+      of Turun. In spite of his promise, when Turun, fearing that the caliph had
+      found powerful friends, came to him, and, casting himself before Muttaki,
+      paid him all the homage due to an Islam sovereign, he allowed himself to
+      be overruled, and accompanied Turun back to Baghdad. Hardly had the
+      unfortunate caliph set foot in his capital when he was murdered, after
+      reigning four years and eleven months. Turun now proclaimed Abd Allah
+      Abu&rsquo;l Kasim, son of Muttaki, caliph, who, after a short and uneventful
+      reign, was succeeded by his uncle, Abu&rsquo;l Kasim el-Fadhl, who was the last
+      of the Abbasid caliphs whom Egypt acknowledged as suzerains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Muttaki&rsquo;s return to Baghdad, Muhammed el-Ikshid remained for some
+      time in Damascus, and then set out for Egypt. His return was signalised by
+      the war with Saif ed-Dowlah, Prince of Hamdan. The campaign was of varying
+      success: After a disastrous battle, in which the Egyptians lost four
+      thousand men as prisoners, Muhammed el-Ikshid left Egypt with a numerous
+      army and arrived at Maarrah. Saif ed-Dowlah determined to decide the war
+      with one desperate effort, and first secured the safety of his treasure,
+      his baggage, and his harem by sending them to Mesopotamia. Then he marched
+      upon el-Ikshid, who had taken his position at Kinesrin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Muhammed divided his forces into two corps, placing in the vanguard all
+      those who carried lances; he himself was in the rear with ten thousand
+      picked men. Saif ed-Dowlah charged the vanguard and routed it, but the
+      rear stood firm; this resistance saved el-Ikshid from total defeat. The
+      two armies separated after a somewhat indecisive engagement, and Saif
+      ed-Dowlah, who could claim no advantage save the capture of his
+      adversaries&rsquo; baggage, went on to Maubej, where he destroyed the bridge,
+      and, entering Mesopotamia, proceeded towards Rakkah; but Muhammed
+      el-Ikshid was already stationed there, and the hostile armies, separated
+      only by the Euphrates, faced one another for several days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Negotiations were then opened, and peace was concluded. The conditions
+      were that Hemessa, Aleppo, and Mesopotamia should belong to Saif
+      ed-Dowlah, and all the country from Hemessa to the frontiers of Egypt
+      remain in the possession of Muhammed el-Ikshid. A trench was dug between
+      Djouchna and Lebouah, in those places where there were no natural
+      boundaries, to mark the separation of the two states. To ratify this
+      solemn peace, Saif ed-Dowlah married the daughter of Muhammed el-Ikshid;
+      then each prince returned to his own province. The treaty was, however,
+      almost immediately set aside by the Hamdanites, and el-Ikshid, forced to
+      retrace his steps, defeated them in several engagements and seized the
+      town of Aleppo.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus we see that the year 334 of the Hegira (a. d. 946) was full of
+      important events, to which was soon added the death of Muhammed el-Ikshid.
+      He died at Damascus, in the last month of the year (Dhu&rsquo;l-Kada), aged
+      sixty, and had reigned eleven years, three months, and two days. He was
+      buried at Jerusalem. Muhammed el-Ikshid was a man possessing many
+      excellent talents, and chiefly renowned as an admirable soldier. Brave,
+      without being rash, quick to calculate his chances, he was able always to
+      seize the advantage. On the other hand, however, he was so distrustful and
+      timid in the privacy of his palace that he organised a guard of eight
+      thousand armed slaves, one thousand of whom kept constant watch. He never
+      spent the entire night in the same apartment or tent, and no one was ever
+      permitted to know the place where he slept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are told that this prince could muster four hundred thousand men;
+      although historians do not definitely specify the boundaries of his
+      empire, which, of course, varied from time to time, we may nevertheless
+      believe that his kingdom, as that of his predecessors, the Tulunites,
+      extended over Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, as far as the
+      Euphrates, and even included a large portion of Arabia. The Christians of
+      the East charge him with supporting his immense army at their expense, and
+      persecuting and taxing them to such an extent that they were forced to
+      sell many possessions belonging to their Church before they could pay the
+      required sums.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, if we may credit a contemporary historian more worthy of belief,
+      these expenses were covered by the treasure Muhammed el-Ikshid himself
+      discovered. In fact, el-Massudi, who died at Cairo in the year 346 of the
+      Hegira, relates that el-Ikshid, knowing much treasure to be buried there,
+      was greatly interested in the excavation of the subterraneous tombs of the
+      ancient Egyptian kings. &ldquo;The prince&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;was fortunate enough to
+      come across a portion of those tombs, consisting of vast rooms
+      magnificently decorated. There he found marvellously wrought figures of
+      old and young men, women, and children, having eyes of precious stones and
+      faces of gold and silver.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Muhammed el-Ikshid was succeeded by his son, Abu&rsquo;l Kasim Muhammed,
+      surnamed Ungur. The prince being only an infant, Kafur, the favourite
+      minister of the late caliph, was appointed regent. This Kafur was a black
+      slave purchased by el-Ikshid for the trifling sum of twenty pieces of
+      gold. He was intelligent, zealous, and faithful, and soon won the
+      confidence of his master. Nobility of race in the East appertains only to
+      the descendants of the Prophet, but merit, which may be found in prince
+      and subject alike, often secures the highest positions, and even the
+      throne itself for those of the humblest origin. Such was the fate of
+      Kafur. He showed taste for the sciences, and encouraged scholars; he
+      loaded the poets with benefits, and they sang his praises without measure
+      so long as he continued his favours, but satirised him with equal vigour
+      as soon as his munificence diminished. Invested with supreme authority,
+      Kafur served the young prince with a devotion and fidelity worthy of the
+      highest praise. His first step was to dismiss Abu Bekr Muhammed, the
+      receiver of the Egyptian tributes, against whom he had received
+      well-merited complaints. In his place he appointed a native of Mardin,
+      also called Muhammed, of whose honesty and kindliness he was well aware.
+      He then took his pupil to Egypt, which country they reached in the month
+      of Safar in the year 335 of the Hegira.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Saif ed-Dowlah, hearing of the death of Muhammed el-Ikshid, and the
+      departure of Ungur, deemed this a favourable opportunity to despoil his
+      brother-in-law; he therefore marched upon Damascus, which he captured; but
+      the faithful Kafur promptly arrived upon the scene with a powerful army,
+      and, routing Saif ed-Dowlah, who had advanced as far as Ramleh, drove him
+      back to Rakkah, and relieved Damascus. The remainder of the reign of Ungur
+      passed peacefully, thanks to the watchfulness and wise government of
+      Kafur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 345 of the Hegira, the King of Nubia invaded the Egyptian
+      territories, advancing to Syene, which he pillaged and laid waste. Kafur
+      at once despatched his forces overland and along the Nile, and
+      simultaneously ordered a detachment embarking from the Red Sea to proceed
+      along the southern coast, attack the enemy in the rear and completely cut
+      off their retreat. The Nubians, thus surprised on all sides, were defeated
+      and forced to retreat, leaving the fortress of Rym, now known as Ibrim,
+      and situated fifty miles from Syênê, in the hands of the Egyptians. No
+      other events of note took place during the lifetime of Ungur, who, having
+      reigned fourteen years and ten days, died in the year 349 of the Hegira,
+      leaving his brother Ali, surnamed Abu&rsquo;l-Hasan, as his successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0021" id="linkCimage-0021">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/371.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="371.jpg Mosque Tomb Near Syene " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The reign of Abu&rsquo;l-Hasan Ali, the second son of Muhammed el-Ikshid, lasted
+      but five years. His name, as that of his brother Ungur (Abu Hurr), is but
+      little known in history. Kafur was also regent during the reign of
+      Abu&rsquo;l-Hasan Ali.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 352 of the Hegira, Egypt was stricken with a disastrous
+      famine. The rise of the Nile, which the previous year had been but fifteen
+      cubits, was this year even less, and suddenly the waters fell without
+      irrigating the country. Egypt and the dependent provinces were thus
+      afflicted for nine consecutive years. During this time, whilst the people
+      were agitated by fear for the future, a rupture took place between
+      Abu&rsquo;l-Hasan Ali and Kafur. This internal disturbance was soon followed by
+      war; and in the year 354 the Greeks of Constantinople, led by the Emperor
+      Nicepherous Phocas, advanced into Syria. They took Aleppo, then in the
+      possession of the Hamdanites, and, encountering Saif ed-Dowlah, overthrew
+      him also. The governor of Damascus, Dalim el-Ukazly, and ten thousand men
+      came to the rescue of the Hamdanites, but Phocas beat a retreat on hearing
+      of his approach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Abu&rsquo;l-Hasan Ali died in the year 355 of the Hegira. The regent Kafur then
+      ascended the throne, assuming the surname el-Ikshid. He acknowledged the
+      paramount authority of the Abbasid caliph, Muti, and that potentate
+      recognised his supreme power in the kingdom of Egypt. During the reign of
+      Kafur, which only lasted two years and four months, the greater portion of
+      Said was seized by the Fatimites, already masters of Fayum and Alexandria,
+      and the conquerors were on the point of encroaching still farther, when
+      Kafur died in the year 357 a.h. Ahmed, surnamed Abu&rsquo;l Fawaris, the son of
+      Abu&rsquo;l-Hasan Ali, and consequently grandson of Mu-hammed el-Ikshid,
+      succeeded Kafur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prince was only eleven years old, and therefore incapable of properly
+      controlling Egypt, Syria, and his other domains. Husain, one of his
+      relatives, invaded Syria, but in his turn driven back by the Karmates,
+      returned to Egypt and strove to depose Ahmed. These divisions in the
+      reigning family severed the ties which united the provinces of the
+      Egyptian kingdom. To terminate the disturbances, the emirs resolved to
+      seek the protection of the Fatimites. The latter, anxious to secure the
+      long-coveted prize, gladly rendered assistance, and Husain was forced to
+      return to Syria, where he took possession of Damascus, and the unfortunate
+      Ahmed lost the throne of Egypt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With him perished the Ikshid dynasty, which, more ephemeral even than that
+      of the Tulunid, flourished only thirty-four years and twenty-four days.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The period upon which this history is now about to enter is of more than
+      usual interest, for it leads immediately to the centuries during which the
+      Arabic forces came into contact with the forces of Western Europe. The
+      town and the coast of Mauritania were then ruled by the Fatimites, a
+      dynasty independent of the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad. The Fatimites
+      belonged to the tribes of Koramah, who dwelt in the mountains situated
+      near the town of Fez in the extreme west of Africa. In the year 269 of the
+      Hegira, they began to extend their sway in the western regions of Africa,
+      pursuing their conquests farther east. The Fatimite caliph Obaid Allah and
+      his son Abu&rsquo;l Kasim cherished designs not only upon Egypt, but even aimed
+      at the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate, these plans being so far
+      successful as to leave the Fatimites in secure possession of Alexandria,
+      and more or less in power in Fayum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Fatimite caliphs had lofty and pretentious claims to the allegiance of
+      the Moslem world. They traced their descent from Fatima, a daughter of the
+      Prophet, whom Muhammed himself regarded as one of the four perfect women.
+      At the age of fifteen she married Ali, of whom she was the only wife, and
+      the partisans of Ali, as we have seen, disputed with Omar the right to the
+      leadership of Islam upon the Prophet&rsquo;s death. Critics are not wanting who
+      dispute the family origin of Obaid Allah, but his claim appears to have
+      been unhesitatingly admitted by his own immediate followers. The Fatimite
+      successes in the Mediterranean gave them a substantial basis of political
+      power, and doubtless this outward and material success was more important
+      to them than their claim to both a physical and mythical descent from the
+      founder of their religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some accounts trace the descent of Obaid from Abd Allah ibn Maimun
+      el-Kaddah, the founder of the Ismailian sect, of which the Carmathians
+      were a branch. The Ismailians may be best regarded as one of the several
+      sects of Shiites, who originally were simply the partisans of Ali against
+      Omar, but by degrees they became identified as the upholders of the Koran
+      against the validity of the oral tradition, and when, later, the whole of
+      Persia espoused the cause of Ali, the Shiite belief became tinged with all
+      kinds of mysticism. The Ismailians believed, for instance, in the coming
+      of a Messiah, to whom they gave the name Mahdi, and who would one day
+      appear on earth to establish the reign of justice, and revenge the wrongs
+      done to the family of Ali. The Ismailians regarded Obaid himself as the
+      Mahdi, and they also believed in incarnations of the &ldquo;universal soul,&rdquo;
+       which in former ages had appeared as the Hebrew Prophets, but which to the
+      Muhammedan manifested itself as imans. The iman is properly the leader of
+      public worship, but it is not so much an office as a seership with
+      mystical attributes. The Muhammedan imans so far have numbered eleven, the
+      twelfth, and greatest (El-Mahdi), being yet to come. The Ismailians also
+      introduced mysticism into the interpretation of the Koran, and even taught
+      that its moral precepts were not to be taken in a literal sense. Thus the
+      Fatimite caliphs founded their authority upon a combination of political
+      power and superstition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Abu&rsquo;l Kasim, who ruled at Alexandria, was succeeded in 945 by his son,
+      El-Mansur. Under his reign the Fatimites were attacked by Abu Yazid, a
+      Berber, who gathered around him the Sunnites, and the revolutionaries
+      succeeded in taking the Fatimite capital Kairwan. El-Mansur, however, soon
+      defeated Abu Yazid in a decisive battle and rebuilt a new city, Mansuria,
+      on the site of the modern Cairo, to commemorate the event. Dying in 953,
+      he was succeeded by Muiz ad-Din.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Muiz came to the throne just at the time when dissensions as to the
+      succession were undermining the Ikshid dynasty. Seizing the opportunity in
+      the year 969, Muiz equipped a large and well-armed force, with a
+      formidable body of cavalry, the whole under the command of Abu&rsquo;l-Husain
+      Gohar el-Kaid, a native of Greece and a slave of his father El-Mansur.
+      This general, on his arrival near Alexandria, received a deputation from
+      the inhabitants of Fostât charged to negotiate a treaty. Their overtures
+      were favourably entertained, and the conquest of the country seemed
+      probable without bloodshed. But while the conditions were being ratified,
+      the Ikshidites prevailed on the people to revoke their offer, and the
+      ambassadors, on their return, were themselves compelled to seek safety in
+      flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gohar el-Kaid incurred no delay in pushing his troops forward. He forced
+      the passage of the Nile a few miles south of El-Gizeh at the head of his
+      troops, and the Ikshidites suffered a disastrous defeat. To the honour of
+      the African general, it is related that the inhabitants of Fostât were
+      pardoned and the city was peaceably occupied. The submission of the rest
+      of Egypt to Muiz was secured by this victory. In the year 359 a.h. Syria
+      was also added to his domains, but shortly after was overrun by the
+      Carmathians. The troops of Muiz met with several reverses, Damascus was
+      taken, and those lawless freebooters, joined by the Ikshidites, advanced
+      to Ain Shems. In the meanwhile, Gohar had fortified Cairo (the new capital
+      which he had founded immediately north of Fostât) and taken every
+      precaution to repel the invaders; a bloody battle was fought in the year
+      361 before the city walls, without any decisive result. Later, however,
+      Gohar obtained a victory over the enemy which proved to be a decisive one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Muiz subsequently removed his court to his new kingdom. In Ramadhan 362,
+      he entered Cairo, bringing with him the bodies of his three predecessors
+      and vast treasure. Muiz reigned about two years in Egypt, dying in the
+      year 365 a.h. He is described as a warlike and ambitious prince, but,
+      notwithstanding, he was especially distinguished for justice and was fond
+      of learning. He showed great favour to the Christians, especially to
+      Severus, Bishop of El-Ashmunein, and the patriarch Ephrem; and under his
+      orders, and with his assistance, the church of the Mu&rsquo;allakah, in Old
+      Misr, was rebuilt. He executed many useful works (among others rendering
+      navigable the Tanitic branch of the Nile, which is still called the canal
+      of Muiz), and occupied himself in embellishing Cairo. Gohar, when he
+      founded that city, built the great mosque named El-Azhar, the university
+      of Egypt, which to this day is crowded with students from all parts of the
+      Moslem world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aziz Abu-Mansur Nizar, on coming to the throne of his father, immediately
+      despatched an expedition against the Turkish chief El-Eftekeen, who had
+      taken Damascus a short time previously. Gohar again commanded the army,
+      and pressed the siege of that city so vigorously that the enemy called to
+      their aid the Carmathians. Before this united army he was forced to retire
+      slowly to Ascalon, where he prepared to stand a siege; but, being reduced
+      to great straits, he purchased his liberty with a large sum of money. On
+      his return from this disastrous campaign, Aziz took command in person,
+      and, meeting the enemy at Ramleh, was victorious after a bloody battle;
+      while El-Eftekeen, being betrayed into his hands, was with Arab
+      magnanimity received with honour and confidence, and ended his days in
+      Egypt in affluence. Aziz followed his father&rsquo;s example of liberality. It
+      is even said that he appointed a Jew his vizier in Syria, and a Christian
+      to the same post in Egypt. These acts, however, nearly cost him his life,
+      and a popular tumult obliged him to disgrace both these officers. After a
+      reign of twenty-one years of great internal prosperity, he died (a.h. 386)
+      in a bath at Bilbeis, while preparing an expedition against the Greeks who
+      were ravaging his possessions in Syria. Aziz was distinguished for
+      moderation and mildness, but his son and successor rendered himself
+      notorious for very opposite qualities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hakim Abu Ali Mansur commenced his reign, according to Moslem historians,
+      with much wisdom, but afterwards acquired a reputation for impiety,
+      cruelty, and unreasoning extravagance, by which he has been rendered
+      odious to posterity. He is said to have had at the same time &ldquo;courage and
+      boldness, cowardice and timorousness, a love for learning and
+      vindictiveness towards the learned, an inclination to righteousness and a
+      disposition to slay the righteous.&rdquo; He also arrogated to himself divinity,
+      and commanded his subjects to rise at the mention of his name in the
+      congregational prayers, an edict which was obeyed even in the holy cities,
+      Mecca and Medina. He is most famous in connection with the Druses, a sect
+      which he founded and which still holds him in veneration and believes in
+      his future return to the earth. He had made himself obnoxious to all
+      classes of his subjects when, in the year 397 a.h., he nearly lost his
+      throne by foreign invasion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0022" id="linkCimage-0022">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="figright" style="width:43%;">
+      <img width="100%" src="images/379.jpg" alt="379.jpg Mosque of Hakim " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Hisham, surnamed Abu-Rekweh, a descendant of the house of Ommaya in Spain,
+      took the province of Barca with a considerable force and subdued Upper
+      Egypt. The caliph, aware of his danger, immediately collected his troops
+      from every quarter of the kingdom, and marched against the invaders, whom,
+      after severe fighting, he defeated and put to flight. Hisham himself was
+      taken prisoner, paraded in Cairo with every aggravation of cruelty, and
+      put to death. Hakim having thus by vigorous measures averted this danger,
+      Egypt continued to groan under his tyranny until the year 411 a.h., when
+      he fell by domestic treachery. His sister Sitt el-Mulk had, in common with
+      the rest of his subjects, incurred his displeasure; and, being fearful for
+      her life, she secretly and by night concerted measures with the emir Saif
+      ed-Dowlah, chief of the guard, who very readily agreed to her plans. Ten
+      slaves, bribed by five hundred dinars each ($1,260), having received their
+      instructions, went forth on the appointed day to the desert tract
+      southward of Cairo, where Hakim, unattended, was in the habit of riding,
+      and waylaid him near the village of Helwan, where they put him to death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Within a week Hakim&rsquo;s son Ali had been raised to the caliphate with the
+      title of Dhahir, at the command of Sitt el-Mulk. As Dhahir was only
+      eighteen years old, and in no way educated for the government, Sitt
+      el-Mulk took the reins of government, and was soon looked upon as the
+      instigator of Hakim&rsquo;s death. This suspicion was strengthened by the fact
+      that his sister had the heir to the throne&mdash;who was at that time
+      governor of Aleppo&mdash;murdered, and also the chief who had conspired
+      with her in assassinating Hakim. She survived her brother for about four
+      years, but the actual ruler was the Vizier Ali el-Jar jar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dhahir&rsquo;s reign offers many points of interest. Peace and contentment
+      reigned in the interior, and Syria continued to be the chief point of
+      interest to the Egyptian politics. Both Lulu and his son Mansur, who
+      received princely titles from Hakim, recognised the suzerainty of the
+      Fatimites. Later on a disagreement arose between Lulu&rsquo;s son and Dhahir.
+      One of the former&rsquo;s slaves conspired against his master, and gave Aleppo
+      into the hands of the Fatimites, whose governor maintained himself there
+      till 1023. In this year, however, Aleppo fell into the power of the Benu
+      Kilab, who defended the town with great success against Romanus in 1030.
+      Not till Dhahir&rsquo;s successor came to the throne in 1036 was Aleppo
+      reconquered by the Fatimites, but only to fall, after a few years, again
+      into the hands of a Kilabite, whom the caliph was obliged to acknowledge
+      as governor until he of his own free will exchanged the city for several
+      other towns in Syria; but even then the strife about the possession of
+      Aleppo was not yet at an end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mustanssir ascended the throne at the age of four years. His mother,
+      although black and once a slave, had great influence in the choice of the
+      viziers and other officials, and even when the caliph became of age, he
+      showed very few signs of independence. His reign, which lasted sixty
+      years, offers a constant alternation of success and defeat. At one time
+      his dominion was limited to the capital Cairo, at another time he was
+      recognised as lord of Africa, Sicily, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and even of the
+      Abbassid capital, Baghdad. A few days later his dominion was again on the
+      point of being extinguished. The murder of a Turk by the negroes led to a
+      war between the Turkish mercenaries and the blacks who formed the caliph&rsquo;s
+      body-guard. The latter were joined by many of the other slaves, but the
+      Turks were supported by the Ketama Berbers and some of the Bedouin tribes,
+      and also the Hamdanite Nasir ed-Dowlah, who had long been in the Egyptian
+      service. The blacks, although supported by the caliph&rsquo;s mother, were
+      completely defeated, and the caliph was forced to acknowledge the
+      authority of Nasir ed-Dowlah. He thereupon threatened to abdicate, but
+      when he learned that his palace with all its treasures would then be given
+      up to plunder, he refrained from fulfilling his threat. The power of the
+      Hamdanites and the Turks increased with every victory over the negroes,
+      who finally could no longer maintain themselves at all in Upper Egypt. The
+      caliph was treated with contempt, and had to give up his numerous
+      treasures, one by one, to satisfy the avarice of his troops. Even the
+      graves of his ancestors were at last robbed of all they contained, and
+      when, at last, everything had been ransacked, even his library, which was
+      one of the largest and finest, was not spared. The best manuscripts were
+      dispersed, some went to Africa, others were destroyed, many were damaged
+      or purposely mutilated by the Sunnites, simply because they had been
+      written by the Shiites; still others were burnt by the Turks as worthless
+      material, and the leather bands which held them made into sandals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkCimage-0023" id="linkCimage-0023">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/383.jpg" width="100%"
+       alt="383.jpg Mustanssir&rsquo;s Gate at Cairo " />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile war between Mustanssir and Nasir ed-Dowlah continued to be waged
+      in Egypt and Syria, until at last the latter became master of Cairo and
+      deprived the caliph once more completely of his independence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after, a conspiracy with Ildeghiz, a Turkish general, at its head,
+      was formed against Nasir ed-Dowlah, and he, together with his relations
+      and followers, was brutally murdered. Ildeghiz behaved in the same way as
+      his predecessor had-done towards the caliph, and the latter appealed to
+      Bedr el-Jemali for help. Bedr proceeded to Acre with his best Syrian
+      troops, landed in the neighbourhood of Damietta and proceeded towards the
+      capital, which he entered without difficulty (January, 1075). He was
+      appointed general and first vizier, so that he now held both the highest
+      military and civil authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to strengthen his position, he had all the commanders of the
+      troops and the highest officials murdered at a ball. Under his rule, peace
+      and order were at last restored to Egypt, and the income of the state was
+      increased under his excellent government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bedr remained at his post till his death, and his son El-Afdhal was
+      appointed by Mustanssir to succeed him. Upon the death of Mustanssir
+      (1094), his successor El-Mustali Abu&rsquo;l Kasim retained El-Afdhal in office.
+      He was afterwards murdered under Emir (December, 1121) because, according
+      to some, he was not a zealous enough Shiite, but, according to others,
+      because the caliph wished to gain possession of the enormous treasures of
+      the vizier and to be absolutely independent. Emir was also murdered
+      (October 7, 1130), and was succeeded by his cousin, who ascended the
+      throne under the name of Hafiz, and appointed a son of El-Afdhal as
+      vizier, who, just as his father had done, soon became the real ruler, and
+      did not even allow the caliph&rsquo;s name to be mentioned in the prayers;
+      whereupon he also was murdered at the caliph&rsquo;s instigation. After other
+      viziers had met with a similar fate, and amongst them a son of the caliph
+      himself, at last Hafiz ruled alone. His son and successor, Dhafir
+      (1149-1150), also frequently changed his viziers because they one and all
+      wished to obtain too much influence. The last vizier, Abbas, murdered the
+      caliph (March-April, 1154), and placed El-Faiz, the five-year-old son of
+      the dead caliph, on the throne, but the child died in his eleventh year
+      (July, 1160). Salih, then vizier, raised Adid, a descendant of Alhagiz, to
+      the caliphate and gave him his daughter to wife, for which reason he was
+      murdered at the desire of the harem. His son Adil maintained himself for a
+      short time, and then El-Dhargham and Shawir fought for the post; as the
+      former gained the victory, Shawir fled to Syria, called Nureddin to his
+      aid, and their army, under Shirkuh and Saladin, put an end in 1171 to the
+      rule of the Fatimites.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> END OF VOL. XI. <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
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+  </body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,9140 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The
+Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12), by S. Rappoport
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)
+
+Author: S. Rappoport
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2005 [EBook #17331]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF EGYPT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF EGYPT
+
+From 330 B.C. to the Present Time
+
+
+By S. RAPPOPORT, Doctor of Philosophy, Basel; Member of the Ecole
+Langues Orientales, Paris; Russian, German, French Orientalist and
+Philologist
+
+VOL. XI.
+
+Containing over Twelve Hundred Colored Plates and Illustrations
+
+THE GROLIER SOCIETY
+
+PUBLISHERS, LONDON
+
+
+[Illustration: Spines]
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+Dam at Aswan
+
+
+[Illustration: 001.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+[Illustration: 002.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+THE ROMAN, CHRISTIAN, AND ARABIC PERIODS
+
+
+_THE ROMAN ADMINISTRATION IN EGYPT--THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY--THE ARIAN
+CONTROVERSY--THE GROWTH OF MONASTICISM--THE DECLINE OF ALEXANDRIA--THE
+ARAB INVASION AND THE SPREAD OF MUHAMMEDANISM--THE ARAB DYNASTIES._
+
+_Augustus remodels the government of Egypt--A new calendar
+introduced--Egypt surveyed--Dissension between Jews and Greeks at
+Alexandria--Strabo's visit--The Egyptian religion at Rome--Wise
+administration of Tiberius--The rise of the Therapeutae--Lake
+Maeris destroyed--The origin of Chemistry--The fable of the
+Phoenix--Christianity introduced--Fiscal reforms under Galba--Vespasian
+in Egypt--Fall of Jerusalem--The Nile Canal restored--Hadrian's voyage
+up the Nile--Death of Antinous--Christians and Gnostics--Astrology and
+Astronomy--Roman roads in Egypt--Commerce and Sports--The Growth
+of Christianity--Severus visits Egypt--The massacre of the
+Alexandrians--Ammonius Saccas and the Alexandrian Platonists--The
+School of Origen--Rise of Controversy--Decline of Commerce--Zenobia
+in Syria--Growing importance of the Arabs--Revolt and recapture of
+Alexandria--Persecution of the Christians under Diocletian--Introduction
+of the Manichean heresy._
+
+_Constantine the Great converted--Privileges of the clergy--Dogmatic
+disputes--Council of Nicaea and the first Nicene Creed--Athanasian
+and Arian controversies--Founding of Constantinople--Decline
+of Alexandria--Imperial appointments in the Church--Religious
+riots--Triumphs of Athanasius--Persecution by Bishop George of
+Cappadocia--Early mission work--Development of the monastic
+system--Text of the Bible--The monks and military service--Saracenic
+encroachments--Theodosius overthrows Paganism--Destruction of the Great
+Library--Pagan and Christian literature--Story of Hypatia--The Arabs
+defeat the Romans--The Koptic New Testament--Egypt separated from
+Rome--The Council of Chalcedon--Paganism restored in Upper Egypt--The
+Henoticon--The writings of Hierocles--Relations with Persia--Inroads of
+the Arabs--Justinian's fiscal reforms--Coinage restored--The Persians
+enter Egypt. The Life of Muhammed--Amr conquers Egypt--The legend of
+Omar and the Great Library--The founding of Fostat--The Christians
+taxed--Muhammedan oppression in Egypt--The Ommayad and Abbasid
+dynasties--Caliph Harun er-Rashid--Turkish bodyguards--Rise of the
+Tulunite Dynasty--Office of Prince of Princes--Reign of Muhammed
+el-Ikshid--War with Byzantium--Fatimite Caliphs--The Ismailians and
+Mahdism--Reign of Mustanssir--Turkish Rapacity--End of the Fatimite
+Rule._
+
+
+[Illustration: 003.jpg PAGE IMAGE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--EGYPT UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE
+
+
+_The Roman dominion on the Nile: Settlement of the Egyptian frontiers:
+Religious developments: Rebellions._
+
+
+Augustus began his reign in Egypt in B.C. 30 by ordering all the statues
+of Antony, of which there were more than fifty ornamenting the various
+public buildings of the city, to be broken to pieces; and it is said
+he had the meanness to receive a bribe of one thousand talents from
+Archibus, a friend of Cleopatra, that the queen's statues might be
+left standing. It seems to have been part of his kingcraft to give the
+offices of greatest trust to men of low birth, who were at the same time
+well aware that they owed their employments to their seeming want of
+ambition. Thus the government of Egypt, the greatest and richest of the
+provinces, was given to Cornelius Gallus.
+
+Before the fall of the republic the senate had given the command of the
+provinces to members of their own body only; and therefore Augustus, not
+wishing to alter the law, obtained from the senate for himself all those
+governments which he meant to give to men of lower rank. By this legal
+fiction, these equestrian prefects were answerable for their conduct to
+nobody but the emperor on a petition, and they could not be sued at law
+before the senate for their misdeeds. But he made an exception in the
+case of Egypt. While on the one hand in that province he gave to the
+prefect's edicts the force of law, on the other he allowed him to be
+cited before the senate, though appointed by himself. The power thus
+given to the senate they never ventured to use, and the prefect of Egypt
+was never punished or removed but by the emperor. Under the prefect was
+the chief justice of the province, who heard himself, or by deputy, all
+causes except those which were reserved for the decision of the emperor
+in person. These last were decided by a second judge, or in modern
+language a chancellor, as they were too numerous and too trifling to be
+taken to Rome. Under these judges were numerous freedmen of the emperor,
+and clerks entrusted with affairs of greater and less weight. Of the
+native magistrates the chief were the keeper of the records, the police
+judge, the prefect of the night, and the _Exegetes_, or interpreter of
+the Egyptian law, who was allowed to wear a purple robe like a Roman
+magistrate. But these Egyptian magistrates were never treated as
+citizens; they were barbarians, little better than slaves, and only
+raised to the rank of the emperor's freedmen.
+
+Augustus showed not a little jealousy in the rest of the laws by which
+his new province was to be governed. While other conquered cities
+usually had a senate or municipal form of government granted to them,
+no city in Egypt was allowed that privilege, which, by teaching the
+citizens the art of governing themselves and the advantages of union,
+might have made them less at the mercy of their masters. He not only
+gave the command of the kingdom to a man below the rank of a senator,
+but ordered that no senator should even be allowed to set foot in Egypt
+without leave from himself; and centuries later, when the weakness of
+the country had led the emperors to soften some of the other stern laws
+of Augustus, this was still strictly enforced.
+
+Among other changes then brought in by the Romans was the use of a fixed
+year in all civil reckonings. The Egyptians, for all the common purposes
+of life, called the day of the heliacal rising of the dogstar, about our
+18th of July, their new year's day, and the husbandman marked it with
+religious ceremonies as the time when the Nile began to overflow; while
+for all civil purposes, and dates of kings' reigns, they used a year of
+three hundred and sixty-five days, which, of course, had a movable
+new year's day. But by the orders of Augustus all public deeds were
+henceforth dated by the new year of three hundred and sixty-five days
+and a quarter, which was named, after Julius Caesar, the Julian year. The
+years from B.C. 24 were made to begin on the 29th of August, the day
+on which the movable new year's day then happened to fall, and were
+numbered from the year following the last of Cleopatra, as from the
+first year of the reign of Augustus. But notwithstanding the many
+advantages of the Julian year, which was used throughout Europe for
+sixteen centuries, till its faultiness was pointed out by Pope Gregory
+XIII., the Egyptian astronomers and mathematicians distrusted it from
+the first, and chose to stick to their old year, in which there could
+be no mistake about its length. Thus there were at the same time three
+years and three new year's days in use in Egypt: one about the 18th
+of July, used by the common people; one on the 29th of August, used by
+order of the emperor; and one movable, used by the astronomers.
+
+By the conquest of Egypt, Augustus was also able to extend another of
+the plans of his late uncle. Julius Caesar, whose powerful mind found all
+sciences within its grasp, had ordered a survey to be taken of the whole
+of the Roman provinces, and the length of all the roads to be measured
+for the use of the tax-gatherers and of the army; and Augustus was
+now able to add Egypt to the survey. Polyclitus was employed on this
+southern portion of the empire; and, after thirty-two years from its
+beginning by Julius, the measurement of nearly the whole known world was
+finished and reported to the senate.
+
+At Alexandria Augustus was visited by Herod, who hastened to beg of
+him those portions of his kingdom which Antony had given to Cleopatra.
+Augustus received him as a friend; gave him back the territory which
+Antony had taken from him, and added the province of Samaria and the
+free cities on the coast. He also gave to him the body of four hundred
+Gauls, who formed part of the Egyptian army and had been Cleopatra's
+bodyguard. He thus removed from Alexandria the last remains of the
+Gallic mercenaries, of whom the Ptolemies had usually had a troop in
+their service.
+
+[Illustration: 007.jpg PLAN OF ALEXANDRIA]
+
+Augustus visited the royal burial-place to see the body of Alexander,
+and devoutly added a golden crown and a garland of flowers to the other
+ornaments on the sarcophagus of the Macedonian. But he would take no
+pains to please either the Alexandrians or Egyptians; he despised them
+both. When asked if he would not like to see the Alexandrian monarchs
+lying in their mummy-cases in the same tomb, he answered: "No, I came to
+see the king, not dead men," His contempt for Cleopatra and her father
+made him forget the great qualities of Ptolemy Soter. So when he was
+at Memphis he refused to humour the national prejudice of two thousand
+years' standing by visiting the bull Apis. Of the former conquerors,
+Cambyses had stabbed the sacred bull, Alexander had sacrificed to it;
+had Augustus had the violent temper of either, he would have copied
+Cambyses. The Egyptians always found the treatment of the sacred bull a
+foretaste of what they were themselves to receive from their sovereigns.
+
+The Greeks of Alexandria, who had for some time past very unwillingly
+yielded to the Jews the right of citizenship, now urged upon Augustus
+that it should no longer be granted. Augustus, however, had received
+great services from the Jews, and at once refused the prayer; and he set
+up in Alexandria an inscription granting to the Jews the full privileges
+of Macedonians, which they claimed and had hitherto enjoyed under
+the Ptolemies. They were allowed their own magistrates and courts
+of justice, with the free exercise of their own religion; and soon
+afterwards, when their high priest died, they were allowed as usual
+to choose his successor. The Greek Jews of Alexandria were indeed very
+important, both from their numbers and their learning; they spread over
+Syria and Asia Minor: they had a synagogue in Jerusalem in common with
+the Jews of Cyrene and Libya; and we find that one of the chief teachers
+of Christianity after the apostles was Apollos, the Alexandrian, who
+preached the new religion in Ephesus, in Corinth, and in Crete.
+
+On his return to Rome, Augustus carried with him the whole of the royal
+treasure; and though perhaps there might have been less gold and silver
+than usual in the palace of the Ptolemies, still it was so large a sum
+that when, upon the establishment of peace over all the world, the rate
+of interest upon loans fell in Rome, and the price of land rose, the
+change was thought to have been caused by the money from Alexandria.
+At the same time were carried away the valuable jewels, furniture, and
+ornaments, which had been handed down from father to son, with the
+crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. These were drawn in waggons through the
+streets of Rome in triumph; and with them were shown in chains to the
+wondering crowd Alexander Helius and Cleopatra Selene, the children of
+Cleopatra and Antony.
+
+Augustus threatened a severe punishment to the Alexandrians in the
+building of a new capital. Only four miles from the Canopic or eastern
+gate of Alexandria he laid out the plan of his new city of Meopolis, on
+the spot where he had routed Mark Antony's forces. Here he began
+several large temples, and removed to them the public sacrifices and the
+priesthood from the temples of Alexandria. But the work was carried
+no farther, and soon abandoned; and the only change made by it in
+Alexandria was that the temple of Serapis and the other temples were for
+a time deserted.
+
+The rest of the world had long been used to see their finest works of
+art carried away by their conquerors; and the Egyptians soon learned
+that, if any of the monuments of which they were so justly proud were
+to be left to them, it would only be because they were too heavy to be
+moved by the Roman engineers. Beside many other smaller Egyptian works,
+two of the large obelisks, which even now ornament Rome, were carried
+away by Augustus, that of Thutmosis IV., which stands in the Piazza del
+Popolo, and that of Psammetichus, on Monte Citorio.
+
+Cornelius Gallus, the prefect of Egypt, seems either to have
+misunderstood, or soon forgotten, the terms of his appointment. He set
+up statues of himself in the cities of Egypt, and, copying the kings
+of the country, he carved his name and deeds upon the pyramids. On this
+Augustus recalled him, and he killed himself to avoid punishment. The
+emperor's wish to check the tyranny of the prefects and tax-gatherers
+was strongly marked in the case of the champion fighting-cock. The
+Alexandrians bred these birds with great care, and eagerly watched their
+battles in the theatre. A powerful cock, that had hitherto slain all
+its rivals and always strutted over the table unconquered, had gained a
+great name in the city; and this bird, Eros, a tax-gatherer, roasted
+and ate. Augustus, on hearing of this insult to the people, sent for the
+man, and, on his owning what he had done, ordered him to be crucified.
+Three legions and nine cohorts were found force enough to keep this
+great kingdom in quiet obedience to their new masters; and when
+Heroopolis revolted, and afterwards when a rebellion broke out in the
+Thebaid against the Roman tax-gatherers, these risings were easily
+crushed. The spirit of the nation, both of the Greeks and Egyptians,
+seems to have been wholly broken; and Petronius, who succeeded
+Cornelius Gallus, found no difficulty in putting down a rising of the
+Alexandrians.
+
+The canals, through which the overflowing waters of the Nile were
+carried to the more distant fields, were, of course, each year more or
+less blocked up by the same mud which made the fields fruitful; and the
+clearing of these canals was one of the greatest boons that the monarch
+could bestow upon the tillers of the soil. This had often been neglected
+by the less powerful and less prudent kings of Egypt, in whose reigns
+the husbandman believed that Heaven in its displeasure withheld part
+of the wished-for overflow; but Petronius employed the leisure of his
+soldiers on this wise and benevolent work. In order better to understand
+the rise of the Nile, to fix the amount of the land-tax, and more fairly
+to regulate the overflow through the canals, the Nilometer on the Island
+of Elephantine was at this time made.
+
+[Illustration: 011.jpg THE NILOMETER AT ELEPHANTINE]
+
+It was under AElius Gallus, the third prefect, that Egypt was visited by
+Strabo, the most careful and judicious of all the ancient travellers. He
+had come to study mathematics, astronomy, and geography in the museum,
+under the successors of Euclid, Eratosthenes, and Hipparchus. He
+accompanied the prefect in a march to Syene (Aswan), the border town,
+and he has left us a valuable account of the state of the country at
+that time. Alexandria was the chief object that engaged his attention.
+Its two harbours held more ships than were to be seen in any other port
+in the world, and its export trade was thought greater than that of all
+Italy. The docks on each side of the causeway, and the ship canal, from
+the harbour of Eunostus to the Mareotic Lake, were full of bustle and
+activity. The palace or citadel on the promontory of Lochias on one side
+of the great harbour was as striking an object as the lighthouse on the
+other. The temples and palaces covered a space of ground equal to more
+than one-fourth part of the city, and the suburbs reached even beyond
+the Mareotic Lake. Among the chief buildings were the Soma, which held
+the bodies of Alexander and of the Ptolemies; the court of justice;
+the museum of philosophy, which had been rebuilt since the burning by
+Caesar's soldiers; the exchange, crowded with merchants, the temple of
+Neptune, and Mark Antony's fortress, called the Timonium, on a point of
+land which jutted into the harbour; the Caesarium, or new palace; and the
+great temple of Serapis, which was on the western side of the city, and
+was the largest and most ornamented of all these buildings. Farther off
+was the beautiful gymnasium for wrestlers and boxers, with its porticoes
+of a stadium in length, where the citizens used to meet in public
+assembly. From the top of the temple of Pan, which rose like a
+sugar-loaf in the middle of the city, and was mounted by a winding
+staircase, the whole of this remarkable capital might be seen spread
+out before the eye. On the east of the city was the circus, for
+chariot races, and on the west lay the public gardens and pale green
+palm-groves, and the Necropolis ornamenting the roadside with tombs for
+miles along the seashore. Other tombs were in the catacombs underground
+on the same side of the city. The banks of the Mareotic Lake were
+fringed with vineyards, which bore the famed wine of the same name,
+and which formed a pleasant contrast with the burning whiteness of the
+desert beyond. The canal from the lake to the Nile marked its course
+through the plain by the greater freshness of the green along its banks.
+In the distance were the new buildings of Augustus' city of Nicopolis.
+The arts of Greece and the wealth of Egypt had united to adorn the
+capital of the Ptolemies. Heliopolis, the ancient seat of Egyptian
+learning, had never been wholly repaired since its siege by Cambyses,
+and was then almost a deserted city. Its schools were empty, its
+teachers silent; but the houses in which Plato and his friend Eudoxus
+were said to have dwelt and studied were pointed out to the traveller,
+to warm his love of knowledge and encourage him in the pursuit of
+virtue. Memphis was the second city in Egypt, while Thebes and Abydos,
+the former capitals, had fallen to the size and rank of villages. At
+Memphis Strabo saw the bull-fights in the circus, and was allowed to
+look at the bull Apis through a window of his stable. At Crocodilopolis
+he saw the sacred crocodile caught on the banks of the lake and fed
+with cakes and wine. Ptolemais, which was at first only an encampment of
+Greek soldiers, had risen under the sovereigns to whom it owed its name
+to be the largest city in the Thebaid, and scarcely less than Memphis.
+It was built wholly by the Greeks, and, like Alexandria, it was under
+Greek laws, while the other cities in Egypt were under Egyptian laws and
+magistrates. It was situated between Panopolis and Abydos; but, while
+the temples of Thebes, which were built so many centuries earlier, are
+still standing in awful grandeur, scarcely a trace of this Greek city
+can be found in the villages of El Menshieh and Girgeh (Cerkasoros),
+which now stand on the spot. Strabo and the Roman generals did not
+forget to visit the broken colossal statue of Amenhothes, near Thebes,
+which sent forth its musical sounds every morning, as the sun, rising
+over the Arabian hills, first shone upon its face; but this inquiring
+traveller could not make up his mind whether the music came from the
+statue, or the base, or the people around it. He ended his tour with
+watching the sunshine at the bottom of the astronomical well at Syene,
+which, on the longest day, is exactly under the sun's northern edge, and
+with admiring the skill of the boatmen who shot down the cataracts in
+their wicker boats, for the amusement of the Roman generals.
+
+In the earlier periods of Egyptian history Ethiopia was peopled, or, at
+least, governed, by a race of men, whom, as they spoke the same language
+and worshipped the same gods as their neighbours of Upper Egypt, we must
+call the Kopts. But the Arabs, under the name of Troglodyte, and other
+tribes, had made an early settlement on the African side of the Red Sea.
+So numerous were they in Upper Egypt that in the time of Strabo half the
+population of the city of Koptos were Arabs; they were the camel-drivers
+and carriers for the Theban merchants in the trade across the desert.
+Some of the conquests of Ramses had been over that nation in southern
+Ethiopia, and the Arab power must have further risen after the defeat of
+the Ethiopians by Euergetes I. Ethiopia in the time of Augustus was held
+by Arabs; a race who thought peace a state of disgraceful idleness,
+and war the only employment worthy of men; and who made frequent hasty
+inroads into Nubia, and sometimes into Egypt. They fought for plunder,
+not for conquest, and usually retreated as quickly as they came,
+with such booty as they laid their hands on. To use words which were
+proverbial while the Nile swarmed with crocodiles, "They did as the dogs
+do, they drank and ran away;" and the Romans found it necessary to place
+a body of troops near the cataracts of Syene to stop their marching
+northward and laying waste the Thebaid. While the larger part of the
+Roman legions was withdrawn into Arabia on an unsuccessful quest for
+treasure, a body of thirty thousand of these men, whom we may call
+either Arabs, from their blood and language, or Ethiopians, from their
+country, marched northward into Egypt, and overpowered the three
+Roman cohorts at Elephantine, Syene, and Philas. Badly armed and badly
+trained, they were led on by the generals of Candace, Queen of Napata,
+to the fourth cataract. They were, however, easily driven back when
+Gallus led against them an army of ten thousand men, and drove them to
+Ethiopian Pselchis, now remaining as the modern village of Dakkeh. There
+he defeated them again, and took the city by storm. From Pselchis he
+marched across the Nubian desert two hundred and fifty miles to Premnis,
+on the northerly bend of the river, and then made himself master of
+Napata, the capital. A guard was at the moment left in the country to
+check any future inroads; but the Romans made no attempts to hold it.
+
+[Illustration: 016.jpg ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT]
+
+Of the state of the Ethiopie Arabs under Queen Candace we learn but
+little from this hasty inroad; but some of the tribes must have been
+very far from the barbarians that, from their ignorance of the arts
+of war, the Romans judged them to be. Those nearest to the Egyptian
+frontiers, the Troglodyte and Blemmyes, were unsettled, wandering, and
+plundering; but the inhabitants of Meroe were of a more civilised race.
+The Jews had settled in southern Ethiopia in large numbers, and for
+a long time; Solomon's trade had made them acquainted with Adule and
+Auxum; some of them were employed in the highest offices, and must have
+brought with them the arts of civilised life. A few years later (Acts
+VIII. 27) we meet with a Jewish eunuch, the treasurer of Queen Candace,
+travelling with some pomp from Ethiopia to the religious festivals at
+Jerusalem. The Egyptian coins of Augustus and his successors are all
+Greek; the conquest of the country by the Romans made no change in its
+language. Though the chief part of the population spoke Koptic, it was
+still a Greek province of the Roman empire; the decrees of the prefects
+of Alexandria and of the upper provinces were written in Greek; and
+every Roman traveller, who, like a schoolboy, has scratched his name
+upon the foot of the musical statue of Amenhothes, to let the world know
+the extent of his travels, has helped to prove that the Roman government
+of the country was carried on in the Greek language. The coins often
+bear the eagle and thunderbolt on one side, while on the other is the
+emperor's head, with his name and titles; and, after a few years, they
+are all dated with the year of the emperor's reign. In the earliest he
+is styled a Son of God, in imitation of the Egyptian title of Son of the
+Sun. After Egypt lost its liberty, we no longer find any gold coinage in
+the country; that metal, with everything else that was most costly, was
+carried away to pay the Roman tribute. This was chiefly taken in money,
+except, indeed, the tax on grain, which the Egyptian kings had always
+received in kind, and which was still gathered in the same way, and
+each year shipped to Rome, to be distributed among the idle poor of
+that great city. At this time it amounted to twenty millions of bushels,
+which was four times what was levied in the reign of Philadelphus.
+The trade to the east was increasing, but as yet not large. About
+one hundred and twenty small vessels sailed every year to India from
+MyosHormos, which was now the chief port on the Red Sea.
+
+No change was made in the Egyptian religion by this change of masters;
+and, though the means of the priests were lessened, they still carried
+forward the buildings which were in progress, and even began new ones.
+The small temple of Isis, at Tentyra, behind the great temple of Hathor,
+was either built or finished in this reign, and it was dedicated to the
+goddess, and to the honour of the emperor as Jupiter Liberator, in a
+Greek inscription on the cornice, in the thirty-first year of the reign,
+when Publius Octavius was prefect of the province.
+
+[Illustration: 018.jpg A KOPTIC MAIDEN]
+
+The large temple at Talmis, in Nubia, was also then built, though not
+wholly finished; and we find the name of Augustus at Philae, on some of
+the additions to the temple of Isis, which had been built in the reign
+of Philadelphus. In the hieroglyphical inscriptions on these temples,
+Augustus is called Autocrator Caesar, and is styled Son of the Sun, King
+of Upper and Lower Egypt, with the other titles which had always been
+given by the priests to the Ptolemies and their own native sovereigns
+for so many centuries. These claims were evidently unknown in Rome,
+where the modesty of Augustus was almost proverbial.
+
+The Greeks had at all times been forward in owning the Egyptians as
+their teachers in religion; and in the dog Cerberus, the judge Minos,
+the boat of Charon, and the river Styx of their mythology, we see a
+clear proof that it was in Egypt that the Greeks gained their faint
+glimpse of the immortality of the soul, a day of judgment, and a future
+state of rewards and punishments; and, now that Rome was in close
+intercourse with Egypt, the Romans were equally ready to borrow thence
+their religious ceremonies. They brought to Rome the Egyptian opinions
+with the statues of the gods. They ran into the new superstition to
+avoid the painful uneasiness of believing nothing, and, though the
+Romans ridiculed their own gods, they believed in those of Egypt. So
+fashionable was the worship of Isis and Serapis becoming in Italy, that
+Augustus made a law that no Egyptian ceremonies should enter the city
+or even the suburbs of Rome. His subjects might copy the luxuries, the
+follies, and the vices of the Alexandrians, but not the gloomy devotion
+of the Egyptians. But the spread of opinions was not so checked;
+even Virgil taught the doctrine of the Egyptian millennium, or the
+resurrection from the dead when the thousand years were ended; and the
+cripple asking for alms in the streets of Rome would beg in the name of
+the holy Osiris.
+
+Egypt felt no change on the death of Augustus. The province was well
+governed during the whole of the reign of Tiberius, and the Alexandrians
+completed the beautiful temple to his honour, named the Sebaste, or
+Caesar's Temple. It stood by the side of the harbour, and was surrounded
+with a sacred grove. It was ornamented with porticoes, and fitted up
+with libraries, paintings, and statues, and was the most lofty building
+in the city. In front of this temple they set up two ancient obelisks,
+which had been made by Thutmosis III. and carved by Ramses II., and
+which, like the other monuments of the Theban kings, have outlived
+all the temples and palaces of their Greek and Roman successors. These
+obelisks are now generally known as "Cleopatra's Needles." One of them,
+in 1878, was taken to London and set up on the Thames Embankment; the
+other was soon afterward brought to New York, and is now in Central Park
+in that city. It is sixty-seven feet high to its sharpened apex, and
+seven feet, seven inches in diameter at its base. On its face are
+deeply incised inscriptions in hieroglyphic character, giving the names
+Thutmosis III., Ramses II., and Seti II.
+
+[Illustration: 022b.jpg FRAGMENTS IN WOOD PAINTED]
+
+The harsh justice with which Tiberius began his reign was at Rome soon
+changed into a cruel tyranny; but in the provinces it was only felt as
+a check to the injustice of the prefects. On one occasion, when AEmilius
+Rectus sent home from Egypt a larger amount of taxes than was usual,
+he hoped that his zeal would be praised by Tiberius. But the emperor's
+message to the prefect was as stern as it was humane: "I should wish my
+sheep to be sheared, but not to be flayed." On the death of one of
+the prefects, there was found among his property at Rome a statue of
+Menelaus, carved in Ethiopian obsidian, which had been used in the
+religious ceremonies in the temple of Heliopolis, and Tiberius returned
+it to the priests of that city as its rightful owners. Another proof of
+the equal justice with which this province was governed was to be seen
+in the buildings then carried on by the priests in Upper Egypt. We find
+the name of Tiberius carved in hieroglyphics on additions or repairs
+made to the temples at Thebes, at Aphroditopolis, at Berenice, on the
+Red Sea, at Philae, and at the Greek city of Parembole, in Nubia. The
+great portico was at this time added to the temple at Tentyra, with an
+inscription dedicating it to the goddess in Greek and in hieroglyphics.
+As a building is often the work of years, while sculpture is only the
+work of weeks, so the fashion of the former is always far less changing
+than that of the latter. The sculptures on the walls of this beautiful
+portico are crowded and graceless; while, on the other hand, the
+building itself has the same grand simplicity and massive strength that
+we find in the older temples of Upper Egypt.
+
+We cannot but admire the zeal of the Egyptians by whom this work
+was then finished. They were treated as slaves by their Greek
+fellow-countrymen; their houses were ransacked every third year by
+military authority in search of arms; they could have had no help from
+their Roman masters, who only drained the province of its wealth; and
+the temple had perhaps never been heard of by the emperor, who could
+have been little aware that the most lasting monument of his reign was
+being raised in the distant province of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 024.jpg TEMPLE AT TENTYRA, ENLARGED BY ROMAN ARCHITECTS]
+
+The priests of the other parts of the country sent gifts out of their
+poverty in aid of this pious work; and among the figures on the walls
+we see those of forty cities, from Semneh, at the second cataract, to
+Memphis and Sais, in the Delta, each presenting an offering to the god
+of the temple.
+
+In the third year of this reign Germanicus Caesar, who, much against his
+will, had been sent into the East as governor, found time to leave his
+own province, and to snatch a hasty view of the time-honoured buildings
+of Egypt. Descending the river to Thebes, and, while gazing on the
+huge remains of the temples, he asked the priests to read to him the
+hieroglyphical writing on the walls. He was told that it recounted the
+greatness of the country in the time of King Ramses, when there were
+seven hundred thousand Egyptians of an age to bear arms; and that
+with these troops Ramses had conquered the Libyans, Ethiopians, Medes,
+Persians, Bactrians, Scythians, Syrians, Armenians, Cappadocians,
+Bithynians, and Lycians. He was also told the tributes laid upon each
+of those nations; the weight of gold and silver, the number of chariots
+and horses, the gifts of ivory and scents for the temples, and the
+quantity of grain which the conquered provinces sent to feed the
+population of Thebes. After listening to the musical statue of
+Amenhothes, Germanicus went on to Elephantine and Syene; and, on his
+return, he turned aside to the pyramids and the Lake of Mceris, which
+regulated the overflow of the Nile on the neighbouring fields. At
+Memphis, Germanicus consulted the sacred bull Apis as to his future
+fortune, and met with an unfavourable answer. The manner of consulting
+Apis was for the visitor to hold out some food in his hand, and the
+answer was understood to be favourable if the bull turned his head
+to eat, but unfavourable if he looked another way. When Germanicus
+accordingly held out a handful of grain, the well-fed animal turned his
+head sullenly towards the other side of his stall; and on the death of
+this young prince, which shortly followed, the Egyptians did not
+forget to praise the bull's foresight. This blameless and seemingly
+praiseworthy visit of Germanicus did not, however, escape the notice
+of the jealous Tiberius. He had been guilty of gaining the love of the
+people by walking about without guards, in a plain Greek dress, and of
+lowering the price of grain in a famine by opening the public granaries;
+and Tiberius sternly reproached him with breaking the known law of
+Augustus, by which no Roman citizen of consular or even of equestrian
+rank might enter Alexandria without leave from the emperor.
+
+There were at this time about a million of Jews in Egypt. In Alexandria
+they seem to have been about one-third of the population, as they
+formed the majority in two wards out of the five into which the city was
+divided. They lived under their own elders and Sanhedrim, going up at
+their solemn feasts to worship in their own temple at Onion; but, from
+their mixing with the Greeks, they had become less strict than their
+Hebrew brethren in their observance of the traditions. Some few of them,
+however, held themselves in obedience to the Sanhedrim in Jerusalem, and
+looked upon the temple of Jerusalem as the only Jewish temple; and these
+men were in the habit of sending an embassy on the stated solemn feasts
+of the nation to offer the appointed sacrifices and prayers to Jahveh
+in the holy city on their behalf. But though the decree by Caesar, which
+declared that the Jews were Alexandrian citizens, was engraved on a
+pillar in the city, yet they were by no means treated as such, either by
+the government, or by the Greeks, or by the Egyptians.
+
+[Illustration: 027.jpg ON THE BANKS OF THE NILE.]
+
+When, during the famine, the public granaries seemed unable to supply
+the whole city with food, even the humane Germanicus ordered that the
+Jews, like the Egyptians, should have no share of the gift. They were
+despised even by the Egyptians themselves, who, to insult them, said
+that the wicked god Typhon had two sons, Hierosolymus and Judaeus, and
+that from these the Jews were descended.
+
+In the neighbourhood of Alexandria, on a hill near the shores of the
+Lake Mareotis, was a little colony of Jews, who, joining their own
+religion with the mystical opinions and gloomy habits of the Egyptians,
+have left us one of the earliest known examples of the monastic life.
+They bore the name of Therapeutae. They had left, says Philo, their
+worldly wealth to their families or friends; they had forsaken wives,
+children, brethren, parents, and the society of men, to bury themselves
+in solitude and pass their lives in the contemplation of the divine
+essence. Seized by this heavenly love, they were eager to enter upon the
+next world, as though they were already dead to this. Every one, whether
+man or woman, lived alone in his cell or monastery, caring for neither
+food nor raiment, but having his thoughts wholly turned to the Law and
+the Prophets, or to sacred hymns of their own composing. They had their
+God always in their thoughts, and even the broken sentences which they
+uttered in their dreams were treasures of religious wisdom. They prayed
+every morning at sunrise, and then spent the day in turning over the
+sacred volumes, and the commentaries, which explained the allegories,
+or pointed out a secondary meaning as hidden beneath the surface of even
+the historical books of the Old Testament. At sunset they again prayed,
+and then tasted their first and only meal. Selfdenial indeed was the
+foundation of all their virtues. Some made only three meals in the week,
+that their meditations might be more free; while others even attempted
+to prolong their fast to the sixth day. During six days of the week they
+saw nobody, not even one another. On the seventh day they met together
+in the synagogue. Here they sat, each according to his age; the women
+separated from the men. Each wore a plain, modest robe, which covered
+the arms and hands, and they sat in silence while one of the elders
+preached. As they studied the mystic powers of numbers, they thought the
+number seven was a holy number, and that seven times seven made a great
+week, and hence they kept the fiftieth day as a solemn festival. On that
+day they dined together, the men on one side and the women on the other.
+The rushy papyrus formed the couches; bread was their only meat, water
+their drink, salt the seasoning, and cresses the delicacy. They would
+keep no slaves, saying that all men were born equal. Nobody spoke,
+unless it was to propose a question out of the Old Testament, or to
+answer the question of another. The feast ended with a hymn of praise.
+
+[Illustration: 029.jpg BEDOUIN TENT IN THE DESERT]
+
+The ascetic Jews of Palestine, the Essenes on the banks of the Dead Sea,
+by no means, according to Philo, thus quitted the active duties of life;
+and it would seem that the Therapeutas rather borrowed their customs
+from the country in which they had settled, than from any sects of the
+Jewish nation. Some classes of the Egyptian priesthood had always held
+the same views of their religious duties. These Egyptian monks slept on
+a hard bed of palm branches, with a still harder wooden pillow for the
+head; they were plain in their dress, slow in walking, spare in diet,
+and scarcely allowed themselves to smile. They washed thrice a day, and
+prayed as often; at sunrise, at noon, and at sunset. They often fasted
+from animal food, and at all times refused many meats as unclean.
+They passed their lives alone, either in study or wrapped in religious
+thought. They never met one another but at set times, and were seldom
+seen by strangers. Thus, leaving to others the pleasures, wealth, and
+lesser prizes of this life, they received from them in return what most
+men value higher, namely, honour, fame, and power.
+
+The Romans, like the Greeks, feeling but little partiality in favour
+of their own gods, were rarely guilty of intolerance against those of
+others; and would hardly have checked the introduction of a new religion
+unless it made its followers worse citizens. But in Rome, where
+every act of its civil or military authorities was accompanied with a
+religious rite, any slight towards the gods was a slight towards the
+magistrate; many devout Romans had begun to keep holy the seventh day;
+and Egypt was now so closely joined to Italy that the Roman senate made
+a new law against the Egyptian and Jewish superstitions, and, in A.D.
+19, banished to Sardinia four thousand men who were found guilty of
+being Jews.
+
+Egypt had lost with its liberties its gold coinage, and it was now
+made to feel a further proof of being a conquered country in having its
+silver much alloyed with copper. But Tiberius, in the tenth year of his
+reign, altogether stopped the Alexandrian mint, as well as those of the
+other cities which occasionally coined; and after this year we find no
+more coins, but the few with the head and name of Augustus Caesar, which
+seem hardly to have been meant for money, but to commemorate on some
+peculiar occasions the emperor's adoption by his stepfather. The Nubian
+gold mines were probably by this time wholly deserted; they had been so
+far worked out as to be no longer profitable. For fifteen hundred years,
+ever since Ethiopia was conquered by Thebes, wages and prices had been
+higher in Egypt than in the neighbouring countries. But this was now no
+longer the case. Egypt had been getting poorer during the reigns of the
+latter Ptolemies; and by this time it is probable that both wages and
+prices were higher in Rome.
+
+It seems to have been usual to change the prefect of Egypt every few
+years, and the prefect-elect was often sent to Alexandria to wait
+till his predecessor's term of years had ended. Thus in this reign of
+twenty-three years AEmilius Rectus was succeeded by Vetrasius Pollio;
+and on his death Tiberius gave the government to his freedman Iberus.
+During the last five years Egypt was under the able but stern government
+of Flaccus Avillius, whose name is carved on the temple of Tentyra with
+that of the emperor. He was a man who united all those qualities of
+prudent forethought, with prompt execution and attention to business,
+which was so necessary in controlling the irritable Alexandrians, who
+were liable to be fired into rebellion by the smallest spark. Justice
+was administered fairly; the great were not allowed to tyrannise over
+the poor, nor the people to meet in tumultuous mobs; and the legions
+were regularly paid, so that they had no excuse for plundering the
+Egyptians.
+
+On the death of Tiberius, in A.D. 37, the old quarrel again broke out
+between Jews and Greeks. The Alexandrians were not slow in learning the
+feelings of his successor, Caius, or Caligula, towards the Jews, nor
+in turning against them the new law that the emperor's statue should
+be honoured in every temple of the empire. They had very unwillingly
+yielded a half-obedience to the law of Augustus that the Jews should
+still be allowed the privileges of citizenship; and, as soon as they
+heard that Caligula was to be worshipped in every temple of the empire,
+they denounced the Jews as traitors and rebels, who refused so to honour
+the emperor in their synagogues. It happened, unfortunately, that their
+countryman, King Agrippa, at this time came to Alexandria. He had full
+leave from the emperor to touch there, as being the quickest and most
+certain way of making the voyage from Rome to the seat of his own
+government. Indeed, the Alexandrian voyage had another merit in the eyes
+of a Jew; for, whereas wooden water-vessels were declared by the Law to
+be unclean, an exception was made by their tradition in favour of the
+larger size of the water-wells in the Alexandrian ships. Agrippa had
+seen Egypt before, on his way to Rome, and he meant to make no stay
+there; but, though he landed purposely after dark, and with no pomp or
+show, he seems to have raised the anger of the prefect Flaccus, who felt
+jealous at any man of higher rank than himself coming into his province.
+The Greeks fell into the prefect's humour, and during the stay of
+Agrippa in Alexandria they lampooned him in songs and ballads, of which
+the raillery was not of the most delicate kind. They mocked him by
+leading about the streets a poor idiot dressed up with a paper crown and
+a reed for a sceptre, in ridicule of his rather doubtful right to the
+style of royalty.
+
+As these insults towards the emperor's friend passed wholly unchecked
+by the prefect, the Greeks next assaulted the Jews in the streets and
+market-place, attacked their houses, rooted up the groves of trees
+around their synagogues, and tore down the decree by which the
+privileges of citizenship had been confirmed to them. The Greeks then
+proceeded to set up by force a statue of the emperor in each Jewish
+synagogue, as if the new decree had included those places of worship
+among the temples, and, not finding statues enough, they made use of the
+statues of the Ptolemies, which they carried away from the gymnasium
+for that purpose. During the last reign, under the stern government
+of Tiberius, Flaccus had governed with justice and prudence, but under
+Caligula he seemed to have lost all judgment in his zeal against the
+Jews. When the riots in the streets could no longer be overlooked,
+instead of defending the injured party, he issued a decree in which
+he styled the Jews foreigners; thus at one word robbing them of their
+privileges and condemning them unheard. By this the Greeks were hurried
+forward into further acts of injustice, and the Jews of resistance. But
+the Jews were the weaker party: they were overpowered, and all driven
+into one ward, and four hundred of their houses in the other wards were
+plundered, and the spoil divided as if taken in war. They were stoned,
+and even burnt in the streets, if they ventured forth to buy food for
+their families. Flaccus seized and scourged in the theatre thirty-eight
+of their venerable councillors, and, to show them that they were no
+longer citizens, the punishment was inflicted by the hands of Egyptian
+executioners. While the city was in this state of riot, the Greeks gave
+out that the Jews were concealing arms; and Flaccus, to give them a
+fresh proof that they had lost the rights of citizenship, ordered that
+their houses should be forcibly entered and searched by a centurion and
+a band of soldiers.
+
+During their troubles the Jews had not been allowed to complain to the
+emperor, or to send an embassy to Rome to make known their grievances.
+But the Jewish King Agrippa, who was on his way from Rome to his
+kingdom, forwarded to Caligula the complaints of his countrymen, the
+Jews, with an account of the rebellious state of Alexandria. The riots,
+it is true, had been wholly raised by the prefect's zeal in setting up
+the emperor's statue in the synagogues to be worshipped by the Jews, and
+in carrying into effect the emperor's decree; but, as he had not been
+able to keep his province quiet, it was necessary that he should
+be recalled, and punished for his want of success. To have found it
+necessary to call out the troops was of course a fault in a governor;
+but doubly so at a time and in a province where a successful general
+might so easily become a formidable rebel. Accordingly, a centurion,
+with a trusty cohort of soldiers, was sent from Rome for the recall
+of the prefect. On approaching the flat coast of Egypt, they kept
+the vessel in deep water till sunset, and then entered the harbour of
+Alexandria in the dark. The centurion, on landing, met with a freedman
+of the emperor, from whom he learned that the prefect was then at
+supper, entertaining a large company of friends. The freedman led the
+cohort quietly into the palace, into the very room where Flaccus was
+sitting at table; and the first tidings that he heard of his government
+being disapproved of in Rome was his finding himself a prisoner in his
+own palace. The friends stood motionless with surprise, the centurion
+produced the emperor's order for what he was doing, and as no resistance
+was attempted all passed off quietly; Flaccus was hurried on board the
+vessel then at anchor in the harbour on the same evening and immediately
+taken to Rome.
+
+It so happened that on the night that Flaccus was seized, the Jews
+had met together to celebrate their autumnal feast, the feast of the
+Tabernacles: not as in former years with joy and pomp, but in fear,
+in grief, and in prayer. Their chief men were in prison, their nation
+smarting under its wrongs and in daily fear of fresh cruelties; and it
+was not without alarm that they heard the noise of soldiers moving to
+and fro through the city, and the heavy tread of the guards marching by
+torchlight from the camp to the palace. But their fear was soon turned
+into joy when they heard that Flaccus, the author of all their wrongs,
+was already a prisoner on board the vessel in the harbour; and they
+gave glory to God, not, says Philo, that their enemy was going to be
+punished, but because their own sufferings were at an end.
+
+The Jews then, having had leave given them by the prefect, sent
+an embassy to Rome, at the head of which was Philo, the platonic
+philosopher, who was to lay their grievances before the emperor, and to
+beg for redress. The Greeks also at the same time sent their embassy,
+at the head of which was the learned grammarian Apion, who was to accuse
+the Jews of not worshipping the statue of the emperor, and to argue that
+they had no right to the same privileges of citizenship with those who
+boasted of their Macedonian blood. But, as the Jews did not deny the
+charge that was brought against them, Caligula would hear nothing that
+they had to say; and Philo withdrew with the remark, "Though the emperor
+is against us, God will be our friend."
+
+We learn the sad tale of the Jews' suffering under Caligula from the
+pages of their own historian only. But though Philo may have felt and
+written as one of the sufferers, his truth is undoubted. He was a man
+of unblemished character, and the writer of greatest learning and of the
+greatest note at that time in Alexandria; being also of a great age, he
+well deserved the honour of being sent on the embassy to Caligula. He
+was in religion a Jew, in his philosophy a platonist, and by birth an
+Egyptian: and in his numerous writings we may trace the three sources
+from which he drew his opinions. He is always devotional and in earnest,
+full of pure and lofty thoughts, and often eloquent. His fondness for
+the mystical properties of numbers, and for finding an allegory or
+secondary meaning in the plainest narrative, seems borrowed from the
+Egyptians. According to the Eastern proverb every word in a wise book
+has seventy-two meanings; and this mode of interpretation was called
+into use by the necessity which the Jews felt of making the Old
+Testament speak a meaning more agreeable to their modern views of
+religion. In Philo's speculative theology he seems to have borrowed less
+from Moses than from the abstractions of Plato, whose shadowy hints he
+has embodied in a more solid form. He was the first Jewish writer
+that applied to the Deity the mystical notion of the Egyptians, that
+everything perfect was of three parts. Philo's writings are valuable as
+showing the steps by which the philosophy of Greece may be traced
+from the writings of Plato to those of Justin Martyr and Clemens
+Alexandrinus. They give us the earliest example of how the mystical
+interpretation of the Scriptures was formed into a system, by which
+every text was made to unfold some important philosophic or religious
+truth to the learned student, at the same time that to the unlearned
+reader it conveyed only the simple historic fact.
+
+The Hellenistic Jews, while suffering under severe political
+disabilities, had taken up a high literary position in Alexandria, and
+had forced their opinions into the notice of the Greeks. The glowing
+earnestness of their philosophy, now put forward in a platonic dress,
+and heir improved style, approaching even classic elegance, laced their
+writings on a lofty eminence far above anything which the cold, lifeless
+grammarians of the museum were then producing. Apion, who went to Rome
+to plead against Philo, was a native of the Great Oasis, but as he was
+born of Greek parents, he claimed and received the title and privileges
+of an Alexandrian, which he denied to the Jews who were born in the
+city. He had studied under Didymus and Apollonius and Euphranor, and was
+one of the most laborious of the grammarians and editors of Homer. All
+his writings are now lost. Some of them were attacks upon the Jews and
+their religion, calling in question the truth of the Jewish history
+and the justice of that nation's claim to high antiquity; and to these
+attacks we owe Josephus' _Answer_, in which several valuable fragments
+of history are saved by being quoted against the pagans in support of
+the Old Testament. One of his works was his _AEgyptiaca_, an account of
+what he thought most curious in Egypt. But his learned trifling is now
+lost, and nothing remains of it but his account of the meeting between
+Androclus and the lion, which took place in the amphitheatre at Rome
+when Apion was there on his embassy. Androclus was a runaway slave, who,
+when retaken, was brought to Rome to be thrown before an African lion
+for the amusement of the citizens, and as a punishment for his flight.
+But the fierce and hungry beast, instead of tearing him to pieces,
+wagged his tail at him, and licked his feet. It seems that the slave,
+when he fled from his master, had gained the friendship of the lion in
+the Libyan desert, first by pulling a thorn out of his foot, and then
+by living three years with him in a cave; and, when both were brought
+in chains to Rome, Androclus found a grateful friend in the amphitheatre
+where he thought to have met with a cruel death.
+
+We may for a moment leave our history, to bid a last farewell to the
+family of the Ptolemies. Augustus, after leading Selene, the daughter
+of Cleopatra and Antony, through the streets of Rome in his triumph, had
+given her in marriage to the younger Juba, the historian of Africa; and
+about the same time he gave to the husband the kingdom of Mauritania,
+the inheritance of his father. His son Ptolemy succeeded him on the
+throne, but was soon turned out of his kingdom. We trace the last of
+the Ptolemies in his travels through Greece and Asia Minor by the
+inscriptions remaining to his honour. The citizens of Xanthus in Lycia
+set up a monument to him; and at Athens his statue was placed beside
+that of Philadelphus in the gymnasium of Ptolemy, near the temple of
+Theseus, where he was honoured as of founder's kin. He was put to death
+by Caligula. Drusilla, another grandchild of Cleopatra and Antony,
+married Antonius Felix, the procurator of Judaea, after the death of his
+first wife, who was also named Drusilla. These are the last notices that
+we meet with of the royal family of Egypt.
+
+As soon as the news of Caligula's death (A.D. 41) reached Egypt, the
+joy of the Jews knew no bounds. They at once flew to arms to revenge
+themselves on the Alexandrians, whose streets were again the seat of
+civil war. The governor did what he could to quiet both parties, but
+was not wholly successful till the decree of the new emperor reached
+Alexandria. In this Claudius granted to the Jews the full rights of
+citizenship, which they had enjoyed under the Ptolemies, and which had
+been allowed by Augustus; he left them to choose their own high priest,
+to enjoy their own religion without hindrance, and he repealed the laws
+of Caligula under which they had been groaning. At this time the Jewish
+alabarch in Egypt was Demetrius, a man of wealth and high birth, who had
+married Mariamne, the daughter of the elder Agrippa.
+
+[Illustration: 041.jpg EGYPTIAN THRESHING-MACHINE]
+
+The government under Claudius was mild and just, at least as far as
+a government could be in which every tax-gatherer, every military
+governor, and every sub-prefect was supposed to enrich himself by his
+appointment. Every Roman officer, from the general down to the lowest
+tribune, claimed the right of travelling through the country free of
+expense, and seizing the carts and cattle of the villagers to carry him
+forward to the next town, under the pretence of being a courier on the
+public service. But we have a decree of the ninth year of this reign,
+carved on the temple in the Great Oasis, in which Cneius Capito, the
+prefect of Egypt, endeavours to put a stop to this injustice. He orders
+that no traveller shall have the privilege of a courier unless he has a
+proper warrant, and that then he shall only claim a free lodging; that
+clerks in the villages shall keep a register of all that is taken on
+account of the public service; and that if anybody make an unjust claim
+he shall pay four times the amount to the informer and six times the
+amount to the emperor. But royal decrees could do little or nothing
+where there were no judges to enforce them; and the people of Upper
+Egypt must have felt this law as a cruel insult when they were told that
+they might take up their complaints to Basilides, at Alexandria. The
+employment of the informer is a full acknowledgment of the weakness
+of this absolute government, and that the prefect had not the power
+to enforce his own decrees; and, when we compare this law with that
+of Alexander on his conquest of the country, we have no difficulty in
+seeing why Egypt rose under the Ptolemies and sunk under the selfish
+policy of Augustus.
+
+Claudius was somewhat of a scholar and an author; he wrote several
+volumes both in Greek and in Latin. The former he might perhaps think
+would be chiefly valued in Alexandria; and when he founded a new college
+in that city, called after himself the Claudian Museum, he ordered that
+on given days every year his history of Carthage should be publicly
+read in one museum, and his history of Italy in the other; thus securing
+during his reign an attention to his writings which their merits alone
+would not have gained.
+
+Under the government of Claudius the Egyptians were again allowed to
+coin money; and in his first year begins that historically important
+series in which every coin is dated with the year of the emperor's
+reign. The coins of the Ptolemies were strictly Greek in their
+workmanship, and the few Egyptian characters that we see upon them are
+so much altered by the classic taste of the die-engraver that we hardly
+know them again. But it is far otherwise with the coins of the emperors,
+which are covered with the ornaments, characters, and religious
+ceremonies of the native Egyptians; and, though the style of art is
+often bad, they are scarcely equalled by any series of coins whatever in
+the service they render to the historian.
+
+It was in this reign that the route through Egypt to India first became
+really known to the Greeks and Romans. The historian Pliny, who died in
+79 A.D., has left us a contemporary account of these early voyages. "It
+will not be amiss," he says in his _Natural History_, "to set forth the
+whole of the route from Egypt, which has been stated to us of late, upon
+information on which reliance may be placed and is here published for
+the first time. The subject is one well worthy of our notice, seeing
+that in no year does India drain our empire of less than five hundred
+and fifty millions of sesterces [or two million dollars], giving back
+her own wares in exchange, which are sold among us at fully one hundred
+times their cost price.
+
+"Two miles distant from Alexandria is the town of Heliopolis. The
+distance thence to Koptos, up the Nile, is three hundred and eight
+miles; the voyage is performed, when the Etesian winds are blowing, in
+twelve days. From Koptos the journey is made with the aid of camels,
+stations being arranged at intervals for the supply of fresh water. The
+first of these stations is called Hydreuma, and is distant twenty-two
+miles; the second is situate on a mountain at a distance of one day's
+journey from the last; the third is at a second Hydreuma, distant from
+Koptos ninety-five miles; the fourth is on a mountain; the next to that
+is another Hydreuma, that of Apollo, and is distant from Koptos one
+hundred and eighty-four miles; after which there is another on a
+mountain; there is then another station at a place called the New
+Hydreuma, distant from Koptos two hundred and thirty miles; and next
+to it there is another called the Old Hydreuma, where a detachment
+is always on guard, with a caravansary that affords lodging for two
+thousand persons. The last is distant from the New Hydreuma seven
+miles. After leaving it, we come to the city of Berenice, situate upon
+a harbour of the Red Sea, and distant from Koptos two hundred and
+fifty-seven miles. The greater part of this distance is generally
+travelled by night, on account of the extreme heat, the day being spent
+at the stations; in consequence of which it takes twelve days to perform
+the whole journey from Koptos to Berenice.
+
+"Passengers generally set sail at midsummer before the rising of the
+Dog-star, or else immediately after, and in about thirty days arrive
+at Ocelis in Arabia, or else at Cane, in the region which bears
+frankincense. To those who are bound for India, Ocelis is the best place
+for embarkation. If the wind called Hippolus happens to be blowing,
+it is possible to arrive in forty days at the nearest mart of India,
+Muziris by name [the modern Mangalore]. This, however, is not a very
+desirable place for disembarkation, on account of the pirates which
+frequent its vicinity, where they occupy a place, Mtrias; nor, in fact,
+is it very rich in articles of merchandise. Besides, the roadstead for
+shipping is a considerable distance from the shore, and the cargoes
+have to be conveyed in boats, either for loading or discharging. At the
+moment that I am writing these pages," continues Pliny, "the name of
+the king of the place is Caelobotras. Another part, and a much more
+convenient one, is that which lies in the territory of the people called
+Neacyndi, Barace by name. Here King Pandian used to reign, dwelling at a
+considerable distance from the mart in the interior, at a city known
+as Modiera. The district from which pepper is carried down to Barace
+in boats hollowed out of a single tree, is known as Cottonara. None of
+these names of nations, ports, and cities are to be found in any of
+the former writers, from which circumstance it would appear that the
+localities have since changed their names. Travellers set sail from
+India on their return to Europe, at the beginning of the Egyptian month
+Tybus, which is our December, or, at all events, before the sixth day of
+the Egyptian month Mechir, the same as our ides of January: if they do
+this, they can go and return in the same year. They set sail from
+India with a south-east wind, and, upon entering the Red Sea, catch the
+south-west or south."
+
+The places on the Indian coast which the Egyptian merchant vessels then
+reached are verified from the coins found there; and as we know the
+course of the trade-wind by which they arrived, we also know the part of
+Africa where they left the shore and braved the dangers of the ocean.
+A hoard of Roman gold coins of these reigns has been dug up in our own
+days near Calicut, under the roots of a banyan-tree. It had been there
+buried by an Alexandrian merchant on his arrival from this voyage, and
+left safe under the cover of the sacred tree to await his return from a
+second journey. But he died before his return, and his secret died with
+him. The products of the Indian trade were chiefly silk, diamonds, and
+other precious stones, ginger, spices, and some scents. The state of
+Ethiopia was then such that no trade came down the Nile to Syene;
+and the produce of southern Africa was brought by coasting vessels to
+Berenice. These products were ivory, rhinoceros teeth, hippopotamus
+skins, tortoise shell, apes, monkeys, and slaves, a list which throws
+a sidelight both on the pursuits of the natives and the tastes of the
+ultimate purchasers.
+
+[Illustration: 047.jpg AN ARAB GIRL]
+
+The Romans in most cases collected the revenues of a province by means
+of a publican or farmer, to whom the taxes were let by auction; but such
+was the importance of Egypt that the same jealousy which made them think
+its government too great to be trusted to a man of high rank, made them
+think its revenues too large to be trusted to one farmer. The smaller
+branches of the Egyptian revenue were, however, let out as usual, and
+even the collection of the customs of the whole of the Red Sea was not
+thought too much to trust to one citizen. Annius Plocamus, who farmed
+them in this reign, had a little fleet under his command to collect them
+with; and, tempted either by trade or plunder, his ships were sometimes
+as far out as the south coast of Arabia. On one occasion one of his
+freedmen in the command of a vessel was carried by a north wind into
+the open ocean, and after being fifteen days at sea found himself on the
+coast of Ceylon. This island was not then wholly new to the geographers
+of Egypt and Europe. It had been heard of by the pilots in the voyage of
+Alexander the Great; Eratosthenes had given it a place in his map; and
+it had often been reached from Africa by the sailors of the Red Sea in
+wickerwork boats made of papyrus; but this was the first time it had
+been visited by a European.
+
+In the neighbourhood of the above-mentioned road from Koptos to Berenice
+were the porphyritic quarries and the emerald mines, which were briskly
+worked under the Emperor Claudius. The mountain was now named the
+Claudian Mountain.
+
+As this route for trade became known, the geographers began to
+understand the wide space that separates India from Africa. Hitherto,
+notwithstanding a few voyages of discovery, it had been the common
+opinion that Persia was in the neighbourhood of Ethiopia. The Greeks had
+thought that the Nile rose in India, in opposition to the Jews, who said
+that it was the river Gibon of the garden of Eden, which made a circuit
+round the whole of the land of Cush, or Ethiopia. The names of these
+countries got misused accordingly; and even after the mistake was
+cleared up we sometimes find Ethiopia called India.
+
+The Egyptian chemists were able to produce very bright dyes by methods
+then unknown to Greece or Rome. They dipped the cloth first into a
+liquid of one colour, called a mordant, to prepare it, and then into
+a liquid of a second colour; and it came out dyed of a third colour,
+unlike either of the former. The ink with which they wrote the name of
+a deceased person on the mummy-cloth, like our own marking-ink, was made
+with nitrate of silver. Their knowledge of chemistry was far greater
+than that of their neighbours, and the science is even now named from
+the country of its birth. The later Arabs called it Alchemia, _the
+Egyptian art_, and hence our words alchemy and chemistry. So also
+Naphtha, or _rock oil_, from the coast of the Red Sea; and Anthracite,
+or _rock fuel_, from the coast of Syria, both bear Egyptian names.
+To some Egyptian stones the Romans gave their own names; as the black
+glassy obsidian from Nubia they called after Obsidius, who found it;
+the black Tiberian marble with white spots, and the Augustan marble with
+regular wavy veins, were both named after the emperors. Porphyry was
+now used for statues for the first time, and sometimes to make a kind of
+patchwork figure, in which the clothed parts were of the coloured stone,
+while the head, hands, and feet were of white marble. And it was thought
+that diamonds were nowhere to be found but in the Ethiopian gold mines.
+
+Several kinds of wine were made in Egypt; some in the Arsinoite nome on
+the banks of the lake Mceris; and a poor Libyan wine at Antiplme on the
+coast, a hundred miles from Alexandria. Wine had also been made in
+Upper Egypt in small quantities a very long time, as we learn from the
+monuments; but it was produced with difficulty and cost and was not
+good; it was not valued by the Greeks. It was poor and thin, and drunk
+only by those who were feverish and afraid of anything stronger. That
+of Anthylla, to the east of Alexandria, was very much better. But better
+still were the thick luscious Taeniotic and the mild delicate Mareotic
+wines. This last was first grown at Plinthine, but afterwards on all the
+banks of the lake Mareotis. The Mareotic wine was white and sweet and
+thin, and very little heating or intoxicating. Horace had carelessly
+said of Cleopatra that she was drunk with Mareotic wine; but Lucan, who
+better knew its quality, says that the headstrong lady drank wine far
+stronger than the Mareotic. Near Sebennytus three kinds of wine were
+made; one bitter named Peuce, a second sparkling named AEthalon, and
+the third Thasian, from a vine imported from Thasus. But none of these
+Egyptian wines was thought equal to those of Greece and Italy. Nor were
+they made in quantities large enough or cheap enough for the poor; and
+here, as in other countries, the common people for their intoxicating
+drink used beer or spirits made from barley.
+
+[Illustration: 051.jpg FARMING IN EGYPT]
+
+The Egyptian sour wine, however, made very good vinegar, and it was then
+exported for sale in Rome. During this half-century that great national
+work, the lake of Moeris, by which thousands of acres had been flooded
+and made fertile, and the watering of the lower country regulated, was,
+through the neglect of the embankments, at once destroyed. The latest
+traveller who mentions it is Strabo, and the latest geographer Pomponius
+Mela. By its means the province of Arsinoe was made one of the most
+fruitful and beautiful spots in Egypt. Here only does the olive grow
+wild. Here the vine will grow. And by the help of this embanked lake the
+province was made yet more fruitful. But before Pliny wrote, the bank
+had given way, the pentup waters had made for themselves a channel into
+the lake now called Birket el Kurun, and the two small pyramids, which
+had hitherto been surrounded by water, then stood on dry ground. Thus
+was the country slowly going to ruin by the faults of the government,
+and ignorance in the foreign rulers. But, on the other hand, the
+beautiful temple of Latopolis, which had been begun under the Ptolemies,
+was finished in this reign; and bears the name of Claudius with those of
+some later emperors on its portico and walls.
+
+In the Egyptian language the word for a year is _Bait_, which is also
+the name of a bird. In hieroglyphics this word is spelt by a palm-branch
+_Bai_ and the letter T, followed sometimes by a circle as a picture of
+the year. Hence arose among a people fond of mystery and allegory a mode
+of speaking of the year under the name of a palm-branch or of a bird;
+and they formed a fable out of a mere confusion of words. The Greeks,
+who were not slow to copy Egyptian mysticism, called this fabulous bird
+the _Phoenix_ from their own name for the palm-tree. The end of any long
+period of time they called the return of the phonix to earth. The Romans
+borrowed the fable, though perhaps without understanding the allegory;
+and in the seventh year of this reign, when the emperor celebrated the
+secular games at Rome, at the end of the eighth century since the city
+was built, it was said that the phoenix had come to Egypt and was thence
+brought to Rome. This was in the consulship of Plautius and Vitellius;
+and it would seem to be only from mistakes in the name that Pliny
+places the event eleven years earlier, in the consulship of Plautius
+and Papinius, and that Tacitus places it thirteen years earlier in the
+consulship of Fabius and Vitellius. This fable is connected with some
+of the remarkable epochs in Egyptian history. The story lost nothing by
+travelling to a distance. In Rome it was said that this wonderful bird
+was a native of Arabia, where it lived for five hundred years, that on
+its death a grub came out of its body which in due time became a perfect
+bird; and that the new phonix brought to Egypt the bones of its parent
+in the nest of spices in which it had died, and laid them on the altar
+in the temple of the sun in Heliopolis. It then returned to Arabia to
+live in its turn for five hundred years, and die and give life again
+to another as before. The Christians saw in this story a type of the
+resurrection; and Clement, Bishop of Rome, quotes it as such in his
+Epistle to the Corinthians.
+
+We find the name of Claudius on several of the temples of Upper Egypt,
+particularly on that of Apollinopolis Magna, and on the portico of the
+great temples of Latopolis, which were being built in this reign.
+
+In the beginning of the reign of Nero, 55 A.D., an Egyptian Jew,
+who claimed to be listened to as a prophet, raised the minds of his
+countrymen into a ferment of religious zeal by preaching about the
+sufferings of their brethren in Judaea; and he was able to get together
+a body of men, called in reproach the Sicarii, or _ruffians_, whose
+numbers are variously stated at four thousand and thirty thousand,
+whom he led out of Egypt to free the holy city from the bondage of the
+heathen. But Felix, the Roman governor, led against them the garrison of
+Jerusalem, and easily scattered the half-armed rabble. By such acts of
+religious zeal on the part of the Jews they were again brought to blows
+with the Greeks of Alexandria. The Macedonians, as the latter still
+called themselves, had met in public assembly to send an embassy to
+Rome, and some Jews who entered the meeting, which as citizens they had
+a full right to do, were seized and ill-treated by them as spies. They
+would perhaps have even been put to death if a large body of their
+countrymen had not run to their rescue. The Jews attacked the assembled
+Greeks with stones and lighted torches, and would have burned the
+amphitheatre and all that were in it, if the prefect, Tiberius
+Alexander, had not sent some of the elders of their own nation to calm
+their angry feelings. But, though the mischief was stopped for a time,
+it soon broke out again; and the prefect was forced to call out the
+garrison of two Roman legions and five thousand Libyans before he
+could re-establish peace in the city. The Jews were always the greatest
+sufferers in these civil broils; and Josephus says that fifty thousand
+of his countrymen were left dead in the streets of Alexandria. But this
+number is very improbable, as the prefect was a friend to the Jewish
+nation, and as the Roman legions were not withdrawn to the camp till
+they had guarded the Jews in carrying away and burying the bodies of
+their friends.
+
+It was a natural policy on the part of the emperors to change a prefect
+whenever his province was disturbed by rebellion, as we have seen in the
+case of Flaccus, who was recalled by Caligula. It was easier to send a
+new governor than to inquire into a wrong or to redress a grievance; and
+accordingly in the next year C. Balbillus was sent from Rome as prefect
+of Egypt. He reached Alexandria on the sixth day after leaving the
+Straits of Sicily, which was spoken of as the quickest voyage known. The
+Alexandrian ships were better built and better manned than any others,
+and, as a greater number of vessels sailed every year between that port
+and Puteoli on the coast of Italy than between any other two places, no
+voyage was better understood or more quickly performed. They were out of
+sight of land for five hundred miles between Syracuse and Cyrene. Hence
+we see that the quickest rate of sailing, with a fair wind, was at that
+time about one hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours. But
+these ships had very little power of bearing up against the wind; and
+if it were contrary the voyage became tedious. If the captain on sailing
+out of the port of Alexandria found the wind westerly, and was unable to
+creep along the African coast to Cyrene, he stood over to the coast of
+Asia Minor, in hopes of there finding a more favourable wind. If a storm
+arose, he ran into the nearest port, perhaps in Crete, perhaps in Malta,
+there to wait the return of fair weather. If winter then came on, he had
+to lie by till spring. Thus a vessel laden with Egyptian wheat, leaving
+Alexandria in September, after the harvest had been brought down to the
+coast, would sometimes spend five months on its voyage from that port to
+Puteoli. Such was the case with the ship bearing the children of Jove
+as its figurehead, which picked up the Apostle Paul and the historian
+Josephus when they had been wrecked together on the island of Malta; and
+such perhaps would have been the case with the ship which they before
+found on the coast of Lycia, had it been able to reach a safe harbour,
+and not been wrecked at Malta.
+
+[Illustration: 056.jpg EGYPTIAN THRESHING MACHINE]
+
+The rocky island of Malta, with the largest and safest harbour in
+the Mediterranean, was a natural place for ships to touch at between
+Alexandria and Italy. Its population was made up of those races which
+had sailed upon its waters first from Carthage and then from Alexandria;
+it was a mixture of Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Graeco-Egyptians. To
+judge from the skulls turned up in the burial-places, the Egyptians
+were the most numerous, and here as elsewhere the Egyptian superstitions
+conquered and put down all the other superstitions. While the island was
+under the Phoenicians, the coins had the head of the Sicilian goddess
+on one side, and on the other the Egyptian trinity of Isis, Osiris, and
+Nepthys. When it was under the Greek rule the head on the coins received
+an Egyptian head-dress, and became that of the goddess Isis, and on the
+other side of the coin was a winged figure of Osiris. It was at
+this time governed by a Roman governor. The large temple, built with
+barbarian rudeness, and ornamented with the Phoenician palm-branch, was
+on somewhat of a Roman plan, with a circular end to every room. But it
+was dedicated to the chief god of Egypt, and is even yet called by its
+Greek name Hagia Chem, _the temple of Chem_. The little neighbouring
+island of Cossyra, between Sicily and Carthage, also shows upon its
+coins clear traces of its taste for Egyptian customs.
+
+[Illustration: 057.jpg MALTESE COIN]
+
+The first five years of this reign, the _quinquennium Neronis_, while
+the emperor was under the tutorship of the philosopher Seneca, became in
+Rome proverbial for good government, and on the coinage we see marks of
+Egypt being equally well treated. In the third year we see on a coin the
+queen sitting on a throne with the word _agreement_, as if to praise
+the young emperor's good feeling in following the advice of his mother
+Agrippina. On another the emperor is styled the young good genius, and
+he is represented by the sacred basilisk crowned with the double crown
+of Egypt. The new prefect, Balbillus, was an Asiatic Greek, and no doubt
+received his Roman names of Tiberius Claudius on being made a freedman
+of the late emperor. He governed the country mildly and justly; and
+the grateful inhabitants declared that under him the Nile was more than
+usually bountiful, and that its waters always rose to their just height.
+But in the latter part of the reign the Egyptians smarted severely under
+that cruel principle of a despotic monarchy that every prefect, every
+sub-prefect, and even every deputy tax-gatherer, might be equally
+despotic in his own department.
+
+[Illustration: 058.jpg COIN OF COSSYRA]
+
+On a coin of the thirteenth year of the reign of this ruler, we see a
+ship with the word _emperor-bearer_, being that in which he then sailed
+into Greece, or in which the Alexandrians thought that he would visit
+their city. But if they had really hoped for his visit as a pleasure,
+they must have thought it a danger escaped when they learned his
+character; they must have been undeceived when the prefect Caecinna
+Tuscus was punished with banishment for venturing to bathe in the bath
+which was meant for the emperor's use if he had come on his projected
+visit.
+
+During the first century and a half of Roman sway in Egypt the school
+of Alexandria was nearly silent. We have a few poems by Leonides of
+Alexandria, one of which is addressed to the Empress Poppaea, as the wife
+of Jupiter, on his presenting a celestial globe to her on her birthday.
+Pamphila wrote a miscellaneous history of entertaining stories, and her
+lively, simple style makes us very much regret its loss. Chaeremon, a
+Stoic philosopher, had been, during the last reign, at the head of the
+Alexandrian library, but he was removed to Rome as one of the tutors to
+the young Nero.
+
+[Illustration: 059.jpg COIN OF NERO]
+
+He is ridiculed by Martial for writing in praise of death, when, from
+age and poverty, he was less able to enjoy life. We still possess a
+most curious though short account by him of the monastic habits of the
+ancient Egyptians. He also wrote on hieroglyphics, and a small fragment
+containing his opinion of the meanings of nineteen characters still
+remains to us. But he is not always right; he thinks the characters were
+used allegorically for thoughts, not for sounds; and fancies that the
+priests used them to keep secret the real nature of the gods.
+
+He was succeeded at the museum by his pupil Dionysius, who had the
+charge of the library till the reign of Trajan. Dionysius was also
+employed by the prefect as a secretary of state, or, in the language of
+the day, secretary to the embassies, epistles, and answers. He was the
+author of the _Periegesis_, and aimed at the rank of a poet by writing
+a treatise on geography in heroic verse. From this work he is named
+Dionysius Periegetes. While careful to remind us that his birthplace
+Alexandria was a Macedonian city, he gives due honour to Egypt and the
+Egyptians. There is no river, says he, equal to the Nile for carrying
+fertility and adding to the happiness of the land. It divides Asia from
+Libya, falling between rocks at Syene, and then passing by the old and
+famous city of Thebes, where Memnon every morning salutes his beloved
+Aurora as she rises. On its banks dwells a rich and glorious race of
+men, who were the first to cultivate the arts of life; the first to make
+trial of the plough and sow their seed in a straight furrow; and the
+first to map the heavens and trace the sloping path of the sun.
+
+According to the traditions of the church, it was in this reign that
+Christianity was first brought into Egypt by the Evangelist Mark, the
+disciple of the Apostle Peter. Many were already craving for religious
+food more real than the old superstitions. The Egyptian had been shaken
+in his attachment to the sacred animals by Greek ridicule. The Greek had
+been weakened in his belief of old Homer's gods by living with men
+who had never heard of them. Both were dissatisfied with the scheme of
+explaining the actions of their gods by means of allegory. The crumbling
+away of the old opinions left men more fitted to receive the new
+religion from Galilee. Mark's preaching converted crowds in Alexandria;
+but, after a short stay, he returned to Rome, in about the eleventh
+year of this reign, leaving Annianus to watch over the growing church.
+Annianus is usually called the first bishop of Alexandria; and Eusebius,
+who lived two hundred years later, has given us the names of his
+successors in an unbroken chain. If we would inquire whether the early
+converts to Christianity in Alexandria were Jews, Greeks, or Egyptians,
+we have nothing to guide us but the names of these bishops. Annianus,
+or Annaniah, as his name was written by the Arabic historians, was very
+likely a Jew; indeed, the Evangelist Mark would begin by addressing
+himself to the Jews, and would leave the care of the infant church to
+one of his own nation. In the platonic Jews, Christianity found soil
+so exactly suited to its reception that it is only by he dates that the
+Therapeute of Alexandria and their historian Philo are proved not to be
+Christian; and, again, it was in the close union between the platonic
+Jews and the platonists that Christianity found its easiest path to the
+ears and hearts of the pagans. The bishops that followed seem to have
+been Greek converts. Before the death of Annaniah, Jerusalem had been
+destroyed by the Roman armies, and the Jews sunk in their own eyes
+and in those of their fellow-citizens throughout the empire; hence the
+second bishop of Alexandria was less likely to be of Hebrew blood; and
+it was long before any Egyptians aimed at rank in the church. But though
+the spread of Christianity was rapid, both among the Greeks and the
+Egyptians, we must not hope to find any early traces of it in the
+historians. It was at first embraced by the unlearned and the poor,
+whose deeds and opinions are seldom mentioned in history; and we may
+readily believe the scornful reproach of the unbelievers, that it was
+chiefly received by the unfortunate, the unhappy, the despised, and the
+sinful. When the white-robed priestesses of Ceres carried the sacred
+basket through the streets of Alexandria, they cried out, "Sinners away,
+or keep your eyes to the ground; keep your eyes to the ground!" When
+the crier, standing on the steps of the portico in front of the great
+temple, called upon the pagans to come near and join in the celebration
+of their mysteries, he cried out, "All ye who are clean of hands and
+pure of heart, come to the sacrifice; all ye who are guiltless in
+thought and deed, come to the sacrifice."
+
+But many a repentant sinner and humble spirit must have drawn back in
+distrust from a summons which to him was so forbidding, and been glad
+to hear the good tidings of mercy offered by Christianity to those who
+labour and are heavy laden, and to the broken-hearted who would turn
+away from their wickedness. While such were the chief followers of the
+gospel, it was not likely to be much noticed by the historians; and we
+must wait till it forced its way into the schools and the palace before
+we shall find many traces of the rapidity with which it was spreading.
+
+[Illustration: 063.jpg ETHIOPIAN ARABS]
+
+During these reigns the Ethiopian Arabs kept up their irregular warfare
+against the southern frontier. The tribe most dreaded were the Blemmyes,
+an uncivilised people, described by the affrighted neighbours as having
+no heads, but with eyes and mouth on the breast; and it was under that
+name that the Arabs spread during each century farther and farther into
+Egypt, separating the province from the more cultivated tribes of Upper
+Ethiopia or Meroe. The cities along the banks of the Nile in Lower
+Ethiopia, between Nubia and Meroe, were ruined by being in the debatable
+land between the two nations. The early Greek travellers had counted
+about twenty cities on each side of the Nile between Syene and Meroe;
+but when, in a moment of leisure, the Roman government proposed to
+punish and stop the inroads of these troublesome neighbours, and sent
+forward a tribune with a guard of soldiers, he reported on his return
+that the whole country was a desert, and that there was scarcely a
+city inhabited on either side of the Nile beyond Nubia. But he had not
+marched very far. The interior of Africa was little known; and to seek
+for the fountain of the Nile was another name for an impossible or
+chimerical undertaking.
+
+But Egypt itself was so quiet as not to need the presence of so large
+a Roman force as usual to keep it in obedience; and when Vespasian, who
+commanded Nero's armies in Syria, found the Jews more obstinate in their
+rebellion and less easily crushed than he expected, the emperor sent the
+young Titus to Alexandria, to lead to his father's assistance all the
+troops that could be spared. Titus led into Palestine through Arabia two
+legions, the Fifth and the Tenth, which were then in Egypt.
+
+We find a temple of this reign in the oasis of Dakleh, or the Western
+Oasis, which seems to have been a more flourishing spot in the time
+of the Romans than when Egypt itself was better governed. It is so far
+removed from the cities in the valley of the Nile that its position, and
+even existence, was long unknown to Europeans, and to such hiding-places
+as this many of the Egyptians fled, to be farther from the tyranny of
+the Roman tax-gatherers.
+
+Hitherto the Roman empire had descended for just one hundred years
+through five emperors like a family inheritance; but, on the death of
+Nero, the Julian and Claudian families were at an end, and Galba, who
+was raised to the purple by the choice of the soldiers, endeavoured to
+persuade the Romans and their dependent provinces that they had regained
+their liberties. The Egyptians may have been puzzled by the word
+_freedom_, then struck upon the coins by their foreign masters, but must
+have been pleased to find it accompanied with a redress of grievances.
+
+Galba began his reign with the praiseworthy endeavour of repairing the
+injustice done by his cruel predecessor. He at once recalled the prefect
+of Egypt, and appointed in his place Tiberius Julius Alexander, an
+Alexandrian, a son of the former prefect of that name; and thus Egypt
+was under the government of a native prefect. The peaceable situation of
+the Great Oasis has saved a long Greek inscription of the decree which
+was now issued in redress of the grievances suffered under Nero. It is
+a proclamation by Julius Demetrius, the commander of the Oasis, quoting
+the decree of Tiberius Julius Alexander, the new prefect of Egypt.
+
+The prefect acknowledges that the loud complaints with which he was met
+on entering upon his government were well founded, and he promises that
+the unjust taxes shall cease; that nobody shall be forced to act as a
+provincial tax-gatherer; that no debts shall be cancelled or sales made
+void under the plea of money owing to the revenue; that no freeman shall
+be thrown into prison for debt, unless it be a debt due to the
+royal revenue, and that no private debt shall be made over to the
+tax-gatherer, to be by him collected as a public debt; that no property
+settled on the wife at marriage shall be seized for taxes due from the
+husband; and that all new charges and claims which had grown up within
+the last five years shall be repealed. In order to discourage informers,
+whom the prefects had much employed, and by whom the families in
+Alexandria were much harassed, and to whom he laid the great falling off
+in the population of that city, he orders, that if anybody should
+make three charges and fail in proving them, he shall forfeit half his
+property and lose the right of bringing an action at law. The land had
+always paid a tax in proportion to the number of acres overflowed and
+manured by the waters of the Nile; and the husbandmen had latterly been
+frightened by the double threat of a new measurement of the land, and of
+making it at the same time pay according to the ancient registers of the
+overflow when the canals had been more open and more acres flooded; but
+the prefect promises that there shall be no new measurements, and that
+they shall only be taxed according to the actual overflow. In 69 A.D.
+Galba was murdered, after a reign of seven months. Some of his coins,
+however, are dated in the second year of his reign, according to the
+Alexandrian custom of counting the years. They called the 29th of
+August, the first new year's day after the sovereign came to the throne,
+the first day of his second year.
+
+Otho was then acknowledged as emperor by Rome and the East, while the
+hardy legions of Germany thought themselves entitled to choose for
+themselves. They set up their own general, Vitellius. The two legions in
+Egypt sided with the four legions in Syria under Mucianus, and the
+three legions which, under Vespasian, were carrying on the memorable
+war against the Jews; and all took the oaths to Otho. We find no
+hieroglyphical inscriptions during this short reign of a few weeks, but
+there are many Alexandrian coins to prove the truth of the historian;
+and some of them, like those of Galba, bear the unlooked-for word
+_freedom_. In the few weeks which then passed between the news of Otho's
+death and of Vespasian being raised to the purple in Syria, Vitellius
+was acknowledged in Egypt; and the Alexandrian mint struck a few coins
+in his name with the figure of Victory. But as soon as the legions of
+Egypt heard that the Syrian army had made choice of another emperor,
+they withdrew their allegiance from Vitellius, and promised it to his
+Syrian rival.
+
+Vespasian was at Caesarea, in command of the army employed in the Jewish
+war, when the news reached him that Otho was dead, and that Vitellius
+had been raised to the purple by the German legions, and acknowledged
+at Rome; and, without wasting more time in refusing the honour than was
+necessary to prove that his soldiers were in earnest in offering it, he
+allowed himself to be proclaimed emperor, as the successor of Otho.
+He would not, however, then risk a march upon Rome, but he sent to
+Alexandria to tell Tiberius Alexander, the governor of Egypt, what he
+had done; he ordered him to claim in his name the allegiance of that
+great province, and added that he should soon be there himself. The two
+Roman legions in Egypt much preferred the choice of the Eastern to
+that of the Western army, and the Alexandrians, who had only just
+acknowledged Vitellius, readily took the oath to be faithful to
+Vespasian. This made it less necessary for him to hasten thither, and he
+only reached Alexandria in time to hear that Vitellius had been murdered
+after a reign of eight months, and that he himself had been acknowledged
+as emperor by Rome and the Western legions. His Egyptian coins in the
+first year of his reign, by the word _peace_, point to the end of the
+civil war.
+
+When Vespasian entered Alexandria, he was met by the philosophers and
+magistrates in great pomp. The philosophers, indeed, in a city where,
+beside the officers of government, talent formed the only aristocracy,
+were a very important body; and Dion, Euphrates, and Apollonius had been
+useful in securing for Vespasian the allegiance of the Alexandrians.
+Dion was an orator, who had been professor of rhetoric, but he had given
+up that study for philosophy. His orations, or declamations, gained for
+him the name of Chrysostom, or _golden-mouthed_. Euphrates, his friend,
+was a platonist, who afterwards married the daughter of the prefect of
+Syria, and removed to Rome. Apollonius of Tyana, the most celebrated of
+these philosophers, was one of the first who gained his eminence from
+the study of Eastern philosophy, which was then rising in the opinions
+of the Greeks as highly worth their notice. He had been travelling in
+the East; and, boasting that he was already master of all the fabled
+wisdom of the Magi of Babylon and of the Gymnosophists of India, he was
+come to Egypt to compare this mystic philosophy with that of the hermits
+of Ethiopia and the Thebaid. Addressing himself as a pupil to the
+priests, he willingly yielded his belief to their mystic claims; and,
+whether from being deceived or as a deceiver, whether as an enthusiast
+or as a cheat, he pretended to have learned all the supernatural
+knowledge which they pretended to teach. By the Egyptians he was
+looked upon as the favourite of Heaven; he claimed the power of working
+miracles by his magical arts, and of foretelling events by his knowledge
+of astrology. In the Thebaid he was so far honoured that at the bidding
+of the priests one of the sacred trees spoke to him, as had been their
+custom from of old with favourites, and in a clear and rather womanly
+voice addressed him as a teacher from heaven.
+
+It was to witness such practices as these, and to learn the art of
+deceiving their followers, that the Egyptian priests were now consulted
+by the Greeks. The oracle at Delphi was silent, but the oracle of Ammon
+continued to return an answer. The mystic philosophy of the East had
+come into fashion in Alexandria, and the priests were more celebrated as
+magicians than as philosophers. They would tell a man's fortune and the
+year that he was to die by examining the lines of his forehead. Some of
+them even undertook, for a sum of money, to raise the dead to life, or,
+rather, to recall for a time to earth the unwilling spirits, and make
+them answer any questions that might be put to them. Ventriloquism was
+an art often practised in Egypt, and perhaps invented there. By this the
+priests gained a power over the minds of the listeners, and could make
+them believe that a tree, a statue, or a dead body, was speaking to
+them.
+
+The Alexandrian men of letters seldom erred by wrapping themselves up in
+pride to avoid the fault of meanness; they usually cringed to the great.
+Apollonius was wholly at the service of Vespasian, and the emperor
+repaid the philosopher by flattery as well as by more solid favours.
+He kept him always by his side during his stay in Egypt; he acknowledged
+his rank as a prophet, and tried to make further use of him in
+persuading the Egyptians of his own divine right to the throne.
+Vespasian begged him to make use of his prayers that he might obtain
+from God the empire which he had as yet hardly grasped; but Apollonius,
+claiming even a higher mission from Heaven than Vespasian was granting
+to him, answered, with as much arrogance as flattery, "I have myself
+already made you emperor." With the intimacy between Vespasian and
+Apollonius begins the use of gnostic emblems on the Alexandrian coins.
+The imperial pupil was not slow in learning from such a master; and
+the people were as ready to believe in the emperor's miracles as in
+the philosopher's. As Vespasian was walking through the streets of
+Alexandria, a man well known as having a disease in his eyes threw
+himself at his feet and begged of him to heal his blindness. He had been
+told by the god Serapis that he should regain his sight if the emperor
+would but deign to spit upon his eyelids. Another man, who had lost the
+use of a hand, had been told by the same god that he should be healed if
+the emperor would but trample on him with his feet. Vespasian at first
+laughed at them and thrust them off; but at last he so far yielded
+to their prayers, and to the flattery of his friends, as to have the
+physicians of Alexandria consulted whether it was in his power to heal
+these unfortunate men. The physicians, like good courtiers, were not so
+unwise as to think it impossible; besides, it seemed meant by the god as
+a public proof of Vespasian's right to the throne; if he were successful
+the glory would be his, and if he failed the laugh would be against the
+cripples. The two men were therefore brought before him, and in the face
+of the assembled citizens he trampled on one and spit on the other; and
+his flatterers declared that he had healed the maimed and given sight to
+the blind.
+
+Vespasian met with further wonders when he entered the temple of Serapis
+to consult the god as to the state and fortunes of the empire. He went
+into the inner sanctuary alone, and, to his surprise, there he beheld
+the old Basilides, the freedman of Claudius, one of the chief men of
+Alexandria, whom he knew was then lying dangerously ill, and several
+days' journey from the city. He inquired of the priests whether
+Basilides had been in the temple, and was assured that he had not. He
+then asked whether he had been in Alexandria; but nobody had seen him
+there. Lastly, on sending messengers, he learned that he was on his
+death-bed eighty miles off. With this miracle before his eyes, he could
+not distrust the answers which the priests gave to his questions.
+
+From Alexandria Vespasian sent back Titus to finish the siege of
+Jerusalem. The Jewish writer Joseph, the son of Matthias, or Flavius
+Josephus, as he called himself when he entered the service of the
+emperor, was then in Alexandria. He had been taken prisoner by
+Vespasian, but had gained his freedom by the betrayal of his country's
+cause. He joined the army of Titus and marched to the overthrow of
+Jerusalem. Notwithstanding the obstinate and heroic struggles of the
+Jews, Judaea was wholly conquered by the Romans, and Jerusalem and its
+other fortresses either received Roman garrisons or were dismantled.
+The Temple was overthrown in the month of September, A.D. 70. Titus made
+slaves of ninety-seven thousand men, many of whom he led with him into
+Egypt, and then sent them to work in the mines. These were soon followed
+by a crowd of other brave Jews, who chose rather to quit their homes
+and live as wanderers in Egypt than to own Vespasian as their king. They
+knew no lord but Jahveh; to take the oaths or to pay tribute to Caesar
+was to renounce the faith of their fathers. But they found no safety in
+Egypt. Their Greek brethren turned against them, and handed six hundred
+of them up to Lupus, the governor of Egypt, to be punished; and their
+countryman Josephus brands them all with the name of Sicarii. They tried
+to hide themselves in Thebes and other cities less under the eyes of the
+Roman governor. They were, however, followed and taken, and the courage
+with which the boys and mere children bore their sufferings, sooner than
+acknowledge Vespasian for their king, drew forth the praise of even the
+time-serving Josephus.
+
+The Greek Jews of Egypt gained nothing by this treachery towards
+their Hebrew brethren; they were themselves looked down upon by the
+Alexandrians, and distrusted by the Romans. The emperor ordered Lupus to
+shut up the temple at Onion, near Heliopolis, in which, during the last
+three hundred years, they had been allowed to have an altar, in rivalry
+to the Temple of Jerusalem. Even Josephus, whose betrayal of his
+countrymen might have saved him from their enemies, was sent with many
+others in chains to Rome, and was only set free on his making himself
+known to Titus. Indeed, when the Hebrew Jews lost their capital and
+their rank as a nation, their brethren felt lowered in the eyes of their
+fellow-citizens, in whatever city they dwelt, and in Alexandria they
+lost all hope of keeping their privileges; although the emperor refused
+to repeal the edict which granted them their citizenship, an edict to
+which they always appealed for protection, but often with very little
+success.
+
+The Alexandrians were sadly disappointed in Vespasian. They had been
+among the first to acknowledge him as emperor while his power was yet
+doubtful, and they looked for a sum of money as a largess; but to their
+sorrow he increased the taxes, and re-established some which had fallen
+into disuse. They had a joke against him, about his claiming from one of
+his friends the trifling debt of six oboli; and, upon hearing of their
+witticisms, he was so angry that he ordered this sum of six oboli to be
+levied as a poll-tax upon every man in the city, and he only remitted
+the tax at the request of his son Titus. He went to Rome, carrying with
+him the nickname of Cybiosactes, _the scullion_, which the Alexandrians
+gave him for his stinginess and greediness, and which they had before
+given to Seleucus, who robbed the tomb of Alexander the Great, at
+Alexandria, of its famous golden sarcophagus.
+
+Titus saw the importance of pleasing the people; and his wish to humour
+their ancient prejudices, at the ceremony of consecrating a new bull
+as Apis, brought some blame upon him. He there, as became the occasion,
+wore the state crown, and dazzled the people of Memphis with his regal
+pomp; but, while thus endeavouring to strengthen his father's throne, he
+was by some accused of grasping at it for himself.
+
+The great temple of Kneph, at Latopolis, which had been the work of many
+reigns and perhaps many centuries, was finished under Vespasian. It is
+a building worthy of the best times of Egyptian architecture. It has a
+grand portico, upheld by four rows of massive columns, with capitals in
+the form of papyrus flowers. On the ceiling is a zodiac, like that at
+Tentyra; and, though many other kings' names are carved on the walls,
+that of Vespasian is in the dedication over the entrance.
+
+Of the reign of Titus in Egypt we find no trace beyond his coins struck
+each year at Alexandria, and his name carved on one or two temples which
+had been built in former reigns.
+
+Of the reign of Domitian (81--96 A.D.) we learn something from the poet
+Juvenal, who then held a military post in the province; and he gives
+us a sad account of the state of lawlessness in which the troops lived
+under his commands. All quarrels between soldiers and citizens were
+tried by the officers according to martial law; and justice was very
+far from being even-handed between the Roman and the poor Egyptian.
+No witness was bold enough to come forward and say anything against a
+soldier, while everybody was believed who spoke on his behalf. Juvenal
+was at a great age when he was sent into Egypt; and he felt that the
+command of a cohort on the very borders of the desert was a cruel
+banishment from the literary society of Rome. His death in the camp was
+hastened by his wish to return home. As what Juvenal chiefly aimed at
+in his writings was to lash the follies of the age, he, of course, found
+plenty of amusement in the superstitions and sacred animals of Egypt.
+But he sometimes takes a poet's liberty, and when he tells us that man's
+was almost the only flesh that they ate without sinning, we need not
+believe him to the letter. He gives a lively picture of a fight which he
+saw between the citizens of two towns. The towns of Ombos and Tentyra,
+though about a hundred miles apart, had a long-standing quarrel
+about their gods. At Ombos they worshipped the crocodile and the
+crocodile-headed god Savak, while at Tentyra they worshipped the goddess
+Hathor, and were celebrated for their skill in catching and killing
+crocodiles. So, taking advantage of a feast or holiday, they marched out
+for a fight. The men of Ombos Avere beaten and put to flight; but one of
+them, stumbling as he ran away, was caught and torn to pieces, and,
+as Juvenal adds, eaten by the men of Tentyra. Their worship of beasts,
+birds, and fishes, and even growing their gods in the garden, are
+pleasantly hit off by him; they left nothing, said he, without worship,
+but the goddess of chastity. The mother goddess, Isis, the queen of
+heaven, was the deity to whom they bowed with the most tender devotion,
+and to swear by Isis was their favourite oath; and hence the leek, in
+their own language named Isi, was no doubt the vegetable called a god by
+the satiric Juvenal.
+
+At the same time also the towns of Oxyrrhynchos and Cynopolis, in
+the Heptanomos, had a little civil war about the animals which
+they worshipped. Somebody at Cynopolis was said to have caught an
+oxyrrhynchus fish in the Nile and eaten it; and so the people of
+Oxyrrhynchos, in revenge, made an attack upon the dogs, the gods of
+Cynopolis. They caught a number of them, killed them in sacrifice to
+their offended fish-god, and ate them. The two parties then flew to arms
+and fought several battles; they sacked one another's cities in turns,
+and the war was not stopped till the Roman troops marched to the spot
+and punished them both.
+
+But we gain a more agreeable and most likely a more true notion of the
+mystical religion and philosophy of the Egyptians in these days from the
+serious enquiries of Plutarch, who, instead of looking for what he could
+laugh at, was only too ready to believe that he saw wisdom hidden
+under an allegory in all their superstitions. Many of the habits of
+the priests, such as shaving the whole body, wearing linen instead of
+cotton, and refusing some meats as impure, seem to have arisen from a
+love of cleanliness; their religion ordered what was useful. And it
+also forbade what was hurtful; so to stir the fire with a sword was
+displeasing to the gods, because it spoilt the temper of the metal.
+None but the vulgar now looked upon the animals and statues as gods; the
+priests believed that the unseen gods, who acted with one mind and with
+one providence, were the authors of all good; and though these, like the
+sun and moon, were called in each country by a different name, yet, like
+those luminaries, they were the same over all the world.
+
+[Illustration: 078b.jpg SCENE IN A SEPUUCHRAL CHAMBER]
+
+Outward ceremonies in religion were no longer thought enough without a
+good life; and, as the Greeks said, that beard and cloak did not make a
+philosopher, so the Egyptians said that white linen and a tonsure
+would not make a follower of Isis. All the sacrifices to the gods had a
+secondary meaning, or, at least, they tried to join a moral aim to the
+outward act; as on the twentieth day of the month, when they ate honey
+and figs in honour of Thot, they sang "Sweet is truth." The Egyptians,
+like most other Eastern polytheists, held the doctrine which was
+afterwards called Manicheism; they believed in a good and in a wicked
+god, who governed the world between them. Of these the former made
+himself threefold, because three is a perfect number, and they adopted
+into their religion that curious metaphysical opinion that everything
+divine is formed of three parts; and accordingly, on the Theban
+monuments we often see the gods in groups of three. They worshipped
+Osiris, Isis, and Horus under the form of a right-angled triangle, in
+which Horus was the side opposite to the right angle. The favourite
+part of their mythology was the lamentation of Isis for the death of
+her husband Osiris. By another change the god Horus, who used to be a
+crowned king of manly stature, was now a child holding a finger to his
+mouth, and thereby marking that he had not yet learned to talk. The
+Romans, who did not understand this Egyptian symbol for youthfulness,
+thought that in this character he was commanding silence; and they gave
+the name of Harpocrates, _Horus the powerful_, to a god of silence.
+Horus was also often placed as a child in the arms of his mother Isis;
+and thus by the loving nature of the group were awakened the more tender
+feelings of the worshipper. The Egyptians, like the Greeks, had always
+been loud in declaring that they were beloved by their gods; but they
+received their favours with little gratitude, and hardly professed that
+they felt any love towards the gods in return. But after the time of the
+Christian era, we meet with more kindly feelings even among the pagans.
+We find from the Greek names of persons that they at least had begun to
+think their gods deserving of love, and in this group of the mother and
+child, such a favourite also in Christian art, we see in what direction
+these more kindly feelings found an entrance into the Egyptian religion.
+As fast as opinion was raising the great god Serapis above his fellows
+and making the wrathful judge into the ruler of the world, so fast was
+the same opinion creating for itself a harbour of refuge in the child
+Horus and its mother.
+
+[Illustration: 080.jpg HARPOCRATES]
+
+The deep earnestness of the Egyptians in the belief of their own
+religion was the chief cause of its being adopted by others. The Greeks
+had borrowed much from it. Though in Rome it had been forbidden by law,
+it was much cultivated there in private; and the engraved rings on the
+fingers of the wealthy Romans which bore the figures of Harpocrates and
+other Egyptian gods easily escaped the notice of the magistrate. But the
+superstitious Domitian, who was in the habit of consulting astrologers
+and Chaldaean fortune-tellers, allowed the Egyptian worship. He built
+at Rome a temple to Isis, and another to Serapis; and such was the
+eagerness of the citizens for pictures of the mother goddess with her
+child in her arms that, according to Juvenal, the Roman painters all
+lived upon the goddess Isis. For her temple in the Campus Martius, holy
+water was even brought from the Nile to purify the building and the
+votaries; and a regular college of priests was maintained there by their
+zeal and at their cost, with a splendour worthy of the Roman capital.
+Domitian, also, was somewhat of a scholar, and he sent to Alexandria for
+copies of their books, to restore the public library at Rome which had
+been lately burnt; while his garden on the banks of the Tiber was
+richer in the Egyptian winter rose than even the gardens of Memphis and
+Alexandria.
+
+During this century the coinage continues one of the subjects of chief
+interest to the antiquary. In 92 A.D., in the eleventh year of his
+reign, when Domitian took upon himself the tribunitian power at Rome
+for a second period of ten years, the event was celebrated in Alexandria
+with a triumphal procession and games in the hippodrome, of all which we
+see clear traces on the Egyptian coins.
+
+[Illustration: 081.jpg COINS OF DOMITIAN]
+
+The coinage is almost the only trace of Nerva (96--98 A.D.) having
+reigned in Egypt; but it is at the same time enough to prove the
+mildness of his government. The Jews who by their own law were of old
+required to pay half a shekel, or a didrachm, to the service of their
+temple, had on their conquest been made to pay that sum as a yearly
+tribute to the Ptolemies, and afterwards to the emperors. It was a
+poll-tax levied on every Jew throughout the empire. But Nerva had the
+humanity to relieve them from this insulting tribute, and well did he
+deserve the honour of having it recorded on the coins struck in his
+reign.
+
+The coinage of the eleventh year of his successor, Trajan (98-117
+A.D.), is very remarkable for its beauty, its technical skill, and
+variety, even more so than that of the eleventh year of Domitian.
+
+[Illustration: 082.jpg COIN OF NERVA]
+
+The coins have hitherto proclaimed, in a manner unmistakably plain to
+those who study numismatics, the games and conquests of the emperors,
+the bountiful overflow of the Nile, and sometimes the worship of
+Serapis; but we now enter upon the most brilliant and most important
+period of the Egyptian coinage, and find a rich variety of fables taken
+both from Egyptian and Greek mythology. The coins of Rome in this and
+the following reigns show the wealth, good taste, and learning of the
+nation, but they are surpassed by the coins of Egypt. While history
+is nearly silent, and the buildings and other proofs of Roman good
+government have perished, the coins alone are quite enough to prove
+the well-being of the people. Among the Egyptian coins those of Trajan,
+Hadrian, and the Antonines equal in number those of all the other
+emperors together, while in beauty they far surpass them. They are
+mostly of copper, of a small size, and thick, weighing about one hundred
+and ten grains, and some larger of two hundred and twenty grains; the
+silver coins are less common, and of mixed metal.
+
+Though the Romans, while admiring and copying everything that was Greek,
+affected to look upon the Egyptians as savages, who were only known to
+be human beings by their power of speech, still the Egyptian physicians
+were held by them in the highest repute. The more wealthy Romans often
+sailed to Alexandria for the benefit of their advice. Pliny the Elder,
+however, thought that of the invalids who went to Egypt for their
+health more were cured by the sea voyage than by the physicians on their
+arrival.
+
+[Illustration: 083.jpg TRINITY OF ISIS, HORUS AND NEPHTHYS]
+
+One of Cicero's physicians was an Egyptian. Pliny the Younger repaid his
+Egyptian oculist, Harpocrates, by getting a rescript from the emperor
+to make him a Roman citizen. But the statesman did not know under what
+harsh laws his friend was born, for the grant was void in the case of an
+Egyptian, the emperor's rescript was bad as being against the law; and
+Pliny had again to beg the greater favour that the Egyptian might first
+be made a citizen of Alexandria, without which the former favour was
+useless. Thus, even in Alexandria, a conquered province governed by
+the despotic will of a military emperor, there were still some laws or
+principles which the emperor found it not easy to break. The courts of
+justice, those to whom the edicts were addressed and by whom they were
+to be explained and carried into effect, claimed a power in some cases
+above the emperor; and the first article in the Roman code was that an
+imperial rescript, by whomsoever or howsoever obtained, was void if it
+was against the law. As the lawyers and magistrates formed part of the
+body of citizens, the Alexandrians had so far a share in the government
+of their own affairs; but this was an advantage that the Egyptians lost
+by being under the power of the Greek magistrates.
+
+[Illustration: 084.jpg COINS OF TRAJAN]
+
+Trajan always kept in the public granaries of Rome a supply of Egyptian
+grain equal to seven times the _canon_, or yearly gift to the poor
+citizens; and in this prudent course he was followed by all his
+successors, until the store was squandered by the worthless Elagabalus.
+One year, when the Nile did not rise to its usual height, and much of
+the grain land of the Delta, instead of being moistened by its waters
+and enriched by its mud, was left a dry, sandy plain, the granaries of
+Rome were unlocked to feed the city of Alexandria. The Alexandrians then
+saw the unusual sight of ships unloading their cargoes of wheat in their
+harbour, and the Romans boasted that they took the Egyptian tribute
+in grain, not because they could not feed themselves, but because the
+Egyptians had nothing else to send them.
+
+Alexandria under the Romans was still the centre of the trading world,
+not only having its own great trade in grain, but being the port through
+which the trade of India and Arabia passed to Europe, and at which the
+Syrian vessels touched in their way to Italy. The harbour was crowded
+with masts and strange prows and uncouth sails, and the quays always
+busy with loading and unloading; while in the streets might be seen men
+of all languages and all dresses, copper-coloured Egyptians, swarthy
+Jews, lively, bustling Greeks, and haughty Italians, with Asiatics from
+the neighbouring coasts of Syria and Cilicia, and even dark Ethiopians,
+painted Arabs, Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and Indians, all gay with
+their national costumes. Alexandria was a spot in which Europe met Asia,
+and each wondered at the strangeness of the other.
+
+Of the Alexandrians themselves we receive a very unfavourable account
+from their countryman, Dion Chrysostom. With their wealth, they
+had those vices which usually follow or cause the loss of national
+independence. They were eager for nothing but food and horse-races. They
+were grave and quiet in their sacrifices and listless in business, but
+in the theatre or in the stadium men, women, and children were alike
+heated into passion, and overcome with eagerness and warmth of feeling.
+A scurrilous song or a horse-race would so rouse them into a quarrel
+that they could not hear for their own noise, nor see for the dust
+raised by their own bustle in the hippodrome; while all those acts of
+their rulers, which in a more wholesome state of society would have
+called for notice, passed by unheeded.
+
+[Illustration: 086.jpg EGYPTIAN WIG (BRITISH MUSEUM)]
+
+They cared more for the tumble of a favourite charioteer than for the
+sinking state of the nation. The ready employment of ridicule in the
+place of argument, of wit instead of graver reason, of nicknames
+as their most powerful weapon, was one of the worst points in the
+Alexandrian character. Frankness and manliness are hardly to be looked
+for under a despotic government where men are forbidden to speak their
+minds openly; and the Alexandrians made use of such checks upon their
+rulers as the law allowed them. They lived under an absolute monarchy
+tempered only by ridicule. Though their city was four hundred years old,
+they were still colonists and without a mother-country. They had very
+little faith in anything great or good, whether human or divine. They
+had few cherished prejudices, no honoured traditions, sadly little love
+of fame, and they wrote no histories. But in luxury and delicacy they
+set the fashion to their conquerors. The wealthy Alexandrian walked
+about Rome in a scarlet robe, in summer fanning himself with gold, and
+displaying on his fingers rings carefully suited to the season; as his
+hands were too delicate to carry his heavier jewels in the warm weather.
+At the supper tables of the rich, the Alexandrian singing boys were
+much valued; the smart young Roman walked along the Via Sacra humming
+an Alexandrian tune; the favourite comic actor, the delight of the
+city, whose jokes set the theatre in a roar, was an Alexandrian; the
+Retiarius, who, with no weapon but a net, fought against an armed
+gladiator in the Roman forum, and came off conqueror in twenty-six such
+battles, was an Alexandrian; and no breed of fighting-cocks was thought
+equal to those reared in the suburbs of Alexandria.
+
+In the reign of Augustus the Roman generals had been defeated in their
+attacks on Arabia; but under Trajan, when the Romans were masters of all
+the countries which surround Arabia Nabataea, and when Egypt was so
+far quiet that the legions could be withdrawn without danger to the
+provinces, the Arabs could hold out no longer, and the rocky fastness
+of Petra was forced to receive a Roman garrison. The event was as usual
+commemorated on the coins of Rome; and for the next four hundred years
+that remarkable Arab city formed part of the Roman empire; and Europeans
+now travelling through the desert from Mount Sinai to Jerusalem are
+agreeably surprised at coming upon temples, carved out of the solid
+rock, ornamented with Corinthian columns of the age of the Antonines.
+
+In the twelfth year of this reign, when Lucius Sulpicius Simius was
+prefect, some additions which had been made to the temple at Panopolis
+in the Thebaid were dedicated in the name of the emperor; and in the
+nineteenth year, when Marcus Rutilius Lupus was prefect, a new portico
+in the oasis of Thebes was in the same manner dedicated to Serapis and
+Isis. A small temple, which had been before built at Denderah, near the
+great temple of Venus, was in the first year of this reign dedicated to
+the Empress Plotina, under the name of the great goddess, the Younger
+Venus.
+
+The canal from the Nile near Bubastis to the Bitter Lakes, which had
+been first made by Necho, had been either finished or a second time
+made by Philadelphus; and in this reign that great undertaking was again
+renewed. But the stream of the Nile was deserting the Bubastite branch,
+which was less navigable than formerly; and the engineers now changed
+the greater part of the canal's bed. They thought it wiser to bring
+water from a higher part of the Nile, so that the current in the canal
+might run into the Red Sea instead of out, and its waters might still
+be fresh and useful to agriculture. It now began at Babylon opposite
+Memphis and entered the Red Sea at a town which, taking its name from
+the locks, was called Clysmon, about ten miles to the south of Arsinoe.
+This latter town was no longer a port, having been separated from the
+sea by the continual advance of the sands. We have no knowledge of how
+long the care of the imperial prefects kept this new canal open and in
+use. It was perhaps one of the first of the Roman works that went to
+decay; and, when we find the Christian pilgrims sailing along it seven
+centuries later, on their way from England to the holy sepulchre, it had
+been again opened by the Muhammedan conquerors of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 089.jpg ANTONINIAN TEMPLE NEAR SINAI]
+
+Writings which some now regard as literary forgeries appeared in
+Alexandria about this time. They prophesied the re-establishment of
+the Jews at Jerusalem, and, as the wished-for time drew near, all the
+eastern provinces of the Roman empire were disturbed by rebellious
+risings of the Jews. Moved by the religious enthusiasm which gave birth
+to the writings, the Jews of Egypt in the eighteenth year of this
+reign (116 A.D.) were again roused into a quarrel with their Greek
+fellow-citizens; and in the next year, the last of the reign, they rose
+against their Roman governors in open rebellion, and they were not put
+down till the prefect Lupus had brought his forces against them. After
+this the Jews of Cyrene marched through the desert into Egypt, under the
+command of Lucuas, to help their brethren; and the rebellion took the
+regular form of a civil war, with all its usual horrors. The emperor
+sent against the Jews an army followed by a fleet, which, after numerous
+skirmishes and battles, routed them with great slaughter, and drove
+numbers of them back into the desert, whence they harassed the village
+as robbers. By these unsuccessful appeals to force, the Jews lost all
+right to those privileges of citizenship which they always claimed, and
+which had been granted by the emperors, though usually refused by the
+Alexandrians. The despair and disappointment of the Jews seem in many
+cases to have turned their minds to the Christian view of the Old
+Testament prophecies; henceforth, says Eusebius, the Jews embraced the
+Christian religion more readily and in greater numbers.
+
+In A.D. 122, the sixth year of the reign of Hadrian, Egypt was honoured
+by a visit from the emperor. He was led to Egypt at that time by some
+riots of a character more serious than usual, which had arisen between
+two cities, probably Memphis and Heliopolis, about a bull, as to whether
+it was to be Apis or Mnevis. Egypt had been for some years without a
+sacred bull; and when at length the priests found one, marked with the
+mystic spots, the inhabitants of those two cities flew to arms, and
+the peace of the province was disturbed by their religious zeal, each
+claiming the bull as their own.
+
+Hadrian also undertook a voyage up the Nile from Alexandria in order to
+explore the wonders of Egypt. This was the fashion then, for the ancient
+monuments and the banks of this mysterious river offered just as many
+attractions at that time as they have done to all nations since
+the expedition of Napoleon. That animal-worship, which had remained
+unchanged for centuries, a riddle of human religion, was bound to excite
+the curiosity of strangers. In this divinisation of animals lay the
+greatest contempt for human understanding, and it was a bitter satire
+on the apotheosis of kings and emperors. For what was the divinity
+of Sesostris, of Alexander, of Augustus, or Hadrian compared with
+the heavenly majesty of the ox Apis, or the holy cats, dogs, kites,
+crocodiles, and god-apes? Egypt was at this epoch already a museum of
+the Pharaoh-time and its enbalamed culture. Strange buildings, rare
+sculptures, hieroglyphics, and pictures still filled the ancient towns,
+even though these had lost their splendour. Memphis and Heliopolis,
+Bubastis, Abydos, Sais, Tanis, and the hundred-gated Thebes had long
+fallen into ruin, although still inhabited.
+
+The emperor's escort must have been an extraordinary sight as it steered
+up the stream on a fleet of dahabiehs. The emperor was accompanied by
+students of the museum, interpreters, priests, and astrologers. Amongst
+his followers were Verus and the beautiful Antinous.
+
+The Empress Sabina also accompanied him; she had the poetess Julia
+Balbilla amongst her court ladies. They landed wherever there was
+anything of interest to be seen, and there was more in those days than
+there is now. They admired the great pyramids, the colossal sphinx, and
+the sacred town of Memphis. This city, the ancient royal seat of the
+Pharaohs, and even in Strabo's time the second town in Egypt, was not
+yet buried under the sand of the desert; its disappearance had, however,
+already begun. Under the Ptolemies it had given much of the material of
+her temples and palaces for the building of Alexandria. The great palace
+of the Pharaohs had long been destroyed, but there still remained
+many notable monuments, such as the temple of Phtah, the pyramids, the
+necropolis, and the Serapeum, and they retained their ancient cult.
+The town was still the chief seat of the Egyptian hierarchy and the
+residence of Apis; for this very reason the Roman government had
+destined it to be one of her strong military stations, for here a legion
+was quartered. The emperor could walk through the time-worn avenues of
+sphinxes which led to the wonderful vaults where the long succession of
+divine animals was buried, each like a Pharaoh, in a magnificent granite
+sarcophagus. Hadrian could admire the beautifully sculptured tomb of Di,
+an Egyptian officer of the fifth dynasty, with less trouble than we
+must experience now; for now the palaces, the pictures of the gods,
+and almost all the pyramids are swallowed up in sand. Miserable Arab
+villages, such as Saqqara, have fixed themselves in the ruins of
+Memphis, and from a thick palm grove one can look with astonishment
+upon the torso of the powerful Ramses II. lying solitary there, the last
+witness to the glory of the temple of Phtah, before which this colossus
+once had its stand. In the neighbourhood of Memphis lay Heliopolis, the
+town of the sun-god, with its ancient temple, and a school of Egyptian
+wisdom, in which Plato is supposed to have studied.
+
+In Heliopolis the worship of the god Ra was preserved, the centre of
+which was the holy animal Mnevis, a rival or comrade of Apis. Cambyses
+had partly destroyed the temple and even the obelisks which the Pharaohs
+had in the course of centuries erected to the sun-god; nowhere in Egypt
+existed so many of these monuments as here and in Thebes. Hadrian saw
+many of them lying half-burnt on the ground just as Strabo had done.
+On the site of Heliopolis, now green with wheat-fields, only a single
+obelisk has remained upright, which is considered as the oldest of all,
+and was erected in the twelfth dynasty by Usirtasen I.
+
+The royal assemblage had arrived in the course of their journey at Besa,
+a place on the right bank of the river, opposite Hermopolis, when a
+strange event occurred. This was the death of Hadrian's favourite,
+Antinous, a young Greek from Claudiopolis, who had been degraded to the
+position of Ganymede to the emperor on account of his beauty. It is not
+known where the emperor first came across the youth; possibly in his
+native land, Bithynia. Not till he came to Egypt did he become his
+inseparable companion, and this must have been a deep offence to
+his wife. The unfortunate queen was delivered in Besa from his hated
+presence, for Antinous was drowned there in the Nile.
+
+His death was surrounded by mystery. Was it accident? Was he a victim?
+Hadrian's humanity protects him from the suspicion that he sacrificed
+his victim in cold blood, as Tiberius had once sacrificed the beautiful
+Hypatus in Capri. Had the fantastic youth sacrificed himself of his own
+free will to the death divinities in order to save the emperor's life?
+Had the Egyptian priests foreseen in the stars some danger threatening
+Hadrian, only to be averted by the death of his favourite? Such an idea
+commended itself to the superstition of the time, especially in
+this land and by the mysterious Nile. It corresponded, too, with the
+emperor's astrological arts. Was Antinous certain when he plunged into
+the waves of the Nile that he would arise from them as a god? Hadrian
+asserts in his memoirs that it was an accident, but no one believed him.
+The divine honours which he paid to the dead youth lead us to suppose
+that they formed the reward of a self-sacrifice, which, according to the
+custom of those times, constituted a highly moral action, and was looked
+upon as heroic devotion. At any rate, we will assume that this sacrifice
+sank into the Nile without Hadrian's will. Hadrian mourned for Antinous
+with unspeakable pain and "womanly tears." Now he was Achilles by the
+corpse of Patroklus, or Alexander by the pyre of the dead Hephaistus.
+He had the youth splendidly buried in Besa. This most extraordinary
+intermezzo of all Nile journeys supplied dying heathendom with a new
+god, and art with its last ideal form. Probably, also, during the
+burial, far-sighted courtiers already saw the star of Antinous shining
+in Egypt's midnight sky, and then Hadrian saw it himself.
+
+In the mystical land of Egypt, life might still be poetical even in the
+clear daylight of Roman universal history in the reign of Hadrian. The
+death of the young Bithynian seems to have occurred in October, 130.
+The emperor continued his journey as soon as he had given orders for
+a splendid town to be erected on the site of Besa, in honour of his
+friend. In November, 130, the royal company is to be found amongst the
+ruins of Thebes.
+
+Thebes, the oldest town in Egypt, had been first put in the shade
+by Memphis, and then destroyed by Cambyses. Since the time of the
+Ptolemies, it had been called Diospolis, and Ptolemais had taken its
+place as capital of the Thebaid. Already in Strabo's time it was split
+up. It formed on either side of the Nile groups of gigantic temples and
+palaces, monuments, and royal graves similar to those scattered to-day
+amongst Luxor, Karnak, Medinet-Habu, Deir-el-Bahari, and Kurna.
+
+[Illustration: 095.jpg COMMEMORATIVE COIN OF ANTINOUS]
+
+In Hadrian's time the Rameseum, the so-called grave of Osymandias, on
+the western bank of the Nile, the wonderful building of Ramses II.,
+must still have been in good repair. These pylons, pillars, arcades, and
+courts, these splendid halls with their sculpture-covered walls, appear
+even to have influenced the Roman art in the time of the emperors. Their
+reflex influence has been even seen in Trajan's forum, in which the
+chief thing was the emperor's tomb.
+
+In Alexandria the emperor mixed freely with the professors of the
+museum, asking them questions and answering theirs in return; and he
+dropped his tear of pity on the tomb of the great Pompey, in the form of
+a Greek epigram, though with very little point. He laid out large sums
+of money in building and ornamenting the city, and the Alexandrians were
+much pleased with his behaviour. Among other honours that they paid
+him, they changed the name of the month December, calling it the month
+Hadrian; but as they were not followed by the rest of the empire the
+name soon went out of use. The emperor's patronage of philosophy was
+rather at the cost of the Alexandrian museum, for he enrolled among its
+paid professors men who were teaching from school to school in Italy and
+Asia Minor. Thus Polemon of Laodicea, who taught oratory and philosophy
+at Rome, Laodicea, and Smyrna, and had the right of a free passage for
+himself and his servants in any of the public ships whenever he chose to
+move from city to city for the purposes of study or teaching, had at
+the same time a salary from the Alexandrian museum. Dionysius of Miletus
+also received his salary as a professor in the museum while teaching
+philosophy and mnemonicsat Miletus and Ephesus. Pancrates, the
+Alexandrian poet, gained his salary in the museum by the easy task of a
+little flattery. On Hadrian's return to Alexandria from the Thebaid, the
+poet presented to him a rose-coloured lotus, a flower well known in
+India, though less common in Egypt than either the blue or white lotus,
+and assured him that it had sprung out of the blood of the lion slain by
+his royal javelin at a lion-hunt in Libya.
+
+[Illustration: 097.jpg ROSE-COLOURED LOTUS]
+
+The emperor was pleased with the compliment, and gave him a place in the
+museum; and Pancrates in return named the plant the lotus of Antinous.
+Pancrates was a warm admirer of the mystical opinions of the Egyptians
+which were then coming into note in Alexandria. He was said to have
+lived underground in holy solitude or converse with the gods for
+twenty-three years, and during that time to have been taught magic by
+the goddess Isis, and thus to have gained the power of working miracles.
+He learned to call upon the queen of darkness by her Egyptian name
+Hecate, and when driving out evil spirits to speak to them in the
+Egyptian language. Whether these Greek students of the Eastern mysticism
+were deceivers or deceived, whether they were led by a love of notoriety
+or of knowledge, is in most cases doubtful, but they were surrounded by
+a crowd of credulous admirers, who formed a strange contrast with the
+sceptics and critics of the museum.
+
+Among the Alexandrian grammarians of this reign was Apollonius Dyscolus,
+so called perhaps from a moroseness of manner, who wrote largely on
+rhetoric, on the Greek dialects, on accents, prosody, and on other
+branches of grammar. In the few pages that remain of his numerous
+writings, we trace the love of the marvellous which was then growing
+among some of the philosophers. He tells us many remarkable stories,
+which he collected rather as a judicious inquirer than as a credulous
+believer; such as of second sight; an account of a lad who fell asleep
+in the field while watching his sheep, and then slept for fifty-seven
+years, and awoke to wonder at the strangeness of the changes that had
+taken place in the meanwhile; and of a man who after death used from
+time to time to leave his body, and wander over the earth as a spirit,
+till his wife, tired of his coming back again so often, put a stop to it
+by having his mummy burnt. He gives us for the first time Eastern tales
+in a Greek dress, and we thus learn the source from which Europe gained
+much of its literature in the Middle Ages. The Alexandrian author of
+greatest note at this time was the historian Appian, who tells us that
+he had spent some years in Rome practising as a lawyer, and returned to
+Egypt on being appointed to a high post in the government of his native
+city. There he wrote his Roman history.
+
+In this reign the Jews, forgetful of what they had just suffered under
+Trajan, again rose against the power of Rome; and, when Judaea rebelled
+against its prefect, Tinnius Rufus, a little army of Jews marched out of
+Egypt and Libya, to help their brethren and to free the holy land
+(130 A.D.). But they were everywhere routed and put down with resolute
+slaughter.
+
+[Illustration: 099.jpg VOCAL STATUE OF AMENHOTHES]
+
+Travellers, on reaching a distant point of a journey, or on viewing any
+remarkable object of their curiosity, have at all times been fond of
+carving or scribbling their names on the spot, to boast of their
+prowess to after-comers; and never had any place been more favoured with
+memorials of this kind than the great statue of Amenhothes at Thebes.
+This colossal statue, fifty-three feet high, was famed, as long as
+the Egyptian priesthood lasted, for sending forth musical sounds
+every morning at sunrise, when first touched by the sun's rays; and no
+traveller ever visited Thebes without listening for these remarkable
+notes. The journey through Upper Egypt was at this time perfectly open
+and safe, and the legs and feet of the statue are covered with names,
+and inscriptions in prose and verse, of travellers who had visited it
+at sunrise during the reigns of Hadrian and the Antonines. From these
+curious memorials we learn that Hadrian visited Thebes a second time
+with his queen, Sabina, in the fifteenth year of his reign. When the
+empress first visited the statue she was disappointed at not hearing
+the musical sounds; but, on her hinting threats of the emperor's
+displeasure, her curiosity was gratified on the following morning.
+This gigantic statue of hard gritstone had formerly been broken in half
+across the waist, and the upper part thrown to the ground, either by the
+shock of an earthquake or the ruder shock of Persian zeal against the
+Egyptian religion; and for some centuries past the musical notes had
+issued from the broken fragments. Such was its fallen state when
+the Empress Sabina saw it, and when Strabo and Juvenal and Pausanias
+listened to its sounds; and it was not till after the reign of Hadrian
+that it was again raised upright like its companion, as travellers now
+see it.
+
+[Illustration: 100b..jpg The Slumber Song]
+
+     From the painting by P. Grot. Johann
+
+From this second visit, and a longer acquaintance, Hadrian seems to have
+formed a very poor opinion of the Egyptians and Egyptian Jews; and the
+following curious letter, written in 134 A.D. to his friend Servianus,
+throws much light upon their religion as worshippers of Serapis, at
+the same time that it proves how numerous the Christians had become in
+Alexandria, even within seventy years of the period during which the
+evangelist Mark is believed to have preached there:
+
+"Hadrian Augustus to Servianus, the consul, greeting:
+
+"As for Egypt, which you were praising to me, dearest Servianus, I have
+found its people wholly light, wavering, and flying after every breath
+of a report. Those who worship Serapis are Christians, and those who
+call themselves bishops of Christ are devoted to Serapis. There is
+no ruler of a Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no presbyter of the
+Christians, who is not a mathematician, an augur, and a soothsayer. The
+very patriarch himself, when he came into Egypt, was by some said to
+worship Serapis, and by others to worship Christ. As a race of men, they
+are seditious, vain, and spiteful; as a body, wealthy and prosperous,
+of whom nobody lives in idleness. Some blow glass, some make paper, and
+others linen. There is work for the lame and work for the blind; even
+those who have lost the use of their hands do not live in idleness.
+Their one god is nothing; Christians, Jews, and all nations worship him.
+I wish this body of men was better behaved, and worthy of their number;
+for as for that they ought to hold the chief place in Egypt. I have
+granted everything unto them; I have restored their old privileges, and
+have made them grateful by adding new ones."
+
+
+Among the crowd of gods that had formerly been worshipped in Egypt,
+Serapis had latterly been rising above the rest. He was the god of
+the dead, who in the next world was to reward the good and punish the
+wicked; and in the growing worship of this one all-seeing judge we
+cannot but trace the downfall of some of the evils of polytheism. A
+plurality in unity was another method now used to explain away the
+polytheism.
+
+[Illustration: 102.jpg EGYPTIAN ORACLE]
+
+The oracle when consulted about the divine nature had answered, "I am
+Ra, and Horus, and Osiris;" or, as the Greeks translated it, Apollo,
+and Lord, and Bacchus; "I rule the hours and the seasons, the wind and
+the storms, the day and the night; I am king of the stars and myself an
+immortal fire." Hence arose the opinion which seems to have been given
+to Hadrian, that the Egyptians had only one god, and his mistake in
+thinking that the worshippers of Serapis were Christians. The emperor,
+indeed, himself, though a polytheist, was very little of an idolater;
+for, though he wished to add Christ to the number of the Roman gods,
+he on the other hand ordered that the temples built in his reign should
+have no images for worship; and in after ages it was common to call
+all temples without statues Hadrian's temples. But there were other and
+stronger reasons for Hadrian's classing the Christians with the Egyptian
+astrologers. A Christian heresy was then rising into notice in Egypt in
+that very form, taking its opinions from the philosophy on which it was
+engrafted. Before Christianity was preached in Alexandria, there were
+already three religions or forms of philosophy belonging to the three
+races of men who peopled that busy city; first, the Greek philosophy;
+which was chiefly platonism; secondly, the mysticism of the Egyptians;
+and lastly, the religion of the Jews. These were often more or less
+mixed, as we see them all united in the works of Philo-Judae; and in
+the writings of the early converts we usually find Christianity clothed
+in one or other of these forms, according to the opinions held by the
+writers before their conversion. The first Christian teachers, the
+apostolic fathers as they are called, because they had been hearers of
+the apostles themselves, were mostly Jews; but among the Egyptians and
+Greeks of Alexandria their religion lost much of its purely moral caste,
+and became, with the former, an astrological mysticism, and with the
+latter an abstract speculative theology. It is of the Egyptian Jews that
+Hadrian speaks in his letter just quoted; many of them had been already
+converted to Christianity, and their religion had taken the form of
+Gnosticism.
+
+Gnosticism, or Science, for the name means no more, was not then new
+in Alexandria, nor were its followers originally Christians. It was the
+proud name claimed for their opinions by those who studied the Eastern
+philosophy of the Magi; and Egypt seems to have been as much its native
+soil as India. The name of Gnostic, says Weber, was generally given to
+those who distinguished between belief on authority and gnosis, i.e.,
+between the ordinary comprehension and a higher knowledge only granted
+to a few gifted or chosen ones. They were split up into different sects,
+according as they approached more nearly the Eastern theosophy or the
+platonic philosophy; but in general the Eastern conception, with its
+symbols and unlimited fantasy, remained dominant. The "creed of those
+who know" never reached actual monotheism, the conception of one
+personal god, who created everything according to his own free will and
+rules over everything with unlimited wisdom and love. The god of
+the Gnostics is a dark, mysterious being which can only arrive at a
+consciousness of itself through a manifold descending scale of forces,
+which flow from the god himself. The visible world was created out of
+dead and evil matter by Demiurgos, the divine work-master, a production
+and subordinate of the highest god. Man, too, is a production of this
+subordinate creator, a production subject to a blind fate, and a prey to
+those powers which rule between heaven and earth, without free-will,
+the only thing which makes the ideas of sin and responsibility possible.
+Matter is the seat of evil, and as long as man stands under the
+influence of this matter, he is in the hands of evil and knows no
+freedom. Redemption can only reach him through those higher beings of
+light, which free man from the power of matter and translate him into
+the kingdom of light. According to the Gnostic teaching, Christ is
+one of these beings of light; he is one of the highest who appeared on
+earth, and is transformed into a mythical, allegorical being, with
+his human nature, his sufferings and death completely suppressed. The
+redeemed soul is then as a kind of angel, or ideal being, brought in
+triumph into the idealistic realm of light as soon as it has purified
+itself to the nature of a spirit, by means of penitence, chastisements,
+and finally the death of the physical body. Hence the Gnostics attached
+little importance to the means of mercy in the Church, to the Bible, or
+the sacraments; they allowed the Church teaching to exist as a necessary
+conception for the people, but they placed their own teachings far above
+it as mysterious or secret teachings. As regards their morals and
+mode of life, the Gnostics generally went to extremes. It was due to
+Gnosticism that art and science found an entrance into the Church. It
+preserved the Church from becoming stereotyped in form; but, built up
+entirely on ideas and not on historical facts, it died from its own
+hollowness and eccentricity.
+
+We still possess the traces of the Gnostic astrology in a number of
+amulets and engraved gems, with the word _Abraxas_ or rather _Abrasax_
+and other emblems of their superstition, which they kept as charms
+against diseases and evil spirits. The word _Abrasax_ may be translated
+_Hurt me not_. To their mystic rites we may trace many of the reproaches
+thrown upon Christianity, such as that the Christians worshipped the
+head of an ass, using the animal's Koptic name _Eeo_, to represent the
+name of IAn, or Jahveh. To the same source we may also trace some of
+the peculiarities of the Christian fathers, such as St. Ambrose calling
+Jesus "the good scarabaeus, who rolled up before him the hitherto
+un-shapen mud of our bodies;" a thought which seems to have been
+borrowed as much from the hieroglyphics as from the insect's habits; and
+perhaps from the Egyptian priests in some cases, using the scarabous
+to denote the god Horus-Ra, and sometimes the word _only begotten_. We
+trace this thought on the Gnostic gems where Ave see a winged griffin
+rolling before him a wheel, the emblem of eternity. He sits like a
+conqueror on horseback, trampling under foot the serpent of old, the
+spirit of sin and death. His horse is in the form of a ram, with an
+eagle's head and the crowned asp or basilisk for its tail. Before him
+stands the figure of victory giving him a crown; above are written the
+words Alpha and Omega, and below perhaps the word [IAH], Jahveh.
+
+So far we have seen the form which Christianity at first took among the
+Egyptians; but, as few writings by these Gnostics have come down to
+our time, we chiefly know their opinions from the reproaches of their
+enemies. It was not till the second generation of Gnostic teachers were
+spreading their heresies that the Greek philosophers began to embrace
+Christianity, or the Christians to study Greek literature; but as soon
+as that was the case we have an unbroken chain of writings, in which
+we find Christianity more or less mixed with the Alexandrian form of
+platonism.
+
+[Illustration: 106.jpg KOPTIC CHARM AND SCARABEUS]
+
+The philosopher Justin, after those who had talked with the apostles,
+is the earliest Christian writer whose works have reached us. He was a
+Greek, born in Samaria; but he studied many years in Alexandria under
+philosophers of all opinions. He did not, however, at once find in
+the schools the wisdom he was in search for. The Stoic could teach him
+nothing about God; the Peripatetic wished to be paid for his lessons
+before he gave them; and the Pythagorean proposed to begin with music
+and mathematics.
+
+[Illustration: 107.jpg GNOSTIC GEM]
+
+Not content with these, Justin turned to the platonist, whose purer
+philosophy seemed to add wings to his thoughts, and taught him to mount
+aloft towards true wisdom. While turning over in his mind what he had
+thus learned in the several schools, dissatisfied with the philosopher's
+views, he chanced one day to meet with an old man walking on the
+seashore near Alexandria, to whom he unbosomed his thoughts, and by whom
+he was converted to Christianity. Justin tells us that there were no
+people, whether Greeks or barbarians, or even dwellers in tent and
+waggons, among whom prayers were not offered up to the heavenly father
+in the name of the crucified Jesus. The Christians met every Sunday for
+public worship, which began with a reading from the prophets, or from
+the memoirs of the apostles called the gospels. This was followed by
+a sermon, a prayer, the bread and wine, and a second prayer. Justin's
+quotations prove that he is speaking of the New Testament, which within
+a hundred years of the crucifixion wras read in all the principal cities
+in which Greek was spoken. Justin died as a martyr in 163 A.D.
+
+The platonic professorship in Alexandria had usually been held by an
+Athenian, and for a short time Athenagoras of Athens taught that branch
+of philosophy in the museum; but he afterwards embraced the Christian
+religion, and then taught Christianity openly in Alexandria. He enjoys
+with Justin the honour of being one of the first men of learning who
+were converted, and, like Justin, his chief work is an apology for the
+Christians, addressed to the emperor, Marcus Aurelius.
+
+[Illustration: 108.jpg GEMS SHOWING SYMBOL OF DEATH AND THE WORD [IAH]
+JAVEH]
+
+Athenagoras confines himself in his defence to the resurrection from
+the dead and the unity of the Deity, the points chiefly attacked by the
+pagans.
+
+Hadrian's Egyptian coins are remarkable both for number and variety. In
+the sixth year of the reign we see a ship with spread sails, most likely
+in gratitude for the emperor's safe arrival in Egypt. In the eighth year
+we see the head of the favourite Antinous, who had been placed among the
+gods of the country. In the eleventh year, when the emperor took up the
+tribunitial power at Rome for a second period of ten years, we find a
+series of coins, each bearing the name of the nome or district in which
+it was coined. This indeed is the most remarkable year of the most
+remarkable reign in the whole history of coinage; we have numerous coins
+for every year of this reign, and, in this year, for nearly every nome
+in Egypt. Some coins are strongly marked with the favourite opinion of
+the Gnostics as to the opposition between good and evil.
+
+[Illustration: 109.jpg Hadrian's Egyptian coins]
+
+On one we have the war between the serpent of good and the serpent of
+evil, distinguished by their different forms and by the emblems of Isis
+and Serapis; on others the heads of Isis and Serapis, the principles of
+love and fear; while on a third these two are united into a trinity by
+Horus, who is standing on an eagle instead of having an eagle's head, as
+represented on previous coins.
+
+The beginning of the reign of Antoninus Pius (A.D. 138) was remarkable
+as being the end of the Sothic period of one thousand four hundred and
+sixty years; the movable new year's day of the calendar had come round
+to the place in the natural year from which it first began to move in
+the reign of Menophres or Thutmosis III.; it had come round to the day
+when the dog-star rose heliacally. If the years had been counted from
+the beginning of this great year, there could have been no doubt when it
+came to an end, as from the want of a leap year the new year's day
+must have been always moving one day in four years; but no satisfactory
+reckoning of the years had been kept, and, as the end of the period was
+only known by observation, there was some little doubt about the exact
+year. Indeed, among the Greek astronomers, Dositheus said the dog-star
+rises heliacally twenty-three days after midsummer, Meton twenty-eight
+days, and Euctemon thirty-one days; they thus left a doubt of thirty-two
+years as to when the period should end, but the statesmen placed it in
+the first year of the reign of Antoninus. This end of the Sothic period
+Avas called the return to the phoenix, and had been looked forward to by
+the Egyptians for many years, and is well marked on the coins of this
+reign. The coins for the first eight years teem with astronomy. There
+are several with the goddess Isis in a boat, which we know, from the
+zodiac in the Memnonium at Thebes, was meant for the heliacal rising of
+the dog-star. In the second and in the sixth year we find on the coins
+the remarkable word aion, _the age_ or _period_, and an ibis with a
+glory of rays round its head, meant for the bird phoenix. In the seventh
+year we see Orpheus playing on his lyre while all the animals of the
+forest are listening, thus pointing out the return of the golden age.
+In the eighth year we have the head of Serapis circled by the seven
+planets, and the whole within the twelve signs of the zodiac; and on
+another coin we have the sun and moon within the signs of the zodiac. A
+series of twelve coins for the same year tells us that the house of the
+sun, in the language of the astrologers, is in the lion, that of the
+moon in the crab, the houses of Venus in the scales and the bull, those
+of Mars in the scorpion and the ram, those of Jupiter in the archer
+and the fishes, those of Saturn in the sea-goat and aquarius, those of
+Mercury in the virgin and the twins. On the coins of the same year we
+have the eagle and thunderbolt, the sphinx, the bull Apis, the Nile and
+crocodile, Isis nursing the child Horus, the hawk-headed Aroeris, and
+the winged sun. On coins of other years we have a camelopard, Horus
+sitting on the lotus-flower, and a sacrifice to Isis, which was
+celebrated on the last day of the year.
+
+The coins also tell us of the bountiful overflow of the Nile, and of
+the goodness of the harvests that followed; thus, in the ninth, tenth,
+thirteenth, and seventeenth years, we see the river Nile in the form
+of an old man leaning on a crocodile, pouring corn and fruit out of a
+cornucopia, while a child by his side, with the figures 36, tells
+us that in those years the waters of the Nile rose at Memphis to the
+wished-for height of sixteen cubits. From these latter coins it would
+seem that but little change had taken place in the soil of the Delta by
+the yearly deposit of mud; Herodotus says that sixteen cubits was the
+wished-for rise of the Nile at Memphis when he was there. And we should
+almost think that the seasons were more favourable to the husbandman
+during the reign of an Antonine than of a Caligula, did we not set it
+down to the canals being better cleansed by the care of the prefect, and
+to the mildness of the government leaving the people at liberty to enjoy
+the bounties of nature, and at the same time making them more grateful
+in acknowledging them.
+
+[Illustration: 112.jpg COINS OF ANTONINUS PIUS.]
+
+The mystic emblems on the coins are only what we might look for from the
+spread of the Gnostic opinions, and the eagerness with which the Greeks
+were copying the superstitions of the Egyptians; and, while astrology
+was thus countenanced by the state, of course it was not less followed
+by the people. The poor Jews took to it as a trade. In Alexandria the
+Jewess, half beggar, half fortune-teller, would stop people in the
+streets and interpret dreams by the help of the Bible, or sit under a
+sacred tree like a sibyl, and promise wealth to those who consulted her,
+duly proportioned to the size of the coin by which she was paid. We find
+among the Theban ruins pieces of papyrus with inscriptions, describing
+the positions of the heavens at particular hours in this reign, for the
+astrologers therewith to calculate the nativities of the persons then
+born. On one is a complete horoscope, containing the places of the sun,
+moon, and every planet, noted down on the zodiac in degrees and minutes
+of a degree; and with these particulars the mathematician undertook to
+foretell the marriage, fortune, and death of the person who had been
+born at the instant when the heavenly bodies were so situated; and, as
+the horoscope was buried in the tomb with the mummy, we must suppose
+that it was thought that the prognostication would hold good even in the
+next world.
+
+But astrology was not the only end to which mathematics were then
+turned. Claudius Ptolemy, the astronomer and geographer, was at that
+time the ornament of the mathematical school of Alexandria. In his
+writings he treats of the earth as the centre of the heavens, and the
+sun, moon, and planets as moving in circles and epicycles round it. This
+had been the opinion of some of the early astronomers; but since this
+theory of the heavens received the stamp of his authority, it is now
+always called the Ptolemaic system.
+
+In this reign was made a new survey of all the military roads in the
+Roman empire, called the _Itinerary of Antoninus_. It included the
+great roads of Egypt, which were only six in number. One was from
+Contra-Pselcis in Nubia along the east bank of the Nile, to Babylon
+opposite Memphis, and there turning eastward through Heliopolis and the
+district of the Jews to Clysmon, where Trajan's canal entered the Red
+Sea. A second, from Memphis to Pelusium, made use of this for
+about thirty miles, joining it at Babylon, and leaving it at Scense
+Veteranorum. By these two roads a traveller could go from Pelusium to
+the head of the Red Sea; but there was a shorter road through the desert
+which joined the first at Serapion, about fifty miles from Clysmon,
+instead of at Sceno Veteranorum, which was therefore about a hundred
+miles shorter. A fourth was along the west bank of the Nile from Hiera
+Sycaminon in Nubia to Alexandria, leaving the river at Andropolis,
+about sixty miles from the latter city. A fifth was from Palestine to
+Alexandria, running along the coast of the Mediterranean from Raphia to
+Pelusium, and thence, leaving the coast to avoid the flat country, which
+was under water during the inundation; it joined the last at Andropolis.
+The sixth road was from Koptos on the Nile to Berenice on the Red Sea.
+These six were probably the only roads under the care of the prefect.
+Though Syene was the boundary of the province of Egypt, the Roman power
+was felt for about one hundred miles into Nubia, and we find the names
+of the emperors on several temples between Syene and Hiera Sycaminon.
+But beyond this, though we find inscriptions left by Roman travellers,
+the emperors seem never to have aimed at making military roads, or
+holding any cities against the inroads of the Blemmyes and other Arabs.
+
+To this survey we must add the valuable geographical knowledge given
+by Arrian in his voyage round the shores of the Red Sea, which has come
+down to us in an interesting document, wherein he mentions the several
+seaports and their distances, with the tribes and cities near the
+coast. The trade of Egypt to India, Ethiopia, and Arabia was then most
+valuable, and carried on with great activity; but, as the merchandise
+was in each case carried only for short distances from city to city, the
+traveller could gain but little knowledge of where it came from, or even
+sometimes of where it was going.
+
+[Illustration: 115.jpg STATUE OF THE NILE]
+
+The Egyptians sent coarse linen, glass bottles, brazen vessels, brass
+for money, and iron for weapons of war and hunting; and they received
+back ivory, rhinoceros' teeth, Indian steel, Indian ink, silks, slaves,
+tortoise-shell, myrrh, and other scents, with many other Eastern
+articles of high price and little weight. The presents which the
+merchants made to the petty kings of Arabia were chiefly horses, mules,
+and gold and silver vases. Beside this, the ports on the Red Sea carried
+on a brisk trade among themselves in grain, expressed oil, wicker
+boats, and sugar. Of sugar, or honey from the cane, this is perhaps
+the earliest mention found in history; but Arrian does not speak of
+the sugar-cane as then new, nor does he tell us where it was grown. Had
+sugar been then seen for the first time he would certainly have said
+so; it must have been an article well known in the Indian trade. While
+passing through Egypt on his travels, or while living there and holding
+some post under the prefect, the historian Arrian has left us his name
+and a few lines of poetry carved on the foot of the great sphinx near
+the pyramids.
+
+At this time also the travellers continued to carve their names and
+their feelings of wonder on the foot of the musical statue at Thebes and
+in the deep empty tombs of the Theban kings. These inscriptions are full
+of curious information. For example, it has been doubted whether the
+Roman army was provided with medical officers. Their writers have not
+mentioned them. But part of the Second Legion was at this time stationed
+at Thebes; and one Asclepiades, while cutting his name in a tomb which
+once held some old Theban, has cleared up the doubt for us, by saying
+that he was physician to the Second Legion.
+
+Antoninus made a hippodrome, or race-course, for the amusement of the
+citizens of Alexandria, and built two gates to the city, called the gate
+of the sun and the gate of the moon, the former fronting the harbour and
+the latter fronting the lake Mareotis, and joined by the great street
+which ran across the whole width of the city. But this reign was not
+wholly without trouble; there was a rebellion in which the prefect
+Dinarchus lost his life, and for which the Alexandrians were severely
+punished by the emperor.
+
+[Illustration: 117.jpg COINS OF MARCUS AURELIUS]
+
+The coins of Marcus Aurelius, the successor of Antoninus Pius, have a
+rich variety of subjects, falling not far short of those of the last
+reign. On those of the fifth year, the bountiful overflow of the Nile is
+gratefully acknowledged by the figure of the god holding a cornucopia,
+and a troop of sixteen children playing round him. It had been not
+unusual in hieroglyphical writing to express a thought by means of a
+figure which in the Koptic language had nearly the same sound; and we
+have seen this copied on the coins in the case of a Greek word, when the
+bird phoenix was used for the palm-branch phoenix, or the hieroglyphical
+word _year_; and a striking instance may be noticed in the case of a
+Latin word, as the sixteen children or _cupids_ mean sixteen _cubits_,
+the wished-for height of the Nile's overflow. The statue of the Nile,
+which had been carried by Vespasian to Rome and placed in the temple of
+Peace, was surrounded by the same sixteen children. On the coins of his
+twelfth year the sail held up by the goddess Isis is blown towards the
+Pharos lighthouse, as if in that year the emperor had been expected in
+Alexandria.
+
+We find no coins in the eleventh or fourteenth years of this reign,
+which makes it probable that it was in the eleventh year (A.D. 172) that
+the rebellion of the native soldiers took place. These were very likely
+Arabs who had been admitted into the ranks of the legions, but having
+withdrawn to the desert they now harassed the towns with their marauding
+inroads, and a considerable time elapsed before they were wholly put
+down by Avidius Cassius at the head of the legions. But Cassius himself
+was unable to resist the temptations which always beset a successful
+general, and after this victory he allowed himself to be declared
+emperor by the legions of Egypt; and this seems to have been the cause
+of no coins being struck in Alexandria in the fourteenth year of the
+reign. Cassius left his son Moecianus in Alexandria with the title of
+Pretorian Prefect, while he himself marched into Syria to secure that
+province. There the legions followed the example of their brethren in
+Egypt, and the Syrians were glad to acknowledge a general of the Eastern
+armies as their sovereign. But on Marcus leading an army into Syria he
+was met with the news that the rebels had repented, and had put Cassius
+to death, and he then moved his forces towards Egypt; but before his
+arrival the Egyptian legions had in the same manner put Moecianus to
+death, and all had returned to their allegiance.
+
+When Marcus arrived in Alexandria the citizens were agreeably surprised
+by the mildness of his conduct. He at once forgave his enemies; and
+no offenders were put to death for having joined in the rebellion. The
+severest punishment, even to the children of Cassius, was banishment
+from the province, but without restraint, and with the forfeiture of
+less than half their patrimony. In Alexandria the emperor laid aside the
+severity of the soldier, and mingled with the people as a fellow-citizen
+in the temples and public places; while with the professors in the
+museum he was a philosopher, joining them in their studies in the
+schools.
+
+Borne and Athens at this time alike looked upon Alexandria as the centre
+of the world's learning. The library was then in its greatest glory;
+the readers were numerous, and Christianity had as yet raised no doubts
+about the value of its pagan treasures. All the wisdom of Greece,
+written on rolls of brittle papyrus or tough parchment, was ranged in
+boxes on the shelves. Of these writings the few that have been saved
+from the wreck of time are no doubt some of the best, and they are
+perhaps enough to guide our less simple taste towards the unornamented
+grace of the Greek model. But we often fancy those treasures most
+valuable that are beyond our reach, and hence when we run over the names
+of the authors in this library we think perhaps too much of those which
+are now missing. The student in the museum could have read the lyric
+poems of Alcaeus and Stersichorus, which in matter and style were
+excellent enough to be judged not quite so good as Homer; the tender
+lamentations of Simonides; the warm breathings of Sappho, the tenth
+muse; the pithy iambics of Archilochus, full of noble flights and
+brave irregularities; the comedies of Menander, containing every kind
+of excellence; those of Eupolis and Cratinus, which were equal to
+Aristophanes; the histories of Theopompus, which in the speeches were
+as good as Thucydides; the lively, agreeable orations of Hyperides, the
+accuser of Demosthenes; with the books of travels, chronologies, and
+countless others of less merit for style and genius, but which, if they
+had been saved, would not have left Egypt wholly without a history.
+
+[Illustration: 120.jpg ALEXANDRIAN FORMS OF WRITING]
+
+The trade of writing and making copies of the old authors employed
+a great many hands in the neighbourhood of the museum. Two kinds of
+handwriting were in use. One was a running hand, with the letters joined
+together in rather a slovenly manner; and the other a neat, regular
+hand, with the letters square and larger, written more slowly but read
+more easily. Those that wrote the first were called _quick-writers_,
+those that wrote the second were called _book-writers_. If an author was
+not skilled in the use of the pen, he employed a _quickwriter_ to write
+down his words as he delivered them. But in order that his work might be
+published it was handed over to the _book-writers_ to be copied out more
+neatly; and numbers of young women, skilled in penmanship, were employed
+in the trade of copying books for sale. For this purpose parchment
+was coming into use, though the old papyrus was still used, as an
+inexpensive though less lasting writing material.
+
+Athenaeus, if we may judge from Iris writings, was then the brightest of
+the Alexandrian wits and men of learning. We learn from his own pages
+that he was born at Naucratis, and was the friend of Pancrates, who
+lived under Hadrian, and also of Oppian, who died in the reign of
+Caracalla. His _Deipnosophist_, or table-talk of the philosophers, is a
+large work full of pleasing anecdotes and curious information, gathered
+from comic writers and authors without number that have long since been
+lost. But it is put together with very little skill. His industry and
+memory are more remarkable than his judgment or good taste; and the
+table-talk is too often turned towards eating and drinking. His amusing
+work is a picture of society in Alexandria, where everything frivolous
+was treated as grave, and everything serious was laughed at. The wit
+sinks into scandal, the humour is at the cost of morality, and the
+numerous quotations are chosen for their point, not for any lofty
+thoughts or noble feeling. Alexandria was then as much the seat of
+literary wit as it was of dry criticism; and Martial, the lively author
+of the _Epigrams_, had fifty years before remarked that there were few
+places in the world where he would more wish his verses to be repeated
+than on the banks of the Nile.
+
+Nothing could be lower than the poetic taste in Alexandria at this time.
+The museum was giving birth to a race of poets who, instead of bringing
+forth thoughts out of their own minds, found them in the storehouse of
+the memory only. They wrote their patchwork poems by the help of Homer's
+lines, which they picked from all parts of the Iliad and Odyssey and
+so put together as to make them tell a new tale. They called themselves
+Homeric poets.
+
+Lucian, the author of the _Dialogues_, was at that time secretary to the
+prefect of Egypt, and this philosopher found a broad mark for his
+humour in the religion of the Egyptians, their worship of animals and
+water-jars, their love of magic, the general mourning through the land
+on the death of the bull Apis, their funeral ceremonies, their placing
+of their mummies round the dinner-table as so many guests, and pawning a
+father or a brother when in want of money.
+
+[Illustration: 122.jpg A SNAKE-CHARMER]
+
+So little had the customs changed that the young Egyptians of high birth
+still wore their long hair tied in one lock, and hanging over the right
+ear, as we see on the Theban sculptures fifteen centuries earlier. It
+was then a mark of royalty, but had since been adopted by many families
+of high rank, and continues to be used even in the twentieth century.
+
+[Illustration: 123.jpg THE SIGN OF NOBILITY]
+
+Before the end of this reign we meet with a strong proof of the spread
+of Christianity in Egypt. The number of believers made it necessary for
+the Bishop of Alexandria to appoint three bishops under him, to look
+after the churches in three other cities; and accordingly Demetrius, who
+then held that office, took upon himself the rank, if not the name, of
+Patriarch of Alexandria. A second proof of the spread of Christianity
+is the pagan philosophers thinking it necessary to write against it.
+Celsus, an Epicurean of Alexandria, was one of the first to attack it.
+Origen answered the several arguments of Celsus with skill and candour.
+He challenges his readers to a comparison between the Christians and
+pagans in point of morals, in Alexandria or in any other city. He
+argues in the most forcible way that Christianity had overcome all
+difficulties, and had spread itself far and wide against the power of
+kings and emperors, and he says that nobody but a Christian ever died
+a martyr to the truth of his religion. He makes good use of the Jewish
+prophecies; but he brings forward no proofs in support of the truth of
+the gospel history; they were not wanted, as Celsus and the pagans had
+not considered it necessary to call it into question.
+
+Another proof of the number of Egyptian Christians is seen in the
+literary frauds of which their writers were guilty, most likely to
+satisfy the minds of those pagan converts that they had already made
+rather than from a wish to make new believers. About this time was
+written by an unknown Christian author a poem in eight books, named the
+_Sibylline Verses_ which must not be mistaken for the pagan fragments
+of the same name. It is written in the form of a prophecy, in the style
+used by the Gnostics, and is full of dark sentences and half-expressed
+hints.
+
+Another spurious Christian work of about the same time is the
+_Clementina_, or the _Recognitions of Clemens_, Bishop of Rome. It is
+an account of the travels of the Apostle Peter and his conversation with
+Simon Magus; but the author's knowledge of the Egyptian mythology, of
+the opinions of the Greek philosophers, and of the astrological rules by
+which fortunes are foretold from the planets' places, amply prove that
+he was an Egyptian or an Alexandrian. No name ranked higher among the
+Christians than that of Clemens Romanus; and this is only one out of
+several cases of Christian authors who wished to give weight to their
+own opinions by passing them upon the world as his writings.
+
+Marcus Aurelius, who died in 181 A.D., had pardoned the children of the
+rebel general Avidius Cassius, but Commodus began his reign by putting
+them to death; and, while thus disregarding the example and advice of
+his father, he paid his memory the idle compliment of continuing his
+series of dates on his own coins. But the Egyptian coinage of Commodus
+clearly betrays the sad change that was gradually taking place in the
+arts of the country; we no longer see the former beauty and variety of
+subjects; and the silver, which had before been very much mixed with
+copper, was under Commodus hardly to be known from brass.
+
+[Illustration: 125.jpg CARTOUCHE OF COMMODUS]
+
+Commodus was very partial to the Egyptian superstitions, and he adopted
+the tonsure, and had his head shaven like a priest of Isis, that he
+might more properly carry an Anubis staff in sacred processions, which
+continued to be a feature of the religious activities of the age. Upper
+Egypt had latterly been falling off in population. It had been drained
+of all its hoarded wealth. Its carrying trade through Koptos to the Red
+Sea was much lessened. Any tribute that its temples received from the
+piety of the neighbourhood was small. Nubia was a desert; and a few
+soldiers at Syene were enough to guard the poverty of the Thebaid
+from the inroads of the Blemmyes. It was no longer necessary to
+send criminals to the Oasis; it was enough to banish them to the
+neighbourhood of Thebes. Hence we learn but little of the state of
+the country. Now and then a traveller, after measuring the pyramids of
+Memphis and the underground tombs of Thebes, might venture as far as the
+cataracts, and watch the sun at noon on the longest day shining to the
+bottom of the sacred well at Syene, like the orator Aristides and his
+friend Dion. But such travellers were few; the majority of those who
+made this journey have left the fact on record.
+
+The celebrated museum, which had held the vast library of the Ptolemies,
+had been burnt by the soldiers of Julius Caesar in one of their battles
+with the Egyptian army in the streets of Alexandria; but the loss had
+been in part repaired by Mark Antony's gift of the library from Pergamus
+to the temple of Serapis. The new library, however, would seem to have
+been placed in a building somewhat separated from the temple, as when
+the temple of Serapis was burnt in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and
+again when it was in part destroyed by fire in the second year of this
+reign we hear of no loss of books; and two hundred years later the
+library of the Serapium, it is said, had risen to the number of seven
+hundred thousand volumes. The temple-keeper to the great god Serapis, or
+one of the temple-keepers, at this time was Asclepiades, a noted boxer
+and wrestler, who had been made chief of the wrestling-ground and had
+received the high rank of the emperor's freedman. He set up a statue to
+his father Demetrius, an equally noted boxer and wrestler, who had been
+chief priest of the wrestling-ground and of the emperor's baths in the
+last reign.
+
+[Illustration: 126.jpg THE ANUBIS STAFF]
+
+Another favourite in the theatre was Apolaustus of Memphis, who removed
+to Rome, where he was crowned as conqueror in the games, and as a reward
+made priest to Apollo and emperor's freedman.
+
+The city of Canopus was still a large mart for merchandise, as the
+shallow but safe entrance to its harbour made it a favourite with pilots
+of the small trading vessels, who rather dreaded the rocks at the mouth
+of the harbour of Alexandria. A temple of Serapis which had lately been
+built at Canopus was dedicated to the god in the name of the Emperor
+Commodus; and there some of the grosser superstitions of the polytheists
+fled before the spread of Christianity and platonism in Alexandria. The
+Canopic jars, which held those parts of the body that could not be made
+solid in the mummy, and which had the heads of the four lesser gods
+of the dead on their lids, received their name from this city. The
+sculptures on the beautiful temples of Contra-Latopolis were also
+finished in this reign, and the emperor's names and titles were carved
+on the walls in hieroglyphics, with those of the Ptolemies, under whom
+the temple itself had been built. Commodus may perhaps not have been
+the last emperor whose name and praises were carved in hieroglyphics;
+but all the great buildings in the Thebaid, which add such value to the
+early history of Egypt, had ceased before his reign. Other buildings of
+a less lasting form were no doubt being built, such as the Greek temples
+at Antinoopolis and Ptolemais, which have long since been swept away;
+but the Egyptian priests, with their gigantic undertakings, their noble
+plan of working for after ages rather than for themselves, were nearly
+ruined, and we find no ancient building now standing in Egypt that was
+raised after the time of the dynasty of the Antonines.
+
+[Illustration: 128.jpg CANOPIC JARS]
+
+But the poverty of the Egyptians was not the only cause why they built
+no more temples. Though the colossal statue of Amenhothes uttered
+its musical notes every morning at sunrise, still tuneful amid the
+desolation with which it was surrounded, and the Nile was still
+worshipped at midsummer by the husbandman to secure its fertilising
+overflow; nevertheless, the religion itself for which the temples had
+been built was fast giving way before the silent spread of Christianity.
+The religion of the Egyptians, unlike that of the Greeks, was no
+longer upheld by the magistrate; it rested solely on the belief of its
+followers, and it may have merged into Christianity the faster for the
+greater number of truths which were contained in it than in the paganism
+of other nations. The scanty hieroglyphical records tell us little
+of thoughts, feelings, and opinions. Indeed that cumbersome mode of
+writing, which alone was used in religious matters, was little fitted
+for anything beyond the most material parts of their mythology. Hence
+we must not believe that the Egyptian polytheism was quite so gross as
+would appear from the sculptures; and indeed we there learn that they
+believed, even at the earliest times, in a resurrection from the tomb, a
+day of judgment, and a future state of rewards and punishments.
+
+The priests made a great boast of their learning and philosophy, and
+could each repeat by heart those books of Thot which belonged to his own
+order. The singer, who walked first in the sacred processions, bearing
+the symbols of music, could repeat the books of hymns and the rules for
+the king's life. The soothsayer, who followed, carrying a clock and a
+palm-branch, the emblem of the year, could repeat the four astrological
+books; one on the moon's phases, one on the fixed stars, and two on
+their heliacal risings. The scribe, who walked next, carrying a book
+and the flat rule which held the ink and pen, was acquainted with the
+geography of the world and of the Nile, and with those books which
+describe the motions of the sun, moon, and planets, and the furniture
+of the temple and consecrated places. The master of the robes understood
+the ten books relating to education, to the marks on the sacred
+heifers, and to the worship of the gods, embracing the sacrifices, the
+first-fruits, the hymns, the prayers, the processions, and festivals.
+The prophet or preacher, who walked last, carrying in his arms the
+great water-pot, was the president of the temple, and learned in the ten
+books, called hieratic, relating to the laws, the gods, the management
+of the temples, and the revenue. Thus, of the forty-two chief books of
+Thot, thirty-six were learned by these priests, while the remaining
+six on the body, its diseases, and medicines, were learned by the
+Pastophori, priests who carried the image of the god in a small shrine.
+These books had been written at various times: some may have been very
+old, but some were undoubtedly new; they together formed the Egyptian
+bible. Apollonius, or Apollonides Horapis, an Egyptian priest, had
+lately published a work on these matters in his own language, named
+Shomenuthi, _the book of the gods_.
+
+[Illustration: 130.jpg RELIGIOUS PROCESSION]
+
+But the priests were no longer the earnest, sincere teachers as of
+old; they had invented a system of secondary meanings, by which they
+explained away the coarse religion of their statues and sacred animals.
+
+They had two religions, one for the many and one for the few; one,
+material and visible, for the crowds in the outer courtyards, in which
+the hero was made a god and every attribute of deity was made a person;
+and another, spiritual and intellectual, for the learned in the schools
+and sacred colleges. Even if we were not told, we could have no doubt
+but the main point of secret knowledge among the learned was a disbelief
+in those very doctrines which they were teaching to the vulgar, and
+which they now explained among themselves by saying that they had a
+second meaning. This, perhaps, was part of the great secret of the
+goddess Isis, the secret of Abydos, the betrayer of which was more
+guilty than he who should try to stop the _baris_ or sacred barge in the
+procession on the Nile. The worship of gods, before whose statues the
+nation had bowed with unchanging devotion for at least two thousand
+years was now drawing to a close. Hitherto the priests had been able to
+resist all new opinions.
+
+[Illustration: 131.jpg SHRINE]
+
+The name of Amon-Ra had at one time been cut out from the Theban
+monuments to make way for a god from Lower Egypt; but it had been cut in
+again when the storm passed by. The Jewish monotheism had left the
+crowd of gods unlessened. The Persian efforts had overthrown statues and
+broken open temples, but had not been able to introduce their worship of
+the sun. The Greek conquerors had yielded to the Egyptian mind without
+a struggle; and Alexander had humbly begged at the door of the temple
+to be acknowledged as a son of Amon. But in the fulness of time
+these opinions, which seemed as firmly based as the monuments which
+represented them, sunk before a religion which set up no new statues,
+and could command no force to break open temples.
+
+The Egyptian priests, who had been proud of the superiority of their own
+doctrines over the paganism of their neighbours, mourned the overthrow
+of their national religion. "Our land," says the author of Hermes
+Trismegistus, "is the temple of the world; but, as wise men should
+foresee all things, you should know that a time is coming when it will
+seem that the Egyptians have by an unfailing piety served God in
+vain. For when strangers shall possess this kingdom religion will
+be neglected, and laws made against piety and divine worship, with
+punishment on those who favour it. Then this holy seat will be full of
+idolatry, idols' temples, and dead men's tombs. O Egypt, Egypt, there
+shall remain of thy religion but vague stories which posterity will
+refuse to believe, and words graven in stone recounting thy piety. The
+Scythian, the Indian, or some other barbarous neighbour shall dwell in
+Egypt. The Divinity shall reascend into the heaven; and Egypt shall be a
+desert, widowed of men and gods."
+
+The spread of Christianity among the Egyptians was such that their
+teachers found it necessary to supply them with a life of Jesus, written
+in their own language, that they might the more readily explain to
+them his claim to be obeyed, and the nature of his commands. The Gospel
+according to the Egyptians, for such was the name this work bore, has
+long since been lost, and was little quoted by the Alexandrians. It was
+most likely a translation from one of the four gospels, though it had
+some different readings suited to its own church, and contained some
+praise of celibacy not found in the New Testament; but it was not valued
+by the Greeks, and was lost on the spread of the Koptic translation of
+the whole New Testament.
+
+The grave, serious Christians of Upper Egypt were very unlike the lively
+Alexandrians. But though the difference arose from peculiarities of
+national character, it was only spoken of as a difference of opinion.
+The Egyptians formed an ascetic sect in the church, who were called
+heretics by the Alexandrians, and named Docetas, because they taught
+that the Saviour was a god, and did not really suffer on the cross, but
+was crucified only _in appearance_. They of necessity used the Gospel
+according to the Egyptians, which is quoted by Cassianus, one of their
+writers; many of them renounced marriage with, the other pleasures
+and duties of social life, and placed their chief virtue in painful
+self-denial; and out of them sprang that remarkable class of hermits,
+monks, and fathers of the desert who in a few centuries covered Europe
+with monasteries.
+
+It is remarkable that the translation of a gospel into Koptic introduced
+a Greek alphabet into the Koptic language. Though for all religious
+purposes the scribes continued to use the ancient hieroglyphics, in
+which we trace the first steps by which pictures are made to represent
+words and syllables rather than letters, yet for the common purposes of
+writing they had long since made use of the _enchorial_ or common hand,
+in which the earlier system of writing is improved by the characters
+representing only letters, though sadly too numerous for each to have a
+fixed and well-known force. But, as the hieroglyphics were also always
+used for carved writing on all subjects, and the common hand only used
+on papyrus with a reed pen, the latter became wholly an indistinct
+running hand; it lost that beauty and regularity which the
+hieroglyphics, like the Greek and Roman characters, kept by being carved
+on stone, and hence it would seem arose the want of a new alphabet for
+the New Testament. This was made by merely adding to the Greek alphabet
+six new letters borrowed from the hieroglyphics for those sounds which
+the Greeks did not use; and the writing was then written from left to
+right like a European language instead of in either direction according
+to the skill or fancy of the scribe.
+
+It was only upon the ancient hieroglyphics thus falling into disuse that
+the Greeks of Alexandria, almost for the first time, had the
+curiosity to study the principles on which they were written. Clemens
+Alexandrinus, who thought no branch of knowledge unworthy of his
+attention, gives a slight account of them, nearly agreeing with the
+results of our modern discoveries. He mentions the three kinds of
+writing; first, the _hieroglyphic_; secondly, the _hieratic_, which is
+nearly the same, but written with a pen, and less ornamental than
+the carved figures; and thirdly, the _demotic_, or common alphabetic
+writing. He then divides the hieroglyphic into the alphabetic and
+the symbolic; and lastly, he divides the symbolic characters into the
+imitative, the figurative, and those formed like riddles. As instances
+of these last we may quote, for the first, the three zigzag lines which
+by simple imitation mean "water;" for the second, the oval which mean
+"a name," because kings' names were written within ovals; and for the
+third, a cup with three anvils, which mean "Lord of Battles," because
+"cup" and "lord" have nearly the same sound _neb_, and "anvils" and
+"battles" have nearly the same sound _meshe_.
+
+In this reign Pantonus of Athens, a Stoic philosopher, held the first
+place among the Christians of Alexandria. He is celebrated for uniting
+the study of heathen learning with a religious zeal which led him to
+preach Christianity in Abyssinia.
+
+[Illustration: 135.jpg HIEROGLYPHIC, HIERATIC, AND DEMOTIC WRITING]
+
+He introduced a taste for philosophy among the Christians; and, though
+Athenagoras rather deserves that honour, he was called the founder
+of the catechetical school which gave birth to the series of learned
+Christian writers that flourished in Alexandria for the next century. To
+have been a learned man and a Christian, and to have encouraged learning
+among the catechists in his schools may seem deserving of no great
+praise. Was the religion of Jesus to spread ignorance and darkness over
+the world? But we must remember that a new religion cannot be introduced
+without some danger that learning and science may get forbidden,
+together with the ancient superstitions which had been taught in the
+same schools; we shall hereafter see that in the quarrels between pagans
+and Christians, and again between the several sects of Christians,
+learning was often reproached with being unfavourable to true religion;
+and then it will be granted that it was no small merit to have founded
+a school in which learning and Christianity went hand in hand for nearly
+two centuries. Pantaenus has left no writings of his own, and is best
+known through his pupil or fellow-student, Clemens. He is said to have
+brought with him to Alexandria, from the Jewish Christians that he met
+with on his travels, a copy of St. Matthew's Gospel in the original
+Hebrew, a work now unfortunately lost, which, if we possessed it, would
+settle for us the disputed point, whether or no it contained all that
+now bears that Apostle's name in the Greek translation.
+
+The learned, industrious, and pious Clemens, who, to distinguish him
+from Clemens of Rome, is usually called Clemens Alexandrinus, succeeded
+Pantaenus in the catechetical school, and was at the same time a
+voluminous writer. He was in his philosophy a platonist, though
+sometimes called of the Eclectic school. He has left an Address to the
+Gentiles, a treatise on Christian behaviour called Pedagogus, and eight
+books of Stromata, or _collections_, which he wrote to describe the
+perfect Christian or Gnostic, to furnish the believer with a model for
+his imitation, and to save him from being led astray by the sects of
+Gnostics "falsely so called." By his advice, and by the imitation of
+Christ, the Christian is to step forward from faith, through love, to
+knowledge; from being a slave, he is to become a faithful servant and
+then a son; he is to become at last a god walking in the flesh.
+
+Clemens was not wholly free from the mysticism which was the chief mark
+of the Gnostic sect. He thought much of the sacred power of numbers.
+Abraham had three hundred and eighteen servants when he rescued Lot,
+which, when written in Greek numerals thus, IHT formed the sacred sign
+for the name of Jesus. Ten was a perfect number, and is that of the
+commandments given to Moses. Seven was a glorious number, and there
+are seven Pleiades, seven planets, seven days in the week; and the
+two fishes and five barley loaves, with which the multitude were
+miraculously fed, together make the number of years of plenty in Egypt
+under Joseph. Clemens also quotes several lines in praise of the seventh
+day, which he says were from Homer, Hesiod, and Callimachus; but here
+there is reason to believe that he was deceived by the pious fraud of
+some zealous Jew or Christian, as no such lines are now to be found in
+the pagan poets.
+
+During the reign of Pertinax, which lasted only three months (194 A.D.),
+we find no trace of his power in Egypt, except the money which the
+Alexandrians coined in his name. It seems to have been the duty of the
+prefect of the mint, as soon as he heard of an emperor's death, to lose
+no time in issuing coins in the name of his successor. It was one of the
+means to proclaim and secure the allegiance of the province for the new
+emperor.
+
+During the reign of Commodus, Pescennius Niger had been at the head of
+the legion that was employed in Upper Egypt in stopping the inroads of
+their troublesome neighbours, who already sometimes bore the name of
+Saracens. He was a hardy soldier, and strict in his discipline, while he
+shared the labours of the field and of the camp with the men under him.
+He would not allow them the use of wine; and once, when the troops that
+guarded the frontier at Syene (Aswan) sent to ask for it, he bluntly
+answered, "You have got the Nile to drink, and cannot possibly want
+more." Once, when a cohort had been routed by the Saracens, the men
+complained that they could not fight without wine; but he would not
+relax in his discipline. "Those who have just now beaten you," said
+Niger, "drink nothing but water." He gained the love and thanks of the
+people of Upper Egypt by thus bridling the lawlessness of the troops;
+and they gave him his statue cut in black basalt, in allusion to his
+name Niger. This statue was placed in his Roman villa.
+
+[Illustration: 138b.jpg A NATIVE OF ASWAN]
+
+But on the death of Pertinax, when Septimus Severus declared himself
+emperor in Pannonia, Niger, who was then in the province of Syria, did
+the same. Egypt and the Egyptian legions readily and heartily joined
+his party, which made it unnecessary for him to stay in that part of
+the empire; so he marched upon Greece, Thrace, and Macedonia. But there,
+after a few months, he was met by the army of his rival, who also sent
+a second army into Egypt; and he was defeated and slain at Cyzicus in
+Mysia, after having been acknowledged as emperor in Egypt and Syria for
+perhaps a year and a few months.
+
+[Illustration: 139b.jpg PAINTING AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE FIFTH TOMB]
+
+We find no Alexandrian coins of Niger, although we cannot allow a
+shorter space of time to his reign than one whole year, together with
+a few months of the preceding and following years. Within that time
+Severus had to march upon Rome against his first rival, Julian, to
+punish the praetorian guards, and afterwards to conquer Niger.
+
+After the death of his rival, when Severus was the undisputed master of
+the empire, and was no longer wanted in the other provinces, he found
+leisure, in A.D. 196, to visit Egypt; and, like other active-minded
+travellers, he examined the pyramids of Memphis and the temples at
+Thebes, and laughed at the worship of Serapis and the Egyptian animals.
+His visit to Alexandria wras marked by many new laws. Now that the
+Greeks of that city, crushed beneath two centuries of foreign rule, had
+lost any remains of courage or of pride that could make them feared by
+their Roman master, he relaxed part of the strict policy of Augustus. He
+gave them a senate and a municipal form of government, a privilege that
+had hitherto been refused in distrust to that great city, though freely
+granted in other provinces where rebellion was less dreaded. He also
+ornamented the city with a temple to Rhea, and with a public bath, which
+was named after himself the Bath of Severus.
+
+Severus made a law, says the pagan historian, forbidding anybody, under
+a severe punishment, from becoming Jew or Christian. But he who gives
+the blow is likely to speak of it more lightly than he who smarts under
+it; and we learn from the historian of the Church that, in the tenth
+year of this reign, the Christians suffered persecution from their
+governors and their fellow-citizens. Among others who then lost their
+lives for their religion was Leonides, the father of Origen. He left
+seven orphan children, of whom the eldest, that justly celebrated
+writer, was only sixteen years old, but was already deeply read in
+the Scriptures, and in the great writers of Greece. As the property of
+Leonides was forfeited, his children were left in poverty; but the young
+Origen was adopted by a wealthy lady, zealous for the new religion,
+by whose help he was enabled to continue his studies under Clemens. In
+order to read the Old Testament in the original, he made himself master
+of Hebrew, which was a study then very unusual among the Greeks, whether
+Jews or Christians.
+
+In this persecution of the Church all public worship was forbidden to
+the Christians; and Tertullian of Carthage eloquently complains that,
+while the emperor allowed the Egyptians to worship cows, goats, or
+crocodiles, or indeed any animal they chose, he only punished those that
+bowed down before the Creator and Governor of the world. Of course,
+at this time of trouble the catechetical school was broken up and
+scattered, so that there was no public teaching of Christianity in
+Alexandria. But Origen ventured to do that privately which was forbidden
+to be done openly; and, when the storm had blown over, Demetrius, the
+bishop, appointed him to that office at the head of the school which he
+had already so bravely taken upon himself in the hour of danger. Origen
+could boast of several pupils who added their names to the noble list of
+martyrs who lost their lives for Christianity, among whom the best known
+was Plutarch, the brother of Heraclas. Origen afterwards removed for a
+time to Palestine, and fell under the displeasure of his own bishop for
+being there ordained a presbyter.
+
+In Egypt Severus seems to have dated the years of his reign from the
+death of Niger, though he had reigned in Rome since the deaths of
+Pertinax and Julian. His Egyptian coins are either copper, or brass
+plated with a little silver; and after a few reigns even those last
+traces of a silver coinage are lost in this falling country. In tracing
+the history of a word's meaning we often throw a light upon the customs
+of a nation. Thus, in Rome, gold was so far common that avarice was
+called the love of gold; while in Greece, where silver was the metal
+most in use, money was called _argurion_. In the same way it is
+curiously shown that silver was no longer used in Egypt by our finding
+that the brass coin of one hundred and ten grains weight, as being the
+only piece of money seen in circulation, was named an _argurion_.
+
+The latter years of the reign of Caracalla were spent in visiting the
+provinces of his wide empire; and, after he had passed through Thrace
+and Asia Minor, Egypt had the misfortune to be honoured by a visit from
+its emperor. The satirical Alexandrians, who in the midst of their own
+follies and vices were always clever in lashing those of their rulers,
+had latterly been turning their unseemly jokes against Caracalla. They
+had laughed at his dressing like Achilles and Alexander the Great, while
+in his person he was below the usual height; and they had not forgotten
+his murder of his brother, and his talking of marrying his own mother.
+Some of these dangerous witticisms had reached his ears at Rome, and
+they were not forgotten. But Caracalla never showed his displeasure;
+and, as he passed through Antioch, he gave out that he was going to
+visit the city founded by Alexander the Great, and to consult the oracle
+in the temple of Serapis.
+
+The Alexandrians in their joy got ready the hecatombs for his
+sacrifices; and the emperor entered their city through rows of torches
+to the sound of soft music, while the air was sweetened with costly
+scents, and the road scattered with flowers. After a few days he
+sacrificed in the temple of Serapis, and then visited the tomb of
+Alexander, where he took off his scarlet cloak, his rings, and his
+girdle covered with precious stones, and dutifully laid them on the
+sarcophagus of the hero. The Alexandrians were delighted with their
+visitor; and crowds flocked into the city to witness the daily and
+nightly shows, little aware of the unforgiving malice that was lurking
+in his mind.
+
+The emperor then issued a decree that all the youths of Alexandria of an
+age to enter the army should meet him in a plain on the outside of the
+city; they had already a Macedonian and a Spartan phalanx, and he was
+going to make an Alexandrian phalanx. Accordingly the plain was filled
+with thousands of young men, who were ranged in bodies according to
+their height, their age, and their fitness for bearing arms, while their
+friends and relations came in equal numbers to be witnesses of their
+honour.
+
+The emperor moved through their ranks, and was loudly greeted with their
+cheers, while the army which encircled the whole plain was gradually
+closing round the crowd and lessening the circle. When the ring was
+formed, Caracalla withdrew with his guards and gave the looked-for
+signal. The soldiers then lowered their spears and charged on the
+unarmed crowd, of whom a part were butchered and part driven headlong
+into the ditches and canals; and such was the slaughter that the waters
+of the Nile, which at midsummer are always red with the mud from the
+upper country, were said to have flowed coloured to the sea with
+the blood of the sufferers. Caracalla then returned to Antioch,
+congratulating himself on the revenge that he had taken on the
+Alexandrians for their jokes; not however till he had consecrated in the
+temple of Serapis the sword with which he boasted that he had slain his
+brother Geta.
+
+Caracalla also punished the Alexandrians by stopping the public games
+and the allowance of grain to the citizens; and, to lessen the danger of
+their rebelling, he had the fortifications carried between the rest
+of the city and the great palace-quarter, the Bruchium, thus dividing
+Alexandria into two fortified cities, with towers on the walls
+between them. Hitherto, under the Romans as under the Ptolemies, the
+Alexandrians had been the trusted favourites of their rulers, who made
+use of them to keep the Egyptians in bondage. But under Caracalla that
+policy was changed; the Alexandrians were treated as enemies; and we see
+for the first time Egyptians taking their seat in the Roman senate, and
+the Egyptian religion openly cultivated by the emperor, who then built a
+temple in Rome to the goddess Isis.
+
+On the murder of Caracalla in A.D. 217, Macrinus, who was thought to be
+the author of his death, was acknowledged as emperor; and though he only
+reigned for about two months, yet, as the Egyptian new year's day fell
+within that time, we find Alexandrian coins for the first and second
+years of his reign. The Egyptians pretended that the death of Caracalla
+had been foretold by signs from heaven; that a ball of fire had fallen
+on the temple of Serapis, which destroyed nothing but the sword with
+which Caracalla had slain his brother; and that an Egyptian named
+Serapion, who had been thrown into a lion's den for naming Macrinus as
+the future emperor, had escaped unhurt by the wild beasts.
+
+Macrinus recalled from Alexandria Julian, the prefect of Egypt, and
+appointed to that post his friend Basilianus, with Marius Secundus, a
+senator, as second in command, who was the first senator that had ever
+held command in Egypt. He was himself at Antioch when Bassianus, a
+Syrian, pretending to be the son of Caracalla, offered himself to the
+legions as that emperor's successor. When the news reached Alexandria
+that the Syrian troops had joined the pretended Antoninus, the prefect
+Basilianus at once put to death the public couriers that brought the
+unwelcome tidings. But when, a few days afterwards, it was known that
+Macrinus had been defeated and killed, the doubts about his successor
+led to serious struggles between the troops and the Alexandrians. The
+Alexandrians could have had no love for a son of Caracalla; Basilianus
+and Secundus had before declared against him; but, on the other hand,
+the choice of the soldiers was guided by their brethren in Syria. The
+citizens flew to arms, and day after day was the battle fought in the
+streets of Alexandria between two parties, neither of whom was strong
+enough, even if successful, to have any weight in settling the fate of
+the Roman empire. Marius Secundus lost his life in the struggle. The
+prefect Basilianus fled to Italy to escape from his own soldiers; and
+the province of Egypt then followed the example of the rest of the East
+in acknowledging the new emperor.
+
+For four years Rome was disgraced by the sovereignty of Elagabalus,
+the pretended son of Caracalla, and we find his coins each year in
+Alexandria. He was succeeded by the young Alexander, whose amiable
+virtues, however, could not gain for him the respect which he lost
+by the weakness of his government. The Alexandrians, always ready to
+lampoon their rulers, laughed at his wish to be thought a Roman; they
+called him the Syrian, the high priest, and the ruler of the synagogue.
+And well might they think slightly of his government, when a prefect of
+Egypt owed his appointment to the emperor's want of power to punish him.
+Epagathus had headed a mutiny of the praetorian guards in Rome, in which
+their general Ulpian was killed; and Alexander, afraid to punish the
+murderers, made the ringleader of the rebels prefect of Egypt in order
+to send him out of the way; so little did it then seem necessary to
+follow the cautious policy of Augustus, or to fear a rebellion in that
+province. But after a short time, when Epagathus had been forgotten by
+the Roman legion, he was removed to the government of Crete, and then at
+last punished with death.
+
+In this reign Ammonius Saccas became the founder of a new and most
+important school of philosophy, that of the Alexandrian platonists. He
+is only known to us through his pupils, in whose writings we trace the
+mind and system of the teacher. The most celebrated of these pupils were
+Plotinus, Herennius, and Origen, a pagan writer, together with Longinus,
+the great master of the "sublime," who owns him his teacher in elegant
+literature. Ammonius was unequalled in the variety and depth of his
+knowledge, and was by his followers called heaven-taught. He aimed at
+putting an end to the triflings and quarrels of the philosophers by
+showing that all the great truths were the same in each system, and
+by pointing out where Plato and Aristotle agreed instead of where
+they differed; or rather by culling opinions out of both schools of
+philosophy, and by gathering together the scattered limbs of Truth,
+whose lovely form had been hewn to pieces and thrown to the four winds
+like the mangled body of Osiris.
+
+Origen in the tenth year of this reign (A.D. 231) withdrew to Caesarea,
+on finding himself made uncomfortable at Alexandria by the displeasure
+of Demetrius the bishop; and he left the care of the Christian school to
+Heraclas, who had been one of his pupils. Origen's opinions met with no
+blame in Caesarea, where Christianity was not yet so far removed from its
+early simplicity as in Egypt.
+
+The Christians of Syria and Palestine highly prized his teaching when
+it was no longer valued in Alexandria. He died at Tyre in the reign of
+Gallus.
+
+[Illustration: 149.jpg A MODERN SCRIBE]
+
+On the death of Demetrius, Heraclas, who had just before succeeded
+Origen in the charge of the Christian school, was chosen Bishop of
+Alexandria; and Christianity had by that time so far spread through the
+cities of Upper and Lower Egypt that he found it necessary to ordain
+twenty bishops under him, while three had been found enough by his
+predecessor. From his being the head of the bishops, who were all styled
+fathers, Heraclas received the title of _Papa_, pope or grandfather, the
+title afterwards used by the bishops of Rome.
+
+Among the presbyters ordained by Heraclas was Ammonius Saccas, the
+founder of the platonic school; but he afterwards forsook the religion
+of Jesus; and we must not mistake him for a second Alexandrian Christian
+of the name of Ammonius, who can hardly have been the same person as
+the former, for he never changed his religion, and was the author of
+the _Evangelical Canons_, a work afterwards continued by Eusebius of
+Caesarea.
+
+On the death of the Emperor Alexander, in A.D. 235, while Italy was
+torn to pieces by civil wars and by its generals' rival claims for the
+purple, the Alexandrians seem to have taken no part in the struggles,
+but to have acknowledged each emperor as soon as the news reached them
+that he had taken the title. In one year we find Alexandrian coins of
+Maximin and his son Maximus, with those of the two Gordians, who for a
+few weeks reigned in Carthage, and in the next year we again have coins
+of Maximin and Maximus, with those of Balbinus and Pupienus, and of
+Gordianus Pius.
+
+The Persians, taking advantage of the weakness in the empire caused by
+these civil wars, had latterly been harassing the eastern frontier; and
+it soon became the duty of the young Gordian to march against them
+in person. Hitherto the Roman armies had usually been successful; but
+unfortunately the Persians, or, rather, their Syrian and Arab allies,
+had latterly risen as much as the Romans had fallen off in courage and
+warlike skill. The army of Gordian was routed, and the emperor himself
+slain, either by traitors or by the enemy. Hereafter we shall see the
+Romans paying the just penalty for the example that they had set to
+the surrounding nations. They had taught them that conquest should be
+a people's chief aim, that the great use of strength was to crush
+a neighbour; and it was not long before Egypt and the other Eastern
+provinces suffered under the same treatment. So little had defeat
+been expected that the philosopher Plotinus had left his studies in
+Alexandria to join the army, in hopes of gaining for himself an insight
+into the Eastern philosophy that was so much talked of in Egypt. After
+the rout of the army he with difficulty escaped to Antioch, and thence
+he removed to Rome, where he taught the new platonism to scholars of all
+nations, including Serapion, the celebrated rhetorician, and Eustochius,
+the physician, from Alexandria.
+
+[Illustration: 151.jpg SYMBOL OF EGYPT]
+
+Philip, who is accused by the historians of being the author of
+Gordian's death, succeeded him on the throne in 244; but he is only
+known in the history of Egypt by his Alexandrian coins, which we find
+with the dates of each of the seven years of his reign, and these seem
+to prove that for one year he had been associated with Gordian in the
+purple. In the reign of Decius, which began in 249, the Christians of
+Egypt were again harassed by the zeal with which the laws against
+their religion were put in force. The persecution began by their
+fellow-citizens informing against them; but in the next year it was
+followed up by the prefect AEmilianus; and several Christians were
+summoned before the magistrate and put to death. Many fled for safety
+to the desert and to Mount Sinai, where they fell into a danger of a
+different kind; they were taken prisoners by the Saracens and carried
+away as slaves. Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria, himself fled from
+the storm, and was then banished to the village of Cephro in the desert.
+But his flight was not without some scandal to the Church, as there were
+not a few who thought that he was called upon by his rank at least to
+await, if not to court, the pains of martyrdom. Indeed, the persecution
+was less remarkable for the sufferings of the Christians than for the
+numbers who failed in their courage, and renounced Christianity under
+the threats of the magistrate. Dionysius, the bishop, who had shown no
+courage himself, was willing to pardon their weakness, and after fit
+proof of sorrow again to receive them as brethren. But his humanity
+offended the zeal of many whose distance from the danger had saved them
+from temptation; and it was found necessary to summon a council at Rome
+to settle the dispute. In this assembly the moderate party prevailed;
+and some who refused to receive back those who had once fallen away from
+the faith were themselves turned out of the Church.
+
+Dionysius had succeeded Heraclas in the bishopric, having before
+succeeded him as head of the catechetical school. He was the author of
+several works, written in defence of the trinitarian opinions, on the
+one hand against the Egyptian Gnostics, who said that there were eight,
+and even thirty, persons in the Godhead, and, on the other hand, against
+the Syrian bishop, Paul of Samosata, on the Euphrates, who said that
+Jesus was a man, and that the Word and Holy Spirit were not persons, but
+attributes, of God.
+
+But while Dionysius was thus engaged in a controversy with such opposite
+opinions, Egypt and Libya were giving birth to a new view of the
+trinity. Sabellius, Bishop of Ptolemais, near Cyrene, was putting forth
+the opinion that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were only three names
+for the one God, and that the creator of the world had himself appeared
+upon earth in the form of Jesus. Against this opinion Dionysius again
+engaged in controversy, arguing against Sabellius that Jesus was not the
+creator, but the first of created beings.
+
+The Christians were thus each generation changing more and more,
+sometimes leaning towards Greek polytheism and sometimes towards
+Egyptian mysticism. As in each quarrel the most mysterious opinions
+were thought the most sacred, each generation added new mysteries to
+its religion; and the progress was rapid, from a practical piety, to a
+profession of opinions which they did not pretend to understand.
+
+During the reigns of Gallus, of AEmilius AEmilianus, and of Valerian (A.D.
+251-260), the Alexandrians coined money in the name of each emperor as
+soon as the news reached Egypt that he had made Italy acknowledge his
+title. Gallus and his son reigned two years and four months; AEmilianus,
+who rebelled in Pannonia, reigned three months; and Valerian reigned
+about six years.
+
+Egypt, as a trading country, now suffered severely from the want
+of order and quiet government; and in particular since the reign
+of Alexander Severus it had been kept in a fever by rebellions,
+persecutions, and this unceasing change of rulers. Change brings the
+fear of change; and this fear checks trade, throws the labourer out of
+employment, and leaves the poor of the cities without wages and without
+food. Famine is followed by disease; and Egypt and Alexandria were
+visited in the reign of Gallus by a dreadful plague, one of those
+scourges that force themselves on the notice of the historian. It was
+probably the same disease that in a less frightful form had been not
+uncommon in that country and in the lower parts of Syria. The physician
+Aretaeus describes it under the name of ulcers on the tonsils. It seems
+by the letters of Bishop Dionysius that in Alexandria the population had
+so much fallen off that the inhabitants between the ages of fourteen
+and eighty were not more than those between forty and seventy had been
+formerly, as appeared by old records then existing. The misery that the
+city had suffered may be measured by its lessened numbers.
+
+During these latter years the eastern half of the empire was chiefly
+guarded by Odenathus of Palmyra, the brave and faithful ally of Rome,
+under whose wise rule his country for a short time held a rank among the
+empires of the world, which it never could have gained but for an union
+of many favourable circumstances. The city and little state of Palmyra
+is situated about midway between the cities of Damascus and Babylon.
+Separated from the rest of the world, between the Roman and the Parthian
+empires, Palmyra had long kept its freedom, while each of those great
+rival powers rather courted its friendship than aimed at conquering it.
+But, as the cause of Rome grew weaker, Odenathus wisely threw his weight
+into the lighter scale; and latterly, without aiming at conquest, he
+found himself almost the sovereign of those provinces of the Roman
+empire which were in danger of being overrun by the Persians. Valerian
+himself was conquered, taken prisoner, and put to death by Sapor, King
+of Persia; and Gallienus, his son, who was idling away his life in
+disgraceful pleasures in the West, wisely gave the title of emperor to
+Odenathus, and declared him his colleague on the throne.
+
+[Illustration: 155.jpg A HAREM WINDOW]
+
+No sooner was Valerian taken prisoner than every province of the Roman
+empire, feeling the sword powerless in the weak hands of Gallienus,
+declared its own general emperor; and when Macrianus, who had been
+left in command in Syria, gathered together the scattered forces of the
+Eastern army, and made himself emperor of the East, the Egyptians owned
+him as their sovereign. As Macrianus found his age too great for the
+activity required of a rebel emperor, he made his two sons, Macrianus,
+junior, and Quietus, his colleagues; and we find their names on the
+coins of Alexandria, dated the first and second years of their reign.
+But Macrianus was defeated by Dominitianus at the head of a part of the
+army of Aureolus, who had made himself emperor in Illyricum, and he lost
+his life, together with one of his sons, while the other soon afterwards
+met with the same fate from Odenathus.
+
+After this, Egypt was governed for a short time in the name of
+Gallienus; but the fickle Alexandrians soon made a rebel emperor for
+themselves. The Roman republic, says the historian, was often in
+danger from the headstrong giddiness of the Alexandrians. Any civility
+forgotten, a place in the baths not yielded, a heap of rubbish, or even
+a pair of old shoes in the streets, was often enough to throw the state
+into the greatest danger, and make it necessary to call out the troops
+to put down the riots. Thus, one day, one of the prefect's slaves was
+beaten by the soldiers, for saying that his shoes were better than
+theirs. On this a riotous crowd gathered round the house of AEmilianus to
+complain of the conduct of his soldiers. He was attacked with stones and
+such weapons as are usually within the reach of a mob. He had no choice
+but to call out the troops, who, when they had quieted the city and were
+intoxicated with their success, saluted him with the title of emperor;
+and hatred of Gallienus made the rest of the Egyptian army agree to
+their choice.
+
+This was in the year 265. The new emperor called himself Alexander, and
+was even thought to deserve the name. He governed Egypt during his short
+reign with great vigour. He led his army through the Thebaid, and drove
+back the barbarians with a courage and activity which had latterly been
+uncommon in the Egyptian army. Alexandria then sent no tribute to Rome.
+"Well! cannot we live without Egyptian linen?" was the forced joke of
+Gallienus, when the Romans were in alarm at the loss of the usual supply
+of grain. But AEmilianus was soon beaten by Theodotus, the general of
+Gallienus, who besieged him in the strong quarter of Alexandria called
+the Bruchium, and then took him prisoner and strangled him.
+
+During this siege the ministers of Christianity were able to lessen some
+of the horrors of war by persuading the besiegers to allow the useless
+mouths to quit the blockaded fortress. Eusebius, afterwards Bishop of
+Laodicea, was without the trenches trying to lessen the cruelties of the
+siege; and Anatolius, the Christian peripatetic, was within the walls,
+endeavouring to persuade the rebels to surrender. Gallienus in gratitude
+to his general would have granted him the honour of a proconsular
+triumph, to dazzle the eyes of the Alexandrians; but the policy of
+Augustus was not wholly forgotten, and the emperor was reminded by
+the priests that it was unlawful for the consular fasces to enter
+Alexandria.
+
+The late Emperor Valerian had begun his reign with mild treatment of
+the Christians; but he was overpersuaded by the Alexandrians. He then
+allowed the power of the magistrate to be used, in order to check the
+Christian religion. But in this weakness of the empire Gallienus could
+no longer with safety allow the Christians to be persecuted for their
+religion. Both their numbers and their station made it dangerous to
+treat them as enemies; and the emperor ordered all persecution to be
+stopped. The imperial rescript for that purpose was even addressed to
+"Dionysius, Pinna, Demetrius, and the other bishops;" it grants them
+full indulgence in the exercise of their religion, and by its very
+address almost acknowledges their rank in the state. By this edict of
+Gallienus the Christians were put on a better footing than at any time
+since their numbers brought them under the notice of the magistrate.
+
+[Illustration: 158b.jpg EGYPTIAN SLAVE]
+
+     From the painting by Siefert
+
+When the bishop Dionysius returned to Alexandria, he found the place
+sadly ruined by the late siege. The middle of the city was a vast waste.
+It was easier, he says, to go from one end of Egypt to the other than to
+cross the main street which divided the Bruchium from the western end
+of Alexandria. The place was still marked with all the horrors of last
+week's battle. Then, as usual, disease and famine followed upon war. Not
+a house was without a funeral. Death was everywhere to be seen in its
+most ghastly form. Bodies were left un-buried in the streets to be eaten
+by the dogs. Men ran away from their sickening friends in fear. As the
+sun set they felt in doubt whether they should be alive to see it
+rise in the morning. Cowards hid their alarms in noisy amusements and
+laughter. Not a few in very despair rushed into riot and vice. But the
+Christians clung to one another in brotherly love; they visited the
+sick; they laid out and buried their dead; and many of them thereby
+caught the disease themselves, and died as martyrs to the strength of
+their faith and love.
+
+As long as Odenathus lived, the victories of the Palmyrenes were always
+over the enemies of Rome; but on his assassination, together with his
+son Herodes, though the armies of Palmyra were still led to battle
+with equal courage, its counsels were no longer guided with the same
+moderation.
+
+[Illustraton: 159.jpg COINS OF ZENOBIA]
+
+Zenobia, the widow of Odenathus, seized the command of the army for
+herself and her infant sons, Herennius and Timolaus; and her masculine
+courage and stern virtues well qualified her for the bold task that she
+had undertaken. She threw off the friendship of Rome, and routed the
+armies which Gallienus sent against her; and, claiming to be descended
+from Cleopatra, she marched upon Egypt, in 268 A.D., to seize the throne
+of her ancestors, and to add that kingdom to Syria and Asia Minor, which
+she already possessed.
+
+Zenobia's army was led by her general, Zabda, who was joined by an
+Egyptian named Timogenes; and, with seventy thousand Palmyrenes,
+Syrians, and other barbarians, they routed the Roman army of fifty
+thousand Egyptians under Probatus. The unfortunate Roman general put an
+end to his own life; but nevertheless the Palmyrenes were unsuccessful,
+and Egypt followed the example of Rome, and took the oaths to Claudius.
+For three years the coins of Alexandria bear the name of that emperor.
+
+On the death of Claudius, his brother Quintillus assumed the purple in
+Europe (A.D. 270); and though he only reigned for seventeen days the
+Alexandrian mint found time to engrave new dies and to issue coined
+money in his name.
+
+On the death of Claudius, also, the Palmyrenes renewed their attacks
+upon Egypt, and this second time with success. The whole kingdom
+acknowledged Zenobia as their queen; and in the fourth and fifth years
+of her reign in Palmyra we find her name on the Alexandrian coins. The
+Greeks, who had been masters of Egypt for six hundred years, either in
+their own name or in that of the Roman emperors, were then for the first
+time governed by an Asiatic. Palmyra in the desert was then ornamented
+with the spoils of Egypt; and travellers yet admire the remains of eight
+large columns of red porphyry, each thirty feet high, which stood in
+front of the two gates to the great temple. They speak for themselves,
+and tell their own history. From their material and form and size we
+must suppose that these columns were quarried between Thebes and the Red
+Sea, were cut into shape by Egyptian workmen under the guidance of Greek
+artists in the service of the Roman emperors; and were thence carried
+away by the Syrian queen to the oasis-city in the desert between
+Damascus and Babylon.
+
+[Illustration: 161.jpg COIN OF ATHENODORUS]
+
+Zenobia was a handsome woman of a dark complexion, with an aquiline
+nose, quick, piercing eyes, and a masculine voice. She had the
+commanding qualities of Cleopatra, from whom her flatterers traced her
+descent, and she was without her vices. While Syriac was her native
+tongue, she was not ignorant of Latin, which she was careful to have
+taught to her children; she carried on her government in Greek, and
+could speak Koptic with the Egyptians, whose history she had studied
+and written upon. In her dress and manners she joined the pomp of the
+Persian court to the self-denial and military virtues of a camp. With
+these qualities, followed by a success in arms which they seemed to
+deserve, the world could not help remarking, that while Gallienus was
+wasting his time with fiddlers and players, in idleness that would have
+disgraced a woman, Zenobia was governing her half of the empire like a
+man.
+
+Zenobia made Antioch and Palmyra the capitals of her empire, and Egypt
+became for the time a province of Syria. Her religion like her language
+was Syriac. The name of her husband, Odenathus, means sacred to the
+goddess Adoneth, and that of her son, Vaballathus, means sacred to the
+goddess Baaleth. But as her troops were many of them Saracens or Arabs,
+a people nearly the same as the Blemmyes, who already formed part of the
+people of Upper Egypt, this conquest gave a new rank to that part of
+the population; and had the further result, important in after years,
+of causing them to be less quiet in their slavery to the Greeks of
+Alexandria.
+
+But the sceptre of Rome had lately been grasped by the firmer hand of
+Aurelian, and the reign of Zenobia drew to a close. Aurelian at first
+granted her the title of his colleague in the empire, and we find
+Alexandrian coins with her head on one side and his on the other. But
+he lost no time in leading his forces into Syria, and, after routing
+Zenobia's army in one or two battles, he took her prisoner at Emessa.
+He then led her to Rome, where, after being made the ornament of his
+triumph, she was allowed to spend the rest of her days in quiet, having
+reigned for four years in Palmyra, though only for a few months in
+Egypt.
+
+On the defeat of Zenobia it would seem that Egypt and Syria were
+still left under the government of one of her sons, with the title of
+colleague of Aurelian. The Alexandrian coins are then dated in the first
+year of Aurelian and the fourth of Vaballathus, or, according to the
+Greek translation of this name, of Athenodorus, who counted his years
+from the death of Odenathus.
+
+The young Herodes, who had been killed with his father Odenathus, was
+not the son of Zenobia, but of a former wife, and Zenobia always
+acted towards him with the unkindness unfortunately too common in a
+stepmother. She had claimed the throne for her infant sons, Herennius
+and Timolaus; and we are left in doubt by the historians about
+Vaballathus; Vopiscus, who calls him the son of Zenobia, does not tell
+us who was his father. We know but little of him beyond his coins; but
+from these we learn that, after reigning one year with Aurelian, he
+aimed at reigning alone, took the title of Augustus, and dropped the
+name of Aurelian from his coins. This step was very likely the cause of
+his overthrow and death, which happened in the year 271.
+
+On the overthrow of Zenobia's family, Egypt, which had been so fruitful
+in rebels, submitted to the Emperor Aurelian, but it was only for a few
+months. The Greeks of Alexandria, now lessened in numbers, were found to
+be no longer masters of the kingdom. Former rebellions in Egypt had
+been caused by the two Roman legions and the Greek mercenaries sometimes
+claiming the right to appoint an emperor to the Roman world; but
+Zenobia's conquest had raised the Egyptian and Arab population in
+their own opinion, and they were no longer willing to be governed by an
+Alexandrian or European master. In 272 A.D. they set up Firmus, a native
+of Seleucia, who took the title of emperor; and, resting his power
+on that part of the population that had been treated as slaves
+or barbarians for six hundred years, he aimed at the conquest of
+Alexandria.
+
+Firmus was a man of great size and bodily strength, and, of course,
+barbarian manners. He had gained great riches by trade with India; and
+had a paper trade so profitable that he used to boast that he could feed
+an army on papyrus and glue. His house was furnished with glass windows,
+a luxury then but little known, and the squares of glass were fastened
+into the frames by means of bitumen. His chief strength was in the Arabs
+or Blemmyes of Upper Egypt, and in the Saracens who had lately been
+fighting against Rome under the standard of Zenobia. Firmus fixed his
+government at Koptos and Ptolemais, and held all Upper Egypt; but he
+either never conquered Alexandria, or did not hold it for many months,
+as for every year that he reigned in the Thebaid we find Alexandrian
+coins bearing the name of Aurelian. Firmus was at last conquered by
+Aurelian in person, who took him prisoner, and had him tortured and then
+put to death. During these troubles Rome had been thrown into alarm at
+the thoughts of losing the usual supply of Egyptian grain, as since the
+reign of Elagabalus the Roman granaries had never held more than was
+wanted for the year; but Aurelian hastened to send word to the Roman
+people that the country was again quiet, and that the yearly supplies,
+which had been delayed by the wickedness of Firmus, would soon arrive.
+Had Firmus raised the Roman legions in rebellion, he would have been
+honoured with the title of a rebel emperor; but, as his power rested on
+the Egyptians and Arabs, Aurelian only boasted that he had rid the world
+of a robber.
+
+[Illustration: 164.jpg STREET VENDORS IN METAL WARE]
+
+Another rebel emperor about this time was Domitius Domitiamis; but we
+have no certain knowledge of the year in which he rebelled, nor, indeed,
+without the help of the coins should we know in what province of the
+whole Roman empire he had assumed the purple. The historian only tells
+us that in the reign of Aurelian the general Domitianus was put to
+death for aiming at a change. We learn, however, from the coins that he
+reigned for part of a first and a second year in Egypt; but the subject
+of his reign is not without its difficulties, as we find Alexandrian
+coins of Domitianus with Latin inscriptions, and dated in the third year
+of his reign. The Latin language had not at this time been used on the
+coins of Alexandria; and he could not have held Alexandria for any
+one whole year, as the series of Aurelian's coins is not broken. It is
+possible that the Latin coins of Domitianus may belong to a second and
+later usurper of the same name.
+
+Aurelian had reigned in Rome from the death of Claudius; and,
+notwithstanding the four rebels to whom we have given the title of
+sovereigns of Egypt, money was coined in Alexandria in his name during
+each of those years. His coinage, however, reminds us of the troubled
+and fallen state of the country; and from this time forward copper, or,
+rather, brass, is the only metal used.
+
+Aurelian left Probus in the command of the Egyptian army, and that
+general's skill and activity found full employment in driving back the
+barbarians who pressed upon the province on each of the three sides on
+which it was open to attack.
+
+[Illustration: 165.jpg COIN OF DOMITIANUS WITH LATIN INSCRIPTION]
+
+His first battles were against the Africans and Marmaridae, who were
+in arms on the side of Cyrene, and he next took the field against the
+Palmyrenes and Saracens, who still claimed Egypt in the name of the
+family of Zenobia. He employed the leisure of his soldiers in many
+useful works; in repairing bridges, temples, and porticoes, and more
+particularly in widening the trenches and keeping open the canals, and
+in such other works as were of use in raising and forwarding the yearly
+supply of grain to Rome. Aurelian increased the amount of the Egyptian
+tribute, which was paid in glass, paper, linen, hemp, and grain; the
+latter he increased by one-twelfth part, and he placed a larger number
+of ships on the voyage to make the supply certain.
+
+The Christians were well treated during this reign, and their patriarch
+Nero so far took courage as to build the Church of St. Mary in
+Alexandria. This was probably the first church that was built in Egypt
+for the public service of Christianity, which for two hundred years had
+been preached in private rooms, and very often in secret. The service
+was in Greek, as, indeed, it was in all parts of Egypt: for it does
+not appear that Christian prayers were publicly read in the Egyptian
+language before the quarrel between the two churches made the Kopts
+unwilling to use Greek prayers. The liturgy there read was probably very
+nearly the same as that afterwards known as the _Liturgy of St. Mark_.
+This is among the oldest of the Christian liturgies, and it shows its
+country by the prayer that the waters of the river may rise to their
+just measure, and that rain may be sent from heaven to the countries
+that need it.
+
+We learn from the historians that eight months were allowed to pass
+between the death of Aurelian and the choice of a successor; and during
+this time the power rested in the hands of his widow. The sway of a
+woman was never openly acknowledged in Rome, but the Alexandrians and
+Egyptians were used to female rule, and from contemporary coins we learn
+that in Egypt the government was carried on in the name of the Empress
+Severina. The last coins of Aurelian bear the date of the sixth year of
+his reign, and the coins of Severina are dated in the sixth and seventh
+years. But after Tacitus was chosen emperor by his colleagues of the
+Roman senate, and during his short reign of six months (A.D. 276), his
+authority was obeyed by the Egyptian legions under Probus, as is fully
+proved by the Alexandrian coins bearing his name, all dated in the first
+year of his reign.
+
+[Illustration: 167.jpg COIN OF SEVERINA]
+
+On the death of Tacitus, his brother Florian hoped to succeed to the
+imperial power, and was acknowledged in the same year by the senate and
+troops of Rome. But when the news reached Egypt it was at once felt by
+the legions that Probus, both by his own personal qualities and by the
+high state of discipline of the army under his command, and by his
+success against the Egyptian rebels, had a better claim to the purple
+than any other general. At first the opinion ran round the camp in a
+whisper, and at last the army spoke the general wish aloud; they
+snatched a purple cloak from a statue in one of the temples to throw
+over him, they placed him on an earthen mound as a tribunal, and against
+his will saluted him with the title of emperor. The choice of the
+Egyptian legions was soon approved of by Asia Minor, Syria, and Italy;
+Florian was put to death, and Probus shortly afterwards marched into
+Gaul and Germany, to quiet those provinces.
+
+After a year or two, Probus was recalled into Egypt by hearing that the
+Blemmyes had risen in arms, and that Upper Egypt was again independent
+of the Roman power. Not only Koptos, which had for centuries been an
+Arab city, but even Ptolemais, the Greek capital of the Thebaid, was now
+peopled by those barbarians, and they had to be reconquered by Probus
+as foreign cities, and kept in obedience by Roman garrisons; and on his
+return to Rome he thought his victories over the Blemmyes of Upper Egypt
+not unworthy of a triumph.
+
+By these unceasing wars, the Egyptian legions had lately been brought
+into a high state of discipline, and, confident in their strength, and
+in the success with which they had made their late general emperor of
+the Roman world, they now attempted to raise up a rival to him in the
+person of their present general Saturninus. Saturninus had been made
+general of the Eastern frontier by Aurelian, who had given him strict
+orders never to enter Egypt. "The Egyptians," says the historian,
+meaning, however, the Alexandrians, "are boastful, vain, spiteful,
+licentious, fond of change, clever in making songs and epigrams against
+their rulers, and much given to soothsaying and augury." Aurelian well
+knew that the loyalty of a successful general was not to be trusted in
+Egypt, and during his lifetime Saturninus never entered that province.
+But after his death, when Probus was called away to the other parts of
+the empire, the government of Egypt was added to the other duties of
+Saturninus; and no sooner was he seen there, at the head of an army that
+seemed strong enough to enforce his wishes, than the fickle Alexandrians
+saluted him with the title of emperor and Augustus. But Saturninus was
+a wise man, and shunned the dangerous honour; he had hitherto fought
+always for his country; he had saved the provinces of Spain, Gaul, and
+Africa from the enemy or from rebellion; and he knew the value of his
+rank and character too well to fling it away for a bauble. To escape
+from further difficulties he withdrew from Egypt, and moved his
+headquarters into Palestine. But the treasonable cheers of the
+Alexandrians could neither be forgotten by himself nor by his troops;
+he had withstood the calls of ambition, but he yielded at last to his
+fears; he became a rebel for fear of being thought one, and he declared
+himself emperor as the safest mode of escaping punishment. But he
+was soon afterwards defeated and strangled, against the will of the
+forgiving Probus.
+
+On the death of Probus, in A.D. 283, the empire fell to Carus and his
+sons, Numerianus and Carinus, whose names are found on the Alexandrian
+coins, but whose short reigns have left no other trace in Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 169.jpg COIN OF TRAJAN'S SECOND LEGION]
+
+At this time also we find upon the coins the name of Trajan's second
+Egyptian legion, which was at all times stationed in Egypt, and which,
+acting upon an authority that was usually granted to the Roman legions
+in the various provinces, coined money of several kinds for their own
+pay.
+
+The reign of Diocletian, beginning in A.D. 285, was one of suffering to
+the Egyptians; and in the fourth year the people rose against the Roman
+government, and gave the title of emperor to Achilleus, their leader
+in the rebellion. Galerius, the Roman general, led an army against the
+rebels, and marched through the whole of the Thebaid; but, though the
+Egyptians were routed whenever they were bold enough to meet the legions
+in battle, yet the rebellion was not very easily crushed. The Romans
+were scarcely obeyed beyond the spot on which their army was encamped.
+In the fourth year of the rebellion, A.D. 292, Diocletian came to Egypt,
+and the cities of Koptos and Busiris were besieged by the emperor in
+person, and wholly destroyed after a regular siege.
+
+When Diocletian reached the southern limits of Egypt he was able to
+judge of the difficulty, and indeed the uselessness, of trying to hold
+any part of Ethiopia; and he found that the tribute levied there was
+less than the cost of the troops required to collect it. He therefore
+made a new treaty with the Nobatae, as the people between the first and
+second cataracts were now called. He gave up to them the whole of Lower
+Ethiopia, or the province called Nubia. The valley for seventy miles
+above Syene, which bore the name of the Dodecaschonos, had been held by
+Augustus and his successors, and this was now given up to the original
+inhabitants. Diocletian strengthened the fortifications on the isle
+of Elephantine, to guard what was thenceforth the uttermost point of
+defence, and agreed to pay to the Nobatae and Blemmyes a yearly sum of
+gold on the latter promising no longer to harass Upper Egypt with their
+marauding inroads, and on the former promising to forbid the Blemmyes
+from doing so. What remains of the Roman wall built against the inroads
+of these troublesome neighbours runs along the edge of the cultivated
+land on the east side of the river for some distance to the north of the
+cataract. But so much was the strength of the Greek party lessened, and
+so deeply rooted among the Egyptians was their hatred of their rulers
+and the belief that they should then be able to throw off the yoke,
+that soon afterwards Alexandria declared in favour of Achilleus, and
+Diocletian was again called to Egypt to regain the capital. Such was
+the strength of the rebels that the city could not be taken without
+a regular siege. Diocletian surrounded it with a ditch and wall, and
+turned aside the canals that supplied the citizens with water. After a
+tedious siege of eight months, Alexandria was at last taken by storm in
+297, and Achilleus was put to death. A large part of the city was burnt
+at the storming, nor would the punishment of the citizens have there
+ended, but for Diocletian's humane interpretation of an accident. The
+horse on which he sat stumbled as he entered the city with his troops,
+and he had the humanity to understand it as a command from heaven that
+he should stop the pillage of the city; and the citizens in gratitude
+erected near the spot a bronze statue of the horse to which they owed so
+much. This statue has long since been lost, but we cannot be mistaken in
+the place where it stood. The lofty column in the centre of the temple
+of Serapis, now well known by the name of Pompey's Pillar,* once held a
+statue on the top, and on the base it still bears the inscription of
+the grateful citizens, "To the most honoured emperor, the saviour of
+Alexandria, the unconquerable Diocletian."
+
+     * See Volume X., page 317.
+
+This rebellion had lasted more than nine years, and the Egyptians seemed
+never in want of money for the purposes of the war. Diocletian was
+struck with their riches, and he ordered a careful search to be made
+through Egypt for all writings on alchemy, an art which the Egyptians
+studied together with magic and astrology. These books he ordered to be
+burnt, under a belief that they were the great sources of the riches by
+which his own power had been resisted. Want and misery no doubt caused
+this rebellion, but the rebellion certainly caused more want and misery.
+The navigation of the Nile was stopped, the canals were no longer kept
+cleared, the fields were badly tilled, trade and manufactures were
+ruined. Since the rebellions against the Persians, Egypt had never
+suffered so much. It had been sadly changed by the troubles of the last
+sixty years, during which it had been six times in arms against Rome;
+and when the rebellion was put down by Diocletian, it was no longer
+the same country that it had been under the Antonines. The framework of
+society had been shaken, the Greeks had lessened in numbers, and still
+more in weight. The fall of the Ptolemies, and the conquest by Rome, did
+not make so great a change. The bright days of Egypt as a Greek
+kingdom began with the building of Alexandria, and they ended with
+the rebellions against Gallienus, Aurelian and Diocletian. The native
+Egyptians, both Kopts and Arabs, now rise into more notice, as the Greek
+civilisation sinks around them. And soon the upper classes among the
+Kopts, to avoid the duty of maintaining a family of children in such
+troubled times, rush by thousands into monasteries and convents, and
+further lessen the population by their religious vows of celibacy. In
+the twelfth year of the reign, that in which Alexandria rebelled and
+the siege was begun, the Egyptian coinage for the most part ceased.
+Henceforth, though money was often coined in Alexandria as in every
+other great city of the empire, the inscriptions were usually in Latin,
+and the designs the same as those on the coins of Rome. In taking leave
+of this long and valuable series of coins with dates, which has been
+our guide in the chronology of these reigns, we must not forget to
+acknowledge how much we owe to the labours of the learned Zoega. In
+his _Numi AEgypti Imperatorii_, the mere descriptions, almost without a
+remark, speak the very words of history.
+
+The reign of Diocletian is chiefly remarkable for the new law which was
+then made against the Christians, and for the cruel severity with which
+it was put into force. The issuing of this edict in 304 A.D., which was
+to root out Christianity from the world, took place in the twentieth
+year of the reign, according to the Alexandrians, or in the nineteenth
+year after the emperor's first installation as consul, as years were
+reckoned in the other parts of the empire. The churches, which since
+the reign of Gallienus had been everywhere rising, were ordered to be
+destroyed and the Bibles to be burnt, while banishment, slavery, and
+death were the punishments threatened against those who obstinately
+clung to their religion. In no province of the empire was the
+persecution more severe than in Egypt; and many Christians fled to
+Syria, where the law, though the same, was more mildly carried into
+execution. But the Christians were too numerous to fly and too few
+to resist. The ecclesiastical writers present us with a sad tale of
+tortures and of death borne by those who refused to renounce their
+faith,--a tale which is only made less sad by the doubt how far
+the writers' feelings may have misled their judgment, and made them
+overstate the numbers.
+
+But we may safely rely upon the account which Eusebius gives us of what
+he himself saw in Egypt. Many were put to death on the same day, some
+beheaded and some burnt. The executioners were tired, and the hearts of
+the pagan judges melted by the unflinching firmness of the Christians.
+Many who were eminent for wealth, rank, and learning chose to lay down
+their lives rather than throw a few grains of wheat upon the altar, or
+comply with any ceremony that was required of them as a religious test.
+The judges begged them to think of their wives and children, and pointed
+out that they were the cause of their own death; but the Christians were
+usually firm, and were beheaded for the refusal to take the test.
+Among the most celebrated of the Egyptian martyrs were Peter, Bishop of
+Alexandria, with Faustus, Dius, and Ammonius, presbyters under him;
+the learned Phileas, Bishop of Thmuis, Hesychius, the editor of the
+Septuagint, and the Bishops Pachomius and Theodorus; though the pagans
+must have been still more surprised at Philoromus, the receiver-general
+of the taxes at Alexandria. This man, after the prefect of Egypt and
+the general of the troops, was perhaps the highest Roman officer in the
+province. He sat in public as a judge in Alexandria, surrounded by a
+guard of soldiers, daily deciding all causes relating to the taxes of
+Egypt. He was accused of no crime but that of being a Christian, which
+he was earnestly entreated to deny, and was at liberty indirectly to
+disprove by joining in some pagan sacrifice. The Bishops of Alexandria
+and Thmuis may have been strengthened under their trials by their rank
+in the church, by having themselves urged others to do their duty in the
+same case, but the receiver-general of the taxes could have had nothing
+to encourage him but the strength of his faith and a noble scorn of
+falsehood; he was reproached or ridiculed by all around him, but he
+refused to deny his religion, and was beheaded as a common criminal.
+
+The ready ministers of this persecution were Culeianus, the prefect of
+the Thebaid, and Hierocles, the prefect of Alexandria. The latter
+was peculiarly well chosen for the task; he added the zeal of the
+theologian to the ready obedience of the soldier. He had written against
+the Christians a work named _Philalethes_ (the lover of truth), which we
+now know only in the answer by Eusebius of Caesarea. In this he denounced
+the apostles as impostors, and the Christian miracles as trifling; and,
+comparing them with the pretended miracles of Apollonius of Tyana,
+he pronounced the latter more numerous, more important, and better
+authenticated than the former by the evangelists; and he ridiculed
+the Christians for calling Jesus a god, while the pagans did not raise
+Apollonius higher than a man beloved by the gods.
+
+This persecution under Diocletian was one of the most severe that the
+Christians ever underwent from the Romans. It did not, however, wholly
+stop the religious services, nor break up the regular government of the
+Church. In the catechetical school, Pierius, whom we have before spoken
+of as a man of learning, was succeeded by Theognostus and then by
+Serapion, whose name reminds us that the Egyptian party was gaining
+weight in the Alexandrian church. It can hardly have been for his
+superior learning, it may have been because his opinions were becoming
+more popular than those of the Greeks, that a professor with an Egyptian
+name was placed at the head of the catechetical school. Serapion was
+succeeded by Peter, who afterwards gained the bishopric of Alexandria
+and a martyr's crown. But these men were little known beyond their
+lecture-room. In the twentieth year of the reign, on the death of Peter,
+the Bishop of Alexandria, who lost his life as a martyr, the presbyters
+of the church met to choose a successor. Among their number was Arius,
+whose name afterwards became so famous in ecclesiastical history, and
+who had already, even before he was ordained a priest, offended many by
+the bold manner in which he stated his religious opinions. But upon him,
+if we may believe a partial historian, the majority of votes fell in
+the choice of a patriarch of Alexandria, and had he not himself modestly
+given way to the more ambitious Alexander, he might perhaps have been
+saved from the treatment which he afterwards suffered from his rival.
+
+When, in the year 305, Diocletian and his colleague, Valerius Maximian,
+resigned the purple, Egypt with the rest of the East was given to
+Galerius, who had also as Caesar been named Maximian on his Egyptian
+coins, while Constantius Chlorus ruled the West. Galerius in 307 granted
+some slight indulgence to the Christians without wholly stopping
+the persecution. But all favour was again withdrawn from them by his
+successor Maximin, who had indeed misgoverned Egypt for some years,
+under the title of Caesar, before the rank of Augustus was granted to
+him. He encouraged private informers, he set townsman against townsman;
+and, as the wishes of the emperor are quickly understood by all under
+him, those who wished for his favour courted it by giving him an excuse
+for his cruelties. The cities sent up petitions to him, begging that the
+Christians might not be allowed to have churches within their walls. The
+history of these reigns indeed is little more than the history of the
+persecutions; and when the Alexandrian astronomers, dropping the era of
+Augustus, began to date from the first year of Diocletian, the Christian
+writers in the same way dated from the Era of the Martyrs.
+
+It can be no matter of surprise to us that, in a persecution which
+threatened all classes of society, there should have been many who, when
+they were accused of being Christians, wanted the courage to undergo
+the pains of martyrdom, and escaped the punishment by joining in a pagan
+sacrifice. When the storm was blown over, these men again asked to be
+received into the Church, and their conduct gave rise to the very
+same quarrel that had divided the Christians in the reign of Decius.
+Meletius, a bishop of the Thebaid, was at the head of the party who
+would make no allowance for the weakness of their brethren, and who
+refused to grant to the repentant the forgiveness that they asked for.
+He had himself borne the same trials without bending, he had been
+sent as a criminal to work in the Egyptian mines, and had returned to
+Alexandria from his banishment, proud of his sufferings and furious
+against those who had escaped through cowardice. But the larger part of
+the bishops were of a more forgiving nature; they could not all boast of
+the same constancy, and the repentant Christians were re-admitted
+into communion with the faithful, while the followers of Meletius were
+branded with the name of heretics.
+
+In Alexandria, Meletius soon found another and, as it proved, a more
+memorable occasion for the display of his zeal. He has the unenviable
+honour of being the author of the great Arian quarrel, by accusing of
+heresy Arius, at that time a presbyter of the church of Baucala near
+Alexandria, and by calling upon Alexander, the bishop, to inquire into
+his belief, and to condemn it if found unsound. Arius frankly and openly
+acknowledged his opinions: he thought Jesus a created being, and would
+speak of him in no higher terms than those used in the New Testament
+and Apostles' Creed, and defended his opinions by an appeal to the
+Scriptures. But he soon found that his defence was thought weak,
+and, without waiting to be condemned, he withdrew before the storm to
+Palestine, where he remained till summoned before the council of Nicaea
+in the coming reign.
+
+It was during these reigns of trouble, about which history is sadly
+silent, when Greek learning was sinking, and after the country had
+been for a year or two in the power of the Syrians, that the worship of
+Mithra was brought into Alexandria, where superstitious ceremonies and
+philosophical subtleties were equally welcome. Mithra was the Persian
+god of the sun; and in the system of two gods, one good and the other
+wicked, he was the god of goodness.
+
+[Illustration: 179.jpg SYMBOL OF MITHRA]
+
+The chief symbol in his worship was the figure of a young hero in
+Phrygian cap and trousers, mounted on a sinking bull, and stabbing it
+in sacrifice to the god. In a deserted part of Alexandria, called the
+Mithrium, his rites were celebrated among ruins and rubbish; and his
+ignorant followers were as ignorantly accused of there slaying their
+fellow-citizens on his altars.
+
+It was about the same time that the eastern doctrine of Manicheism was
+said to have been brought into Egypt by Papus, and Thomas or Hernias.
+This sect, if sect it may be called, owed its origin to a certain
+Majus Mani, banished from Persia under the Sassanides; this Mani was
+a talented man, highly civilised through his studies and voyages in
+distant lands. In his exile he conceived the idea of putting himself
+forward as the reformer of the religions of all the peoples he had
+visited, and of reducing them all to one universal religion. Banished by
+the Christians, to whom he represented himself as the divinely inspired
+apostle of Jesus, in whom the Comforter had appeared, he returned to
+Persia, taking with him a book of the Gospels adorned by extraordinary
+paintings. Here he obtained at first the favour of the king and the
+people, till finally, after many changes of fortune, he was pursued by
+the magi, and convicted in a solemn disputation of falsifying religion;
+he was condemned to the terrible punishment of being flayed alive, after
+which his skin was to be stuffed and hung up over the gates of the
+royal city. His teaching consisted in a mixture of Persian and
+Christian-Gnostic views; its middle final point was the dualism of good
+and evil which rules in the world and in the human breast.
+
+According to Mani's creed, there were originally two principles, God in
+His kingdom of light, and the demon with his kingdom of darkness, and
+these two principles existed independently of each other. The powers
+of evil fell into strife with each other, until, hurled away by their
+inward confusion, they reached the outermost edge of their own kingdom,
+and from there beheld the kingdom of light in all its glory. Now they
+ceased their strife among themselves and united to do battle to the
+kingdom of light. To meet them, God created the "original man" who,
+armed with the five pure elements, light, fire, air, water, and earth,
+advanced to meet the hostile powers. He was defeated, though finally
+saved; but a part of his light had thus made its way into the realm of
+darkness. In order gradually to regain this light, God caused the mother
+of life to create the visible world, in which that light lies hidden as
+a living power or world-soul awaiting its deliverance from the bonds of
+matter. In order to accomplish this redemption, two new beings of light
+proceed from God, viz.: Christ and the Holy Ghost, of whom the former,
+Christus Mithras, has his abode in the sun and moon, the latter in the
+ether diffused around the entire world. Both attract the powers of light
+which have sunk into the material world in order to lead them back,
+finally, into the everlasting realm of light. To oppose them, however,
+the demons created a new being, viz.: man, after the example of the
+"original man," and united in him the clearest light and the darkness
+peculiar to themselves, in order that the great strife might be renewed
+in his breast, and so man became the point of union of all the forces in
+the universe, the microcosm in which two principles ever strive for the
+mastery. Through the enticements of the material and the illusions
+of the demon, the soul of light was held in bondage in spite of its
+indwelling capacity for freedom, so that in heathenism and Judaism the
+"son of everlasting light," as the soul of the universe, was chained
+to matter. In order to accomplish this work of redemption more quickly,
+Christ finally leaves his throne at God's right hand, and appears
+on earth, truly in human form, but only with an apparent body; his
+suffering and death on the cross are but illusions for the multitude,
+although historical facts, and they serve at the same time as a symbol
+of the light imprisoned in matter, and as a typical expression of
+the suffering, poured out over the whole of nature (especially in the
+plant-world), of the great physical _weltschmerz_. Christ, through his
+teaching and power of attraction, began the deliverance of the light,
+so that one can truly say that the salvation of the world proceeds
+from rays which stream from the Cross; as, however, his teachings
+were conceived by the apostles in a Jewish sense, and the Gospels
+were disfigured, Mani appeared as the comforter promised by Christ
+to accomplish the victory. In his writings only is the pure truth
+preserved. Finally there will be a complete separation of the light from
+the darkness, and then the powers of darkness will fall upon each other
+again.
+
+The ignorant in all ages of Christianity seem to have held nearly the
+same opinion in one form or other, thinking that sin has arisen either
+from a wicked being or from the wickedness of the flesh itself. The Jews
+alone proclaimed that God created good and God created evil. But we know
+of few writers who have ever owned themselves Manicheans, though many
+have been reproached as such; their doctrine is now known only in the
+works written against it. Of all heresies among the Christians this is
+the one most denounced by the ecclesiastical writers, and most severely
+threatened by the laws when the law makers became Christian; and of
+all the accusations of the angry controversialists this was the most
+reproachful. We might almost think that the numerous fathers who have
+written against the Manicheans must have had an easy victory when the
+enemy never appeared in the field, when their writings were scarcely
+answered, or their arguments denied; but perhaps a juster view would
+lead us to remark how much the writers, as well as the readers, must
+have felt the difficulty of accounting for the origin of evil, since men
+have run into such wild opinions to explain it.
+
+Another heresy, which for a time made even as much noise as the last,
+was that of Hieracas of Leontopolis. Even in Egypt, where for two
+thousand years it had been the custom to make the bodies of the dead
+into mummies, to embalm them against the day of resurrection, a custom
+which had been usually practised by the Christians, this native Egyptian
+ventured to teach that nothing but the soul would rise from the dead,
+and that we must look forward to only a spiritual resurrection. Hieracas
+was a man of some learning, and, much to the vexation of those who
+opposed his arguments, he could repeat nearly the whole Bible by heart.
+
+The Bishop Hesychius, the martyr in the late persecution, was one of
+the learned men of the time. He had published a new edition of the
+Septuagint Old Testament, and also of the New Testament. This edition
+was valued and chiefly used in Egypt, while that by Lucianus,
+who suffered in the same persecution, was read in Asia Minor from
+Constantinople to Antioch, and the older edition by Origen remained in
+use in Palestine. But such was the credit of Alexandria, as the chief
+seat of Christian learning, that distant churches sent there for
+copies of the Scriptures, foreign translations were mostly made from
+Alexandrian copies, and the greater number of Christians even now read
+the Bible according to the edition by Hesychius. We must, however, fear
+that these editors were by no means judicious in their labours.
+
+[Illustration: 184.jpg DOME PALM OF UPPER EGYPT]
+
+From the text itself we can learn that the early copiers of the Bible
+thought those manuscripts most valuable which were most full. Many a
+gloss and marginal note got written into the text. Their devotional
+feelings blinded their critical judgment; and they never ventured to put
+aside a modern addition as spurious. This mistaken view of their
+duty had of old guided the Hebrew copiers in Jerusalem; and though in
+Alexandria a juster criticism had been applied to the copies of Homer,
+it was not thought proper to use the same good sense when making copies
+of the Bible. So strong was the habit of grafting the additions into
+the text that the Greek translation became more copious than the Hebrew
+original, as the Latin soon afterwards became more copious than the
+Greek.
+
+It was about this time, at least after Theodotion's translation of
+Daniel had received the sanction of the Alexandrian church, and when the
+teachers of Christianity found willing hearers in every city of Egypt,
+that the Bible was translated into the language of the country. We have
+now parts of several Koptic versions. They are translated closely, and
+nearly word by word from the Greek; and, being meant for a people among
+whom that language had been spoken for centuries, about one word in five
+is Greek. The Thebaic and Bashmuric versions may have been translated
+from the edition by Hesychius; but the Koptic version seems older, and
+its value to the Biblical critic is very great, as it helps us, with
+the quotations in Origen and Clemens, to distinguish the edition of
+the sacred text which was then used in Alexandria, and is shown in the
+celebrated Vatican manuscript, from the later editions used afterwards
+in Constantinople and Italy, when Christian literature flourished in
+those countries.
+
+The Emperor Maximin died at Tarsus in A.D. 313, after being defeated by
+Licinius, who like himself had been raised to the rank of Augustus by
+Galerius, and to whom the empire of Egypt and the East then fell,
+while Constantine, the son of Constantius, governed Italy and the West.
+Licinius held his empire for ten years against the growing strength of
+his colleague and rival; but the ambition of Constantine increased with
+his power, and Licinius was at last forced to gather together his army
+in Thrace, to defend himself from an attack. His forces consisted of
+one hundred and fifty thousand foot, fifteen thousand horse, and three
+hundred and fifty triremes, of which Egypt furnished eighty. He was
+defeated near Adrianople; and then, upon a promise that his life should
+be spared, he surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia. But the promise
+was forgotten and Licinius hanged, and the Roman world was once more
+governed by a single emperor. The growing strength of his colleague and
+rival; but the ambition of Constantine increased with his power, and
+Licinius was at last forced to gather together his army in Thrace, to
+defend himself from an attack. His forces consisted of one hundred and
+fifty thousand foot, fifteen thousand horse, and three hundred and
+fifty triremes, of which Egypt furnished eighty. He was defeated near
+Adrianople; and then, upon a promise that his life should be spared, he
+surrendered to Constantine at Nicomedia. But the promise was forgotten
+and Licinius hanged, and the Roman world was once more governed by a
+single emperor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.--THE CHRISTIAN PERIOD IN EGYPT
+
+
+_The Ascendency of the new religion: The Arian controversies: The
+Zenith of monasticism: The final struggle of Paganism: The decline of
+Alexandria._
+
+
+Coming under the Roman sway, the Greek world underwent, not only
+politically but also intellectually, a complete change. As the
+Roman conquest had worn away all political differences and national
+divergences, and, by uniting the various races under the rule of the
+empire was bringing to its consummation the work begun by the Macedonian
+conqueror, it could not fail to influence the train of thought. On the
+one hand the political and ideal structure of Greek life was crumbling
+and bringing down the support and guiding principle supplied by the
+duties of citizenship and the devotion to the commonwealth. Man was
+thrown upon himself to find the principles of conduct. The customary
+morality and religion had been shaken in their foundations. The
+belief in the old gods and the old religion was undermined. Philosophy
+endeavoured to occupy the place left vacant by the gradual decay of the
+national religion. The individual, seeking for support and spiritual
+guidance, found it, or at least imagined he had found it, in philosophy.
+The conduct of life became the fundamental problem, and philosophy
+assumed a practical aspect. It aimed at finding a complete art of
+living. It had a thoroughly ethical stamp, and became more and more a
+rival of and opposed to religion. Such were the tendencies of the Stoic
+and Epicurean schools. The Roman rule was greatly favourable to such
+a development of thought. The Romans were a practical nation, had no
+conception of nor appreciation for purely theoretical problems, and
+demanded practical lessons and philosophical investigations which would
+serve as a guide for life. Thus the political tendency of the time
+towards practical wisdom had imparted a new direction to philosophical
+thought. Yet, as time went on, a deep feeling of dissatisfaction seized
+the ancient world in the midst of all the glories of the Roman rule.
+This huge empire could offer to the peoples, which it had welded
+into one mighty unit, no compensation for the loss of their national
+independence; it offered them no inner worth nor outer fortune. There
+was a complete discord running through the entire civilisation of the
+Graeco-Roman world. The social condition of the empire had brought with
+it extreme contrasts in the daily life. The contrasts had become more
+pronounced. Abundance and luxury existed side by side with misery
+and starvation. Millions were excluded from the very necessaries of
+existence. With the sense of injustice and revolt against the
+existing inequality of the state of society, the hope for some future
+compensation arose. The millions excluded from the worldly possessions
+turned longingly to a better world. The thoughts of man were turned
+to something beyond terrestrial life, to heaven instead of earth.
+Philosophy, too, had failed to give complete satisfaction. Man had
+realised his utter inability to find knowledge in himself by his
+unaided efforts. He despaired to arrive at it without the help of some
+transcendental power and its kind assistance. Salvation was not to be
+found in man's own nature, but in a world beyond that of the senses.
+Philosophy could not satisfy the cultured man by the presentation of its
+ethical ideal of life, could not secure for him the promised happiness.
+Philosophy, therefore, turned to religion for help. At Alexandria,
+where, in the active work of its museum, all treasures of Grecian
+culture were garnered, all religions and forms of worship crowded
+together in the great throng of the commercial metropolis to seek a
+scientific clarification of the feelings that surged and stormed within
+them. The cosmopolitan spirit and broad-mindedness which had brought
+nations together under the Egyptian government, which had gathered
+scholars from all parts in the library and the museum, was favourable
+also to the fusion and reconciliation in the evolution of thought.
+
+If Alexandria was the birthplace of that intellectual movement which has
+been described, this was not only the result of the prevailing spirit of
+the age, but was due to the influence of ideas; salvation could only be
+found in the reconciliation of ideas. The geographical centre of this
+movement of fusion and reconciliation was, however, in Alexandria.
+After having been the town of the museum and the library, of criticism
+and literary erudition, Alexandria became once again the meeting-place
+of philosophical schools and religious sects; communication had become
+easier, and various fundamentally different inhabitants belonging to
+distinct social groups met on the banks of the Nile. Not only goods and
+products of the soil were exchanged, but also ideas and thoughts. The
+mental horizon was widened, comparisons ensued, and new ideas were
+suggested and formed. This mixture of ideas necessarily created a
+complex spirit where two currents of thought, of critical scepticism and
+superstitious credulity, mixed and mingled. Another powerful factor was
+the close contact in which Occidentalism or Greek culture found itself
+with Orientalism. Here it was where the Greek and Oriental spirit mixed
+and mingled, producing doctrines and religious systems containing germs
+of tradition and science, of inspiration and reflection. Images and
+formulas, method and ecstasy, were interwoven and intertwined. The
+brilliant qualities of the Greek spirit, its sagacity and subtlety of
+intelligence, its lucidity and facility of expression, were animated and
+vivified by the Oriental spark, and gained new life and vigour. On
+the other hand, the contemplative spirit of the Orient, which is
+characterised by its aspiration towards the invisible and mysterious,
+would never have produced a coherent system or theory had it not been
+aided by Greek science. It was the latter that arranged and explained
+the Oriental traditions, loosed their tongues, and produced those
+religious doctrines and philosophical systems which culminated in
+Gnosticism, Neo-Platonism, the Judaism of Philo, and the Polytheism of
+Julian the Apostate.
+
+It was the contemplative Oriental mind, with its tendency towards the
+supernatural and miraculous, with its mysticism and religion, and Greece
+with her subtle scrutinising and investigating spirit, which gave rise
+to the peculiar phase of thought prevalent in Alexandria during the
+first centuries of our era. It was tinctured with idealistic, mystic,
+and yet speculative and scientific colours. Hence the religious spirit
+in philosophy and the philosophic tendency in the religious system that
+are the characteristic features. "East and West," says Baldwin,* "met
+at Alexandria." The co-operative ideas of civilisations, cultures,
+and religions of Rome, Greece, Palestine, and the farther East found
+themselves in juxtaposition. Hence arose a new problem, developed partly
+by Occidental thought, partly by Oriental aspiration. Religion and
+philosophy became inextricably mixed, and the resultant doctrines
+consequently belong to neither sphere proper, but are rather witnesses
+of an attempt at combining both.
+
+     * Baldwin: Dictionary of Philosophy.
+
+These efforts naturally came from two sides. On the one hand, the Jews
+tried to accommodate their faith to the results of Western culture, in
+which Greek culture predominated. On the other hand, thinkers whose
+main impulse came from Greek philosophy attempted to accommodate their
+doctrines to the distinctively religious problems which the Eastern
+nations had brought with them. From whichever side the consequences be
+viewed, they are to be characterised as theosophical rather than purely
+philosophical, purely religious, or purely theological.
+
+The reign of Constantine the Great, who became sole ruler of the East
+and West in 323, after ten years' joint government with Licinius, is
+remarkable for the change which was then wrought in the religion and
+philosophy of the empire by the emperor's embracing the Christian
+faith. His conversion occurred in 312, and on his coming to the united
+sovereignty the Christians were at once released from every punishment
+and disability on account of their religion, which was then more than
+tolerated; they were put upon a nearly equal footing with the pagans,
+and every minister of the Church was released from the burden of
+civil and military duties. Whether the emperor's conversion arose from
+education, from conviction, or from state policy, we have no means of
+knowing; but Christianity did not reach the throne before it was the
+religion of a most important class of his subjects, and the Egyptian
+Christians soon found themselves numerous enough to call the Greek
+Christians heretics, as the Greek Christians had already begun to
+designate the Jewish.
+
+The Greeks of Alexandria had formed rather a school of philosophy than
+a religious sect. Before Alexander's conquest the Greek settlers
+at Naucratis had thought it necessary to have their own temples and
+sacrifices; but since the building of Alexandria they had been smitten
+with the love of Eastern mysticism, and content to worship in the
+temples of Serapis and Mithra, and to receive instruction from the
+Egyptian priests. They had supported the religion of the conquered
+Egyptians without wholly believing it; and had shaken by their ridicule
+the respect for the very ceremonies which they upheld by law. Polytheism
+among the Greeks had been further shaken by the platonists; and
+Christianity spread in about equal proportions among the Greeks and the
+Egyptians. Before the conversion of Constantine the Egyptian church
+had already spread into every city of the province, and had a regular
+episcopal government. Till the time of Heraclas and Dionysius, the
+bishops had been always chosen by the votes of the presbyters, as the
+archdeacons were by the deacons. Dionysius in his public epistles joins
+with himself his fellow-presbyters as if he were only the first among
+equals; but after that time some irregularities had crept into the
+elections, and latterly the Church had become more monarchical. There
+was a patriarch in Alexandria, with a bishop in every other large city,
+each assisted by a body of priests and deacons. They had been clad in
+faith, holiness, humility, and charity; but Constantine robed them in
+honour, wealth, and power; and to this many of them soon added pride,
+avarice, and ambition.
+
+This reign is no less remarkable for the religious quarrel which then
+divided the Christians, which set church against church and bishop
+against bishop, as soon as they lost that great bond of union, the fear
+of the pagans. Jesus of Nazareth was acknowledged by Constantine as
+a divine person; and, in the attempt then made by the Alexandrians to
+arrive at a more exact definition of his nature, while the emperor was
+willing to be guided by the bishops in his theological opinions, he
+was able to instruct them all in the more valuable lessons of mutual
+toleration and forbearance. The followers of early religions held
+different opinions, but distinguished themselves apart only by outward
+modes of worship, such as by sacrifices among the Greeks and Romans,
+and among the Jews and Egyptians by circumcision, and abstinence from
+certain meats. When Jesus of Nazareth introduced his spiritual religion
+of repentance and amendment of life, he taught that the test by which
+his disciples wrere to be known was their love to one another. After
+his death, however, the Christians gave more importance to opinions
+in religion, and towards the end of the third century they proposed to
+distinguish their fellow-worshippers in a mode hitherto unknown to the
+world, namely, by the profession of belief in certain opinions; for as
+yet there was no difference in their belief of historic facts. This gave
+rise to numerous metaphysical discussions, particularly among the more
+speculative and mystical.
+
+At about this time the chief controversy was as to whether Christ was
+of the _same_, or of _similar_ substance with God the Father, this being
+the dispute which divided Christendom for centuries. This dispute and
+others not quite so metaphysical were brought to the ears of the emperor
+by Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and Arius, the presbyter. The bishop
+had been enquiring into the belief of the presbyter, and the latter
+had argued against his superior and against the doctrine of the
+_consubstantiality_ of the Father and the Son. The emperor's letter
+to the theologians, in this first ecclesiastical quarrel that was ever
+brought before a Christian monarch, is addressed to Alexander and Arius,
+and he therein tells them that they are raising useless questions, which
+it is not necessary to settle, and which, though a good exercise for the
+understanding, only breed ill-will, and should be kept by each man in
+his own breast. He regrets the religious madness which has seized all
+Egypt; and lastly he orders the bishop not to question the priest as
+to his belief, and orders the priest, if questioned, not to return an
+answer. But this wise letter had no weight with the Alexandrian divines.
+The quarrel gained in importance from being noticed by the emperor; the
+civil government of the country was clogged; and Constantine, after
+having once interfered, was persuaded to call a council of bishops to
+settle the Christian faith for the future. Nicaea in Bithynia was chosen
+as the spot most convenient for Eastern Christendom to meet in; and two
+hundred and fifty bishops, followed by crowds of priests, there met
+in council from Greece, Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia, Egypt, and
+Libya, with one or two from Western Europe.
+
+At this synod, held in the year 325, Athanasius, a young deacon in the
+Alexandrian church, came for the first time into notice as the champion
+of Alexander against Arius, who was then placed upon his trial. All the
+authority, eloquence, and charity of the emperor were needed to quell
+the tumultuous passions of the assembly. It ended its stormy labours by
+voting what was called the Homoousian doctrine, that Jesus was of one
+substance with God. They put forth to the world the celebrated creed,
+named, from the city in which they met, the Nicene creed, and they
+excommunicated Arius and his followers, who were then all banished by
+the emperor. The meeting had afterwards less difficulty in coming to
+an agreement about the true time of Easter, and in excommunicating the
+Jews; and all except the Egyptians returned home with a wish that the
+quarrel should be forgotten and forgiven.
+
+This first attempt among the Christians at settling the true faith by
+putting fetters on the mind, by drawing up a creed and punishing those
+that disbelieved it, was but the beginning of theological difficulties.
+These in Egypt arose as much from the difference of blood and language
+of the races that inhabited the country as from their religious belief;
+and Constantine must soon have seen that if as a theologian he had
+decided right, yet as a statesman he had been helping the Egyptians
+against the friends of his own Greek government in Alexandria.
+
+After a reasonable delay, Arius addressed to the emperor a letter either
+of explanation or apology, asserting his full belief in Christianity,
+explaining his faith by using the words of the Apostles' Creed, and
+begging to be re-admitted into the Church. The emperor, either from a
+readiness to forgive, or from a change of policy, or from an ignorance
+of the theological controversy, was satisfied with the apology, and
+thereupon wrote a mild conciliatory letter to Athanasius, who had in
+the meantime been made Bishop of Alexandria, expressing his wish
+that forgiveness should at all times be offered to the repentant, and
+ordering him to re-admit Arius to his rank in the Church. But the young
+Athanasius, who had gained his favour with the Egyptian clergy, and had
+been raised to his high seat by his zeal shown against Arius, refused
+to obey the commands of the emperor, alleging that it was unlawful
+to re-admit into the Church anybody who had once been excommunicated.
+Constantine could hardly be expected to listen to this excuse, or
+to overlook this direct refusal to obey his orders. The rebellious
+Athanasius was ordered into the emperor's presence at Constantinople,
+and soon afterwards, in 335, called before a council of bishops at Tyre,
+where he was deposed and banished. At the same council, in the thirtieth
+year of this reign, Arius was re-admitted into communion with the
+Church, and after a few months he was allowed to return to Alexandria,
+to the indignation of the popular party in that city, while Athanasius
+remained in banishment during the rest of the reign, as a punishment for
+his disobedience.
+
+This practice of judging and condemning opinions gave power in the
+Church to men who would otherwise have been least entitled to weight and
+influence. Athanasius rose to his high rank over the heads of the elder
+presbyters by his fitness for the harsher duties then required of an
+archbishop. Theological opinions became the watchwords of two contending
+parties; religion lost much of its empire over the heart; and the
+mild spirit of Christianity gave way to angry quarrels and cruel
+persecutions.
+
+Another remarkable event of this reign was the foundation of the new
+city of Constantinople, to which the emperor removed the seat of his
+government. Rome lost much by the building of the new capital, although
+the emperors had for some time past ceased to live in Italy; but
+Alexandria lost the rank which it had long held as the centre of Greek
+learning and Greek thought, and it felt a blow from which Rome was saved
+by the difference of language. The patriarch of Alexandria was no longer
+the head of Greek Christendom. That rank was granted to the bishop of
+the imperial city; many of the philosophers who hung round the palace
+at Constantinople would otherwise have studied and taught in the museum;
+and the Greeks, by whose superiority Egypt had so long been kept in
+subjection, gradually became the weaker party. In the opinion of the
+historian, as in the map of the geographer, Alexandria had formerly been
+a Greek state on the borders of Egypt; but since the rebellion in the
+reign of Diocletian it was becoming more and more an Egyptian city; and
+those who in religion and politics thought and felt as Egyptians soon
+formed the larger half of the Alexandrians. The climate of Egypt was
+hardly fitted for the Greek race. Their numbers never could have been
+kept up by births alone, and they now began to lessen as the attraction
+to newcomers ceased. The pure Greek names henceforth become less common;
+and among the monks and writers we now meet with those named after the
+old gods of the country.
+
+[Illustration: 199.jpg THE ISLAND OF RHODHA]
+
+Constantine removed an obelisk from Egypt for the ornament of his new
+city, and he brought down another from Heliopolis to Alexandria; but he
+died before the second left the country, and it was afterwards taken
+by his son to Rome. These obelisks were covered with hieroglyphics,
+as usual, and we have a translation said to be made from the latter by
+Hermapion, an Egyptian priest. In order to take away its pagan character
+from the religious ceremony with which the yearly rise of the Nile wras
+celebrated in Alexandria, Constantine removed the sacred cubit from the
+temple of Serapis to one of the Christian churches; and nothwithstanding
+the gloomy forebodings of the people, the Nile rose as usual, and the
+clergy afterwards celebrated the time of its overflow as a Christian
+festival.
+
+The pagan philosophers under Constantine had but few pupils and met
+with but little encouragement. Alypius of Alexandria and his friend
+Iamblichus, however, still taught the philosophy of Ammonius
+and Plotinus. The only writings by Alypius now remaining are his
+_Introduction to Music_; in which he explains the notation of the
+fifteen modes or tones in their respective kinds of diatonic, chromatic,
+and enharmonic. His signs are said to be Pythagorean. They are in pairs,
+of which one is thought to represent the note struck on the lyre, and
+the other the tone of the voice to be sung thereto. They thus imply
+accord or harmony. The same signs are found in some manuscripts written
+over the syllables of ancient poems; and thereby scholars, learned at
+once in the Greek language, in the art of deciphering signs, and in the
+science of music, now chant the odes of Pindar in strains not dissimilar
+to modern cathedral psalmody.
+
+Sopator succeeded Iamblichus as professor of platonism in Alexandria,
+with the proud title of successor to Plato, For some time he enjoyed the
+friendship of Constantine; but, when religion made a quarrel between
+the friends, the philosopher was put to death by the emperor. The pagan
+account of the quarrel was that, when Constantine had killed his son, he
+applied to Sopator to be purified from his guilt; and when the platonist
+answered that he knew of no ceremony that could absolve a man from such
+a crime, the emperor applied to the Christians for baptism. This
+story may not be true, and the ecclesiastical historian remarks that
+Constantine had professed Christianity several years before the murder
+of his son; but then, as after his conversion he had got Sopator to
+consecrate his new city with a variety of pagan ceremonies, he may in
+the same way have asked him to absolve him from the guilt of murder.
+
+On the death of Constantine, in 337, his three sons, without entirely
+dismembering the empire, divided the provinces of the Roman world into
+three shares. Constantine II., the eldest son, who succeeded to the
+throne of his father in Constantinople, and Constans, the youngest,
+who dwelt in Rome, divided Europe between them; while Constantius,
+the second son, held Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Egypt, of which
+possessions Antioch on the Orontes was at that time the capital. Thus
+Alexandria was doomed to a further fall. When governed by Rome it had
+still been the first of Greek cities; afterwards, when the seat of the
+empire was fixed at Constantinople, it became the second; but on this
+division of the Roman world, when the seat of government came still
+nearer to Egypt, and Antioch rose as the capital of the East, Alexandria
+fell to be the third among Greek cities. Egypt quietly received its
+political orders from Antioch. Its opinions also in some cases followed
+those of the capital, and it is curious to remark that the Alexandrian
+writers, when dating by the era of the creation, were now willing to
+consider the world ten years less old than they used, because it was so
+thought at Antioch. But it was not so with their religious opinions,
+and as long as Antioch and its emperor undertook to govern the Egyptian
+church there was little peace in the province.
+
+The three emperors did not take the same side in the quarrel which under
+the name of religion was then unsettling the obedience of the Egyptians,
+and even in some degree troubling the rest of the empire. Constantius
+held the Arian opinions of Syria; but Constantine II. and Constans
+openly gave their countenance to the party of the rebellious Athanasius,
+who under their favour ventured to return to Alexandria, where, after
+an absence of two years and four months, he was received in the warmest
+manner by his admiring flock. But on the death of Constantine II.,
+who was shortly afterwards killed in battle by his brother Constans,
+Constantius felt himself more master of his own kingdom; he deposed
+Athanasius, and summoned a council of bishops at Antioch to elect a new
+patriarch of Alexandria. Christian bishops, though they had latterly
+owed their ordination to the authority of their equals, had always
+received their bishoprics by the choice of their presbyters or of their
+flocks; and though they were glad to receive the support of the emperor,
+they were not willing to acknowledge him as their head. Hence, when the
+council at Antioch first elected Eusebius of AEmisa into the bishopric of
+Alexandria, he chose to refuse the honour which they had only a doubtful
+right to bestow, rather than to venture into the city in the face of his
+popular rival. The council then elected Gregory, whose greater courage
+and ambition led him to accept the office.
+
+The council of Antioch then made some changes in the creed. A few years
+later, a second council met in the same place, and drew up a creed more
+near to what we now call the Athanasian; but it was firmly rejected by
+the Egyptian and Roman churches. Gregory was no sooner elected to the
+bishopric than he issued his commands as bishop, though, if he had
+the courage, he had not at the time the power to enter Alexandria.
+But Syrianus, the general of the Egyptian troops, was soon afterwards
+ordered by the emperor to place him on his episcopal throne; and he led
+him into the city, surrounded by the spears of five thousand soldiers,
+and followed by the small body of Alexandrians that after this invasion
+of their acknowledged rights still called themselves Arians. Gregory
+entered Alexandria in the evening, meaning to take his seat in the
+church on the next day; but the people in their zeal did not wait
+quietly for the dreaded morning. They ran at once to the church, and
+passed the night there with Athanasius in the greatest anxiety. In
+the morning, when Gregory arrived at the church, accompanied with the
+troops, he found the doors barricaded and the building full of men and
+women, denouncing the sacrilege, and threatening resistance. But the
+general gave orders that the church should be stormed, and the new
+bishop carried in by force of arms; and Athanasius, seeing that all
+resistance was useless, ordered the deacons to give out a psalm, and
+they all marched out at the opposite door singing. After these acts of
+violence on the part of the troops, and of resistance on the part of the
+people, the whole city was thrown into an uproar, and the prefect was
+hardly strong enough to carry on the government; the regular supply of
+grain for the poor citizens of Alexandria, and for Constantinople, was
+stopped; and the blame of the whole thrown upon Athanasius. He was a
+second time obliged to leave Egypt, and he fled to Rome, where he was
+warmly received by the Emperor Constans and the Roman bishop. But the
+zeal of the Athanasian party would not allow Gregory to keep possession
+of the church which he had gained only by force; they soon afterwards
+set fire to it and burned it to the ground, choosing that there should
+be no church at all rather than that it should be in the hands of the
+Arians; and the Arian clergy and bishops, though supported by the favour
+of the emperor and the troops of the prefect, were everywhere throughout
+Egypt driven from their churches and monasteries. During this quarrel it
+seems to have been felt by both parties that the choice of the people,
+or at least of the clergy, was necessary to make a bishop, and that
+Gregory had very little claim to that rank in Alexandria. Julius, the
+Bishop of Rome, warmly espoused the cause of Athanasius, and he wrote a
+letter to the Alexandrian church, praising their zeal for their bishop,
+and ordering them to re-admit him to his former rank, from which he
+had been deposed by the council of Antioch, but to which he had been
+restored by the Western bishops. Athanasius was also warmly supported
+by Constans, the emperor of the West, who at the same time wrote to his
+brother Constantius, begging him to replace the Alexandrian bishop,
+and making the additional threat that if he would not reinstate him he
+should be made to do so by force of arms.
+
+Constantius, after taking the advice of his own bishops, thought it
+wisest to yield to the wishes or rather the commands of his brother
+Constans, and he wrote to Athanasius, calling him into his presence
+in Constantinople. But the rebellious bishop was not willing to trust
+himself within the reach of his offended sovereign; and it was not till
+after a second and a third letter, pressing him to come and promising
+him his safety, that he ventured within the limits of the Eastern
+empire. Strong in his high character for learning, firmness, and
+political skill, carrying with him the allegiance of the Egyptian
+nation, which was yielded to him much rather than to the emperor, and
+backed by the threats of Constans, Athanasius was at least a match
+for Constantius. At Constantinople the emperor and his subject, the
+Alexandrian bishop, made a formal treaty, by which it was agreed
+that, if Constantius would allow the Homoousian clergy throughout his
+dominions to return to their churches, Athanasius would in the same
+way throughout Egypt restore the Arian clergy; and upon this agreement
+Athanasius himself returned to Alexandria.
+
+Among the followers of Athanasius was that important mixed race with
+whom the Egyptian civilisation chiefly rested, a race that may be called
+Koptic, but half Greek and half Egyptian in their language and religion
+as in their forefathers. But in feelings they were wholly opposed to the
+Greeks of Alexandria. Never since the last Nectanebo was conquered by
+the Persians, eight hundred years earlier, did the Egyptians seem so
+near to throwing off the foreign yoke and rising again as an independent
+nation. But the Greeks, who had taught them so much, had not taught them
+the arts of war; and the nation remained enslaved to those who could
+wield the sword. The return of Athanasius, however, was only the signal
+for a fresh uproar, and the Arians complained that Egypt was kept in a
+constant turmoil by his zealous activity. Nor were the Arians his only
+enemies. He had offended many others of his clergy by his overbearing
+manners, and more particularly by his following in the steps of
+Alexander, the late bishop, in claiming new and higher powers for
+the office of patriarch than had ever been yielded to the bishops of
+Alexandria before their spiritual rank had been changed into civil rank
+by the emperor's adoption of their religion. Meletius headed a strong
+party of bishops, priests, and deacons in opposing the new claims of the
+archiepiscopal see of Alexandria. His followers differed in no point of
+doctrine from the Athanasian party, but as they sided with the Arians
+they were usually called heretics.
+
+By this time the statesmen and magistrates had gained a clear view of
+the change which had come over the political state of the empire, first
+by the spread of Christianity, and secondly by the emperor's embracing
+it. By supporting Christianity the emperors gave rank in the state to
+an organised and well-trained body, which immediately found itself in
+possession of all the civil power. A bishopric, which a few years before
+was a post of danger, was now a place of great profit, and secured to
+its possessor every worldly advantage of wealth, honour, and power.
+An archbishop in the capital, obeyed by a bishop in every city, with
+numerous priests and deacons under them, was usually of more weight than
+the prefect. While Athanasius was at the height of his popularity
+in Egypt, and was supported by the Emperor of the West, the Emperor
+Constantius was very far from being his master. But on the death of
+Constans, when Constantius became sovereign of the whole empire, he once
+more tried to make Alexandria and the Egyptian church obedient to
+his wishes. He was, however, still doubtful how far it was prudent to
+measure his strength against that of the bishop, and he chose rather
+to begin privately with threats before using his power openly. He first
+wrote word to Athanasius, as if in answer to a request from the bishop,
+that he was at liberty, if he wished, to visit Italy; but he sent the
+letter by the hands of the notary Diogenes, who added, by word of
+mouth, that the permission was meant for a command, and that it was the
+emperor's pleasure that he should immediately quit his bishopric and the
+province. But this underhand conduct of the emperor only showed his own
+weakness. Athanasius steadily refused to obey any unwritten orders, and
+held his bishopric for upwards of two years longer, before Constantius
+felt strong enough to enforce his wishes. Towards the end of that time,
+Syrianus, the general of the Egyptian army, to whom this delicate task
+was entrusted, gathered together from other parts of the province a
+body of five thousand chosen men, and with these he marched quietly into
+Alexandria, to overawe, if possible, the rebellious bishop. He gave
+out no reason for his conduct; but the Arians, who were in the secret,
+openly boasted that it would soon be their turn to possess the churches.
+Syrianus then sent for Athanasius, and in the presence of Maximus the
+prefect again delivered to him the command of Constantius, that he
+should quit Egypt and retire into banishment, and he threatened to carry
+this command into execution by the help of the troops if he met with any
+resistance. Athanasius, without refusing to obey, begged to be shown the
+emperor's orders in writing; but this reasonable request was refused. He
+then entreated them even to give him, in their own handwriting, an order
+for his banishment; but this was also refused, and the citizens,
+who were made acquainted with the emperor's wishes and the bishop's
+firmness, waited in dreadful anxiety to see whether the prefect and the
+general would venture to enforce their orders. The presbytery of the
+church and the corporation of the city went up to Syrianus in solemn
+procession to beg him either to show a written authority for the
+banishment of their bishop, or to write to Constantinople to learn the
+emperor's pleasure. To this request Syrianus at last yielded, and gave
+his word to the friends of Athanasius that he would take no further
+steps till the return of the messengers which he then sent to
+Constantinople.
+
+But Syrianus had before received his orders, which were, if possible, to
+frighten Athanasius into obedience, and, if that could not be done, then
+to employ force, but not to expose the emperor's written commands to the
+danger of being successfully resisted. He therefore only waited for an
+opportunity of carrying them into effect; and at midnight, on the ninth
+of February, A.D. 356, twenty-three days after the promise had been
+given, Syrianus, at the head of his troops, armed for the assault,
+surrounded the church where Athanasius and a crowded assembly were at
+prayers. The doors were forcibly and suddenly broken open, the armed
+soldiers rushed forward to seize the bishop, and numbers of his faithful
+friends were slain in their efforts to save him. Athanasius, however,
+escaped in the tumult; but though the general was unsuccessful, the
+bodies of the slain and the arms of the soldiers found scattered through
+the church in the morning were full proofs of his unholy attempt. The
+friends of the bishop drew up and signed a public declaration describing
+the outrage, and Syrianus sent to Constantinople a counter-protest
+declaring that there had been no disturbance in the city.
+
+Athanasius, with nearly the whole of the nation for his friends, easily
+escaped the vengeance of the emperor; and, withdrawing for a third time
+from public life, he passed the remainder of this reign in concealment.
+He did not, however, neglect the interests of his flock. He encouraged
+them with his letters, and even privately visited his friends in
+Alexandria. As the greater part of the population was eager to befriend
+him, he was there able to hide himself for six years. Disregarding
+the scandal that might arise from it, he lived in the house of a young
+woman, who concealed him in her chamber, and waited on him with untiring
+zeal. She was then in the flower of her youth, only twenty years of age;
+and fifty years afterwards, in the reign of Theodosius II., when the
+name of the archbishop ranked with those of the apostles, this woman
+used to boast among the monks of Alexandria that in her youth she had
+for six years concealed the great Athanasius.
+
+But though the general was not wholly successful, yet the Athanasian
+party was for the time crushed. Sebastianus, the new prefect, was sent
+into Egypt with orders to seize Athanasius dead or alive, wherever he
+should be found within the province; and under his protection the Arian
+party in Alexandria again ventured to meet in public, and proceeded
+to choose a bishop. They elected to this high position the celebrated
+George of Cappadocia, a man who, while he equalled his more popular
+rival in learning and in ambition, fell far behind him in coolness of
+judgment, and in that political skill which is as much wanted in the
+guidance of a religious party as in the government of an empire.
+
+George was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, and was the son of a clothier,
+but his ambition led him into the Church, as being at that time the
+fairest field for the display of talent; and he rose from one station
+to another till he reached the high post of Bishop of Alexandria. The
+fickle, irritable Alexandrians needed no such firebrand to light up the
+flames of discontent. George took no pains to conceal the fact that he
+held his bishopric by the favour of the emperor and the power of the
+army against the wishes of his flock. To support his authority, he
+opened his doors to informers of the worst description; anybody who
+stood in the way of his grasp at power was accused of being an enemy
+to the emperor. He proposed to the emperor to lay a house-tax on
+Alexandria, thereby to repay the expense incurred by Alexander the Great
+in building the city; and he made the imperial government more unpopular
+than it had ever been since Augustus landed in Egypt. He used the army
+as the means of terrifying the Homoousians into an acknowledgment of the
+Arian opinions. He banished fifteen bishops to the Great Oasis,
+besides others of lower rank. He beat, tortured, and put to death; the
+persecution was more cruel than any suffered from the pagans, except
+perhaps that in the reign of Diocletian; and thirty Egyptian bishops are
+said to have lost their lives while George was patriarch of Alexandria.
+Most of these accusations, however, are from the pens of his enemies. At
+this time the countries at the southern end of the Red Sea were becoming
+a little more known to Alexandria. Meropius, travelling in the reign of
+Constantine for curiosity and the sake of knowledge, had visited Auxum,
+the capital of the Hexumito, in Abyssinia. His companion Frumentius
+undertook to convert the people to Christianity and persuade them
+to trade with Egypt; and, as he found them willing to listen to his
+arguments, he came home to Alexandria to tell of his success and ask
+for support. Athanasius readily entered into a plan for spreading the
+blessings of Christianity and the power of the Alexandrian church. To
+increase the missionary's weight he consecrated him a bishop, and sent
+him back to Auxum to continue his good work. His progress, however, was
+somewhat checked by sectarian jealousy; for, when Athanasius was deposed
+by Constantius, Frumentius was recalled to receive again his orders and
+his opinions from the new patriarch. Constantius also sent an embassy to
+the Homeritse on the opposite coast of Arabia, under Theophilus, a monk
+and deacon in the Church. The Homerito were of Jewish blood though of
+gentile faith, and were readily converted, if not to Christianity, at
+least to friendship with the emperor. After consecrating their churches,
+Theophilus crossed over to the African coast, to the Hexumito, to carry
+on the work which Frumentius had begun. There he was equally successful
+in the object of his embassy. Both in trade and in religion the
+Hexumito, who were also of Jewish blood, were eager to be connected with
+the Europeans, from whom they were cut off by Arabs of a wilder race. He
+found also a little to the south of Auxum a settlement of Syrians, who
+were said to have been placed there by Alexander the Great. These tribes
+spoke the language called Ethiopie, a dialect of Arabic which was not
+used in the country which we have hitherto called Ethiopia.
+
+[Illustration: 213.jpg TEMPLE OF ABU SIMBEL IN NUBIA]
+
+The Ethiopie version of the Bible was about this time made for their
+use. It was translated out of the Greek from the Alexandrian copies,
+as the Greek version was held in such value that it was not thought
+necessary to look to the Hebrew original of the Old Testament. But these
+well-meant efforts did little at the time towards making the Hexumitae
+Christians. Distance and the Blemmyes checked their intercourse with
+Alexandria. It was not till two hundred years later that they could be
+said in the slightest sense to be converted to Christianity.
+
+Though the origin of monastic life has sometimes been claimed for the
+Essenes on the shores of the Dead Sea, yet it was in Egypt that it was
+framed into a system, and became the model for the Christian world. It
+took its rise in the serious and gloomy views of religion which always
+formed part of the Egyptian polytheism, and which the Greeks remarked as
+very unlike their own gay and tasteful modes of worship, and which were
+readily engrafted by the Egyptian converts into their own Christian
+belief. In the reigns of Constantine and his sons, hundreds of
+Christians, both men and women, quitting the pleasures and trials of
+the busy world, withdrew one by one into the Egyptian desert, where the
+sands are as boundless as the ocean, where the sunshine is less cheerful
+than darkness, to spend their lonely days and watchful nights in
+religious meditation and in prayer. They were led by a gloomy view
+of their duty towards God, and by a want of fellow-feeling for their
+neighbour; and they seemed to think that pain and misery in this world
+would save them from punishment hereafter. The lives of many of these
+Fathers of the Desert were written by the Christians who lived at the
+same time; but a full account of the miracles which were said to have
+been worked in their favour, or by their means, would now only call
+forth a smile of pity, or perhaps even of ridicule.
+
+"Prosperity and peace," says Gibbon, "introduced the distinction of the
+vulgar and the ascetic Christians. The loose and imperfect practice
+of religion satisfied the conscience of the multitude. The prince or
+magistrate, soldier or merchant, reconciled their fervent zeal, and
+implicit faith, with the exercise of their profession, the pursuit of
+their interest, and the indulgence of their passions; but the ascetics,
+who obeyed and abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired
+by the severe enthusiasm which represents man as a criminal and God as
+a tyrant. They seriously renounced the business and the pleasures of the
+age; abjured the use of wine, of flesh, and of marriage, chastised their
+body, mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as
+the price of eternal happiness. The ascetics fled from a profane and
+degenerate world to perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the
+first Christians of Jerusalem, they resigned the use, or the property,
+of their temporal possessions; established regular communities of the
+same sex and a similar disposition, and assumed the names of hermits,
+monks, or anchorites, expressive of their lonely retreat in a natural
+or artificial desert. They soon acquired the respect of the world, which
+they despised, and the loudest applause was bestowed on this divine
+philosophy, which surpassed, without the aid of science or reason, the
+laborious virtues of the Grecian schools. The monks might indeed contend
+with the Stoics in the contempt of fortune, of pain, and of death;
+the Pythagorean silence and submission were revived in their servile
+discipline; and they disdained, as firmly as the Cynics themselves,
+all the forms and decencies of civil society. But the votaries of this
+divine philosophy aspired to imitate a purer and more perfect model.
+They trod in the footsteps of the prophets, who had retired to the
+desert; and they restored the devout and contemplative life, which
+had been instituted by the Essenians, in Palestine and Egypt. The
+philosophic eye of Pliny had surveyed with astonishment a solitary
+people who dwelt among the palm trees near the Dead Sea; who subsisted
+without money, who were propagated without women, and who derived from
+the disgust and repentance of mankind a perpetual supply of voluntary
+associates. Antony, an illiterate youth of the lower part of The-baid,
+distributed his patrimony, deserted his family and native home, and
+executed his monastic penance with original and intrepid fanaticism.
+After a long and painful novitiate among the tombs and in a ruined
+tower, he boldly advanced into the desert three days' journey to the
+eastward of the Nile; discovered a lonely spot, which possessed the
+advantages of shade and water, and fixed his last residence on Mount
+Colzim near the Red Sea, where an ancient monastery still preserves the
+name and memory of the saint. The curious devotion of the Christians
+pursued him to the desert; and, when he was obliged to appear at
+Alexandria, in the face of mankind, he supported his fame with
+discretion and dignity. He enjoyed the friendship of Athanasius, whose
+doctrine he approved; and the Egyptian peasant respectfully declined
+a respectful invitation from the Emperor Constantine. The venerable
+patriarch (for Antony attained the age of 105 years) beheld the numerous
+progeny which had been formed by his example and his lessons. The
+prolific colonies of monks multiplied on the sands of Libya, upon the
+rocks of the Thebaid, and in the cities of the Nile. To the south of
+Alexandria, the mountain and adjacent desert of Nitria were peopled by
+five thousand anchorites; and the traveller may still investigate the
+ruins of fifty monasteries, which were planted in that barren soil by
+the disciples of Antony. In the Upper Thebaid, the vacant island of
+Tabenna was occupied by Pachomius and fourteen hundred of his brethren.
+That holy abbot successively founded nine monasteries of men and one
+of women; and the festival of Easter sometimes collected fifty thousand
+religious persons, who followed his angelic rules of discipline.
+The stately and populous city of Oxyrrhynchos, the seat of Christian
+orthodoxy, had devoted the temples, the public edifices, and even the
+ramparts, to pious and charitable uses, and the bishop, who might preach
+in twelve churches, computed ten thousand females and twenty thousand
+males of the monastic profession."
+
+The monks borrowed many of their customs from the old Egyptian priests,
+such as shaving the head; and Athanasius in his charge to them orders
+them not to adopt the tonsure on the head, nor to shave the beard. He
+forbids their employing magic or incantations to assist their prayers.
+He endeavours to stop their emulation in fasting, and orders those whose
+strength of body enabled them to fast longest not to boast of it. But he
+orders them not even to speak to a woman, and wishes them not to bathe,
+as being an immodest act. The early Christians, as being a sect of Jews,
+had followed many Jewish customs, such as observing the Sabbath as well
+as the Lord's day; but latterly the line between the two religions had
+been growing wider, and Athanasius orders the monks not to keep holy the
+Jewish Sabbath. After a few years their religious duties were clearly
+laid down for them in several well-drawn codes.
+
+One of the earliest of these ascetics was Amnion, who on the morning of
+his marriage is said to have persuaded his young wife of the superior
+holiness of a single life, and to have agreed with her that they should
+devote themselves apart to the honour of God in the desert. But, in thus
+avoiding the pleasures, the duties, and the temptations of the world,
+Amnion lost many of the virtues and even the decencies of society; he
+never washed himself, or changed his garments, because he thought it
+wrong for a religious man even to see himself undressed; and when he had
+occasion to cross a canal, his biographer tells us that attendant angels
+carried him over the water in their arms, lest, while keeping his vows,
+he should be troubled by wet clothes.
+
+In the religious controversies, whether pagan or Christian, Rome had
+often looked to Egypt for its opinions; Constans, when wanting copies
+of the Greek Scriptures for Rome, had lately sent to Alexandria, and
+had received the approved text from Athanasius. The two countries held
+nearly the same opinions and had the same dislike of the Greeks; so
+when Jerome visited Egypt he found the Church holding, he said, the true
+Roman faith as taught by the apostles. Under Didymus, who was then the
+head of the catechetical school, Jerome pursued his studies, having
+the same religious opinions with the Egyptian, and the same dislike
+to Arianism. But no dread of heresy stopped Jerome in his search for
+knowledge and for books. He obtained copies of the whole of Origen's
+works, and read them with the greatest admiration. It is true that he
+finds fault with many of his opinions; but no admirer of Origen could
+speak in higher terms of praise of his virtues and his learning, of
+the qualities of his head and of his heart, than Jerome uses while he
+timidly pretends to think that he has done wrong in reading his works.
+
+At this time--the end of the eleventh century after the building of the
+city--the emperor himself did not refuse to mark on his Roman coins the
+_happy renewal of the years_ by the old Egyptian astrological fable of
+the return of the phoenix.
+
+From the treatise of Julius Fermicus against the pagan superstitions, it
+would seem that the sacred animals of the Egyptians were no longer kept
+in the several cities in which they used to be worshipped, and that many
+of the old gods had been gradually dropped from the mythology, which was
+then chiefly confined to the worship of Isis and Osiris. The great week
+of the year was the feast of Isis, when the priests joined the goddess
+in her grief for the loss of the good Osiris, who had been killed
+through jealousy by the wicked Typhon. The priests shaved their heads,
+beat their breasts, tore the skin off their arms, and opened up the old
+wounds of former years, in grief for the death of Osiris, and in honour
+of the widowed Isis. The river Nile was also still worshipped for the
+blessings which it scatters along its banks, but we hear no more of
+Amon-Ra, Chem, Horus, Aroeris, and the other gods of the Thebaid, whose
+worship ceased with the fall of that part of the country.
+
+[Illustration: 220.jpg COIN OF CONSTANTIUS]
+
+But great changes often take place with very little improvement; the
+fall of idolatry only made way for the rise of magic and astrology.
+Abydos in Upper Egypt had latterly gained great renown for the temple of
+Bisu, whose oracle was much consulted, not only by the Egyptians but by
+Greek strangers, and by others who sent their questions in writing.
+Some of these letters on parchment had been taken from the temple by
+informers, and carried to the emperor, whose ears were never deaf to a
+charge against the pagans. On this accusation numbers of all ranks were
+dragged out of Egypt, to be tried and punished in Syria, with torture
+and forfeiture of goods. Such indeed was the nation's belief in these
+oracles and prophecies that it gave to the priests a greater power than
+it was safe to trust them with. By prophesying that a man was to be an
+emperor, they could make him a traitor, and perhaps raise a village in
+rebellion. As the devotedness of their followers made it dangerous for
+the magistrates to punish the mischief-makers, they had no choice but to
+punish those who consulted them. Without forbidding the divine oracle to
+answer, they forbade anybody to question it. Parnasius, who had been
+a prefect of Egypt, a man of spotless character, was banished for thus
+illegally seeking a knowledge of the future; and Demetrius Cythras, an
+aged philosopher, was put to the rack on a charge of having sacrificed
+to the god, and only released because he persisted through his tortures
+in asserting that he sacrificed in gratitude and not from a wish thus to
+learn his future fate.
+
+In the falling state of the empire the towns and villages of Egypt found
+their rulers too weak either to guard them or to tyrannise over them,
+and they sometimes formed themselves into small societies, and took
+means for their own defence. The law had so far allowed this as in some
+cases to grant a corporate constitution to a city. But in other cases a
+city kept in its pay a courtier or government servant powerful enough to
+guard it against the extortions of the provincial tax-gatherer, or would
+put itself under the patronage of a neighbour rich enough and strong
+enough to guard it. This, however, could not be allowed, even if not
+used as the means of throwing off the authority of the provincial
+government; and accordingly at this time we begin to find laws against
+the new crime of _patronage_. These associations gave a place of refuge
+to criminals, they stopped the worshipper in his way to the temple, and
+the tax-gatherer in collecting the tribute. But new laws have little
+weight when there is no power to enforce them, and the orders from
+Constantinople were little heeded in Upper Egypt.
+
+But this _patronage_ which the emperor wished to put down was weak
+compared to that of the bishops and clergy, which the law allowed and
+even upheld, and which was the great check to the tyranny of the civil
+governor. While the emperor at a distance gave orders through his
+prefect, the people looked up to the bishop as their head; and hence the
+power of each was checked by the other. The emperors had not yet made
+the terrors of religion a tool in the hands of the magistrate; nor had
+they yet learned from the pontifex and augurs of pagan Rome the secret
+that civil power is never so strong as when based on that of the
+Church.
+
+On the death of Constantius, in 361, Julian was at once acknowledged as
+emperor, and the Roman world was again, but for the last time, governed
+by a pagan. The Christians had been in power for fifty-five years under
+Constantine and his sons, during which time the pagans had been made
+to feel that their enemies had got the upper hand of them. But on the
+accession of Julian their places were again changed; and the Egyptians
+among others crowded to Constantinople to complain of injustice done by
+the Christian prefect and bishop, and to pray for a redress of wrongs.
+They were, however, sadly disappointed in their emperor; he put them off
+with an unfeeling joke; he ordered them to meet him at Chalcedon on the
+other side of the straits of Constantinople, and, instead of following
+them according to his promise, he gave orders that no vessel should
+bring an Egyptian from Chalcedon to the capital; and the Egyptians,
+after wasting their time and money, returned home in despair. But though
+their complaints were laughed at, they were not overlooked, and the
+author of their grievances was punished; Artemius, the prefect of Egypt,
+was summoned to Chalcedon, and not being able to disprove the crimes
+laid to his charge by the Alexandrians, he paid his life as the forfeit
+for his mis-government during the last reign.
+
+While Artemius was on his trial the pagans of Alexandria remained quiet,
+and in daily fear of his return to power, for after their treatment
+at Chalcedon they by no means felt sure of what would be the emperor's
+policy in matters of religion; but they no sooner heard of the death of
+Artemius than they took it as a sign that they had full leave to revenge
+themselves on the Christians. The mob rose first against the Bishop
+George, who had lately been careless or wanton enough publicly to
+declare his regret that any of their temples should be allowed to stand;
+and they seized him in the streets and trampled him to death. They next
+slew Dracontius, the prefect of the Alexandrian mint, whom they accused
+of overturning a pagan altar within that building. Their anger was then
+turned against Diodorus, who was employed in building a church on a
+waste spot of ground that had once been sacred to the worship of Mithra,
+but had since been given by the Emperor Constantius to the Christians.
+In clearing the ground, the workmen had turned up a number of human
+bones that had been buried there in former ages, and these had been
+brought forward by the Christians in reproach against the pagans as so
+many proofs of human sacrifices. In his Christian zeal, Diodorus also
+had wounded at the same time their pride and superstition by cutting off
+the single lock from the heads of the young Egyptians. This lock had
+in the time of Ramses been the mark of youthful royalty; under the
+Ptolemies the mark of high rank; but was now common to all. Diodorus
+treated it as an offence against his religion. For this he was attacked
+and killed, with George and Dracontius. The mob carried the bodies of
+the three murdered men upon camels to the side of the lake, and there
+burned them, and threw the ashes into the water, for fear, as they said,
+that a church should be built over their remains, as had been sometimes
+done, even at that early date, over the bodies of martyrs.
+
+[Illustration: 225.jpg A YOUNG EGYPTIAN WEARING THE ROYAL LOCK]
+
+When the news of this outrage against the laws was brought to the
+philosophical emperor, he contented himself with threatening by an
+imperial edict that if the offence were repeated, he would visit it with
+severe punishment. But in every act of Julian we trace the scholar
+and the lover of learning. George had employed his wealth in getting
+together a large library, rich in historians, rhetoricians, and
+philosophers of all sects; and, on the murder of the bishop, Julian
+wrote letter after letter to Alexandria, to beg the prefect and
+his friend Porphyrius to save these books, and send them to him in
+Cappadocia. He promised freedom to the librarian if he gave them up, and
+torture if he hid them; and further begged that no books in favour of
+Christianity should be destroyed, lest other and better books should be
+lost with them.
+
+There is too much reason to believe that the friends of Athanasius
+were not displeased at the murder of the Bishop George and their Arian
+fellow-Christians; at any rate they made no effort to save them, and the
+same mob that had put to death George as an enemy to paganism now joined
+his rival, Athanasius, in a triumphal entry into the city, when, with
+the other Egyptian bishops, he was allowed to return from banishment.
+Athanasius could brook no rival to his power; the civil force of the
+city was completely overpowered by his party, and the Arian clergy were
+forced to hide themselves, as the only means of saving their lives. But,
+while thus in danger from their enemies, the Arians pro-hooded to elect
+a successor to their murdered bishop, and they chose Lucius to that post
+of honour, but of danger. Athanasius, however, in reality and openly
+filled the office of bishop; and he summoned a synod at Alexandria, at
+which he re-admitted into the church Lucifer and Eusebius, two bishops
+who had been banished to the Thebaid, and he again decreed that the
+three persons in the Trinity were of one substance.
+
+Though the Emperor Julian thought that George, the late bishop, had
+deserved all that he suffered, as having been zealous in favour of
+Christianity, and forward in putting down paganism and in closing
+the temples, yet he was still more opposed to Athanasius. That able
+churchman held his power as a rebel by the help of the Egyptian mob,
+against the wishes of the Greeks of Alexandria and against the orders of
+the late emperor; and Julian made an edict, ordering that he should be
+driven out of the city within twenty-four hours of the command reaching
+Alexandria. The prefect of Egypt was at first unable, or unwilling, to
+enforce these orders against the wish of the inhabitants; and Athanasius
+was not driven into banishment till Julian wrote word that, if the
+rebellious bishop were to be found in any part of Egypt after a day then
+named, he would fine the prefect and the officers under him one hundred
+pounds weight of gold. Thus Athanasius was for the fourth time banished
+from Alexandria.
+
+Though the Christians were out of favour with the emperor, and never
+were employed in any office of trust, yet they were too numerous for him
+to venture on a persecution. But Julian allowed them to be ill-treated
+by his prefects, and took no notice of their complaints. He made a law,
+forbidding any Christians being educated in pagan literature, believing
+that ignorance would stop the spread of their religion. In the churches
+of Greece, Asia Minor, and Syria, this was felt as a heavy grievance;
+but it was less thought of in Egypt. Science and learning were less
+cultivated by the Christians in Alexandria since the overthrow of the
+Arian party; and a little later, to charge a writer with Grascizing was
+the same as saying that he wanted orthodoxy.
+
+Julian was a warm friend to learning and philosophy among the pagans.
+He recalled to Alexandria the physician Zeno, who in the last reign had
+fled from the Georgian faction, as the Christians were then called. He
+founded in the same city a college for music, and ordered the Prefect
+Ecdicius to look out for some young men of skill in that science,
+particularly from among the pupils of Dioscorus; and he allotted them
+a maintenance from the treasury, with rewards for the most skilful. At
+Canopus, a pagan philosopher, Antoninus, the son of Eustathius, taking
+advantage of the turn in public opinion, and copying the Christian monks
+of the The-baid, drew round him a crowd of followers by his self-denial
+and painful torture of the body. The Alexandrians flocked in crowds to
+his dwelling; and such was his character for holiness that his death, in
+the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, was thought by the Egyptians
+to be the cause of the overthrow of paganism.
+
+But Egyptian paganism, which had slumbered for fifty years under the
+Christian emperors, was not again to be awaked to its former life.
+Though the wars between the several cities for the honour of their gods,
+the bull, the crocodile, or the fish, had never ceased, all reverence
+for those gods was dead. The sacred animals, in particular the bulls
+Apis and Mnevis, were again waited upon by their priests as of old; but
+it was a vain attempt. Not only was the Egyptian religion overthrown,
+but the Thebaid, the country of that religion, was fallen too low to
+be raised again. The people of Upper Egypt had lost all heart, not more
+from the tyranny of the Roman government in the north than from the
+attacks and settlement of the Arabs in the south. All changes in the
+country, whether for the better or the worse, were laid to the charge
+of these latter unwelcome neighbours; and when the inquiring traveller
+asked to be shown the crocodile, the river-horse, and the other animals
+for which Egypt had once been noted, he was told with a sigh that they
+were seldom to be seen in the Delta since the Thebaid had been peopled
+with the Blemmyes. Falsehood, the usual vice of slaves, had taken a deep
+hold on the Egyptian character. A denial of their wealth was the means
+by which they usually tried to save it from the Roman tax-gatherer; and
+an Egyptian was ashamed of himself as a coward if he could not show
+a back covered with stripes gained in the attempt to save his money.
+Peculiarities of character often descend unchanged in a nation for many
+centuries; and, after fourteen hundred years of the same slavery, the
+same stripes from the lash of the tax-gatherer still used to be the
+boast of the Egyptian peasant. Cyrene was already a desert; the only
+cities of note in Upper Egypt were Koptos, Hermopolis, and Antinoopolis;
+but Alexandria was still the queen of cities, though the large quarter
+called the Bruchium had not been rebuilt; and the Serapeum, with its
+library of seven hundred thousand volumes, was, after the capitol of
+Rome, the chief building in the world.
+
+This temple of Serapis was situated on a rising ground at the west end
+of the city, and, though not built like a fortification, was sometimes
+called the citadel of Alexandria. It was entered by two roads; that on
+one side was a slope for carriages, and on the other a grand flight of a
+hundred steps from the street, with each step wider than that below
+it. At the top of this flight of steps was a portico, in the form of a
+circular roof, upheld by four columns.
+
+[Illustration: 231.jpg AN EGYPTIAN WATER-CARRIER]
+
+Through this was the entrance into the great courtyard, in the middle
+of which stood the roofless hall or temple, surrounded by columns and
+porticoes, inside and out. In some of the inner porticoes were the
+bookcases for the library which made Alexandria the very temple of
+science and learning, while other porticoes were dedicated to the
+service of the ancient religion. The roofs were ornamented with gilding,
+the capitals of the columns were of copper gilt, and the walls were
+covered with paintings. In the middle of the inner area stood one lofty
+column, which could be seen by all the country round, and even from
+ships some distance out at sea. The great statue of Serapis, which had
+been made under the Ptolemies, having perhaps marble feet, but for the
+rest built of wood, clothed with drapery, and glittering with gold and
+silver, stood in one of the covered chambers, which had a small window
+so contrived as to let the sun's rays kiss the lips of the statue on the
+appointed occasions. This was one of the tricks employed in the sacred
+mysteries, to dazzle the worshipper by the sudden blaze of light which
+on the proper occasions was let into the dark room. The temple itself,
+with its fountain, its two obelisks, and its gilt ornaments, has long
+since been destroyed; and the column in the centre, under the name of
+Pompey's Pillar, alone remains to mark the spot where it stood, and is
+one of the few works of Greek art which in size and strength vie with
+the old Egyptian monuments.
+
+The reign of Julian, instead of raising paganism to its former strength,
+had only shown that its life was spent; and under Jovian (A.D. 363--364)
+the Christians were again brought into power. A Christian emperor,
+however, would have been but little welcome to the Egyptians if, like
+Constantius, and even Constantine in his latter years, he had leaned
+to the Arian party; but Jovian soon showed his attachment to the Nicene
+creed, and he re-appointed Athanasius to the bishopric of Alexandria.
+But though Athanasius regained his rank, yet the Arian bishop Lucius
+was not deposed. Each party in Alexandria had its own bishop; those who
+thought that the Son was of the same substance with the Father looked up
+to Athanasius, while those who gave to Jesus the lower rank of being of
+a similar substance to the Creator obeyed Lucius.
+
+This curious metaphysical proposition was not, however, the only cause
+of the quarrel which divided Egypt into such angry parties. The creeds
+were made use of as the watchwords in a political struggle. Blood,
+language, and geographical boundaries divided the parties; and religious
+opinions seldom cross these unchanging and inflexible lines.
+
+Every Egyptian believed in the Nicene creed and the incorruptibility
+of the body of Jesus, and hated the Alexandrian Greeks; while the more
+refined Greeks were as united in explaining away the Nicene creed by
+the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, and in despising the ignorant
+Egyptians. Christianity, which speaks so forcibly to the poor, the
+unlearned, and the slave, had educated the Egyptian population,
+had raised them in their own eyes; and, as the popular party gained
+strength, the Arians lost ground in Alexandria. At the same time the
+Greeks were falling off: in learning and in science, and in all those
+arts of civilisation which had given them the superiority. Like other
+great political changes, this may not have been understood at the time;
+but in less than a hundred years it was found that the Egyptians were no
+longer the slaves, nor the Greeks the masters.
+
+On the death of Jovian, when Valentinian divided the Roman empire with
+his brother, he took Italy and the West for his own kingdom, and gave to
+Valens Egypt and the Eastern provinces, in which Greek was the language
+of the government. Each emperor adopted the religion of his capital;
+Valentinian held the Nicene faith, and Valens the Arian faith; and
+unhappy Egypt was the only part of the empire whose religion differed
+from that of its rulers. Had the creeds marked the limits of the
+two empires, Egypt would have belonged to Rome; but, as geographical
+boundaries and language form yet stronger ties, Egypt was given to
+Constantinople, or rather to Antioch, the nearer of the two Eastern
+capitals.
+
+By Valens, Athanasius was forced for the fifth time to fly from
+Alexandria, to avoid the displeasure which his disobedience again drew
+down upon him. But his flock again rose in rebellion in favour of their
+popular bishop; and the emperor was either persuaded or frightened
+into allowing him to return to his bishopric, where he spent the few
+remaining years of his life in peace. Athanasius died at an advanced
+age, leaving a name more famous than that of any one of the emperors
+under whom he lived. He taught the Christian world that there was a
+power greater than that of kings, namely the Church. He was often beaten
+in the struggle, but every victory over him was followed by the defeat
+of the civil power; he was five times banished, but five times he
+returned in triumph. The temporal power of the Church was in its
+infancy; it only rose upon the conversion of Constantine, and it was
+weak compared to what it became in after ages; but, when the Emperor
+of Germany did penance barefoot before Pope Hildebrand, and a king of
+England was whipped at Becket's tomb, we only witness the full-grown
+strength of the infant power that was being reared by the Bishop of
+Alexandria. His writings are numerous and wholly controversial, chiefly
+against the Arians. The Athanasian creed seems to have been so named
+only because it was thought to contain his opinions, as it is known to
+be by a later author.
+
+On the death of Athanasius, the Homoousian party chose Peter as his
+successor in the bishopric, overlooking Lucius, the Arian bishop, whose
+election had been approved by the emperors Julian, Jovian, and Valens.
+But as the Egyptian church had lost its great champion, the emperor
+ventured to re-assert his authority. He sent Peter to prison, and
+ordered all the churches to be given up to the Arians, threatening with
+banishment from Egypt whoever disobeyed his edict. The persecution
+which the Homoousian party throughout Upper Egypt then suffered from the
+Arians equalled, says the ecclesiastical historian, anything that they
+had before suffered from the pagans. Every monastery in Egypt was broken
+open by Lucius at the head of an armed force, and the cruelty of
+the bishop surpassed that of the soldiers. The breaking open of the
+monasteries seems to have been for the purpose of making the inmates
+bear their share in the military service of the state, rather than
+for any religious reasons. When Constantine embraced Christianity, he
+immediately recognised all the religious scruples of its professors;
+and not only bishops and presbyters but all laymen who had entered the
+monastic orders were freed from the duty of serving in the army. But
+under the growing dislike of military service, and the difficulty of
+finding soldiers, when to escape from the army many called themselves
+Christian monks, this excuse could no longer be listened to, and Valens
+made a law that monastic vows should not save a man from enlistment.
+But this law was not easily carried into force in the monasteries on
+the borders of the desert, which were often well-built and well-guarded
+fortresses; and on Mount Nitria, in particular, many monks lost
+their lives in their resistance to the troops that were sent to fetch
+recruits.
+
+[Illustration: 237.jpg REMAINS OF A CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE TEMPLE OF
+LUXOR]
+
+The monastic institutions of Egypt had already reached their
+full growth. They were acknowledged by the laws of the empire as
+ecclesiastical corporations, and allowed to hold property; and by a new
+law of this reign, if a monk or nun died without a will or any known
+kindred, the property went to the monastery as heir at law. One of the
+most celebrated of these monasteries was on Tabenna, where Pachomius
+had gathered round him thirteen hundred followers, who owned him as the
+founder of their order, and gave him credit for the gift of prophecy.
+His disciples in the other monasteries of Upper Egypt amounted to six
+thousand more. Anuph was at the head of another order of monks, and he
+boasted that he could by prayer obtain from heaven whatever he wished.
+Hor was at the head of another monastery, where, though wholly unable
+to read or write, he spent his life in singing psalms, and, as his
+followers and perhaps he himself believed, in working miracles.
+Sera-pion was at the head of a thousand monks in the Ar-sinoite nome,
+who raised their food by their own labour, and shared it with their
+poorer neighbours. Near Nitria, a place in the Mareotic nome which gave
+its name to the nitre springs, there were as many as fifty cells; but
+those who aimed at greater solitude and severer mortification withdrew
+farther into the desert, to Scetis in the same nome, a spot already
+sanctified by the trials and triumphs of St. Anthony. Here, in a
+monastery surrounded by the sands, by the side of a lake whose waters
+are Salter than the brine of the ocean, with no grass or trees to rest
+the aching eye, where the dazzling sky is seldom relieved with a
+cloud, where the breezes are too often laden with dry dust, these monks
+cultivated a gloomy religion, with hearts painfully attuned to the
+scenery around them. Here dwelt Moses, who in his youth had been a
+remarkable sinner, and in his old age became even more remarkable as a
+saint. It was said that for six years he spent every night in prayer,
+without once closing his eyes in sleep; and that one night, when his
+cell was attacked by four robbers, he carried them all off at once on
+his back to the neighbouring monastery to be punished, because he would
+himself hurt no man. Benjamin also dwelt at Scetis; he consecrated oil
+to heal the diseases of those who washed with it, and during the eight
+months that he was himself dying of a dropsy, he touched for their
+diseases all who came to the door of his cell to be healed. Hellas
+carried fire in his bosom without burning his clothes. Elias spent
+seventy years in solitude on the borders of the Arabian desert near
+Antinoopolis. Apelles was a blacksmith near Achoris; he was tempted
+by the devil in the form of a beautiful woman, but he scorched the
+tempter's face with a red-hot iron. Dorotheus, who though a Theban had
+settled near Alexandria, mortified his flesh by trying to live without
+sleep. He never willingly lay down to rest, nor indeed ever slept till
+the weakness of the body sunk under the efforts of the spirit. Paul,
+who dwelt at Pherma, repeated three hundred prayers every day, and kept
+three hundred pebbles in a bag to help him in his reckoning. He was the
+friend of Anthony, and when dying begged to be wrapt in the cloak given
+him by that holy monk, who had himself received it as a present from
+Athanasius. His friends and admirers claimed for Paul the honour of
+being the first Christian hermit, and they maintained their improbable
+opinion by asserting that he had been a monk for ninety-seven years, and
+that he had retired to the desert at the age of sixteen, when the Church
+was persecuted in the reign of Valerian. All Egypt believed that the
+monks were the especial favourites of Heaven, that they worked miracles,
+and that divine wisdom flowed from their lips without the help or
+hindrance of human learning. They were all Homoousians, believing
+that the Son was of one substance with the Father; some as trinitarians
+holding the opinions of Athanasius; some as Sabellians believing that
+Jesus was the creator of the world, and that his body therefore was not
+liable to corruption; some as anthropomorphites believing God was of
+human form like Jesus; but all warmly attached to the Mcene creed,
+denying the two natures of Christ, and hating the Arian Greeks of
+Alexandria and the other cities. Gregory of Nazianzum remarks that Egypt
+was the most Christ-loving of countries, and adds with true simplicity
+that, wonderful to say, after having so lately worshipped bulls, goats,
+and crocodiles, it was now teaching the world the worship of the Trinity
+in the truest form.
+
+The pagans, who were now no longer able to worship publicly as they
+chose, took care to proclaim their opinions indirectly in such ways as
+the law could not reach. In the hippodrome, which was the noisiest of
+the places where the people met in public, they made a profession of
+their faith by the choice of which horses they bet on; and Christians
+and pagans alike showed their zeal for religion by hooting and clapping
+of hands. Prayers and superstitious ceremonies were used on both
+sides to add to the horses' speed; and the monk Hilarion, the pupil of
+Anthony, gained no little credit for sprinkling holy water on the horses
+of his party, and thus enabling Christianity to outrun paganism in the
+hippodrome at Gaza.
+
+During these reigns of weakness and misgovernment, it was no doubt a
+cruel policy rather than humanity that led the tax-gatherers to collect
+the tribute in kind. More could be squeezed out of a ruined people by
+taking what they had to give than by requiring it to be paid in copper
+coin. Hence Valons made a law that no tribute throughout the empire
+should be taken in money; and he laid a new land-tax upon Egypt, to the
+amount of a soldier's clothing for every thirty acres.
+
+The Saracens* had for some time past been encroaching on the Eastern
+frontiers of the empire, and had only been kept back by treaties which
+proved the weakness of the Romans, as the armies of Constantinople were
+still called, and which encouraged the barbarians in their attacks.
+
+     * The name _Saraceni_ was given by the Greeks and Romans to
+     the nomadic Arabs who lived on the borders of the desert.
+     During the Middle Ages, the Muhammedans, coming from
+     apparently the same localities, were also called Saracens.
+
+On the death of their king, the command over the Saracens fell to
+their Queen Masvia, who broke the last treaty, laid waste Palestine and
+Phoenicia with her armies, conquered or gained over the Arabs of Petra,
+and pressed upon the Egyptians at the head of the Red Sea. On this,
+Valens renewed the truce, but on terms still more favourable to the
+invaders. Many of the Saracens were Christians, and by an article of the
+treaty they were to have a bishop granted them for their church, and
+for this purpose they sent Moses to Alexandria to be ordained. But
+the Saracens sided with the Egyptians, in religion as well as policy,
+against the Arian Greeks. Hence Moses refused to be ordained by Lucius,
+the patriarch of Alexandria, and chose rather to receive his appointment
+from some of the Homoousian bishops who were living in banishment in the
+Thebaid. After this advance of the barbarians the interesting city
+of Petra, which since the time of Trajan had been in the power or the
+friendship of Rome or Constantinople, was lost to the civilised world.
+This rocky fastness, which was ornamented with temples, a triumphal
+arch, and a theatre, and had been a bishop's see, was henceforth
+closed against all travellers; it had no place in the map till it was
+discovered by Burckhardt in our own days without a human being dwelling
+in it, with oleanders and tamarisks choking up its entrance through
+the cliff, and with brambles trailing their branches over the rock-hewn
+temples.
+
+[Illustration: 243.jpg TEMPLE COURTYARD, MEDINET ABU]
+
+The reign of Theodosius, which extended from 379 to 395, is remarkable
+for the blow then given to paganism. The old religion had been sinking
+even before Christianity had become the religion of the emperors; it had
+been discouraged by Constantine, who had closed many of the temples; but
+Theodosius made a law in the first year of his reign that the whole
+of the empire should be Christian, and should receive the trinitarian
+faith. He soon afterwards ordered that Sunday should be kept holy, and
+forbade all work and law-proceedings on that day; and he sent Cynegius,
+the prefect of the palace, into Egypt, to see these laws carried into
+effect in that province.
+
+The wishes of the emperor were ably followed up by Theophilus, Bishop of
+Alexandria. He cleansed the temple of Mithra, and overthrew the statues
+in the celebrated temple of Serapis, which seemed the very citadel of
+paganism. He also exposed to public ridicule the mystic ornaments and
+statues which a large part of his fellow-citizens still regarded as
+sacred. It was not, however, to be supposed that this could be peaceably
+borne by a people so irritable as the Alexandrians. The students in the
+schools of philosophy put themselves at the head of the mob to stop the
+work of destruction, and to revenge themselves upon their assailants,
+and several battles were fought in the streets between the pagans
+and the Christians, in which both parties lost many lives; but as the
+Christians were supported by the power of the prefect, the pagans were
+routed, and many whose rank would have made them objects of punishment
+were forced to fly from Alexandria.
+
+No sooner had the troops under the command of the prefect put down the
+pagan opposition than the work of destruction was again carried forward
+by the zeal of the bishop. The temples were broken open, their ornaments
+destroyed, and the statues of the gods melted for the use of the
+Alexandrian church. One statue of an Egyptian god was alone saved from
+the wreck, and was set up in mockery of those who had worshipped it;
+and this ridicule of their religion was a cause of greater anger to the
+pagans than even the destruction of the other statues. The great statue
+of Serapis, which was made of wood covered with plates of metal, was
+knocked to pieces by the axes of the soldiers. The head and limbs were
+broken off, and the wooden trunk was burnt in the amphitheatre amid
+the shouts and jeers of the bystanders. A conjectured fragment of this
+statue is now in the British Museum.
+
+In the plunder of the temple of Serapis, the great library of more
+than seven hundred thousand volumes was wholly broken up and scattered.
+Orosius, the Spaniard, who visited Alexandria in the next reign, may be
+trusted when he says that he saw in the temple the empty shelves, which,
+within the memory of men then living, had been plundered of the books
+that had formerly been got together after the library of the Bruchium
+was burnt by Julius Caesar. In a work of such lawless plunder, carried
+on by ignorant zealots, many of these monuments of pagan genius and
+learning must have been wilfully or accidentally destroyed, though the
+larger number may have been carried off by the Christians for the other
+public and private libraries of the city. How many other libraries this
+city of science may have possessed we are not told, but there were no
+doubt many. Had Alexandria during the next two centuries given birth to
+poets and orators, their works, the offspring of native genius, might
+perhaps have been written without the help of libraries; but the labours
+of the mathematicians and grammarians prove that the city was still well
+furnished with books, beside those on the Christian controversies.
+
+When the Christians were persecuted by the pagans, none but men of
+unblemished lives and unusual strength of mind stood to their religion
+in the day of trial, and suffered the penalties of the law; the weak,
+the ignorant, and the vicious readily joined in the superstitions
+required of them, and, embracing the religion of the stronger party,
+easily escaped punishment. So it was when the pagans of Alexandria were
+persecuted by Theophilus; the chief sufferers were the men of learning,
+in whose minds paganism was a pure deism, and who saw nothing but
+ignorance and superstition on the side of their oppressors; who thought
+their worship of the Trinity only a new form of polytheism, and jokingly
+declared that they were not arithmeticians enough to understand it.
+Olympius, who was the priest of Serapis when the temple was sacked, and
+as such the head of the pagans of Alexandria, was a man in every
+respect the opposite of the Bishop Theophilus. He was of a frank, open
+countenance and agreeable manners; and though his age might have allowed
+him to speak among his followers in the tone of command, he chose rather
+in his moral lessons to use the mild persuasion of an equal; and few
+hearts were so hardened as not to be led into the paths of duty by his
+exhortations. Whereas the furious monks, says the indignant pagan, were
+men only in form, but swine in manners. Whoever put on a black coat, and
+was not ashamed to be seen with dirty linen, gained a tyrannical power
+over the minds of the mob, from their belief in his holiness; and these
+men attacked the temples of the gods as a propitiation for their own
+enormous sins. Thus each party reproached the other, and often unjustly.
+Among other religious frauds and pretended miracles of which the pagan
+priests were accused, was that of having an iron statue of Serapis
+hanging in the air in a chamber of the temple, by means of a loadstone
+fixed in the ceiling. The natural difficulties shield them from this
+charge, but other accusations are not so easily rebutted.
+
+After this attack upon the pagans, their religion was no longer openly
+taught in Alexandria. Some of the more zealous professors withdrew
+from the capital to Canopus, about ten miles distant, where the ancient
+priestly learning was still taught, unpersecuted because unnoticed; and
+there, under the pretence of studying hieroglyphics, a school was opened
+for teaching magic and other forbidden rites. When the pagan worship
+ceased throughout Egypt, the temples were very much used as churches,
+and in some cases received in their ample courtyard a smaller church of
+Greek architecture, as in that of Medinet Abu. In other cases Christian
+ornaments were added to the old walls, as in the rock temple of Kneph,
+opposite to Abu Simbel, where the figure of the Saviour with a glory
+round his head has been painted on the ceiling. The Christians, in order
+to remove from before their eyes the memorials of the old superstition,
+covered up the sculpture on the walls with mud from the Nile and white
+plaster. This coating we now take away, at a time when the idolatrous
+figures are no longer dangerous to religion, and we find the sculpture
+and painting fresh as when covered up fourteen hundred years ago.
+
+[Illustration: 248.jpg CHRISTIAN PICTURE AT ABU SIMBE]
+
+It would be unreasonable to suppose that the Egyptians, upon embracing
+Christianity, at once threw off all of their pagan rites. Among other
+customs that they still clung to, was that of making mummies of the
+bodies of the dead. St. Anthony had tried to dissuade the Christian
+converts from that practice; not because the mummy-cases were covered
+with pagan inscriptions, but he boldly asserted, what a very little
+reading would have disproved, that every mode of treating a dead body,
+beside burial, was forbidden in the Bible. St. Augustine, on the other
+hand, well understanding that the immortality of the soul without the
+body was little likely to be understood or valued by the ignorant,
+praises the Egyptians for that very practice, and says that they were
+the only Christians who really believed in the resurrection from the
+dead. The tapers burnt before the altars were from the earliest times
+used to light up the splendours of the Egyptian altars, in the darkness
+of their temples, and had been burnt in still greater numbers in the
+yearly festival of the candles. The playful custom of giving away
+sugared cakes and sweetmeats on the twenty-fifth day of Tybi, our
+twentieth of January, was then changed to be kept fourteen days earlier,
+and it still marks the Feast of Epiphany or Twelfth-night. The division
+of the people into clergy and laity, which was unknown to Greeks and
+Romans, was introduced into Christianity in the fourth century by the
+Egyptians. While the rest of Christendom were clothed in woollen, linen,
+the common dress of the Egyptians, was universally adopted by the clergy
+as more becoming to the purity of their manners. At the same time the
+clergy copied the Egyptian priests in the custom of shaving the crown of
+the head bald.
+
+The new law in favour of trinitarian Christianity was enforced with as
+great strictness against the Arians as against the pagans. The bishops
+and priests of that party wrere everywhere turned out of their churches,
+which were then given up to the Homoousians. Theodosius summoned a
+council of one hundred and fifty bishops at Constantinople, to re-enact
+the Nicene creed; and in the future religious rebellions of the
+Egyptians they always quoted against the Greeks this council of
+Constantinople, with that of Nicasa, as the foundation of their faith.
+By this religious policy, Theodosius did much to delay the fall of the
+empire. He won the friendship of his Egyptian subjects, as well as of
+their Saracen neighbours, all of whom, as far as they were Christian,
+held to the Nicene creed. Egypt became the safest of his provinces; and,
+when his armies had been recruited with so many barbarians that they
+could no longer be trusted, these new levies wrere marched into Egypt
+under the command of Hormisdas, and an equal number of Egyptians were
+drafted out of the army of Egypt, and led into Thessaly.
+
+When the season came for the overflow of the Nile, in the first summer
+after the destruction of the temples, the waters happened to rise more
+slowly than usual; and the Egyptians laid the blame upon the Christian
+emperor, who had forbidden their sacrificing the usual offerings in
+honour of the river-god.
+
+[Illustration: 250.jpg MANFALOOT, SHOWING THE HEIGHT OF THE NILE IN
+SUMMER]
+
+The alarm for the loss of their crops carried more weight in the
+religious controversy than any arguments that could be brought against
+pagan sacrifices; and the anger of the people soon threatened a serious
+rebellion. Evagrius the prefect, being disturbed for the peace of the
+country, sent to Constantinople for orders; but the emperor remained
+firm; he would make no change in the law against paganism, and the fears
+of the Egyptians and Alexandrians were soon put an end to by a most
+plenteous overflow.
+
+Since the time of Athanasius, and the overthrow of the Arian party in
+Alexandria, the learning of that city was wholly in the hands of the
+pagans, and was chiefly mathematical. Diophantus of Alexandria is the
+earliest writer on algebra whose works are now remaining to us, and has
+given his name to the Diophantine problems. Pappus wrote a description
+of the world, and a commentary on Ptolemy's _Almagest_, beside a work
+on geometry, published under the name of his _Mathematical Collections_.
+Theon, a professor in the museum, wrote on the smaller astrolabe--the
+instrument then used to measure the star orbits--and on the rise of the
+Nile, a subject always of interest to the mathematicians of Egypt, from
+its importance to the husbandman. From Theon's astronomical observations
+we learn that the Alexandrian astronomers still made use of the old
+Egyptian movable year of three hundred and sixty-five days only, and
+without a leap-year. Paul the Alexandrian astrologer, on the other hand,
+uses the Julian year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter,
+and he dates from the era of Diocletian. His rules for telling the day
+of the week from the day of the month, and for telling on what day of
+the week each year began, teach us that our present mode of dividing
+time was used in Egypt. Horapollo, the grammarian, was also then a
+teacher in the schools of Alexandria. He wrote in the Koptic language a
+work in explanation of the old hieroglyphics, which has gained a notice
+far beyond its deserts, because it is the only work on the subject that
+has come down to us.
+
+The only Christian writings of this time, that we know of, are the
+paschal letters of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, which were much
+praised by Jerome, and by him translated into Latin. They are full of
+bitter reproaches against Origen and his writings, and they charge him
+with having treated Jesus more cruelly than Pilate or the Jews had done.
+John, the famous monk of the Thebaid, was no writer, though believed to
+have the gift of prophecy. He was said to have foretold the victory
+of Theodosius over the rebel Maximus; and, when the emperor had got
+together his troops to march against Eugenius, another rebel who
+had seized the passes of the Julian Alps, he sent his trusty eunuch
+Eutropius to fetch the holy Egyptian, or at least to learn from him what
+would be the event of the war. John refused to go to Europe, but he
+told the messenger that Theodosius would conquer the rebel, and soon
+afterwards die; both of which came to pass as might easily have been
+guessed.
+
+On the death of Theodosius, in 395, the Roman empire was again divided.
+Arcadius, his elder son, ruled Egypt and the East, while Honorius, the
+younger, held the West; and the reins of government at once passed
+from the ablest to the weakest hands. But the change was little felt
+in Egypt, which continued to be governed by the patriarch Theophilus,
+without the name but with very nearly the power of a prefect. He was
+a bold and wicked man, but as his religious opinions were for the
+Homoousians as against the Arians, and his political feelings were for
+the Egyptians as against the Greeks, he rallied to his government the
+chief strength of the province. As the pagans and Arians of Alexandria
+were no longer worthy of his enmity, he fanned into a flame a new
+quarrel which was then breaking out in the Egyptian church. The monks
+of Upper Egypt, who were mostly ignorant and unlettered men, were
+anthropomorphites, or believers that God was in outward shape like a
+man. They quoted from the Jewish Scriptures that he made man in his own
+image, in support of their opinion. They held that he was of a strictly
+human form, like Jesus, which to them seemed fully asserted in the
+Nicene creed. In this opinion they were opposed by those who were better
+educated, and it suited the policy of Theophilus to side with the more
+ignorant and larger party. He branded with the name of Origenists those
+who argued that God was without form, and who quoted the writings of
+Origen in support of their opinion. This naturally led to a dispute
+about Origen's orthodoxy; and that admirable writer, who had been
+praised by all parties for two hundred years, and who had been quoted as
+authority as much by Athanasius as by the Arians, was declared to be a
+heretic by a council of bishops. The writings of Origen were accordingly
+forbidden to be read, because they contradicted the anthropomorphite
+opinions.
+
+The quarrel between the Origenists and the anthropomorphites did not end
+in words. A proposition in theology, or a doubt in metaphysics, was no
+better cause of civil war than the old quarrels about the bull Apis or
+the crocodile; but a change of religion had not changed the national
+character. The patriarch, finding his party the stronger, attacked the
+enemy in their own monasteries; he marched to Mount Nitria at the head
+of a strong body of soldiers, and, enrolling under his banners the
+anthropomorphite monks, attacked Dioscorus and the Origenists, set fire
+to their monasteries, and laid waste the place.
+
+Theophilus next quarrelled with Peter, the chief of the Alexandrian
+presbyters, whom he accused of admitting to the sacraments of the
+church a woman who had not renounced the Manichean heresy; and he then
+quarrelled with Isidorus, who had the charge of the poor of the church,
+because he bore witness that Peter had the orders of Theophilus himself
+for what he did.
+
+In this century there was a general digging up of the bodies of the
+most celebrated Christians of former ages, to heal the diseases and
+strengthen the faith of the living; and Constantinople, which as the
+capital of the empire had been ornamented by the spoils of its subject
+provinces, had latterly been enriching its churches with the remains of
+numerous Christian saints. The tombs of Egypt, crowded with mummies that
+had lain there for centuries, could of course furnish relics more easily
+than most countries, and in this reign Constantinople received from
+Alexandria a quantity of bones which were supposed to be those of the
+martyrs slain in the pagan persecutions. The archbishop John Chrysostom
+received them gratefully, and, though himself smarting under the
+reproach that he was not orthodox enough for the superstitious
+Egyptians, he thanks God that Egypt, which sent forth its grain to feed
+its hungry neighbours, could also send the bodies of so many martyrs to
+sanctify their churches.
+
+We have traced the fall of the Greek party in Alexandria, in the
+victories over the Arians during the religious quarrels of the last
+hundred years; and in the laws we now read the city's loss of wealth
+and power. The corporation of Alexandria was no longer able to bear the
+expense of cleansing the river and keeping open the canals; and four
+hundred _solidi_--about twelve hundred dollars--were each year set apart
+from the custom-house duties of the city for that useful work.
+
+The arrival of new settlers in Alexandria had been very much checked by
+the less prosperous state of the country since the reign of Diocletian.
+We still find, however, that many of the men of note were not born in
+Egypt. Paulus, the physician, was a native of AEgina. He has left a work
+on diseases and their remedies. The chief man of learning was Synesius,
+a platonic philosopher whom the patriarch Theophilus persuaded to join
+the Christians. As a platonist he naturally leaned towards many of
+the doctrines of the popular religion, but he could not believe in a
+resurrection; and it was not till after Theophilus had ordained him
+Bishop of Ptolemais near Cyrene that he acknowledged the truth of that
+doctrine. Nor would he then put away or disown his wife, as the
+custom of the Church required; indeed, he accepted the bishopric very
+unwillingly. He was as fond of playful sport as he was of books, and
+very much disliked business. He has left a volume of writings, which has
+saved the names of two prefects of Cyrene; the one Anysius, under
+whose good discipline even the barbarians of Hungary behaved like Roman
+legionaries, and the other Poonius, who cultivated science in this
+barren spot. To encourage Pasonius in his praiseworthy studies he made
+him a present of an astrolabe, to measure the distances of the stars
+and planets, an instrument which was constructed under the guidance of
+Hypatia.
+
+Trade and industry were checked by the unsettled state of the country,
+and misery and famine were spreading over the land. The African tribes
+of Mazices and Auxoriani, leaving the desert in hope of plunder, overran
+the province of Libya, and laid waste a large part of the Delta. The
+barbarians and the sands of the desert were alike encroaching on the
+cultivated fields. Nature seemed changed. The valley of the Nile was
+growing narrower. Even within the valley the retreating wraters left
+behind them harvests less rich, and fever more putrid. The quarries were
+no longer worth working for their building stone. The mines yielded no
+more gold.
+
+On the death of Arcadius, his son Theodosius was only eight years old,
+but he was quietly acknowledged as Emperor of the East in 408, and he
+left the government of Egypt, as heretofore, very much in the hands of
+the patriarch. In the fifth year of his reign Theophilus died; and, as
+might be supposed, a successor was not appointed without a struggle for
+the double honour of Bishop of Alexandria and Governor of Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: 257.jpg QUARRIES AT TOORAH ON THE NILE]
+
+The remains of the Greek and Arian party proposed Timotheus, an
+archdeacon in the church; but the Egyptian party were united in favour
+of Cyril, a young man of learning and talent, who had the advantage of
+being the nephew of the late bishop. Whatever were the forms by which
+the election should have been governed, it was in reality settled by a
+battle between the two parties in the streets; and though Abundantius,
+the military prefect, gave the weight of his name, if not the strength
+of his cohort, to the party of Timotheus, yet his rival conquered,
+-and Cyril was carried into the cathedral with a pomp more like a pagan
+triumph than the modest ordination of a bishop.
+
+Cyril was not less tyrannical in his bishopric than his uncle had
+been before him. His first care was to put a stop to all heresy in
+Alexandria, and his second to banish the Jews. The theatre was the spot
+in which the riots between Jews and Christians usually began, and the
+Sabbath was the time, as being the day on which the Jews chiefly crowded
+in to see the dancing. On one occasion the quarrel in the theatre ran
+so high that the prefect with his cohort was scarcely able to keep them
+from blows; and the Christians reproached the Jews with plotting to burn
+down the churches. But the Christians were themselves guilty of the very
+crimes of which they accused their enemies. The next morning, as soon
+as it was light, Cyril headed the mob in their attacks upon the Jewish
+synagogues; they broke them open and plundered them, and in one day
+drove every Jew out of the city. No Jew had been allowed to live in
+Alexandria or any other city without paying a poll-tax, for leave
+to worship his God according to the manner of his forefathers; but
+religious zeal is stronger than the love of money; the Jews were driven
+out, and the tax lost to the city.
+
+[Illustration: 258b.jpg Street and Mosque of Mahdjiar]
+
+Orestes, the prefect of Alexandria, had before wished to check the power
+of the bishop; and he in vain tried to save the Jews from oppression,
+and the state from the loss of so many good citizens. But it was useless
+to quarrel with the patriarch, who was supported by the religious
+zeal of the whole population. The monks of Mount Nitria and of the
+neighbourhood burned with a holy zeal to fight for Cyril, as they had
+before fought for Theophilus; and when they heard that a jealousy had
+sprung up between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities, more than
+five hundred of them marched into Alexandria to avenge the affronted
+bishop. They met the prefect Orestes as he was passing through the
+streets in his open chariot, and began reproaching him with being a
+pagan and a Greek. Orestes answered that he was a Christian, and he had
+been baptised at Constantinople. But this only cleared him of the lesser
+charge, he was certainly a Greek; and one of these Egyptian monks taking
+up a stone threw it at his head, and the blow covered his face with
+blood. They then fled from the guards and people who came up to help the
+wounded prefect; but Ammonius, who threw the stone, was taken and put
+to death with torture. The grateful bishop buried him in the church with
+much pomp; he declared him to be a martyr and a saint, and gave him
+the name of St. Thaumasius. But the Christians were ashamed of the
+new martyr: and the bishop, who could not withstand the ridicule, soon
+afterwards withdrew from him the title.
+
+Bad as was this behaviour of the bishop and his friends, the most
+disgraceful tale still remains to be told. The beautiful and learned
+Hypatia, the daughter of Theon the mathematician, was at that time
+the ornament of Alexandria and the pride of the pagans. She taught
+philosophy publicly in the platonic school which had been founded by
+Ammonius, and which boasted of Plotinus as its pupil. She was as modest
+as she wras graceful, eloquent, and learned; and though, being a pagan,
+she belonged to neither of the rival Christian parties, yet, as she
+had more hearers among the Greek friends of the prefect than among the
+ignorant followers of the bishop, she became an object of jealousy with
+the Homoousian party. A body of these Christians, says the orthodox
+historian, attacked this admirable woman in the street; they dragged
+her from her chariot, and hurried her off into the church named Caesar's
+temple, and there stripped her and murdered her with some broken tiles.
+She had written commentaries on the mathematical works of Diophantus,
+and on the conic sections of Apollonius. The story of her life has been
+related in the nineteenth century by Charles Kingsley in the novel which
+bears her name.
+
+Arianism took refuge from the Egyptians within the camps of the Greek
+soldiers. One church was dedicated to the honour of St. George, the late
+bishop, within the lofty towers of the citadel of Babylon, which was
+the strongest fortress in Egypt; and a second in the city of Ptolemais,
+where a garrison was stationed to collect the toll of the Thebaid. St.
+George became a favourite saint with the Greeks in Egypt, and in those
+spots where the Greek soldiers were masters of the churches this Arian
+and unpopular bishop was often painted on the walls riding triumphantly
+on horseback and slaying the dragon of Athanasian error. On the other
+hand, in Alexandria, where his rival's politics and opinions held the
+upper hand, the monastery of St. Athanasius was built in the most public
+spot in the city, probably that formerly held by the Soma or royal
+burial-place; and in Thebes a cathedral church was dedicated to St.
+Athanasius within the great courtyard of Medinet-Abu, where the
+small and paltry Greek columns are in strange contrast to the grand
+architecture of Ramses III. which surrounds them.
+
+In former reigns the Alexandrians had been in the habit of sending
+embassies to Constantinople to complain of tyranny or misgovernment, and
+to beg for a redress of grievances, when they thought that justice could
+be there obtained when it was refused in Alexandria. But this practice
+was stopped by Theodosius, who made a law that the Alexandrians should
+never send an embassy to Constantinople, unless it were agreed to by a
+decree of the town council, and had the approbation of the prefect. The
+weak and idle emperor would allow no appeal from the tyranny of his own
+governor.
+
+We may pass over the banishment of John Chrysostom, Bishop of
+Constantinople, as having less to do with the history of Egypt, though,
+as in the cases of Arius and Nestorius, the chief mover of the attack
+upon him was a bishop of Alexandria, who accused him of heresy, because
+he did not come up to the Egyptian standard of orthodoxy. But among the
+bishops who were deposed with Chrysostom was Palladius of Galatia, who
+was sent a prisoner to Syene. As soon as he was released from his bonds,
+instead of being cast down by his misfortunes, he proposed to take
+advantage of the place of his banishment, and he set forward on his
+travels through Ethiopia for India, in search of the wisdom of the
+Brahmins. He arrived in safety at Adule, the port on the Red Sea in
+latitude 15 deg., now known as Zula, where he made acquaintance with Moses,
+the bishop of that city, and persuaded him to join him in his distant
+and difficult voyage.
+
+From Adule the two set sail in one of the vessels employed in the Indian
+trade; but they were unable to accomplish their purpose, and Palladius
+returned to Egypt worn out with heat and fatigue, having scarcely
+touched the shores of India. On his return through Thebes he met with
+a traveller who had lately returned from the same journey, and who
+consoled him under his disappointment by recounting his own failure in
+the same undertaking. His new friend had himself been a merchant in the
+Indian trade, but had given up business because he was not successful in
+it; and, having taken a priest as his companion, had set out on the
+same voyage in search of Eastern wisdom. They had sailed to Adule on
+the Abyssinian shore, and then travelled to Auxum, the capital of that
+country. From that coast they set sail for the Indian ocean, and reached
+a coast which they thought was Taprobane or Ceylon. But there they were
+taken prisoners, and, after spending six years in slavery, and learning
+but little of the philosophy that they were in search of, were glad to
+take the first opportunity of escaping and returning to Egypt. Palladius
+had travelled in Egypt before he was sent there into banishment, and
+he had spent many years in examining the monasteries of the Thebaid and
+their rules, and he has left a history of the lives of many of those
+holy men and woman, addressed to his friend Lausus.
+
+When Nestorius was deposed from the bishopric of Constantinople for
+refusing to use the words "Mother of God" as the title of Jesus'
+mother, and for falling short in other points of what was then thought
+orthodoxy, he was banished to Hibe in the Great Oasis. While he was
+living there, the Great Oasis was overrun by the Blemmyes, the Roman
+garrison was defeated, and those that resisted were put to the sword.
+The Blemmyes pillaged the place and then withdrew; and, being themselves
+at war with the Mazices, another tribe of Arabs, they kindly sent their
+prisoners to the Thebaid, lest they should fall into the hands of
+the latter. Nestorius then went to Panopolis to show himself to the
+governor, lest he should be accused of running away from his place of
+banishment, and soon afterwards he died of the sufferings brought on by
+these forced and painful journeys through the desert.
+
+About the same time Egypt was visited by Cassianus, a monk of Gaul, in
+order to study the monastic institutions of the Thebaid. In his work on
+that subject he has described at length the way of life and the severe
+rules of the Egyptian monks, and has recommended them to the imitation
+of his countrymen. But the natives of Italy and the West do not seem
+to have been contented with copying the Theban monks at a distance. Such
+was the fame of the Egyptian monasteries that many zealots from Italy
+flocked there, to place themselves under the severe discipline of those
+holy men. As these Latin monks did not understand either Koptic or
+Greek, they found some difficulty in regulating their lives with the
+wished-for exactness; and the rules of Pachomius, of Theodorus, and of
+Oresiesis, the most celebrated of the founders, were actually sent to
+Jerome at Rome, to be by him translated into Latin for the use of these
+settlers in the Thebaid. These Latin monks made St. Peter a popular
+saint in some parts of Egypt; and in the temple of Asseboua, in Nubia,
+when the Christians plastered over the figure of one of the old gods,
+they painted in its place the Apostle Peter holding the key in his hand.
+
+[Illustration: 264.jpg RAMSES II. AND ST. PETER]
+
+They did not alter the rest of the sculpture; so that Ramses II. is
+there now seen presenting his offering to the Christian saint. The mixed
+group gives us proof of the nation's decline in art rather than of its
+improvement in religion.
+
+Among the monks of Egypt there were also some men of learning and
+industry, who in their cells in the desert had made at least three
+translations of the New Testament into the three dialects of the Koptic
+language; namely, the Sahidic of Upper Egypt, the Bashmuric of the
+Bashmour province of the eastern half of the Delta, and the Koptic
+proper of Memphis and the western half of the Delta. To these were
+afterwards added the Acts of the council of Nicaea, the lives of the
+saints and martyrs, the writings of many of the Christian fathers, the
+rituals of the Koptic church, and various treatises on religion.
+
+Other monks were as busy in making copies of the Greek manuscripts
+of the Old and New Testament; and, as each copy must have needed the
+painful labour of months, and often years, their industry and zeal must
+have been great. Most of these manuscripts were on papyrus, or on a
+manufactured papyrus which might be called paper, and have long since
+been lost; but the three most ancient copies on parchment which are the
+pride of the Vatican, the Paris library, and the British Museum, are the
+work of the Alexandrian penmen.
+
+Copies of the Bible were also made in Alexandria for sale in western
+Europe; and all our oldest manuscripts show their origin by the Egyptian
+form of spelling in some of the words. The Beza manuscript at Cambridge,
+and the Clermont manuscript at Paris, which have Greek on one side of
+the page and Latin on the other, were written in Alexandria. The Latin
+is that more ancient version which was in use before the time of Jerome,
+and which he corrected, to form what is now called the Latin Vulgate.
+This old version was made by changing each Greek word into its
+corresponding Latin word, with very little regard to the different
+characters of the two languages. It was no doubt made by an Alexandrian
+Greek, who had a very slight knowledge of Latin.
+
+Already the papyrus on which books were written was, for the most part,
+a manufactured article and might claim the name of paper. In the time of
+Pliny in the first century the sheets had been made in the old way; the
+slips of the plant laid one across the other had been held together by
+their own sticky sap without the help of glue. In the reign of Aurelian,
+in the third century, if not earlier, glue had been largely used in the
+manufacture; and it is probable that at this time, in the fifth century,
+the manufactured article almost deserved the name of paper. But this
+manufactured papyrus was much weaker and less lasting than that made
+after the old and more simple fashion. No books written upon it remain
+to us. At a later period, the stronger fibre of flax was used in the
+manufacture, but the date of this improvement is also unknown, because
+at first the paper so made, like that made from the papyrus fibre, was
+also too weak to last. It was doubtless an Alexandrian improvement.
+Flax was an Egyptian plant; paper-making was an Egyptian trade; and
+Theophilus, a Roman writer on manufactures, when speaking of paper made
+from flax, clearly points to its Alexandrian origin, by giving it the
+name of Greek parchment. Between the papyrus of the third century, and
+the strong paper of the eleventh century, no books remain to us but
+those written on parchment.
+
+The monks of Mount Sinai suffered much during these reigns of weakness
+from the marauding attacks of the Arabs. These men had no strong
+monastery; but hundreds of them lived apart in single cells in the
+side of the mountains round the valley of Feiran, at the foot of Mount
+Serbal, and they had nothing to protect them but their poverty.
+They were not protected by Egypt, and they made treaties with the
+neighbouring Arabs, like an independent republic, of which the town of
+Feiran was the capital. The Arabs, from the Jordan to the Red Sea,
+made robbery the employment of their lives, and they added much to the
+voluntary sufferings of the monks.
+
+[Illustration: 267.jpg THE PAPYRUS PLANT]
+
+Nilus, a monk who had left his family in Egypt, to spend his life in
+prayer and study on the spot where Moses was appointed the legislator
+of Israel, describes these attacks upon his brethren, and he boasts over
+the Israelites that, notwithstanding their sufferings, the monks spent
+their whole lives cheerfully in those very deserts which God's chosen
+people could not even pass through without murmuring. Nilus has left
+some letters and exhortations. It was then, probably, that the numerous
+inscriptions were made on the rocks at the foot of Mount Serbal, and on
+the path towards its sacred peak, which have given to one spot the name
+of Mokatteb, or the valley of writing. A few of these inscriptions are
+in the Greek language.
+
+The Egyptian physicians had of old always formed a part of the
+priesthood, and they seem to have done much the same after the spread
+of Christianity. We find some monks named _Parabalani_, who owned
+the Bishop of Alexandria as their head, and who united the offices of
+physician and nurse in waiting on the sick and dying. As they professed
+poverty they were maintained by the state and had other privileges; and
+hence it was a place much sought after, and even by the wealthy. But to
+lessen this abuse it was ordered by an imperial rescript that none but
+poor people who had been rate-payers should be _Parabalani_; and their
+number was limited, first to five hundred, but afterwards, at the
+request of the bishop, to six hundred. A second charitable institution
+in Alexandria had the care of strangers and the poor, and was also
+managed by one of the priests.
+
+Alexandria was fast sinking in wealth and population, and several new
+laws were now made to lessen its difficulties. One was to add a hundred
+and ten bushels of grain to the daily alimony of the city, the supply on
+which the riotous citizens were fed in idleness. By a second and a third
+law the five chief men in the corporation, and every man that had filled
+a civic office for thirty years, were freed from all bodily punishment,
+and only to be fined when convicted of a crime. Theodosius built a
+large church in Alexandria, which was called after his name; and the
+provincial judges were told in a letter to the prefect that, if they
+wished to earn the emperor's praise, they must not only restore those
+buildings which were falling through age and neglect but must also build
+new ones.
+
+Though the pagan philosophy had been much discouraged at Alexandria by
+the destruction of the temples and the cessation of the sacrifices, yet
+the philosophers were still allowed to teach in the schools. Syrianus
+was at the head of the Platonists, and he wrote largely on the Orphic,
+Pythagorean, and Platonic doctrines. In his Commentary on Aristotle's
+Metaphysics he aims at showing how a Pythagorean or a Platonist would
+successfully answer Aristotle's objections. He seems to look upon the
+writings of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus as the true fountains of
+Platonic wisdom, quite as much as the works of the great philosopher
+who gave his name to the sect. Syrianus afterwards removed to Athens, to
+take charge of the Platonic school in that city, and Athens became the
+chief seat of Alexandrian Platonism.
+
+Olympiodorus was at the same time undertaking the task of forming a
+Peripatetic school in Alexandria, in opposition to the new Platonism,
+and he has left some of the fruits of his labour in his Commentaries on
+Aristotle. But the Peripatetic philosophy was no longer attractive to
+the pagans, though after the fall of the catechetical school it had
+a strong following of Christian disciples. Olympiodorus also wrote
+a history, but it has long since been lost, with other works of a
+second-rate merit. He was a native of the Thebaid, and travelled over
+his country. He described the Great Oasis as still a highly cultivated
+spot, where the husbandman watered his fields every third day in summer,
+and every fifth day in winter, from wells of two and three hundred feet
+in depth, and thereby raised two crops of barley, and often three of
+millet, in a year. Olympiodorus also travelled beyond Syene into Nubia,
+with some danger from the Blemmyes, but he was not able to see the
+emerald mines, which were worked on Mount Smaragdus in the Arabian
+desert between Koptos and Berenice, and which seem to have been the
+chief object of his journey.
+
+Proclus came to Alexandria about the end of this reign, and studied
+many years under Olympiodorus, but not to the neglect of the platonic
+philosophy, of which he afterwards became such a distinguished ornament
+and support. The other Alexandrians under whom Proclus studied were
+Hero, the mathematician, a devout and religious pagan, Leonas, the
+rhetorician, who introduced him to all the chief men of learning, and
+Orion, the grammarian, who boasted of his descent from the race of
+Theban priests. Thus the pagans still held up their heads in the
+schools. Nor were the ceremonies of their religion, though unlawful,
+wholly stopped. In the twenty-eighth year of this reign, when the people
+were assembled in a theatre at Alexandria to celebrate the midnight
+festival of the Nile, a sacrifice which had been forbidden by
+Constantine and the council of Nicsea, the building fell beneath the
+weight of the crowd, and upwards of five hundred persons were killed by
+the fall.
+
+[Illustration: 271.jpg ARABS RESTING IN THE DESERT]
+
+It will be of some interest to review here the machinery of officers and
+deputies, civil as well as military, by which Egypt was governed under
+the successors of Constantine. The whole of the Eastern empire was
+placed under two prefects, the pretorian prefect of the East and the
+pretorian prefect of Illyricum, who, living at Constantinople, like
+modern secretaries of state, made edicts for the government of the
+provinces and heard the appeals. Under the prefect of the East were
+fifteen consular provinces, together with Egypt, which was not any
+longer under one prefect. There was no consular governor in Egypt
+between the prefect at Constantinople and the six prefects of the
+smaller provinces. These provinces were Upper Libya or Cyrene, Lower
+Libya or the Oasis, the Thebaid, AEgyptiaca or the western part of the
+Delta, Augustanica or the eastern part of the Delta, and the Heptanomis,
+now named Arcadia, after the late emperor. Each of these was under
+an Augustal prefect, attended by a _Princeps, a Cornicula-rius,
+an Adjutor_, and others, and was assisted in civil matters by a
+_Commentariensis_, a corresponding secretary, a secretary _ab actis_,
+with a crowd of _numerarii_ or clerks.
+
+The military government was under a count with two dukes, with a number
+of legions, cohorts, troops, and wedges of cavalry, stationed in about
+fifty cities, which, if they had looked as well in the field as they do
+upon paper, would have made Theodosius II. as powerful as Augustus. But
+the number of Greek and Roman troops was small. The rest were barbarians
+who held their own lives at small price, and the lives of the unhappy
+Egyptians at still less. The Greeks were only a part of the fifth
+Macedonian legion, and Trajan's second legion, which were stationed at
+Memphis, at Parembole, and at Apollinopolis; while from the names of
+the other cohorts we learn that they were Franks, Portuguese, Germans,
+Quadri, Spaniards, Britons, Moors, Vandals, Gauls, Sarmati, Assyrians,
+Galatians, Africans, Numid-ians, and others of less known and more
+remote places. Egypt itself furnished the Egyptian legion, part of which
+was in Mesopotamia, Diocletian's third legion of Thebans, the first
+Maximinian legion of Thebans which was stationed in Thrace, Constantine's
+second Flavian legion of Thebans, Valens' second Felix legion of
+Thebans, and the Julian Alexandrian legion, stationed in Thrace. Beside
+these, there were several bodies of native militia, from Abydos, Syene,
+and other cities, which were not formed into legions. The Egyptian
+cavalry were a first and second Egyptian troop, several bodies of native
+archers mounted, three troops on dromedaries, and a body of Diocletian's
+third legion promoted to the cavalry. These Egyptian troops were chiefly
+Arab settlers in the Thebaid, for the Kopts had long since lost the use
+of arms. The Kopts were weak enough to be trampled on; but the Arabs
+were worth bribing by admission into the legions. The taxes of the
+province were collected by a number of counts of the sacred largesses,
+who wrere under the orders of an officer of the same title at
+Constantinople, and were helped by a body of counts of the exports and
+imports, prefects of the treasury and of the mints, with an army
+of clerks of all titles and all ranks. From this government the
+Alexandrians were exempt, living under their own military prefect and
+corporation, and, instead of paying any taxes beyond the custom-house
+duties at the port, they received a bounty in grain out of the taxes of
+Egypt.
+
+Soon after this we find the political division of Egypt slightly
+altered. It is then divided into eight governments; the Upper Thebaid
+with eleven cities under a duke; the Lower Thebaid with ten cities,
+including the Great Oasis and part of the Heptanomis, under a general;
+Upper Libya or Cyrene under a general; Lower Libya or Parastonium under
+a general; Arcadia, or the remainder of the Heptanomis, under a general;
+AEgyptiaca, or the western half of the Delta, under an Augustalian
+prefect; the first Augustan government, or the rest of the Delta, under
+a _Corrector_; and the second Augustan government, from Bubastis to the
+Red Sea, under a general. We also meet with several military stations
+named after the late emperors: a Maximianopolis and a Dioclesianopolis
+in the Upper Thebaid; a Theodosianopolis in the Lower Thebaid, and a
+second Theodosianopolis in Arcadia. But it is not easy to determine what
+villages were meant by these high-sounding names, which were perhaps
+only used in official documents.
+
+The empire of the East was gradually sinking in power during this long
+and quiet reign of Theodosius II.; but the empire of the West was being
+hurried to its fall by the revolt of the barbarians in every one of its
+widespread provinces. Henceforth in the weakness of the two countries
+Egypt and Rome are wholly separated. After having influenced one another
+in politics, in literature, and in religion for seven centuries, they
+were now as little known to one another as they were before the day when
+Fabius arrived at Alexandria on an embassy from the senate to Ptolemy
+Philadelphus.
+
+Theological and political quarrels, under the name of the Homoousian
+and Arian controversy, had nearly separated Egypt from the rest of the
+empire during the reigns of Constantius and Valens, but they had been
+healed by the wisdom of the first Theodosius, who governed Egypt by
+means of a popular bishop; and the policy which he so wisely began
+was continued by his successors through weakness. But in the reign of
+Marcian (450--457) the old quarrel again broke out, and, though it was
+under a new name, it again took the form of a religious controversy.
+Cyril, the Bishop of Alexandria, died in the last reign; and as he had
+succeeded his uncle, so on his death the bishopric fell to Dioscorus,
+a relation of his own, a man of equal religious violence and of less
+learning, who differed from him only in the points of doctrine about
+which he should quarrel with his fellow-Christians. About the same
+time Eutyches, a priest of Constantinople, had been condemned by his
+superiors and expelled from the Church for denying the two natures of
+Christ, and for maintaining that he was truly God, and in no respect
+a man. This was the opinion of the Egyptian church, and therefore
+Dioscorus, the Bishop of Alexandria, who had no right whatever to meddle
+in the quarrels at Constantinople, yet, acting on the forgotten rule
+that each bishop's power extended over all Christendom, undertook of
+his own authority to absolve Eutyches from his excommunication, and in
+return to excommunicate the Bishop of Constantinople who had condemned
+him. To settle this quarrel, a general council was summoned at
+Chalcedon; and there six hundred and thirty-two bishops met and
+condemned the faith of Eutyches, and further explained the Nicene creed,
+to which Eutyches and the Egyptians always appealed. They excommunicated
+Eutyches and his patron Dioscorus, who were banished by the emperor; and
+they elected Proterius to the then vacant bishopric of Alexandria.
+
+In thus condemning the faith of Eutyches, the Greeks were
+excommunicating the whole of Egypt. The Egyptian belief in the one
+nature of Christ, which soon afterwards took the name of the Jacobite
+faith from one of its popular supporters, might perhaps be distinguished
+by the microscopic eye of the controversialist from the faith of
+Eutyches; but they equally fell under the condemnation of the council of
+Chalcedon. Egypt was no longer divided in its religious opinions. There
+had been a party who, though Egyptian in blood, held the Arian and
+half-Arian opinions of the Greeks, but that party had ceased to exist.
+Their religion had pulled one way and their political feelings another;
+the latter were found the stronger, as being more closely rooted to the
+soil; and their religious opinions had by this time fitted themselves
+to the geographical boundaries of the country. Hence the decrees of
+the council of Chalcedon were rejected by the whole of Egypt; and the
+quarrel between the Chalcedonian and Jacobite party, like the former
+quarrel between the Athanasians and the Arians, was little more than
+another name for the unwillingness of the Egyptians to be governed by
+Constantinople.
+
+Proterius, the new bishop, entered Alexandria supported by the prefect
+Floras at the head of the troops.
+
+But this was the signal for a revolt of the Egyptians, who overpowered
+the cohort with darts and stones; and the magistrates were driven to
+save their lives in the celebrated temple of Serapis. But they found no
+safety there; the mob surrounded the building and set fire to it, and
+burned alive the Greek magistrates and friends of the new bishop; and
+the city remained in the power of the rebellious Egyptians. When the
+news of this rising reached Constantinople the emperor sent to Egypt a
+further force of two thousand men, who stormed Alexandria and sacked it
+like a conquered city, and established Proterius in the bishopric. As a
+punishment upon the city for its rebellion, the prefect stopped for some
+time the public games and the allowance of grain to the citizens, and
+only restored them after the return to peace and good order.
+
+In the weak state of the empire, the Blemmyes, and Nubades, or Nobatae,
+had latterly been renewing their inroads upon Upper Egypt; they
+had overpowered the Romans, as the Greek and barbarian troops of
+Constantinople were always called, and had carried off a large booty
+and a number of prisoners. Maximinus, the imperial general, then led his
+forces against them; he defeated them, and made them beg for peace.
+The barbarians then proposed, as the terms of their surrender, never to
+enter Egypt while Maximinus commanded the troops in the Thebaid; but the
+conqueror was not contented with such an unsatisfactory submission,
+and would make no treaty with them till they had released the Roman
+prisoners without ransom, paid for the booty that they had taken, and
+given a number of the nobles as hostages. On this Maximums agreed to a
+truce of a hundred years.
+
+The people now called the Nubians, living on both sides of the cataract
+of Syene, declared themselves of the true Egyptian race by their
+religious practices. They had an old custom of going each year to the
+temple of Isis on the isle of Elephantine, and of carrying away one
+of the statues with them and returning it to the temple when they had
+consulted it. But as they were now being driven out of the province,
+they bargained with Maximums for permission to visit the temple each
+year without hindrance from the Roman guards. The treaty was written on
+papyrus and nailed up in this temple. But friendship in the desert, says
+the proverb, is as weak and wavering as the shade of the acacia tree;
+this truce was no sooner agreed upon than Maximinus fell ill and died;
+and the Nubades at once broke the treaty, regained by force their
+hostages, who had not yet been carried out of the Thebaid, and overran
+the province as they had done before their defeat.
+
+[Illustration: 279.jpg ISIS AS THE DOG-STAR]
+
+By this success of the Nubians, Christianity was largely driven out of
+Upper Egypt; and about seventy years after the law of Thedosius L, by
+which paganism was supposed to be crushed, the religion of Isis and
+Serapis was again openly professed in the Thebaid, where it had perhaps
+always been cultivated in secret. A certain master of the robes in one
+of the Egyptian temple came at this time to the temple of Isis in the
+island of Philae, and his votive inscription there declares that he was
+the son of Pachomius, a prophet, and successor by direct descent from a
+yet more famous Pachomius, a prophet, who we may easily believe was the
+Christian prophet who gathered together so many followers in the island
+of Tabenna, near Thebes, and there founded an order of Christian monks.
+These Christians now all returned to their paganism. Nearly all the
+remains of Christian architecture which we meet with in the The-baid
+were built during the hundred and sixty years between the defeat of the
+Nubians by Diocletian, and their victories in the reign of Marcian.
+
+The Nubians were far more civilised than their neighbours, the Blemmyes,
+whom they were usually able to drive back into their native deserts. We
+find an inscription in bad Greek, in the great temple at Talmis, now
+the village of Kalabshe, which was probably written about this time.
+A conqueror of the name of Silco there declares that he is king of the
+Nubians and all the Ethiopians; that in the upper part of his kingdom he
+is called Mars, and in the lower part Lion; that he is as great as any
+king of his day; that he has defeated the Blemmyes in battle again and
+again; and that he has made himself master of the country between
+Talmis and Primis. While such were the neighbours and inhabitants of
+the Thebaid, the fields were only half-tilled, and the desert was
+encroaching on the paths of man. The sand was filling up the temples,
+covering the overthrown statues, and blocking up the doors to the tombs;
+but it was at the same time saving, to be dug out in after ages, those
+records which the living no longer valued.
+
+On the death of the Emperor Marcian, the Alexandrians, taking advantage
+of the absence of the military prefect Dionysius, who was then fighting
+against the Nubades in Upper Egypt, renewed their attack upon the Bishop
+Proterius, and deposed him from his office. To fill his place they made
+choice of a monk named Timotheus AElurus, who held the Jacobite faith,
+and, having among them two deposed bishops, they got them to ordain him
+Bishop of Alexandria, and then led him by force of arms into the great
+church which had formerly been called Caesar's temple. Upon hearing
+of the rebellion, the prefect returned in haste to Alexandria; but
+his approach was only the signal for greater violence, and the enraged
+people murdered Proterius in the baptistery, and hung up his body at the
+Tetrapylon in mockery. This was not a rebellion of the mob. Timotheus
+was supported by the men of chief rank in the city; the _Honorati_ who
+had borne state offices, the _Politici_ who had borne civic offices,
+and the _Navicularii_, or contractors for the freight of the Egyptian
+tribute, were all opposed to the emperor's claim to appoint the officer
+whose duties were much more those of prefect of the city than patriarch
+of Egypt. With such an opposition as this, the emperor would do nothing
+without the greatest caution, for he was in danger of losing Egypt
+altogether. But so much were the minds of all men then engrossed in
+ecclesiastical matters that this political struggle wholly took the form
+of a dispute in controversial divinity, and the emperor wrote a
+letter to the chief bishops in Christendom to ask their advice in
+his difficulty. These theologians were too busily engaged in their
+controversies to take any notice of the danger of Egypt's revolting from
+the empire and joining the Persians; so they strongly advised Leo not to
+depart from the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, or to acknowledge
+as Bishop of Alexandria a man who denied the two natures of Christ.
+Accordingly, the emperor again risked breaking the slender ties by
+which he held Egypt; he banished the popular bishop, and forced the
+Alexandrians to receive in his place one who held the Chalcedonian
+faith.
+
+On the death of Leo, he was succeeded by his grandson, Leo the Younger,
+who died in 473, after a reign of one year, and was succeeded by his
+father Zeno, the son-in-law of the elder Leo. Zeno gave himself up at
+once to debauchery and vice, while the empire was harassed on all sides
+by the barbarians, and the provinces were roused into rebellion by the
+cruelty of the prefects. The rebels at last found a head in Basilicus,
+the brother-in-law of Leo. He declared himself of the Jacobite faith,
+which was the faith of the barbarian enemies, of the barbarian troops,
+and of the barbarian allies of the empire, and, proclaiming himself
+emperor, made himself master of Constantinople without a battle, and
+drove Zeno into banishment in the third year of his reign.
+
+The first step of Basilicus was to recall from banishment Timotheus
+AElurus, the late Bishop of Alexandria, and to restore him to the
+bishopric (A.D. 477). He then addressed to him and the other recalled
+bishops a circular letter, in which he repeals the decrees of the
+council of Chalcedon, and re-establishes the Nicene creed, declaring
+that Jesus was of one substance with the Father, and that Mary was the
+mother of God. The march of Timotheus to the seat of his own government,
+from Constantinople whither he had been summoned, was more like that
+of a conqueror than of a preacher of peace. He deposed some bishops and
+restored others, and, as the decrees of the council of Chalcedon were
+the particular objects of his hatred, he restored to the city of Ephesus
+the patriarchal power which that synod had taken away from it. Basilicus
+reigned for about two years, when he was defeated and put to death by
+Zeno, who regained the throne.
+
+As soon as Zeno was again master of the empire, he re-established the
+creed of the council of Chalcedon, and drove away the Jacobite bishops
+from their bishoprics. Death, however, removed Timotheus AElurus before
+the emperor's orders were put in force in Alexandria, and the Egyptians
+then chose Peter Mongus as his successor, in direct opposition to the
+orders from Constantinople. But the emperor was resolved not to be
+beaten; the bishopric of Alexandria was so much a civil office that to
+have given up the appointment to the Egyptians would have been to allow
+the people to govern themselves; so he banished Peter, and recalled to
+the head of the Church Timotheus Salophaciolus, who had been living at
+Canopus ever since his loss of the bishopric.
+
+But, as the patriarch of Alexandria enjoyed the ecclesiastical revenues,
+and was still in appearance a teacher of religion, the Alexandrians,
+in recollection of the former rights of the Church, still claimed the
+appointment. They sent John, a priest of their own faith and dean of the
+church of John the Baptist, as their ambassador to Constantinople, not
+to remonstrate against the late acts of the emperor, but to beg that on
+future occasions the Alexandrians might be allowed the old privilege of
+choosing their own bishop. The Emperor Zeno seems to have seen through
+the ambassador's earnestness, and he first bound him by an oath not to
+accept the bishopric if he should even be himself chosen to it, and
+he then sent him back with the promise that the Alexandrians should
+be allowed to choose their own patriarch on the next vacancy. But
+unfortunately John's ambition was too strong for his oath, and on the
+death of Timotheus, which happened soon afterwards, he spent a large
+sum of money in bribes among the clergy and chief men of the city, and
+thereby got himself chosen patriarch. On this, the emperor seems to have
+thought only of punishing John, and he at once gave up the struggle with
+the Egyptians. Believing that, of the two patriarchs who had been chosen
+by the people, Peter Mongus, who was living in banishment, would be
+found more dutiful than John, who was on the episcopal throne, he
+banished John and recalled Peter; and the latter agreed to the terms of
+an imperial edict which Zeno then put forth, to heal the disputes in
+the Egyptian church, and to recall the province to obedience. This
+celebrated peace-making edict, usually called the Henoticon, is
+addressed to the clergy and laity of Alexandria, Egypt, Libya, and the
+Pentapolis, and is an agreement between the emperor and the bishops who
+countersigned it, that neither party should ever mention the decrees of
+the council of Chalcedon, which were the great stumbling-block with the
+Egyptians.
+
+[Illustration: 285.jpg STREET SPRINKLER AT ALEXANDRIA]
+
+But in all other points the Henoticon is little short of a surrender to
+the people of the right to choose their own creed; it styles Mary the
+mother of God, and allows that the decrees of the council of Nicaea and
+Constantinople contain all that is important of the true faith. John,
+when banished by Zeno, like many of the former deposed bishops, fled to
+Rome for comfort and for help. There he met with the usual support; and
+Felix, Bishop of Rome, wrote to Constantinople, remonstrating with Zeno
+for dismissing the patriarch. But this was only a small part of the
+emperor's want of success in his attempt at peace-making; for the crafty
+Peter, who had gained the bishopric by subscribing to the peace-making
+edict, was no sooner safely seated on his episcopal throne than he
+denounced the council of Chalcedon and its decrees as heretical, and
+drove out of their monasteries all those who still adhered to that
+faith. Nephalius, one of these monks, wrote to the emperor at
+Constantinople in complaint, and Zeno sent Cosmas to the bishop to
+threaten him with his imperial displeasure, and to try to re-establish
+peace in the Church. But the arguments of Cosmas were wholly
+unsuccessful; and Zeno then sent an increase of force to Arsenius, the
+military prefect, who settled the quarrel for the time by sending back
+the most rebellious of the Alexandrians as prisoners to Constantinople.
+
+Soon after this dispute Peter Mongus died, and fortunately he was
+succeeded in the bishopric by a peacemaker. Athanasius, the new bishop,
+very unlike his great predecessor of the same name, did his best to heal
+the angry disputes in the Church, and to reconcile the Egyptians to the
+imperial government.
+
+Hierocles, the Alexandrian, was at this time teaching philosophy in his
+native city, where his zeal and eloquence in favour of Platonism drew
+upon him the anger of the Christians and the notice of the government.
+
+He was sent to Constantinople to be punished for not believing in
+Christianity, for it does not appear that, like the former Hierocles,
+he ever wrote against it. There he bore a public scourging from his
+Christian torturers, with a courage equal to that formerly shown by
+their forefathers when tortured by his. When some of the blood from
+his shoulders flew into his hand, he held it out in scorn to the judge,
+saying with Ulysses, "Cyclops, since human flesh has been thy food, now
+taste this wine." After his punishment he was banished, but was soon
+allowed to return to Alexandria, and there he again taught openly as
+before. Paganism never wears so fair a dress as in the writings of
+Hierocles; his commentary on the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans is
+full of the loftiest and purest morality, and not less agreeable are the
+fragments that remain of his writings on our duties, and his beautiful
+chapter on the pleasures of a married life. In the Facetiae of Hierocles
+we have one of the earliest jest-books that has been saved from the
+wreck of time. It is a curious proof of the fallen state of learning;
+the Sophists had long since made themselves ridiculous; books alone will
+not make a man of sense; and in the jokes of Hierocles the blunderer is
+always called a man of learning.
+
+AEtius, the Alexandrian physician, has left a large work containing
+a full account of the state of Egyptian medicine at this time. He
+describes the diseases and their remedies, quoting the recipes of
+numerous authors, from the King Nechepsus, Galen, Hippocrates, and
+Hioscorides, down to Archbishop Cyril. He is not wholly free from
+superstition, as when making use of a green jasper set in a ring; but he
+observes that the patients recovered as soon when the stone was plain
+as when a dragon was engraved upon it according to the recommendation of
+Nechepsus. In Nile water he finds every virtue, and does not forget dark
+paint for the ladies' eyebrows, and Cleopatra-wash for the face.
+
+Anastasius, the next emperor, succeeding in 491, followed the wise
+policy which Zeno had entered upon in the latter years of his reign,
+and he strictly adhered to the terms of the peace-making edict. The
+four patriarchs of Alexandria who were chosen during this reign, John,
+a second John, Dioscorus, and Timotheus, were all of the Jacobite faith;
+and the Egyptians readily believed that the emperor was of the same
+opinion. When called upon by the quarrelling theologians, he would
+neither reject nor receive the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, and
+by this wise conduct he governed Egypt without any religious rebellion
+during a long reign.
+
+The election of Dioscorus, however, the third patriarch of this
+reign, was not brought about peaceably. He was the cousin of a former
+patriarch, Timotheus AElurus, which, if we view the bishopric as a civil
+office, might be a reason for the emperor's wishing him to have the
+appointment. But it was no good reason with the Alexandrians, who
+declared that he had not been chosen according to the canons of the
+apostles; and the magistrates of the city were forced to employ the
+troops to lead him in safety to his throne. After the first ceremony, he
+went, as was usual at an installation, to St. Mark's Church, and
+there the clergy robed him in the patriarchal state robes. The grand
+procession then moved through the streets to the church of St. John,
+where the new bishop went through the communion service. But the city
+was much disturbed during the whole day, and in the riot Theodosius, the
+son of Calliopus, a man of Augustalian rank, was killed by the mob. The
+Alexandrians treated the affair as murder, and punished with death those
+who were thought guilty; but the emperor looked upon it as a rebellion
+of the citizens, and the bishop was obliged to go on an embassy to
+Constantinople to appease his just anger.
+
+Anastasius, who had deserved the obedience of the Egyptians by his
+moderation, pardoned their ingratitude when they offended; but he was
+the last Byzantine emperor who governed Egypt with wisdom, and the last
+who failed to enforce the decrees of the council of Chalcedon. It may
+well be doubted whether any wise conduct on the part of the rulers
+could have healed the quarrel between the two countries, and made the
+Egyptians forget the wrongs that they had suffered from the Greeks.
+
+In the tenth year of the reign of Anastasius, A.D. 501, the Persians,
+after overrunning a large part of Syria and defeating the Roman
+generals, passed Pelusium and entered Egypt. The army of Kobades
+laid waste the whole of the Delta up to the very walls of Alexandria.
+Eustatius, the military prefect, led out his forces against the invaders
+and fought many battles with doubtful success; but as the capital was
+safe the Persians were at last obliged to retire, leaving the people
+ruined as much by the loss of a harvest as by the sword. Alexandria
+suffered severely from famine and the diseases which followed in
+its train; and history has gratefully recorded the name of Urbib, a
+Christian Jew of great wealth, who relieved the starving poor of that
+city with his bounty. Three hundred persons were crushed to death in the
+church of Arcadius on Easter Sunday in the press of the crowd to receive
+his alms. As war brought on disease and famine, they also brought on
+rebellion. The people of Alexandria, in want of grain and oil, rose
+against the magistrates, and many lives were lost in the attempt to
+quell the riots.
+
+In the early part of this history we have seen ambitious bishops quickly
+disposed of by banishment to the Great Oasis; and again, as the country
+became more desolate, criminals were sufficiently separated from the
+rest of the empire by being sent to Thebes. Alexandria was then the last
+place in the world in which a pretender to the throne would be allowed
+to live. But Egypt was now ruined; and Anastasius began his reign by
+banishing, to the fallen Alexandria, Longinus, the brother of the late
+king, and he had him ordained a presbyter, to mark him as unfit for the
+throne.
+
+Julianus, who was during a part of this reign the prefect of Egypt, was
+also a poet, and he has left us a number of short epigrams that
+form part of the volume of Greek Anthology which was published at
+Constantinople soon after this time. Christodorus of Thebes was another
+poet who joined with Julianus in praising the Emperor Anastasius. He
+also removed to Constantinople, the seat of patronage; and the fifth
+book of the Greek Anthology contains his epigrams on the winners in the
+horse-race in that city and on the statues which stood around the public
+gymnasium.
+
+[Illustration: 291.jpg ILLUSTRATIONS FROM COPY OF DIOSCORIDE]
+
+The poet's song, like the traveller's tale, often related the wonders
+of the river Nile. The overflowing waters first manured the fields, and
+then watered the crops, and lastly carried the grain to market; and one
+writer in the Anthology, to describe the country life in Egypt, tells
+the story of a sailor, who, to avoid the dangers of the ocean, turned
+husbandman, and was then shipwrecked in his own meadows.
+
+The book-writers at this time sometimes illuminated their more valuable
+parchments with gold and silver letters and sometimes employed painters
+to ornament them with small paintings. The beautiful copy of the work
+of Dioscorides on Plants in the library at Vienna was made in this reign
+for the Princess Juliana of Constantinople. In one painting the figure
+of science or invention is holding up a plant, while on one side of her
+is the painter drawing it on his canvas, and on the other side is the
+author describing it in his book. Other paintings are of the plants and
+animals mentioned in the book. A copy of the Book of Genesis, also in
+the library at Vienna, is of the same class and date. A large part of it
+is written in gold and silver; and it has eighty-eight small paintings
+of various historical subjects. In these the story is well told, though
+the drawing and perspective are bad and the figures crowded. But
+these Alexandrian paintings are better than those made in Rome or
+Constantinople at this time.
+
+With the spread of Christianity theatrical representations had been
+gradually going out of use. The Greek tragedies, as we see in the works
+of AEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, those models of pure taste in
+poetry, are founded on the pagan mythology; and in many of them the gods
+are made to walk and talk upon the stage. Hence they of necessity fell
+under the ban of the clergy. As the Christians became more powerful the
+several cities of the empire had one by one discontinued these
+popular spectacles, and horse-races usually took their place. But the
+Alexandrians were the last people to give up a favourite amusement;
+and by the end of this reign Alexandria was the only city in the empire
+where tragic and comic actors and Eastern dancers were to be seen in the
+theatre.
+
+The tower or lighthouse on the island of Pharos, the work of days more
+prosperous than these, had latterly been sadly neglected with the other
+buildings of the country. For more than seven hundred years, the
+pilot on approaching this flat shore after dark had pointed out to his
+shipmate what seemed a star on the horizon, and comforted him with the
+promise of a safe entrance into the haven, and told him of Alexander's
+tower. But the waves breaking against its foot had long since carried
+away the outworks, and laid bare the foundations; the wall was
+undermined and its fall seemed close at hand. The care of Anastasius,
+however, surrounded it again with piles and buttresses; and this
+monument of wisdom and science, which deserved to last for ever, was
+for a little while longer saved from ruin. An epigram in the Anthology
+informs us that Ammonius was the name of the builder who performed this
+good work, and to him and to Neptune the grateful sailors then raised
+their hands in prayer and praise.
+
+In 518 Justin I. succeeded Anastasius on the throne of Constantinople,
+and in the task of defending the empire against the Persians. And this
+task became every year more difficult, as the Greek population of his
+Egyptian and Asiatic provinces fell off in numbers. For some years after
+the division of the empire under the sons of Constantine, Antioch in
+Syria had been the capital from which Alexandria received the emperor's
+commands. The two cities became very closely united; and now that the
+Greeks were deserting Antioch, a part of the Syrian church began to
+adopt the more superstitious creed of Egypt. Severus, Bishop of Antioch,
+was successful in persuading a large party in the Syrian church to deny
+the humanity of Christ, and to style Mary the mother of God. But the
+chief power in Antioch rested with the opposite party. They answered
+his arguments by threats of violence, and he had to leave the city for
+safety. He fled to Alexandria, and with him began the friendship between
+the two churches which lasted for several centuries. In Alexandria he
+was received with the honour due to his religious zeal. But though
+in Antioch his opinions had been too Egyptian for the Syrians, in
+Alexandria they were too Syrian for the Egyptians. The Egyptians, who
+said that Jesus had been crucified and died only in appearance, always
+denied that his body was liable to corruption. Severus, however, argued
+that it was liable to corruption before the resurrection; and this led
+him into a new controversy, in which Timotheus, the Alexandrian bishop,
+took part against his own more superstitious flock, and sided with
+his friend, the Bishop of Antioch. Severus has left us, in the Syriac
+language, the baptismal service as performed in Egypt. The priest
+breathes three times into the basin to make the water holy, he makes
+three crosses on the child's forehead, he adjures the demons of
+wickedness to quit him, he again makes three crosses on his forehead
+with oil, he again blows three times into the water in the form of a
+cross, he anoints his whole body with oil, and then plunges him in the
+water. Many other natives of Syria soon followed Severus to Alexandria;
+so many indeed that as Greek literature decayed in that city, Syriac
+literature rose. Many Syrians also came to study the religious life in
+the monasteries of Egypt, and after some time the books in the library
+of the monastery at Mount Nit-ria were found to be half Arabic and half
+Syriac.
+
+Justin, the new emperor, again lighted up in Alexandria the flames
+of discord which had been allowed to slumber since the publication of
+Zeno's peace-making edict. But in the choice of the bishop he was not
+able to command without a struggle. In the second year of his reign, on
+the death of Timotheus, the two parties again found themselves nearly
+equal in strength; and Alexandria was for several years kept almost in a
+state of civil war between those who thought that the body of Jesus had
+been liable to corruption, and those who thought it incorruptible. The
+former chose Gaianas, whom his adversaries called a Manichean; and the
+latter Theodosius, a Jacobite, who had the support of the prefect; and
+each of these in his turn was able to drive his rival out of Alexandria.
+
+Those Persian forces which in the last reign overran the Delta were
+chiefly Arabs from the opposite coast of the Red Sea. To make an end of
+these attacks, and to engage their attention in another quarter, was the
+natural wish of the statesmen of Constantinople; and for this purpose
+Anastasius had sent an embassy to the Homeritae on the southern coast
+of Arabia, to persuade them to attack their northern neighbours. The
+Homeritae held the strip of coast now called Hadramout. They were
+enriched, though hardly civilised, by being the channel along which
+much of the Eastern trade passed from India to the Nile, to avoid the
+difficult navigation of the ocean. They were Jewish Arabs, who had
+little in common with the Arabs of Yemen, but had frequent intercourse
+with Abyssinia and the merchants of the Red Sea. Part of the trade of
+Solomon and the Tyrians was probably to their coast. To this distant and
+little tribe the Emperor of Constantinople now sent a second pressing
+embassy. Julianus, the ambassador, went up the Nile from Alexandria,
+and then crossed the Red Sea, or Indian Sea as it was also called, to
+Arabia. He was favourably received by the Homeritae. Arethas, the king,
+gave him an audience in grand barbaric state. He was standing in a
+chariot drawn by four elephants; he wore no clothing but a cloth of gold
+around his loins; his arms were laden with costly armlets and bracelets;
+he held a shield and two spears in his hands, and his nobles stood
+around him armed, and singing to his honour. When the ambassador
+delivered the emperor's letter, Arethas kissed the seal, and then kissed
+Julianus himself. He accepted the gifts which Justin had sent, and
+promised to move his forces northward against the Persians as requested,
+and also to keep the route open for the trade to Alexandria.
+
+Justinian, the successor of Justin in 527, settled the quarrel between
+the two Alexandrian bishops by summoning them both to Constantinople,
+and then sending them into banishment. But this had no effect in healing
+the divisions in the Egyptian church; and for the next half-century the
+two parties ranged themselves, in their theological or rather political
+quarrel, under the names of their former bishops, and called themselves
+Gaianites and Theodosians. Nor did the measures of Justinian tend to
+lessen the breach between Egypt and Constantinople. He appointed Paul to
+the bishopric, and required the Egyptians to receive the decrees of the
+council of Chalcedon.
+
+After two years Paul was displaced either by the emperor or by his
+flock; and Zoilus was then seated on the episcopal throne by the help
+of the imperial forces. He maintained his dangerous post for about six
+years, when the Alexandrians rose in open rebellion, overpowered the
+troops, and forced him to seek safety in flight; and the Jacobite party
+then turned out all the bishops who held the Greek faith.
+
+When Justinian heard that the Jacobites were masters of Egypt he
+appointed Apollinarius to the joint office of prefect and patriarch of
+Alexandria, and sent him with a large force to take possession of his
+bishopric. Apollinarius marched into Alexandria in full military dress
+at the head of his troops; but when he entered the church he laid aside
+his arms, and putting on the patriarchal robes began to celebrate the
+rites of his religion. The Alexandrians were by no means overawed by the
+force with which he had entered the city; they pelted him with a shower
+of stones from every corner of the church, and he was forced to withdraw
+from the building in order to save his life. But three days afterwards
+the bells were rung through the city, and the people were summoned to
+meet in the church on the following Sunday, to hear the emperor's letter
+read. When Sunday came the whole city flocked to hear and to disobey
+Justinian's orders. Apollinarius began his address by threatening his
+hearers that, if they continued obstinate in their opinions, their
+children should be made orphans and their widows given up to the
+soldiery; and he was as before stopped with a shower of stones. But this
+time he was prepared for the attack; this Christian bishop had placed
+his troops in ambush round the church, and on a signal given they
+rushed out on his unarmed flock, and by his orders the crowds within and
+without the church were put to rout by the sword, the soldiers waded
+up to their knees in blood, and the city and whole country yielded its
+obedience for the time to bishops who held the Greek faith.
+
+Henceforth the Melchite or royalist patriarchs, who were appointed by
+the emperor and had the authority of civil prefects, and were supported
+by the power of the military prefect, are scarcely mentioned by the
+historian of the Koptic church. They were too much engaged in civil
+affairs to act the part of ministers of religion. They collected their
+revenues principally in grain, and carried on a large export trade,
+transporting their stores to those parts of Europe where they would
+bring the best price. On one occasion we hear of a small fleet belonging
+to the church of Alexandria, consisting of thirteen ships of about
+thirty tons burden each, and bearing ten thousand bushels of grain,
+being overtaken by a storm on the coast of Italy. The princely income
+of the later patriarchs, raised from the churches of all Egypt under the
+name of the offerings of the pious, sometimes amounted to two thousand
+pounds of gold, or four hundred thousand dollars. But while these
+Melchite or royalist bishops were enjoying the ecclesiastical revenues,
+and administering the civil affairs of the diocese and of the great
+monasteries, there was a second bishop who held the Jacobite faith, and
+who, having been elected by the people according to the ancient forms of
+the Church, equally bore the title of patriarch, and administered in
+his more humble path to the spiritual wants of his flock. The Jacobite
+bishop was always a monk. At his ordination he was declared to be
+elected by the popular voice, by the bishops, priests, deacons, monks,
+and all the people of Lower Egypt; and prayers were offered up through
+the intercession of the Mother of God, and of the glorious Apostle
+Mark. The two churches no longer used the same prayer-book. The Melchite
+church continued to use the old liturgy, which, as it had been read in
+Alexandria from time immemorial, was called the liturgy of St. Mark,
+altered however to declare that the Son was of the same substance with
+the Father. But the Koptic church made use of the newer liturgies
+by their own champions, Bishop Cyril, Basil of Caesarae, and Gregory
+Nazianzen. These three liturgies were all in the Koptic language, and
+more clearly denied the two natures of Christ. Of the two churches the
+Koptic had less learning, more bigotry, and opinions more removed from
+the teachings of the New Testament; but then the Koptic bishop alone
+had any moral power to lead the minds of his flock towards piety and
+religion. Had the emperors been at all times either humane or politic
+enough to employ bishops of the same religion as the people, they would
+perhaps have kept the good-will of their subjects; but as it was, the
+Koptic church, smarting under its insults, and forgetting the greater
+evils of a foreign conquest, would sometimes look with longing eyes to
+the condition of their neighbours, their brethren in faith, the Arabic
+subjects of Persia.
+
+The Christianity of the Egyptians was mostly superstition; and as it
+spread over the land it embraced the whole nation within its pale, not
+so much by purifying the pagan opinions as by lowering itself to their
+level, and fitting itself to their corporeal notions of the Creator.
+This was in a large measure induced by the custom of using the old
+temples for Christian churches; the form of worship was in part guided
+by the form of the building, and even the old traditions were engrafted
+on the new religion. Thus the traveller Antonius, after visiting the
+remarkable places in the Holy Land, came to Egypt to search for the
+chariots of the Egyptians who pursued Moses, petrified into rocks at the
+bottom of the Red Sea, and for the footsteps left in the sands by the
+infant Jesus while he dwelt in Egypt with his parents. At Memphis he
+enquired why one of the doors in the great temple of Phtah, then used
+as a church, was always closed, and he was told that it had been rudely
+shut against the infant Jesus five hundred years before, and mortal
+strength had never since been able to open it.
+
+The records of the empire declared that the first Caesars had kept six
+hundred and forty-five thousand men under arms to guard Italy, Africa,
+Spain, and Egypt, a number perhaps much larger than the truth; but
+Justinian could with difficulty maintain one hundred and fifty thousand
+ill-disciplined troops, a force far from large enough to hold even those
+provinces that remained to him. During the latter half of his reign
+the eastern frontier of this falling empire was sorely harassed by the
+Persians under their king Chosroes. They overran Syria, defeated the
+army of the empire in a pitched battle, and then took Antioch. By these
+defeats the military roads were stopped; Egypt was cut off from the rest
+of the empire and could be reached from the capital only by sea. Hence
+the emperor was driven to a change in his religious policy. He gave over
+the persecution of the Jacobite opinions, and even went so far in one
+of his decrees as to call the body of Jesus incorruptible, as he thought
+that these were the only means of keeping the allegiance of his subjects
+or the friendship of his Arab neighbours, all of whom, as far as they
+were Christians, held the Jacobite view of the Nicene creed, and denied
+the two natures of Christ.
+
+As the forces of Constantinople were driven back by the victorious
+armies of the Persians, the emperors had lost, among other fortresses,
+the capital of Arabia Nabataae, that curious rocky fastness that well
+deserved the name of Petra, and which had been garrisoned by Romans
+from the reign of Trajan till that of Valens. On this loss it became
+necessary to fortify a new frontier post on the Egyptian side of the
+Elanitic Gulf. Justinian then built the fortified monastery near Mount
+Sinai, to guard the only pass by which Egypt could be entered without
+the help of a fleet; and when it was found to be commanded by one of the
+higher points of the mountain he beheaded the engineer who built it, and
+remedied the fault, as far as it could be done, by a small fortress
+on the higher ground. This monastery was held by the Egyptians, and
+maintained out of the Egyptian taxes. When the Egyptians were formerly
+masters of their own country, before the Persian and Greek conquests,
+they were governed by a race of priests, and the temples were their only
+fortresses.
+
+[Illustration: 302.jpg FORTRESS NEAR MOUNT SINAI]
+
+The temples of Thebes were the citadels of the capital, and the temples
+of Elephantine guarded the frontier. So now, when the military prefect
+is too weak to make himself obeyed, the emperor tries to govern through
+means of the Christian priesthood; and when it is necessary for the
+Egyptians to defend their own frontier, he builds a monastery and
+garrisons it with monks.
+
+Part of the Egyptian trade to the East was carried on through the
+islands of Ceylon and Socotra; but it was chiefly in the hands of
+uneducated Arabs of Ethiopia, who were little able to communicate to
+the world much knowledge of the countries from which they brought their
+highly valued goods. At Ceylon they met with traders from beyond the
+Ganges and from China, of whom they bought the silk which Europeans had
+formerly thought a product of Arabia. At Ceylon was a Christian church,
+with a priest and a deacon, frequented by the Christians from Persia,
+while the natives of the place were pagans. The coins there used were
+Roman, borne thither by the course of trade, which during so many
+centuries carried the gold and silver eastward. The trade was lately
+turned more strongly into this channel because a war had sprung up
+between the two tribes of Jewish Arabs, the Hexumitae of Abyssinia
+on the coast of the Red Sea near Adule, and the Homeritae who dwelt in
+Arabia on the opposite coast, at the southern end of the Red Sea. The
+Homeritae had quarrelled with the Alexandrian merchants in the Indian
+trade, and had killed some of them as they were passing their mountains
+from India to the country of the Hexumitae.
+
+Immediately after these murders the Hexumitae found the trade injured,
+and they took up arms to keep the passage open for the merchants. Hadad
+their king crossed the Red Sea and conquered his enemies; he put to
+death Damianus, the King of the Homeritse, and made a new treaty
+with the Emperor of Constantinople. The Hexumitae promised to become
+Christians. They sent to Alexandria to beg for a priest to baptise them,
+and to ordain their preachers; and Justinian sent John, a man of piety
+and high character, the dean of the church of St. John, who returned
+with the ambassadors and became bishop of the Hexumitae.
+
+It was possibly this conquest of the Homeritae by Hadad, King of the
+Hexumitae, which was recorded on the monument of Adule, at the foot of
+the inscription set up eight centuries earlier by Ptolemy Euergetes. The
+monument is a throne of white marble. The conqueror, whose name had
+been broken away before the inscription was copied, there boasts that
+he crossed over the Red Sea and made the Arabians and Sabaaans pay him
+tribute. On his own continent he defeated the tribes to the north of
+him, and opened the passage from his own country to Egypt; he also
+marched eastward, and conquered the tribes on the African incense coast;
+and lastly, he crossed the Astaborus to the snowy mountains in which
+that branch of the Nile rises, and conquered the tribes between that
+stream and the Astapus. This valuable inscription, which tells us of
+snowy mountains within the tropics, was copied by Cosmas, a merchant of
+Alexandria, who passed through Adule on his way to India.
+
+Former emperors, Anastasius and Justin, had sent several embassies to
+these nations at the southern end of the Red Sea; to the Homeritae,
+to persuade them to attack the Persian forces in Arabia, and to the
+Hexumitae, for the encouragement of trade. Justinian also sent an
+embassy to the Homeritae under Abram; and, as he was successful in his
+object, he entrusted a second embassy to Abram's son. Nonnosus landed
+at Adule on the Abyssinian coast, and then travelled inward for fifteen
+days to Auxum, the capital. This country was then called Ethiopia; it
+had gained the name which before belonged to the valley of the Nile
+between Egypt and Meroe. On his way to Auxum, he saw troops of wild
+elephants, to the number, as he supposed, of five thousand. After
+delivering his message to Elesbaas, then King of Auxum, he crossed the
+Red Sea to Caisus, King of the Homeritae, a grandson of that Arethas
+to whom Justin had sent his embassy. Notwithstanding the natural
+difficulties of the journey, and those arising from the tribes through
+which he had to pass, Nonnosus performed his task successfully, and on
+his return home wrote a history of his embassies.
+
+The advantage gained to the Hexumitae by their invasion of the Homeritae
+was soon lost, probably as soon as their forces were withdrawn. The
+trade through the country of the Homeritae was again stopped; and such
+was the difficulty of navigation from the incense coast of Africa to the
+mouths of the Indus, that the loss was severely felt at Auxum. Elesbaes
+therefore undertook to repeat the punishment which had been before
+inflicted on his less civilised neighbours, and again to open the trade
+to the merchants from the Nile. It was while he was preparing his forces
+for this invasion that Cosmas, the Alexandrian traveller, passed through
+Adule; and he copied for the King of Auxum the inscription above spoken
+of, which recorded the victories of his predecessor over the enemies he
+was himself preparing to attack.
+
+The invasion by Elesbaes, or Elesthaeus as he is also named, was
+immediately successful. The Homeritae were conquered, their ruler was
+overthrown; and, to secure their future obedience, the conqueror
+set over these Jewish Arabs an Abyssinian Christian for their king.
+Esimaphaeus was chosen for that post; and his first duty was to convert
+his new subjects to Christianity. Political reasons as well as religious
+zeal would urge him to this undertaking, to make the conquered bear the
+badge of the conqueror. For this purpose he engaged the assistance of
+Gregentius, a bishop, who was to employ his learning and eloquence in
+the cause. Accordingly, in the palace of Threlletum, in the presence of
+their new king, a public dispute was held between the Christian bishop
+and Herban, a learned Jew. Gregentius has left us an account of the
+controversy, in which he was wholly successful, being helped, perhaps,
+by the threats and promises of the king. The arguments used were not
+quite the same as they would be now. The bishop explained the Trinity as
+the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Mind or Father, and resting on
+the Word or Son, which was then the orthodox view of this mysterious
+doctrine. On the other hand, the Jew quoted the Old Testament to show
+that the Lord their God was one Lord. It is related that suddenly the
+Jews present were struck blind. Their sight, however, was restored to
+them on the bishop's praying for them; and they were then all thereby
+converted and baptised on the spot. The king stood godfather to Herban,
+and rewarded him with a high office under his government.
+
+[Illustration: 307.jpg PYRAMID OF MEDUM]
+
+Esimaphasus did not long remain King of the Homeritae. A rebellion
+soon broke out against him, and he was deposed. Elesbaas, King of Auxum,
+again sent an army to recall the Homeritae to their obedience, but this
+time the army joined in the revolt; and Elesbae then made peace with
+the enemy, in hopes of thus gaining the advantages which he was unable
+to grasp by force of arms. From a Greek inscription on a monument at
+Auxum we learn the name of AEizanas, another king of that country, who
+also called himself, either truly or boastfully, king of the opposite
+coast. He set up the monument to record his victories over the Bougoto,
+a people who dwelt between Auxum and Egypt, and he styles himself the
+invincible Mars, king of kings, King of the Hexumito, of the Ethiopians,
+of the Saboans, and of the Homerito. These kings of the Hexumito
+ornamented the city of Auxum with several beautiful and lofty obelisks,
+each made of a single block of granite like those in Egypt.
+
+Egypt in its mismanaged state seemed to be of little value to the empire
+save as a means of enriching the prefect and the tax-gatherers; it
+yielded very little tribute to Constantinople beyond the supply of
+grain, and that by no means regularly. To remedy these abuses Justinian
+made a new law for the government of the province, with a view of
+bringing about a thorough reform. By this edict the districts of
+Menelaites and Mareotis, to the west of Alexandria, were separated from
+the rest of Egypt, and they were given to the prefect of Libya, whose
+seat of government was at Parotonium, because his province was too poor
+to pay the troops required to guard it. The several governments of Upper
+Egypt, of Lower Egypt, of Alexandria, and of the troops were then given
+to one prefect. The two cohorts, the Augustalian and the Ducal, into
+which the two Boman legions had gradually dwindled, were henceforth to
+be united under the name of the Augustalian Cohort, which was to contain
+six hundred men, who were to secure the obedience and put down any
+rebellion of the Egyptian and barbarian soldiers. The somewhat high
+pay and privileges of this favoured troop were to be increased; and, to
+secure its loyalty and to keep out Egyptians, nobody was to be admitted
+into it till his fitness had been inquired into by the emperor's
+examiners. The first duty of the cohort was to collect the supply of
+grain for Constantinople and to see it put on board the ships; and as
+for the supply which was promised to the Alexandrians, the magistrates
+were to collect it at their own risk, and by means of their own cohort.
+The grain for Constantinople was required to be in that city before the
+end of August, or within four months after the harvest, and the supply
+for Alexandria not more than a month later. The prefect was made
+answerable for the full collection, and whatever was wanting of that
+quantity was to be levied on his property and his heirs, at the rate
+of one solidus for three artabo of grain, or about three dollars for
+fifteen bushels; while in order to help the collection, the export of
+grain from Egypt was forbidden from every port but Alexandria, except in
+small quantities. The grain required for Alexandria and Constantinople,
+to be distributed as a free gift among the idle citizens, was eight
+hundred thousand artabo, or four millions of bushels, and the cost
+of collecting it was fixed at eighty thousand solidi, or about three
+hundred thousand dollars. The prefect was ordered to assist the
+collectors at the head of his cohort, and if he gave credit for the
+taxes which he was to collect he was to bear the loss himself. If the
+archbishop interfered, to give credit and screen an unhappy Egyptian,
+then he was to bear the loss, and if his property was not enough the
+property of the Church was to make it good; but if any other bishop gave
+credit, not only was his property to bear the loss, but he was himself
+to be deposed from his bishopric; and lastly, if any riot or rebellion
+should arise to cause the loss of the Egyptian tribute, the tribunes
+of the Augustalian Cohort were to be punished with forfeiture of all
+property, and the cohort was to be removed to a station beyond the
+Danube.
+
+Such was the new law which Justinian, the great Roman lawgiver, proposed
+for the future government of Egypt. The Egyptians were treated as
+slaves, whose duty was to raise grain for the use of their masters at
+Constantinople, and their taskmasters at Alexandria. They did not even
+receive from the government the usual benefit of protection from their
+enemies, and they felt bound to the emperor by no tie either of love
+or interest. The imperial orders wrere very little obeyed beyond those
+places where the troops were encamped; the Arabs were each year pressing
+closer upon the valley of the Nile, and helping the sands of the desert
+to defeat the labours of the disheartened husbandmen; and the Greek
+language, which had hitherto followed and marked the route of commerce
+from Alexandria to Syene, and to the island of Socotra, was now but
+seldom heard in Upper Egypt. The Alexandrians were sorely harassed by
+Haephasstus, a lawyer, who had risen by court favour to the chief post
+in the city. He made monopolies in his own favour of all the necessaries
+of life, and secured his ill-gotten gains by ready loans of part of
+it to Justinian. His zeal for the emperor was at the cost of the
+Alexandrians, and to save the public granaries he lessened the supply
+of grain which the citizens looked for as a right. The city was sinking
+fast; and the citizens could ill bear this loss, for its population,
+though lessened, was still too large for the fallen state of Egypt.
+
+The grain of the merchants was shipped from Alexandria to the chief
+ports of Europe, between Constantinople in the east and Cornwall in the
+west. Britain had been left by the Romans, as too remote for them to
+hold in their weakened condition; and the native Britons were then
+struggling against their Saxon invaders, as in a distant corner of the
+world, beyond the knowledge of the historian. But to that remote country
+the Alexandrian merchants sailed every year with grain to purchase tin,
+enlightening the natives, while they only meant to enrich themselves.
+Under the most favourable circumstances they sometimes performed the
+voyage in twenty days. The wheat was sold in Cornwall at the price of a
+bushel for a piece of silver, perhaps worth about twenty cents, or for
+the same weight of tin, as the tin and the silver were nearly of equal
+worth. This was the longest of the ancient voyages, being longer than
+that from the Red Sea to the island of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean; and
+it had been regularly performed for at least eight centuries without
+ever teaching the British to venture so far from their native shores.
+
+The suffering and riotous citizens made Alexandria a very unpleasant
+place of abode for the prefect and magistrates. They therefore built
+palaces and baths for their own use, at the public cost, at Taposiris,
+about a day's journey to the west of the city, at a spot yet marked
+by the remains of thirty-six marble columns, and a lofty tower, once
+perhaps a lighthouse. At the same time it became necessary to fortify
+the public granaries against the rebellious mob. The grain was brought
+from the Nile by barges on a canal to the village of Chaereum, and
+thence to a part of Alexandria named Phialae, or _The Basins_, where the
+public granaries stood. In all riots and rebellions this place had been
+a natural point of attack; and often had the starving mob broken
+open these buildings, and seized the grain that was on its way to
+Constantinople. But Justinian surrounded them with a strong wall
+against such attacks for the future, and at the same time he rebuilt the
+aqueduct that had been destroyed in one of the sieges of the city.
+
+In civil suits at law an appeal had always been allowed from the prefect
+of the province to the emperor, or rather to the prefect of the East
+at Constantinople; but as this was of course expensive, it was found
+necessary to forbid it when the sum of money in dispute was small.
+Justinian forbade all Egyptian appeals for sums less than ten pounds
+weight of gold, or about two thousand five hundred dollars; for smaller
+sums the judgment of the prefect was to be final, lest the expense
+should swallow up the amount in dispute.
+
+In this reign the Alexandrians, for the first time within the records
+of history, felt the shock of an earthquake. Their naturalists had very
+fairly supposed that the loose alluvial nature of the soil of the Delta
+was the reason why earthquakes were unknown in Lower Egypt, and believed
+that it would always save them from a misfortune which often overthrew
+cities in other countries. Pliny thought that Egypt had been always free
+from earthquakes. But this shock was felt by everybody in the city;
+and Agathias, the Byzantine historian, who, after reading law in the
+university of Beirut, was finishing his studies at Alexandria, says that
+it was strong enough to make the inhabitants all run into the street for
+fear the houses should fall upon them.
+
+The reign of Justinian is remarkable for another blow then given to
+paganism throughout the empire, or at least through those parts of the
+empire where the emperor's laws were obeyed.
+
+[Illustration: 313.jpg A MODERN HOUSE IN THE DELTA AT ROSETTA]
+
+Under Justinian the pagan schools were again and from that time forward
+closed. Isidorus the platonist and Salustius the Cynic were among the
+learned men of greatest note who then withdrew from Alexandria. Isidorus
+had been chosen by Marinus as his successor in the platonic chair at
+Athens, to fill the high post of the platonic successor; but he had left
+the Athenian school to Zenodotus, a pupil of Proclus, and had removed
+to Alexandria. Salustius the Cynic was a Syrian, who had removed with
+Isidorus from Athens to Alexandria. He was virtuous in his morals though
+jocular in his manners, and as ready in his witty attacks upon the
+speculative opinions of his brother philosophers as upon the vices of
+the Alexandrians. These learned men, with Damascius and others from
+Athens, were kindly received by the Persians, who soon afterwards, when
+they made a treaty of peace with Justinian, generously bargained that
+these men, the last teachers of paganism, should be allowed to return
+home, and pass the rest of their days in quiet.
+
+After the flight of the pagan philosophers, but little learning was left
+in Alexandria. One of the most remarkable men in this age of ignorance
+was Cosmas, an Alexandrian merchant, who wished that the world should
+not only be enriched but enlightened by his travels. After making many
+voyages through Ethiopia to India for the sake of gain, he gave up trade
+and became a monk and an author. When he writes as a traveller about the
+Christian churches of India and Ceylon, and the inscriptions which he
+copied at Adule in Abyssinia, everything that he tells us is valuable;
+but when he reasons as a monk, the case is sadly changed. He is of the
+dogmatical school which forbids all inquiry as heretical. He fights
+the battle which has been so often fought before and since, and is even
+still fought so resolutely, the battle of religious ignorance against
+scientific knowledge. He sets the words of the Bible against the results
+of science; he denies that the world is a sphere, and quotes the Old
+Testament against the pagan astronomers, to show that it is a plane,
+covered by the firmament as by a roof, above which he places the kingdom
+of heaven. His work is named _Christian Topography_, and he is himself
+usually called Cosmas Indicopleustes, from the country which he visited.
+
+During the latter years of the government of Apollinarius, such was
+his unpopularity as a spiritual bishop that both the rival parties, the
+Gaianites and the Theodosians, had been building places of worship for
+themselves, and the more zealous Jacobites had quietly left the churches
+to Apollinarius and the Royalists. But on the death of an archdeacon
+they again came to blows with the bishop; and a monk had his beard torn
+off his chin by the Gaianites in the streets of Alexandria. The emperor
+was obliged to interfere, and he sent the Abbot Photinus to Egypt to put
+down this rebellion, and heal the quarrel in the Church. Apollinarius
+died soon afterwards, and Justinian then appointed John to the joint
+office of prefect of the city and patriarch of the Church. The new
+archbishop was accused of being a Manichean; but this seems to mean
+nothing but that he was too much of the Egyptian party, and that,
+though he was the imperial patriarch, and not acknowledged by the Koptic
+church, yet his opinions were disliked by the Greeks. On his death,
+which happened in about three years, they chose Peter, who held the
+Jacobite or Egyptian opinions, and whose name is not mentioned in the
+Greek lists of the patriarchs. Peter's death occurred in the same year
+as that of the emperor.
+
+Under Justinian we again find some small traces of a national coinage in
+Egypt. Ever since the reign of Diocletian, the old Egyptian coinage had
+been stopped, and the Alexandrians had used money of the same weight,
+and with the same Latin inscriptions, as the rest of the empire. But
+under Justinian, though the inscriptions on the coins are still Latin,
+they have the name of the city in Greek letters. Like the coins of
+Constantinople, they have a cross, the emblem of Christianity; but while
+the other coins of the empire have the Greek numeral letters, E, I, K,
+A, or M, to denote the value, meaning 5, 10, 20, 30, or 40, the coins
+of Alexandria have the letters 1 B for 12, showing that they were on a
+different system of weights from those of Constantinople. On these the
+head of the emperor is in profile. But later in his reign the style was
+changed, the coins were made larger, and the head of the emperor had a
+front face. On these larger coins the numeral letters are [A r] for 33.
+We thus learn that the Alexandrians at this time paid and received
+money rather by weight than by tale, and avoided all depreciation of the
+currency. As the early coins marked 12 had become lighter by wear, those
+which were meant to be of about three times their value were marked 33.
+
+During the period from 566 to 602 Justin II. reigned twelve years,
+Tiberius reigned four years, and Mauricius, his son-in-law, twenty; and
+under these sovereigns the empire gained a little rest from its enemies
+by a rebellion among the Persians, which at last overthrew their king
+Chosroes. He fled to Mauricius for help, and was by him restored to his
+throne, after which the two kingdoms remained at peace to the end of his
+reign.
+
+[Illustration: 316.jpg COINS OF JUSTINIAN]
+
+The Emperor Mauricius was murdered by Phocas, who, in 602, succeeded
+him on the throne of Constantinople. No sooner did the news of his death
+reach Persia than Chosroes, the son of Hormuz, who had married Maria,
+the daughter of Mauricius, declared the treaty with the Romans at an
+end, and moved his forces against the new emperor, the murderer of his
+father-in-law. During the whole of his reign Constantinople was kept in
+a state of alarm and almost of siege by the Persians; and the crimes and
+misfortunes of Phocas alike prepared his subjects for a revolt. In the
+seventh year Alexandria rebelled in favour of the young Heraclius, son
+of the late prefect of Cyrene; and the patriarch of Egypt was slain
+in the struggle. Soon afterwards Heraclius entered the port of
+Constantinople with his fleet, and Phocas was put to death after an
+unfortunate reign of eight years, in which he had lost every province of
+the empire.
+
+During the first three years of the reign of Heraclius, Theodoras was
+Bishop of Alexandria; but upon his death the wishes of the Alexandrians
+so strongly pointed to John, the son of the prefect of Cyprus, that
+the emperor, yielding to their request, appointed him to the bishopric.
+Alexandria was not a place in which a good man could enjoy the pleasures
+of power without feeling the weight of its duties. It was then suffering
+under all those evils which usually befall the capital of a sinking
+state. It had lost much of its trade, and its poorer citizens no longer
+received a free supply of grain. The unsettled state of the country
+was starving the larger cities, and the population of Alexandria was
+suffering from want of employment. The civil magistrates had removed
+their palace to a distance. But the new bishop seemed formed for these
+unfortunate times, and, though appointed by the emperor, he was in every
+respect worthy of the free choice of the citizens. He was foremost in
+every work of benevolence and charity. The five years of his government
+were spent in lightening the sufferings of the people, and he gained the
+truly Christian name of John the Almsgiver. Beside his private acts of
+kindness he established throughout the city hospitals for the sick and
+almshouses for the poor and for strangers, and as many as seven lying-in
+hospitals for poor women. John was not less active in outrooting all
+that he thought heresy.
+
+The first years of the reign of Heraclius are chiefly marked by the
+successes of the Persians. While Chosroes, their king, was himself
+attacking Constantinople, one general was besieging Jerusalem and a
+second overrunning Lower Egypt. Crowds fled before the invading army
+to Alexandria as a place of safety, and the famine increased as the
+province of the prefect grew narrower and the population more crowded.
+To add to the distress the Nile rose to a less height than usual; the
+seasons seemed to assist the enemy in the destruction of Egypt. The
+patriarch John, who had been sending money, grain, and Egyptian workmen
+to assist in the pious work of rebuilding the church of Jerusalem which
+the Persians had destroyed, immediately found all his means needed, and
+far from enough, for the poor of Alexandria. On his appointment to the
+bishopric he found in its treasury eight thousand pounds of gold; he
+had in the course of five years received ten thousand more from the
+offerings of the pious, as his princely ecclesiastical revenue was
+named; but this large sum of four million dollars had all been spent
+in deeds of generosity or charity, and the bishop had no resource but
+borrowing to relieve the misery with which he was surrounded. In the
+fifth year the unbelievers were masters of Jerusalem, and in the eighth
+they entered Alexandria, and soon held all the Delta; and in that
+year the grain which had hitherto been given to the citizens of
+Constantinople was sold to them at a small price, and before the end of
+the year the supply from Egypt was wholly stopped.
+
+When the Persians entered Egypt, the patrician Nicetas, having no
+forces with which he could withstand their advance, and knowing that no
+succour was to be looked for from Constantinople, and finding that the
+Alexandrians were unwilling to support him, fled with the patriarch John
+the Almsgiver to Cyprus, and left the province to the enemy. As John
+denied that the Son of God had suffered on the cross, his opinions would
+seem not to have been very unlike those of the Egyptians; but as he was
+appointed to the bishopric by the emperor, though at the request of the
+people, he is not counted among the patriarchs of the Koptic church;
+and one of the first acts of the Persians was to appoint Benjamin, a
+Jacobite priest, who already performed the spiritual office of Bishop of
+Alexandria, to the public exercise of that duty, and to the enjoyment of
+the civil dignity and revenues.
+
+The troops with which Chosroes conquered and held Egypt were no doubt in
+part Syrians and Arabs, people with whom the fellahs or labouring class
+of Egyptians were closely allied in blood and feelings. Hence arose the
+readiness with which the whole country yielded when the Roman forces
+were defeated. But hence also arose the weakness of the Persians, and
+their speedy loss of this conquest when the Arabs rebelled. Their rule,
+however, in Egypt was not quite unmarked in the history of these dark
+ages.
+
+At this time Thomas, a Syrian bishop, came to Alexandria to correct the
+Syriac version of the New Testament, which had been made about a century
+before by Philoxenus. He compared the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles with
+the Greek manuscripts in the monastery of St. Anthony in the capital;
+and we still possess the fruits of his learned labour, in which he
+altered the ancient text to make it agree with the newer Alexandrian
+manuscripts. From his copy the Philoxenian version is now printed. A
+Syriac manuscript of the New Testament written by Alexandrian penmen
+in the sixth year of Heraclius, is now to be seen in the library of the
+Augustan friars in Rome. At the same time another Syrian scholar, Paul
+of Tela, in Mesopotamia, was busy in the Alexandrian monastery of
+St. Zacchaeus in translating the Old Testament into Syriac, from the
+Septuagint Greek; and he closes his labours with begging the reader to
+pray for the soul of his friend Thomas. Such was now the reputation of
+the Alexandrian edition of the Bible, that these scholars preferred it
+both to the original Hebrew of the Old and to the earlier manuscripts
+of the New Testament. Among other works of this time were the medical
+writings of Aaron the physician of Alexandria, formerly written in
+Syriac, and afterwards much valued by the Arabs. The Syrian monks in
+numbers settled in the monastery of Mount Nitria; and in that secluded
+spot there remained a colony of these monks for several centuries,
+kept up by the occasional arrival of newcomers from the churches on the
+eastern side of the Euphrates.
+
+For ten years the Egyptians were governed by the Persians, and had
+a patriarch of their own religion and of their own choice; and the
+building of the Persian palace in Alexandria proves how quietly they
+lived under their new masters. But Heraclius was not idle under his
+misfortunes. The Persians had been weakened by the great revolt of the
+Arabs, who had formed their chief strength on the side of Constantinople
+and Egypt; and Heraclius, leading his forces bravely against Chosroes,
+drove him back from Syria and became in his turn the invader, and he
+then recovered Egypt. The Jacobite patriarch Benjamin fled with the
+Persians; and Heraclius appointed George to the bishopric, which was
+declared to have been empty since John the Almsgiver fled to Cyprus.
+
+The revolt of the Arabs, which overthrew the power of the Persians in
+their western provinces and for a time restored Egypt to Constantinople,
+was the foundation of the mighty empire of the caliphs; and the Hegira,
+or flight of Muhammed, from which the Arabic historians count their
+lunar years, took place in 622, the twelfth year of Heraclius. The
+vigour of the Arab arms rapidly broke the Persian yoke, and the Moslems
+then overran every province in the neighbourhood. This was soon felt
+by the Romans, who found the Arabs, even in the third year of their
+freedom, a more formidable enemy than the Persians whom they had
+overthrown; and, after a short struggle of only two years, Heraclius
+was forced to pay a tribute to the Moslems for their forbearance in
+not conquering Egypt. For eight years he was willing to purchase an
+inglorious peace by paying tribute to the caliph; but when his treasure
+failed him and the payment was discontinued, the Arabs marched against
+the nearest provinces of the empire, offering to the inhabitants their
+choice of either paying tribute or receiving the Muhammedan religion;
+and they then began on their western frontier that rapid career of
+conquest which they had already begun on the eastern frontier against
+their late masters, the Persians.
+
+[Illustration: 322.jpg TAILPIECE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.--EGYPT DURING THE MUHAMMEDAN PERIOD
+
+
+_The Rise of Muhammedanism: The Arabic Conquest of Egypt: The Ommayad
+and Abbasid Dynasties._
+
+
+The course of history now follows the somewhat uneventful period
+which introduced Arabian rule into the valley of the Nile. It is only
+necessary to remind the reader of the striking incidents in the life of
+Muhammed. He was born at Mecca, in Arabia, in July, 571, and spent his
+earliest years in the desert. At the age of twelve he travelled with a
+caravan to Syria, and probably on this occasion first came into contact
+with the Jews and Christians. After a few youthful adventures, his
+poetic and religious feelings were awakened by study. He gave himself
+up to profound meditation upon both the Jewish and Christian ideals, and
+subsequently beholding the archangel Gabriel in a vision, he proclaimed
+himself as a prophet of God. After preaching his doctrine for three
+years, and gaining a few converts (the first of whom was his wife,
+Khadija), the people of Mecca rose against him and he was forced to
+flee from the city in 614. New visions and subsequent conversions of
+influential Arabs strengthened his cause, especially in Medina, whither
+Muhammed was forced to flee a second time from Mecca in 622, this second
+flight being known as the Hegira, from which dates the Muhammedan era.
+In the next year, at Medina, he built his first mosque and married
+Ayesha, and in 624 was compelled to defend his pretensions by an appeal
+to arms. He was at first successful, and thereupon appointed Friday as
+a day of public worship, and, being embittered against the Jews, ordered
+that the attitude of prayer should no longer be towards Jerusalem, but
+towards his birthplace, Mecca. In 625 the Muhammedans were defeated by
+the Meccans, but one tribe after another submitted to him, and after a
+series of victories Muhammed prepared, in 629, for further conquests
+in Syria, but he died in 632 before they could be accomplished. His
+successors were known as caliphs, but from the very first his disciples
+quarrelled about the leadership, some affirming the rights of Ali,
+who had married Muhammed's daughter, Fatima, and others supporting
+the claims of Abu Bekr, his father-in-law. There was also a religious
+quarrel concerning certain oral traditions relating to the Koran, or
+the Muhammedan sacred scriptures. Those who accepted the tradition were
+known as Sunnites, and those who rejected it as Shiites, the latter
+being the supporters of Ali, both sects, however, being known as Moslems
+or Islamites. Omar, a Sunnite, obtained the leadership in 634, and
+proceeded to carry out the prophet's ambitious schemes of conquest.
+He subdued successively Syria, Palestine, and Phoenicia, and in 639
+directed operations against Egypt. The general in charge of this
+expedition was Amr, who led four thousand men against Pelusium, which
+surrendered after a siege of thirty days. This easy victory was crowned
+by the capture of Alexandria. Amr entered the city on December 22, 640,
+and he seems to have been surprised at his own success. He immediately
+wrote to the caliph a letter in which he says:
+
+"I have conquered the town of the West, and I cannot recount all it
+contains within its walls. It contains four thousand baths and twelve
+thousand venders of green vegetables, four thousand Jews who pay
+tribute, and four thousand musicians and mountebanks."
+
+Amr was anxious to conciliate and gain the affection of the new subjects
+he had added to the caliph's empire, and during his short stay in
+Alexandria received them with kindness and personally heard and attended
+to their demands. It is commonly believed that in this period the
+Alexandrian Library was dismantled; but, as we have already seen, the
+books had been destroyed by the zeal of contending Christians. The story
+that attributes the destruction of this world-famous institution to
+the Arabian conquerors is so much a part of history, and has been so
+generally accepted as correct, that the traditional version should be
+given here.
+
+Among the inhabitants of Alexandria whom Amr had so well received, says
+the monkish chronicler, was one John the Grammarian, a learned
+Greek, disciple of the Jacobite sect, who had been imprisoned by its
+persecutors. Since his disgrace, he had given himself up entirely to
+study, and was one of the most assiduous readers in the famous library.
+With the change of masters he believed the rich treasure would be
+speedily dispersed, and he wished to obtain a portion of it himself. So,
+profiting by the special kindness Amr had shown him, and the pleasure he
+appeared to take in his conversation, he ventured to ask for the gift of
+several of the philosophic books whose removal would put an end to his
+learned researches.
+
+At first Amr granted this request without hesitation, but in his
+gratitude John the Grammarian expatiated so unwisely on the extreme
+rarity of the manuscripts and their inestimable value, that Amr, on
+reflection, feared he had overstepped his power in granting the learned
+man's request. "I will refer the matter to the caliph," he said,
+and thereupon wrote immediately to Omar and asked the caliph for
+his commands concerning the disposition of the whole of the precious
+contents of the library.
+
+The caliph's answer came quickly. "If," he wrote, "the books contain
+only what is in the book of God (the Koran), it is enough for us, and
+these books are useless. If they contain anything contrary to the holy
+book, they are pernicious. In any case, burn them."
+
+[Illustration: 327.jpg COIN OF OMAR]
+
+Amr wished to organise his new government, and, having left a sufficient
+garrison in Alexandria, he gave orders to the rest of his army to leave
+the camp in the town and to occupy the interior of Egypt. "Where shall
+we pitch our new camp?" the soldiers asked each other, and the answer
+came from all parts, "Round the general's tent." The army, in fact,
+did camp on the banks of the Nile, in the vicinity of the modern Cairo,
+where Amr had ordered his tent to be left; and round this tent, which
+had become the centre of reunion, the soldiers built temporary huts
+which were soon changed into solid, permanent habitations. Spacious
+houses were built for the leaders, and palaces for the generals, and
+this collection of buildings soon became an important military town,
+with strongly marked Muhammedan characteristics. It was called Fostat
+(tent) in memory of the event, otherwise unimportant, which was the
+origin of its creation. Amr determined to make his new town the capital
+of Egypt; whilst still preserving the name of Fostat, he added that of
+Misr,--a title always borne by the capital of Egypt, and which Memphis
+had hitherto preserved in spite of the rivalry of Alexandria.
+
+Fostat was then surrounded by fortifications, and Amr took up his
+residence there, forming various establishments and giving himself up
+entirely to the organisation of the vast province whose government the
+caliph had entrusted to him. The personal tax, which was the only one,
+had been determined in a fixed manner by the treaty of submission he
+had concluded with the Kopts; and an unimportant ground rent on landed
+property was added in favour of the holy towns of Mecca and Medina, as
+well as to defray some expenses of local administration.
+
+[Illustration: 329.jpg OLD CAIRO (FOSTAT)]
+
+Egypt was entirely divided into provincial districts, all of which
+had their own governor and administrators taken from among the Kopts
+themselves. The lands which had belonged to the imperial government of
+Constantinople, and those of the Greeks who had abandoned Egypt or been
+killed in the war against the Mussulmans, were either declared to be the
+property of the new government or given out again as fiefs or rewards
+to the chief officers of the army. All these lands were leased to the
+Koptic farmers, and the respective rights of the new proprietors
+or tenant farmers and of the peasant proprietors were determined by
+decisive and invariable rules. Thus the agricultural population enjoyed
+under the Mussulmans a security and ease which replaced the tyrannical
+annoyances and arbitrary exactions of the Christian agents of the
+treasury of Constantinople; for, in fact, little by little, there had
+disappeared under these Greek agents the sound principles of the old
+administration that had been established by the wise kings of ancient
+Egypt, and which the Ptolemies had scrupulously preserved, as did also
+the first governors under the Caesars.
+
+After all these improvements in the internal administration, the
+governor turned his attention to the question of justice, which until
+that moment had been subject to the decision of financial agents, or
+of the soldiers of the Greek government. Amr now created permanent and
+regular tribunals composed of honourable, independent, and enlightened
+men, who enjoyed public respect and esteem. To Amr dates back the first
+of those _divans_, chosen from the elite of the population, as sureties
+of the fairness of the _cadis_, which received appeals from first
+judgments to confirm them, or, in the case of wrongful decisions, to
+alter them. The decrees of the Arab judges had force only for those
+Mussulmans who formed a part of the occupying army. Whenever a Koptic
+inhabitant was a party in an action, the Koptic authorities had the
+right to intervene, and the parties were judged by their equals in race
+and religion.
+
+One striking act of justice succeeded in winning for Amr the hearts of
+all. Despite the terror inspired by the religious persecutions which
+Heraclius had carried on with so much energy, one man, the Koptic
+patriarch Benjamin, had bravely kept his faith intact. He belonged
+to the Jacobite sect and abandoned none of its dogmas, and in their
+intolerance the all-powerful Melchites did not hesitate to choose him as
+their chief victim. Benjamin was dispossessed of his patriarchal throne,
+his liberty and life were threatened, and he only succeeded in saving
+both by taking flight. He lived thus forgotten in the various refuges
+that the desert monasteries afforded him, while Heraclius replaced him
+by an ardent supporter of the opinions favoured at court. The whole of
+Egypt was then divided into two churches separated from each other by an
+implacable hatred. At the head of the Melchites was the new patriarch,
+who was followed by a few priests and a small number of partisans who
+were more attached to him by fear than by faith. The Jacobites, on the
+other hand, comprised the immense majority of the population, who looked
+upon the patriarch as an intruder chosen by the emperor. The church
+still acknowledged as its real head Benjamin, the patriarch who had been
+for thirteen years a wanderer, and whose return was ardently desired.
+This wish found public expression as soon as the downfall of the
+imperial power in Egypt permitted its free manifestation. Amr listened
+to the supplications that were addressed to him, and, turning out the
+usurper in his turn, recalled Benjamin from his long exile and replaced
+him on the patriarchal throne.
+
+But even here Amr's protection of the Koptic religion did not end.
+He opened the door of his Mussulman town, and allowed them to live
+in Fostat and to build churches there in the midst of the Mussulman
+soldiers, even when Islamism was still without a temple in the city, or
+a consecrated place worthy of the religion of the conquerors.
+
+Amr at length resolved to build in his new capital a magnificent mosque
+in imitation of the one at Mecca. Designs were speedily drawn up, the
+location of the new temple being, according to Arab authors, that of an
+ancient pyre consecrated by the Persians, and which had been in ruins
+since the time of the Ptolemies.
+
+[Illustration: 333.jpg A MODERN KOPT]
+
+The monuments of Memphis had often been pillaged by Greek and Roman
+emperors, and now they were once again despoiled to furnish the mosque
+of Amr with the beautiful colonnades of marble and porphyry which adorn
+the walls, and on which, the Arab historians assure us, the whole Koran
+was written in letters of gold.
+
+Omar died in 644, and under his successor, Othman, the Arabian conquests
+were extended in Northern Africa. Othman dying in 656, the claims of Ali
+were warmly supported, but not universally recognised, many looking to
+Muawia as an acceptable candidate for the caliphate. This was especially
+the view of the Syrian Muham-medans, and in 661 Muawia I. was elected
+caliph. He promptly transferred the capital from Medina to Damascus, and
+became in fact the founder of a dynasty known as the Ommayads, the new
+caliph being a descendant of the famous Arabian chieftain Ommayad. Egypt
+acknowledged the new authority and remained quiet and submissive. It
+furnished Abd el-Malik, who became caliph in 685, not only with rich
+subsidies and abundant provisions, but also with part of his troops.
+
+The attachment of the Egyptians to their new masters was chiefly owing
+to the gentleness and wisdom of Abd el-Aziz ibn Merwan, who administered
+the country after Amr was put to death in 689. He visited all the
+provinces of Egypt, and, arriving at Alexandria, he ordered the
+building of a bridge over the canal, recognising the importance of this
+communication between the town and country.
+
+Benefiting by the religious liberty that Mussulman sovereignship had
+secured them, the Kopts no longer attended to the quarrels of their
+masters. They only occupied themselves in maintaining the quiet
+peaceful-ness they had obtained by regular payment of their taxes, and
+by supplying men and commodities when occasion demanded it. During the
+reign of Abd el-Malik in Egypt the only remarkable event there was the
+election, in 688, of the Jacobite Isaac as patriarch of Alexandria. The
+Koptic clergy give him no other claim to historical remembrance than
+the formulating of a decree ordaining "that the patriarch can only be
+inaugurated on a Sunday."
+
+[Illustration: 335.jpg MOSQUE OF AMR]
+
+Isaac was succeeded by Simon the Syrian, whom the Koptic church looks
+upon as a saint, and for whom is claimed the power of reviving the dead.
+He nevertheless died from the effects of poison given him at the altar
+by some jealous rival. Arab historians relate how deputies came to Simon
+from India to ask for a bishop and some priests. The patriarch refused
+to comply with this request, but Abd el-Aziz, thinking that this
+relation with India might prove politically useful, gave the order to
+other and more docile priests.
+
+The patriarchal seat was empty for three years after the death of Simon.
+The Kopts next appointed a patriarch named Alexander, who held the
+office for a little over twenty years. The Koptic writers who recount
+the history of this patriarch mention their discontent with the governor
+Abd el-Aziz. The monks and other members of the clergy had grown very
+numerous in Egypt and claimed to be exempt from taxation. Abd el-Aziz,
+whose yearly tax was fixed, thought it unjust that the poorest classes
+of the people should be made to pay while the priests, the bishop,
+and the patriarch, all possessing abundance, should be privileged by
+exemption. He therefore had a census made of all the monks and put
+on them a tax of one dinar (about $2.53), while he exacted from the
+patriarch an annual payment of three thousand dinars, or about $7,600.
+This act of justice was the cause of many complaints among the clergy,
+but they were soon suppressed and were without result.
+
+[Illustration: 337a.jpg COIN OF ABU BEKR]
+
+After more than twenty years of a prosperous government of Egypt, Abd
+el-Aziz ibn Merwan died at Fostat in the year 708 (a.h. 86) at the very
+time when, with many fresh plans for the future, he had completed the
+building of a large and magnificent palace called ed-Dar el-mudahaba
+(the golden house), and a quarter of the town called Suk el-hammam (the
+pigeon market). The Caliph Abd el-Malik felt deeply the loss of this
+brother, whose qualities he highly appreciated and whom he had appointed
+as his successor.
+
+He now named as his heir to the caliphate Walid, his eldest son, and
+replaced Abd el-Aziz in the government of Egypt with his second son,
+Abd Allah ibn Abd el-Malik. The Kopts hoped to obtain from the new
+governor the repeal of the act that exacted yearly tribute from the
+clergy, but Abd Allah did not think it fair to grant this unjust
+discrimination against the poorer classes of the Egyptians. Those monks
+who have written the history of the patriarchs have therefore painted
+Abd Allah in even blacker colours than they did his predecessor. For
+the rest, Abd Allah only held the reins of government in Egypt until the
+death of his father, which occurred a few months later.
+
+[Illustration: 337b.jpg COIN OF OTHMAN]
+
+Suleiman succeeded his brother Walid I. The new caliph vigorously put
+into execution all the plans his brother had formed for the propagation
+of the religion of the Prophet. In the first year of his reign he
+conquered Tabaristan and Georgia, and sent his brother Maslama to lay
+fresh siege to Constantinople. On his accession to the throne Suleiman
+placed the government of Egypt in the hands of Assama ibn Yazid, with
+the title of agent-general of finances.
+
+The Koptic clerical historians, according to their usual habit, portray
+this governor as still worse than his predecessors, but in this case
+the Mussulman authorities are in agreement in accusing him of the most
+iniquitous extortions and most barbarous massacres. The gravest reproach
+they bring against him is that, calling all the monks together, he told
+them that not only did he intend to maintain the old regulations of Abd
+el-Aziz, by which they had to pay an annual tax of one dinar ($2.53),
+but also that they would be obliged to receive yearly from his agents an
+iron ring bearing their name and the date of the financial transaction,
+for which ring they were to make personal contribution. He forced
+the wearing of this ring continually, and the hand found without this
+strange form of receipt was to be cut off. Several monks who endeavoured
+to evade this strict order were pitilessly mutilated, while a number of
+them, rebelling against the payment of the tax, retired into convents,
+thinking they could safely defraud the treasury. Assama, however, sent
+his soldiers to search these retreats, and all the monks found without
+rings were beheaded or put to death by the bastinado.
+
+[Illustration: 338.jpg COIN OF MALIK]
+
+Careful about all that related to the Egyptian revenues, Assama
+commanded the keeping up of the various Nilometers, which still served
+to regulate the assessment of the ground tax. In the year 718 he learned
+that the Nilometer established at Helwan, a little below Fostat, had
+fallen in, and hastened to report the fact to the caliph. By the orders
+of this prince the ruined Nilometer was abandoned, and a new one built
+at the meridional point of the island now called Rhodha, just between
+Fostat and Gizeh.
+
+[Illustration: 339.jpg CITADEL OF CAIRO (FOSTAT).]
+
+But of all the financial transactions of Assama, the one that vexed most
+the inhabitants of Egypt, and which brought down on him the most violent
+and implacable hatred, was the ordinance by which all ascending or
+descending the Nile were obliged to provide themselves with a passport
+bearing a tax. This exorbitant claim was carried out with an abusive
+and arbitrary sternness. A poor widow, the Oriental writers say, was
+travelling up the Nile with her son, having with her a correct passport,
+the payment of which had taken nearly all she possessed. The young man,
+while stretched along the boat to drink of the river's water, was seized
+by a crocodile and swallowed, together with the passport he carried
+in his breast. The treasury officers insisted that the wretched widow
+should take a fresh one; and to obtain payment for it she sold all she
+had, even to the very clothes she wore. Such intolerable exactions
+and excesses ended by thoroughly rousing the indignant Egyptians. The
+malcontents assembled, and a general revolt would have been the result
+but for the news of the death of the Caliph Suleiman (717), which gave
+birth to the hope that justice might be obtained from his successor.
+
+The next caliph was Omar II., a grandson of Merwan I., who had been
+nominated as his successor by Suleiman. In his reign the Muhammedans
+were repulsed from Constantinople, and the political movement began
+which finally established the Abbasid dynasty at Baghdad. Omar dying
+in the year 720, Yazid II., a son of Abd el-Malik, succeeded to the
+caliphate, and reigned for four years, history being for the most part
+silent as to the general condition of Egypt under these two caliphs.
+It is recorded that in the year 720, one of Yazid's brothers, by name
+Muhammed ibn Abd el-Malik, ruled over Egypt. The Kopts complained of his
+rule, and declared that during the whole reign of Yazid ibn Abd el-Malik
+the Christians were persecuted, crosses overthrown, and churches
+destroyed.
+
+[Illustration: 341.jpg A CROCODILE USED AS A TALISMAN]
+
+Yazid was succeeded, in 724 A.D., by his brother Hisham, surnamed
+Abu'l-Walid, the fourth son of Abd el-Malik to occupy the throne of
+Islam, who, having been appointed by his brother as his successor, took
+possession of the throne on the very day of his death. Muhammed was
+replaced in Egypt by his cousin, Hassan ibn Yusuf, who only held office
+for three years, resigning voluntarily in the year 730 a.d., or 108 of
+the Hegira. The Caliph Hisham replaced him by Hafs ibn Walid, who was
+deposed a year later, and in the year 109 of the Hegira the caliph
+appointed in his place Abd el-Malik ibn Rifa, who had already governed
+Egypt during the caliphate of Walid I. Hisham made many changes in
+the governorship of Egypt, and amid a succession of rulers appointed
+Handhala to the post. He had already been governor of Egypt under Yazid
+II. He administered the province for another six years, and, according
+to the Christian historians of the East, pursued the same course of
+intolerance and tyranny that he had adopted when he governed Egypt for
+the first time under Yazid.
+
+The Caliph Hisham enjoined Handhala to be gentle with his subjects and
+to treat the Christians with kindness, but far from conforming with
+these wise and kindly intentions, he overwhelmed them with vexations and
+tyrannous acts. He doubled the taxes by a general census, subjecting not
+only men but also their animals to an impost. The receipts for the
+new duty had to be stamped with the impression of a lion, and every
+Christian found without one of these documents was deprived of one of
+his hands.
+
+In the year 746 (a.h. 124), on being informed of these abuses, the
+caliph deprived him of the government of Egypt, and, giving him the
+administration of Mauritania, appointed as his successor Hafs ibn Walid,
+who, according to some accounts, had previously governed Egypt for
+sixteen years, and who had left pleasanter recollections behind him.
+Hafs, however, now only held office for a year.
+
+Nothing of political importance happened in Egypt under the long reign
+of Hisham, the only events noticed by the Christian historians being
+those which relate solely to their ecclesiastical history. The 108th
+year of the Hegira saw the death of Alexander, the forty-third Koptic
+Patriarch of Alexandria. Since the conquest of Egypt by Omar, for a
+period of about twenty-four years, the patriarchate had been in the
+hands of the Jacobites; all the bishops in Egypt belonged to that sect,
+and they had established Jacobite bishops even in Nubia, which they had
+converted to their religion. The orthodox Christians elected Kosmas as
+their patriarch. At that time the heretics had taken possession of all
+the churches in Egypt, and the patriarch only retained that of Mar-Saba,
+or the Holy Sabbath. Kosmas, by his solicitations, obtained from
+Hisham an order to his financial administrator in Egypt, Abd Allah ibn
+es-Sakari, to see that all the churches were returned to the sect to
+which they belonged.
+
+After occupying the patriarchal throne for only fifteen months,
+Kosmas died. In the 109th year of the Hegira (a. d. 727-28) Kosmas was
+succeeded by the patriarch Theodore. He occupied the seat for eleven
+years. His patriarchate was a period of peace and quiet for the church
+of Alexandria, and caused a temporary cessation of the quarrels between
+the Melchites and the Jacobites. A vacancy of six years followed his
+death until, in the year 127 of the Hegira (749 a. d.), Ibn Khalil was
+promoted to the office of patriarch, and held his seat for twenty-three
+years.
+
+Walid II. succeeded to the caliphate in the year 749. One of his first
+acts was to take the government of Egypt from Hafs, in spite of the
+kindness of his rule, the wisdom and moderation of which had gained
+for him the affection of all the provinces which he governed. He was
+replaced by Isa ibn Abi Atta, who soon created a universal discontent,
+as his administrative measures were oppressive.
+
+In the year 750 the Ommayads were supplanted by the Abbasids, who
+transferred the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. The first Abbasid
+caliph was Abu'l-Abbas, who claimed descent from Abbas, the uncle of
+Muhammed. The caliph Merwan II., the last of the Ommayads, in his flight
+from his enemies came to Egypt and sent troops from Fostat to hold
+Alexandria. He was now pursued to his death by the Abbasid general Salih
+ibn Ali, who took possession of Postat for the new dynasty in 750. The
+change from the Ommayad to the Abbasid caliphs was effected with little
+difficulty, and Egypt continued to be a province of the caliphate and
+was ruled by governors who were mostly Arabs or members of the Abbasid
+family.
+
+Abu'l-Abbas, after being inaugurated, began his rule by recalling all
+the provincial governors, whom he replaced by his kinsmen and partisans.
+He entrusted the government of Egypt to his paternal uncle, Salih ibn
+Ali, who had obtained the province for him. Salih, however, did not rule
+in person, but was represented by Abu Aun Abd el-Malik ibn Yazid, whom
+he appointed vice-governor. The duties of patriarch of Alexandria were
+then performed by Michel, commonly called Khail by the Kopts. This
+patriarch was of the Jacobite sect and the forty-fifth successor of St.
+Mark: he held the office about three years. He in turn was succeeded by
+the patriarch Myna, a native of Semennud (the ancient Sebennytus).
+
+In the year 754 Abu'l-Abbas died at the age of thirty-two, after
+reigning four years, eight months, and twenty-six days, the Arabian
+historians being always very precise in recording the duration of the
+reign of the caliphs. He was the first of the caliphs to appoint a
+vizier, the Ommayad caliphs employing only secretaries during their
+administration. The successor of Abu'l-Abbas was his brother Abu
+Jafar, surnamed El-Man-sur. Three years after his accession he took the
+government of Egypt from his uncle, and in less than seven years Egypt
+passed successively through the hands of six different governors. These
+changes were instigated by the mistrustful disposition of the caliph,
+who saw in every man a traitor and conspirator, dismissing on the
+slightest provocation his most devoted adherents, some of whom were even
+put to death by his orders. His last choice, Yazid ibn Hatim, governed
+Egypt for eight years, and the caliph bestowed the title of Prince
+of Egypt (Emir Misri) upon him, which title was also borne by his
+successors.
+
+These continual changes in the government of Egypt had not furthered
+the prosperity and well-being of the inhabitants. Each ruler, certain
+of speedy dismissal, busied himself with his personal affairs to the
+detriment of the country, anxious only to amass by every possible
+means sufficient money to compensate him for his inevitable deposition.
+Moreover, each governor increased the taxation levied by his
+predecessor. Such was the greed and rapacity of these governors that
+every industry was continually subjected to increased taxation; the
+working bricklayer, the vender of vegetables, the camel-driver, the
+gravedigger, all callings, even that of mendicant, were taxed, and the
+lower classes were reduced to eating dog's flesh and human remains. At
+the moment when Egypt, unable to support such oppression longer, was on
+the verge of insurrection, the welcome tidings of the death of El-Mansur
+arrived.
+
+Muhammed el-Mahdi, son of El-Mansur, succeeded his father and was the
+third caliph of the house of Abbas. He was at Baghdad when his father
+expired near Mecca, but, despite his absence, was immediately proclaimed
+caliph. El-Mahdi betrayed in his deeds that same fickleness which
+had signalised the caliphate of his father, El-Mansur. He appointed
+a different governor of Egypt nearly every year. These many changes
+resulted probably from the political views held by the caliph, or
+perhaps he already perceived the tendency shown by each of his provinces
+to separate itself from the centre of Islamism. Perhaps also he already
+foresaw those divisions which destroyed the empire about half a century
+later. Thus his prudence sought, in allowing but a short period of power
+to each governor, to prevent their strengthening themselves sufficiently
+in their provinces to become independent.
+
+Egypt remained calm and subdued under these constant changes of
+government. Syria and the neighbouring provinces followed suit, and the
+Caliph el-Mahdi profited by this peaceful state of things to attack the
+Emperor of the Greeks. His second son, Harun, undertook the continuation
+of this war, and the young prince displayed such talent and bravery
+that he gained brilliant victories, and returned to Baghdad after having
+captured several cities from the Greeks, overthrown their generals,
+and forced Constantinople to pay an annual tribute of seventy thousand
+dinars (about $180,000). The Caliph el-Mahdi rewarded Harun by solemnly
+naming him the future successor of his eldest son, Musa el-Hadi, whom he
+had just definitely declared his heir to the throne. Shortly after this
+decision, el-Mahdi died, in the year 785, having reigned ten years and
+two months.
+
+Musa el-Hadi, his eldest son, succeeded him, being the fourth caliph
+of the race of Abbasids. On ascending the throne, he withdrew the
+government of Egypt from Fadl ibn Salih, appointing in his place Ali ibn
+Suleiman, also a descendant of Abbas. El-Hadi plotted against the claims
+of Harun to the succession, but he died before his plans had matured,
+and Harun became caliph in the year 786.
+
+The reign of Harun er-Rashid was the most brilliant epoch of the empire
+of Islamism, and his glory penetrated from the far East to the western
+countries of Europe, where his name is still celebrated.
+
+[Illustration: 347.jpg DOOR OF AN ARABIAN HOUSE.]
+
+Harun seems to have been as reluctant as his father and grandfather were
+before him to leave a province too long in the hands of a governor, and
+he even surpassed them in his precautionary measures. In the year 171
+of the Hegira, he recalled Ali ibn Suleiman, and gave the government of
+Egypt to Musa ibn Isa, a descendant of the Caliph Ali.
+
+Thereafter the governors were changed on an average of once a year,
+and their financial duties were separately administered. Musa ibn Isa,
+however, held the appointment of Governor of Egypt on three separate
+occasions, and of his third period Said ibn Batrik tells the following
+anecdote:
+
+"While Obaid Allah ibn el-Mahdi was ruling in Egypt," he relates, "he
+sent a beautiful young Koptic slave to his brother, the caliph, as a
+gift. The Egyptian odalisk so charmed the caliph that he fell violently
+in love with her. Suddenly, however, the favourite was laid prostrate
+by a malady which the court physicians could neither cure nor even
+diagnose. The girl insisted that, being Egyptian, only an Egyptian
+physician could cure her. The caliph instantly ordered his brother to
+send post haste the most skilful doctor in Egypt. This proved to be the
+Melchite patriarch, for in those days Koptic priests practised medicine
+and cultivated other sciences. The patriarch set out for Baghdad,
+restored the favourite to health, and in reward received from the
+caliph an imperial diploma, which restored to the orthodox Christians
+or Melchites all those privileges of which they had been deprived by the
+Jacobite heretics since their union with the conqueror Amr ibn el-Asi."
+
+If this story be true, one cannot but perceive the plot skilfully laid
+and carried out by the powerful clergy, to whom any means, even the
+sending of a concubine to the caliph, seemed legitimate to procure the
+restoration of their supremacy and the humiliation of their adversaries.
+
+[Illustration: 349.jpg A VEILED BEAUTY]
+
+The year 204 of the Hegira was memorable for the death of the Iman
+Muhammed ibn Idris, surnamed esh-Shafi. This celebrated doctor was the
+founder of one of the four orthodox sects which recognised the Moslem
+religion, and whose followers take the name "Shafites" from their chief.
+The Iman esh-Shafi died at Fostat when but forty-three years old. His
+dogmas are more especially followed in Egypt, where his sect is still
+represented and presided over by one of the four Imans at the head of
+the famous Mosque Jam el-Azar, or mosque of flowers.
+
+The distance of Egypt from Baghdad, the caliph's capital, was the cause
+of the neglect of many of his commands, and upon more than one occasion
+was his authority slighted. Thus it happened that for more than five
+years the government of Egypt was in the hands of Abd Allah ibn es-Sari,
+whom the soldiers elected, but whose appointment was never confirmed by
+the caliph. Abd Allah ibn Tahir, the son of the successful general, had,
+in the year a.h. 210, settled at Belbeys in Egypt. With a large number
+of partisans, he assumed almost regal privileges. In 211 a.h. he
+proceeded to Fostat and there dismissed Abd Allah ibn es-Sari and
+replaced him by Ayad ibn Ibrahim, whom he also dismissed the following
+year, giving the governorship to Isa ibn Yazid, surnamed el-Jalud. In
+the year 213, the Caliph el-Mamun ordered Abd Allah ibn Tahir to retire,
+and confided the government of Egypt and also that of Syria to his own
+brother el-Mutasim, third son of the Caliph Ilarun er-Rashid.
+
+In the year 218 of the Hegira (a. d. 833), Muhammed el-Mutasim succeeded
+his brother el-Mamun. He was the first caliph who brought the name of
+God into his surname. On ascending the throne, he assumed the title
+el-Mutasim b'lllah, that is "strengthened by God," and his example was
+followed by all his successors.
+
+From the commencement of this reign, el-Mutasim b'lllah was forced to
+defend himself against insurgents and aspirants to the caliphate. In
+the year 219 of the Hegira, Kindi, the Governor of Egypt, died, and the
+caliph named his son, Mudhaffar ibn Kindi, as his successor. Mudhaffar
+ibn Kindi, dying the following year, was succeeded by Musa, son of
+Abu'l-Abbas, surnamed esh-Shirbani by some writers, esh-Shami (the
+Syrian) by others. In the year 224 Musa was recalled and his place
+taken by Malik, surnamed by some el-Hindi (the Indian), by others ibn
+el-Kindi. A year later the caliph dismissed Malik, and sent Ashas to
+Egypt in his place. This was the last governor appointed by el-Mutasim
+b'lllah, for the caliph died of fever in the year 227 of the Hegira.
+
+Oriental historians have noticed that the numeral eight affected this
+caliph in a singular manner. Between himself and Abbas, the head of his
+house, there were eight generations; he was born in the month of Shaban,
+the eighth month of the Mussulman year; he was the eighth Abbasidian
+caliph, and ascended the throne in the year 218, aged thirty-eight years
+and eight months; he reigned eight years, eight months, and eight days,
+and died in the forty-eighth year of his age, leaving eight sons and
+eight daughters. He fought in eight battles, and on his death eight
+million dinars and eighty thousand dirhems were discovered in his
+private treasury. It is this singular coincidence which gave him the
+name Mutamma.
+
+[Illustration: 351.jpg TOMB OF A SHEIKH]
+
+But a sadder fatality exercised its influence over the Caliph Mutamma,
+for from him dates the beginning of the decadence of his dynasty, and
+to him its first cause may be ascribed. The fact is, Mutasim was
+uneducated, without ability, and lacking in moral principles; he was
+unable even to write. Endowed with remarkable strength and muscles
+of iron, he was able, so Arab historians relate, to lift and carry
+exceptionally heavy weights; to this strength was added indomitable
+courage and love of warfare, fine weapons, horses, and warriors. This
+taste led him, even before the death of his father, to organise a picked
+corps, for which he selected the finest, handsomest, and strongest of
+the young Turkish slaves taken in war, or sent as tribute to the caliph.
+
+The vast nation, sometimes called Turks, sometimes Tatars, was
+distributed, according to all Oriental geographers, over all the
+countries of Northern Asia, from the river Jihun or Oxus to Kathay or
+China. That the Turks and the Arabs, both bent upon a persistent
+policy of conquest, should come into more or less hostile contact
+was inevitable. The struggle was a long one, and during the numerous
+engagements many prisoners were taken on both sides. Those Turks who
+fell into the hands of the Arabs were sent to the different provinces
+of their domain, where they became slaves of the chief emirs and of the
+caliphs themselves, where, finding favour in the eyes of the caliphs,
+they were soon transferred to their personal retinue. The distrust which
+the caliphs felt for the emirs of their court, whose claims they were
+only able to appease by making vassals of them, caused them to commit
+the grave error of confiding in these alien slaves, who, barbaric
+and illiterate as they were, now living in the midst of princes, soon
+acquired a knowledge of Muhammedanism, the sciences, and, above all, the
+politics of the country.
+
+It was not long before they were able to fill the most responsible
+positions, and, given their freedom by the caliphs, were employed by the
+government according to their abilities. Not only were they given the
+chief positions at court, but the government of the principal provinces
+was entrusted to them. They repaid these favours later by the blackest
+ingratitude, especially when the formation of a Turkish guard brought
+a number of their own countrymen under their influence. Ever anxious to
+augment his own body-guard, and finding the number of Turks he annually
+received as tribute insufficient, el-Mutasim purchased a great many
+for the purpose of training them for that particular service. But these
+youths speedily abused the confidence shown them by the caliph, who,
+perceiving that their insolence was daily growing more insupportable to
+the inhabitants of Baghdad, resolved to leave the capital, rebuild the
+ancient city of Samarrah and again make it the seat of the empire.
+
+At this time the captain of the caliph's guard was one Tulun, a
+freedman, whom fate would seem to have reduced to servitude for the
+purpose of showing that a slave might found a dynasty destined to rule
+over Egypt and Syria. Tulun belonged to the Toghus-ghur, one of the
+twenty-four tribes composing the population of Turkestan. His family
+dwelt near Lake Lop, in Little Bukhara. He was taken prisoner in battle
+by Nuh ibn Assad es-Samami, then in command at Bukhara. This prince,
+who was subject to the Caliph Mamun, paid an annual tribute of slaves,
+Turkish horses, and other valuables. In the year 815 a. d., Tulun was
+among the slaves sent as tribute to the caliph, who, attracted by his
+bearing, enrolled him in his own body-guard.
+
+Before long he had so gained the caliph's confidence that Mamun gave him
+his freedom and the command of the guard, at the same time appointing
+him Emir es-sitri, prince of the veil or curtain. This post, which was a
+mark of the greatest esteem, comprised the charge of the personal safety
+of the sovereign, by continually keeping watch without the curtain or
+rich drapery which hung before the private apartments, and admitting no
+one without a special order. Tulun spent twenty years at the court of
+el-Mamun and of his successor, Mutasim, and became the father of several
+children, one of which, Ahmed ibn Tulun,* known later as Abu l'Abbas,
+was the founder of the Tulunide dynasty in Egypt and Syria.
+
+     * Ahmed ibn Tulun was, according to some historians, born at
+     Baghdad in the year 220 of the Hegira, in the third year of
+     the reign of el-Mutasim b' Illah. Others claim Samarrah as
+     his birthplace. His mother, a young Turkish slave, was named
+     Kassimeh, or some say, Hachimeh. Some historians have denied
+     that Ahmed was the son of Tulun, one of them, Suyuti, in a
+     manuscript belonging to Marcel, quotes Abu Asakar in
+     confirmation of this assertion, who pretends he was told by
+     an old Egyptian that Ahmed was the son of a Turk named Mahdi
+     and of Kassimeh, the slave of Tulun. Suyuti adds that Tulun
+     adopted the child on account of his good qualities, but this
+     statement is unsupported and seems contradicted by
+     subsequent events.
+
+Before Ahmed ibn Tulun had reached an age to take part in political
+affairs, two caliphs succeeded Mutasim b'lllah. The first was his son
+Harun abu Jafar, who, upon his accession, assumed the surname el-Wathik
+b'lllah (trusting in God). Wathik carried on the traditional policy of
+continually changing the governors of the provinces, and, dying in the
+year 847, was succeeded by his half-brother Mutawakkil. In the following
+year the new caliph confided the government of Egypt to Anbasa, but
+dismissed him a few months later in favour of his own son el-Muntasir
+ibn el-Mutawakkil, whom two years afterwards the caliph named as his
+successor to the throne. El-Muntasir was to be immediately succeeded by
+his two younger brothers, el-Mutazz b'lllah and el-Mujib b'lllah.
+
+Mutawakkil then proceeded to divide his kingdom, giving Africa and
+all his Eastern possessions, from the frontier of Egypt to the eastern
+boundary of his states, to his eldest son. His second son, el-Mutazz,
+received Khorassan, Tabaristan, Persia, Armenia, and Aderbaijan as his
+portion, and to el-Mujib, his third son, he gave Damascus, Hemessa, the
+basin of the Jordan, and Palestine.
+
+These measures, by which the caliph hoped to satisfy the ambitions
+of his sons, did not have the desired effect. Despite the immense
+concessions he had received, el-Muntasir, anxious to commence his rule
+over the whole of the Islam empire, secretly conspired against his
+father and meditated taking his life. Finding that in Egypt he was too
+far from the scene of his intrigues, he deputed the government of that
+country to Yazid ibn Abd Allah, and returned to his father's court to
+encourage the malcontents and weave fresh plots. His evil schemes soon
+began to bear fruit, for, in the year 244 of the Hegira, his agents
+stirred up the Turkish soldiery at Damascus to insurrection on the
+ground of deferred payment. Whereupon the caliph paid them the arrears,
+and left Damascus to retire to Samarrah.
+
+[Illustration: 356.jpg THE MOSQUE OF IBN TULUN, CAIRO.]
+
+At length, in the year 861 (a.h. 247), Mutawakkil discovered the
+scarcely concealed treachery of his son, and reproved him publicly.
+Some days later the caliph was murdered at night by the captain of his
+Turkish Guard, and Muntasir, who is commonly supposed to have
+instigated the crime, was immediately proclaimed as his successor in the
+government.
+
+The most important event in Egypt during the reign of Mutawakkil was the
+falling in of the Nilometer at Fostat. This disaster, was the result of
+an earthquake of considerable violence, which was felt throughout
+Syria. The caliph ordered the reconstruction of the Nilometer, which was
+accomplished the same year, and the Nilometer of the Island of Rhodha
+was then called Magaz el-jedid, or the New Nilometer.
+
+After reigning scarcely a year, Muntasir himself succumbed, most
+probably to poison, and his cousin Ahmed was elected to the caliphate by
+the Turkish soldiery, with the title of Mustain. During his brief reign
+the Moslems were defeated by the Byzantines at Awasia, and in 866 the
+Turkish soldiers revolted against the caliph and elected his brother
+Mutazz in his place. Mustain was, however, allowed to retire to Ma'szit.
+He was permitted to take an attendant with him, and his choice fell upon
+Ahmed, the son of Tulun, already mentioned. Ahmed served the dethroned
+prince truly, and had no part in the subsequent murder of this unhappy
+man.
+
+In the meantime the mother of Ahmed had married the influential General
+Baik-Bey, and when the latter was given the rulership of Egypt in the
+year 868 a. d. (254 a.h.), he sent his stepson as proxy, according to
+the custom of the time. On the 23d Ramadhan 254 (15th September, 868),
+Ahmed ibn Tulun arrived at Fostat. He encountered great difficulties,
+and discovered that at Alexandria and also in other districts there were
+independent emirs, who were not directly under the ruler. Soon after his
+arrival an insurrection broke out in Upper Egypt. Ahmed showed himself
+born to the place; he crushed the uprising and also suppressed a second
+revolt that was threatening. By degrees he cleverly undermined the power
+of his colleagues, and made his own position in Fostat secure.
+
+When Muaffik was nominated commander-in-chief of the West by his brother
+Mustamid (elected caliph in 870), Ahmed managed to secure the good-will
+of the vizier of the caliph and thus to obtain the command in Egypt.
+He kept the regent in Baghdad in a state of complacency, occasionally
+sending him tribute; but, as wars with the Sinds began to trouble the
+caliphate, he did not think it worth while to trouble himself further
+about Baghdad, and decided to keep his money for himself. Muaffik
+was not the man to stand this, and prepared to attack Ahmed, but the
+disastrous results of the last war had not yet passed away. When the
+army intended for Egypt was camping in Mesopotamia, there was not enough
+money to pay the troops, and the undertaking had to be deferred.
+
+Ahmed had a free hand over the enormous produce of Egypt. The compulsory
+labour of the industrious Kopt brought in a yearly income of four
+million gold dinars ($10,120,000), and yet these people felt themselves
+better off than formerly on account of the greater order and peace that
+existed under his energetic government. It cannot be denied that Ahmed
+in the course of years became much more extravagant and luxurious,
+but he used his large means in some measure for the betterment of the
+country. He gave large sums not only for the erection of palaces and
+barracks, but also for hospitals and educational advancement. To this
+day is to be seen the mosque of Ibn Tulun, built by him in the newer
+part of Fostat,--a district which was later annexed to the town of
+Cairo.
+
+[Illustration: 359.jpg SANCTUARY OF THE MOSQUE OF IBN TULUN]
+
+The numerous wars in which Muaffik was involved gave Ahmed the
+opportunity of extending his power beyond the boundaries of Egypt. The
+ruler of the caliphate of Damascus died in the year 897, and soon after
+Ahmed marched into Syria, and, with the exception of Antioch, which
+had to be taken by force, the whole country fell into the hands of
+the mighty emir. The commanders of isolated districts did not feel
+themselves encouraged to offer any resistance, for they had no feeling
+of faithfulness for the government, nor had they any hope of assistance
+from Baghdad.
+
+The triumphant march of Tulun was hindered in the year 879 by bad news
+from Fostat. One of his sons, El-Abbas, had quarrelled with his father,
+and had marched to Barca, with troops which he led afterwards to
+disaster, and had taken with him money to the amount of 1,000,000 dinars
+($2,530,000). He thought himself safe from his enraged father there,
+but the latter quickly returned to Fostat, and the news of the ample
+preparations which he was hastening for the subjection of his rebel
+son caused El-Abbas to place himself still farther out of his reach. He
+suddenly attacked the state of Ibrahim II. (the Aghlabite), and caused
+serious trouble with his soldiery in the eastern districts of Tripolis.
+The neighbouring Berbers gave Ibrahim their assistance, and Abbas was
+defeated and retreated to Barca in 880. He remained there some time
+until an army sent by Ahmed annihilated his troops and he himself was
+taken prisoner.
+
+The rebellion of his son was the turning-point in Ahmed's career: Lulu,
+his general in Mesopotamia, deserted him for Muaffik, and an endeavour
+to conquer Mecca was frustrated by the unexpected resistance of numbers
+of newly arrived pilgrims. Ahmed now caused the report to be spread that
+Muaffik was a conspirator against the representatives of the Prophet,
+thus depriving him of his dignity.
+
+[Illustration: 361.jpg THE MOSQUE OF IBN TULUN]
+
+The emir had also besieged in vain at Tarsus his former general
+Jasman, who had become presumptuous on account of his victory over the
+Byzantines. He would eventually have made up for this defeat, but
+an illness overcame him while encamped before Tarsus. He obeyed his
+doctor's orders as little as the caliph's, and his malady, aggravated
+by improper diet, caused his death in his fifty-first year at Fostat in
+884, whither he had withdrawn. He left seventeen sons,--enough to assure
+a dynasty of a hundred years. Khumarawaih, who inherited the kingdom,
+had not many of his father's characteristics. He was a good-natured,
+pleasure-loving young man, barely twenty years old, and with a marked
+distaste for war. He did, however, notwithstanding his peace-loving
+proclivities, fight the caliph's forces near Damascus, and defeat them,
+never having seen a battle before. The emir fled from the scene in a
+panic.
+
+When Muatadid became caliph in 892, he offered his daughter Katr en-Neda
+(Dewdrop) in marriage to the caliph's son. The Arabic historians relate
+that Khuma-rawaih was fearful of assassination, and had his couch
+guarded by a trained lion, but he was finally put to death (a.h. 282),
+according to some accounts by women, and according to others by his
+eunuchs. The death of Khu-marawaih was the virtual downfall of the
+Tulunid dynasty.
+
+The officers of the army then at first made Gaish Abu'l-Asakir (one of
+Khumarawaih's sons) emir; but, when this fourteen-year-old boy seemed
+incapable of anything but stupid jokes, they put his brother Harun on
+the throne. Every commanding officer, however, did as he liked. Rajib,
+the commander of the army of defence, declared himself on the side of
+the caliph, and the Syrian emirs gave themselves up to his general,
+Muhammed ibn Suleiman, without any resistance. At the close of the year
+he was before Fostat, and at the same time a fleet appeared at Damietta.
+A quarrel arose amongst Harun's body-guard, in which the unlucky prince
+was killed (904). His uncle Shaiban, a worthy son of Ahmed, made a last
+stand, but was obliged to give in to the superior force.
+
+Muhammed behaved with his Turks in the most outrageous way in Fostat:
+the plundering was unrestrained, and that part of Fostat which Ahmed
+had built was almost entirely destroyed. The adherents of the reigning
+family were grossly maltreated, many of them killed, and others sent to
+Baghdad. The governors changed in rapid succession; disorder, want, and
+wretchedness existed throughout the entire country west of the caliph's
+kingdom. At this period the provinces of the empire had already fallen
+into the hands of the numerous minor princes, who, presuming on the
+caliph's weakness, had declared themselves independent sovereigns.
+Nothing remained to the Abbasids but Baghdad, a few neighbouring
+provinces, and Egypt.
+
+Under the Caliphs Muktadir, Kahir, and Rahdi, Egypt had an almost
+constant change of governors. One of them, Abu Bekr Muhammed, ultimately
+became the founder of a new dynasty,--the Ikshidite,--destined to rule
+over Egypt and Syria. Abu Bekr Muhammed was the son of Takadj, then
+governor of Damascus. His father had been chief emir at the court of the
+Tulunid princes, and, after the fall of this dynasty, remained in Egypt,
+where he occupied a post under the government. Intrigues, however, drove
+him to Syria, whither his partisans followed him. He first entered the
+army of the caliph, and, capturing the town of Ramleh, was given the
+governorship of Damascus as reward. His son Abu Bekr Muhammed did not go
+to Egypt to fulfil the duties with which he had been invested, and only
+retained the title for one month. He was subsequently reinstated,
+and this time repaired thither. But Ahmed ibn Kighlagh, who was then
+governing Egypt, refused to retire and was only defeated after several
+engagements, when he and his followers proceeded to Barca in Africa.
+
+In the year 328 of the Hegira, the caliph Radhi bestowed the honour of
+Emir el-Umara (Prince of Princes) upon Muhammed ibn Raik. This officer,
+discontented with the government of Palestine, led an army into Syria
+and expelled Badra, the lieutenant of Muhammed el-Ikshid. The latter
+left Egypt at once, entrusting the government of that country to his
+brother, el-Hassan, and brought his forces to Faramah, where the troops
+of Muhammed ibn Raik were already stationed. Thanks to the mediation
+of several emirs, matters were concluded peacefully, and Muhammed
+el-Ikhshid returned to Fostat. Upon his arrival, however, he learnt that
+Muhammed ibn Raik had again left Damascus and was preparing to march
+upon Egypt.
+
+This intelligence obliged Muhammed el-Ikshid to return at once to Syria.
+He encountered the advance-guard of the enemy and promptly led the
+attack; his right wing was scattered, but the centre, commanded
+by himself, remained firm, and Muhammed ibn Raik retreated towards
+Damascus. Husain, brother of el-Ikshid, lost his life in the combat.
+Despite the enmity between them, Muhammed ibn Raik sent his own son
+to el-Ikshid, charged with messages of condolence for the loss he had
+sustained and bearing proposals of peace. Muhammed el-Ikshid received
+the son of his enemy with much respect, and invested him with a mantle
+of honour. He then consented to cede Damascus, in consideration of an
+annual tribute of 140,000 pieces of gold, and the restoration of all
+that portion of Palestine between Ramleh and the frontiers of Egypt.
+After having concluded all the arrangements relative to this treaty,
+Muhammed el-Ikshid returned to Egypt in the year 329 of the Hegira.
+
+[Illustration: 365.jpg COIN OF ABU BEKR.]
+
+The Caliph Rahdi died in the same year (940 a. d.). He was thirty
+years of age, and had reigned six years, ten months, and ten days. His
+brother, Abu Ishak Ibrahim, succeeded him, and was henceforth known by
+the name of Muttaki. A year later Muhammed el-Ikshid was acknowledged
+Prince of Egypt by the new caliph. Shortly after, he learnt that his
+former enemy, Muhammed ibn Raik had been killed by the Hamdanites;
+he thereupon seized the opportunity to recover those provinces he had
+granted him, and, marching into Syria, captured Damascus and all the
+possessions he had relinquished upon the conclusion of their treaty.
+Feeling now that his position was secure, he caused his son Kasim to be
+recognised by the emirs and the entire army as his successor.
+
+The year 332 of the Hegira was a disastrous one in Baghdad. The office
+of Prince of Princes, bestowed according to the caprice of the Turkish
+officers upon any of their leaders, was now become a position superior
+even to that of caliph. It was held at this time by a Turk named Turun,
+who so oppressed the caliph Muttaki that the latter was forced to fly
+from his capital and retire to Mosul. He then besought help from the
+Hamdanites, who immediately rallied their forces and, accompanied by the
+caliph, marched upon Baghdad. They were, however, completely routed by
+Turun and obliged V to retreat. Muttaki showed his gratitude to the two
+princes by conferring a mantle of honour upon them, which, for some
+time past, had been the only gift that Islam sovereigns had been able to
+bestow.
+
+Leaving Mosul, the caliph proceeded to Rakkah, and there was invited by
+Turun to return to Baghdad. Seeing that his adherents, the Hamdanites,
+were greatly discouraged by their recent reverses, Muttaki resolved to
+accept the offer. When Muhammed el-Ikshid heard this, he hastened to
+Rakkah and offered the caliph refuge in Egypt. But the caliph refused,
+agreeing, however, as Muhammed el-Ikshid promised to supply him with the
+necessary funds, not to return to Baghdad and place himself in the power
+of Turun. In spite of his promise, when Turun, fearing that the caliph
+had found powerful friends, came to him, and, casting himself before
+Muttaki, paid him all the homage due to an Islam sovereign, he allowed
+himself to be overruled, and accompanied Turun back to Baghdad. Hardly
+had the unfortunate caliph set foot in his capital when he was murdered,
+after reigning four years and eleven months. Turun now proclaimed
+Abd Allah Abu'l Kasim, son of Muttaki, caliph, who, after a short and
+uneventful reign, was succeeded by his uncle, Abu'l Kasim el-Fadhl,
+who was the last of the Abbasid caliphs whom Egypt acknowledged as
+suzerains.
+
+After Muttaki's return to Baghdad, Muhammed el-Ikshid remained for some
+time in Damascus, and then set out for Egypt. His return was signalised
+by the war with Saif ed-Dowlah, Prince of Hamdan. The campaign was of
+varying success: After a disastrous battle, in which the Egyptians lost
+four thousand men as prisoners, Muhammed el-Ikshid left Egypt with
+a numerous army and arrived at Maarrah. Saif ed-Dowlah determined to
+decide the war with one desperate effort, and first secured the
+safety of his treasure, his baggage, and his harem by sending them to
+Mesopotamia. Then he marched upon el-Ikshid, who had taken his position
+at Kinesrin.
+
+Muhammed divided his forces into two corps, placing in the vanguard all
+those who carried lances; he himself was in the rear with ten thousand
+picked men. Saif ed-Dowlah charged the vanguard and routed it, but the
+rear stood firm; this resistance saved el-Ikshid from total defeat. The
+two armies separated after a somewhat indecisive engagement, and
+Saif ed-Dowlah, who could claim no advantage save the capture of his
+adversaries' baggage, went on to Maubej, where he destroyed the bridge,
+and, entering Mesopotamia, proceeded towards Rakkah; but Muhammed
+el-Ikshid was already stationed there, and the hostile armies, separated
+only by the Euphrates, faced one another for several days.
+
+Negotiations were then opened, and peace was concluded. The conditions
+were that Hemessa, Aleppo, and Mesopotamia should belong to Saif
+ed-Dowlah, and all the country from Hemessa to the frontiers of Egypt
+remain in the possession of Muhammed el-Ikshid. A trench was dug between
+Djouchna and Lebouah, in those places where there were no natural
+boundaries, to mark the separation of the two states. To ratify this
+solemn peace, Saif ed-Dowlah married the daughter of Muhammed el-Ikshid;
+then each prince returned to his own province. The treaty was, however,
+almost immediately set aside by the Hamdanites, and el-Ikshid, forced to
+retrace his steps, defeated them in several engagements and seized the
+town of Aleppo.
+
+Thus we see that the year 334 of the Hegira (a. d. 946) was full
+of important events, to which was soon added the death of Muhammed
+el-Ikshid. He died at Damascus, in the last month of the year
+(Dhu'l-Kada), aged sixty, and had reigned eleven years, three months,
+and two days. He was buried at Jerusalem. Muhammed el-Ikshid was a man
+possessing many excellent talents, and chiefly renowned as an admirable
+soldier. Brave, without being rash, quick to calculate his chances, he
+was able always to seize the advantage. On the other hand, however,
+he was so distrustful and timid in the privacy of his palace that he
+organised a guard of eight thousand armed slaves, one thousand of
+whom kept constant watch. He never spent the entire night in the same
+apartment or tent, and no one was ever permitted to know the place where
+he slept.
+
+We are told that this prince could muster four hundred thousand men;
+although historians do not definitely specify the boundaries of his
+empire, which, of course, varied from time to time, we may nevertheless
+believe that his kingdom, as that of his predecessors, the Tulunites,
+extended over Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, as far as the
+Euphrates, and even included a large portion of Arabia. The Christians
+of the East charge him with supporting his immense army at their
+expense, and persecuting and taxing them to such an extent that they
+were forced to sell many possessions belonging to their Church before
+they could pay the required sums.
+
+But, if we may credit a contemporary historian more worthy of belief,
+these expenses were covered by the treasure Muhammed el-Ikshid himself
+discovered. In fact, el-Massudi, who died at Cairo in the year 346 of
+the Hegira, relates that el-Ikshid, knowing much treasure to be buried
+there, was greatly interested in the excavation of the subterraneous
+tombs of the ancient Egyptian kings. "The prince" he adds, "was
+fortunate enough to come across a portion of those tombs, consisting of
+vast rooms magnificently decorated. There he found marvellously wrought
+figures of old and young men, women, and children, having eyes of
+precious stones and faces of gold and silver."
+
+Muhammed el-Ikshid was succeeded by his son, Abu'l Kasim Muhammed,
+surnamed Ungur. The prince being only an infant, Kafur, the favourite
+minister of the late caliph, was appointed regent. This Kafur was a
+black slave purchased by el-Ikshid for the trifling sum of twenty pieces
+of gold. He was intelligent, zealous, and faithful, and soon won the
+confidence of his master. Nobility of race in the East appertains only
+to the descendants of the Prophet, but merit, which may be found in
+prince and subject alike, often secures the highest positions, and even
+the throne itself for those of the humblest origin. Such was the fate
+of Kafur. He showed taste for the sciences, and encouraged scholars;
+he loaded the poets with benefits, and they sang his praises without
+measure so long as he continued his favours, but satirised him with
+equal vigour as soon as his munificence diminished. Invested with
+supreme authority, Kafur served the young prince with a devotion and
+fidelity worthy of the highest praise. His first step was to dismiss Abu
+Bekr Muhammed, the receiver of the Egyptian tributes, against whom he
+had received well-merited complaints. In his place he appointed a native
+of Mardin, also called Muhammed, of whose honesty and kindliness he was
+well aware. He then took his pupil to Egypt, which country they reached
+in the month of Safar in the year 335 of the Hegira.
+
+Saif ed-Dowlah, hearing of the death of Muhammed el-Ikshid, and the
+departure of Ungur, deemed this a favourable opportunity to despoil his
+brother-in-law; he therefore marched upon Damascus, which he captured;
+but the faithful Kafur promptly arrived upon the scene with a powerful
+army, and, routing Saif ed-Dowlah, who had advanced as far as Ramleh,
+drove him back to Rakkah, and relieved Damascus. The remainder of the
+reign of Ungur passed peacefully, thanks to the watchfulness and wise
+government of Kafur.
+
+In the year 345 of the Hegira, the King of Nubia invaded the Egyptian
+territories, advancing to Syene, which he pillaged and laid waste.
+Kafur at once despatched his forces overland and along the Nile, and
+simultaneously ordered a detachment embarking from the Red Sea to
+proceed along the southern coast, attack the enemy in the rear and
+completely cut off their retreat. The Nubians, thus surprised on all
+sides, were defeated and forced to retreat, leaving the fortress of Rym,
+now known as Ibrim, and situated fifty miles from Syene, in the hands of
+the Egyptians. No other events of note took place during the lifetime of
+Ungur, who, having reigned fourteen years and ten days, died in the year
+349 of the Hegira, leaving his brother Ali, surnamed Abu'l-Hasan, as his
+successor.
+
+[Illustration: 371.jpg MOSQUE TOMB NEAR SYENE]
+
+The reign of Abu'l-Hasan Ali, the second son of Muhammed el-Ikshid,
+lasted but five years. His name, as that of his brother Ungur (Abu
+Hurr), is but little known in history. Kafur was also regent during the
+reign of Abu'l-Hasan Ali.
+
+In the year 352 of the Hegira, Egypt was stricken with a disastrous
+famine. The rise of the Nile, which the previous year had been but
+fifteen cubits, was this year even less, and suddenly the waters fell
+without irrigating the country. Egypt and the dependent provinces were
+thus afflicted for nine consecutive years. During this time, whilst
+the people were agitated by fear for the future, a rupture took place
+between Abu'l-Hasan Ali and Kafur. This internal disturbance was soon
+followed by war; and in the year 354 the Greeks of Constantinople,
+led by the Emperor Nicepherous Phocas, advanced into Syria. They took
+Aleppo, then in the possession of the Hamdanites, and, encountering
+Saif ed-Dowlah, overthrew him also. The governor of Damascus, Dalim
+el-Ukazly, and ten thousand men came to the rescue of the Hamdanites,
+but Phocas beat a retreat on hearing of his approach.
+
+Abu'l-Hasan Ali died in the year 355 of the Hegira. The regent
+Kafur then ascended the throne, assuming the surname el-Ikshid. He
+acknowledged the paramount authority of the Abbasid caliph, Muti, and
+that potentate recognised his supreme power in the kingdom of Egypt.
+During the reign of Kafur, which only lasted two years and four months,
+the greater portion of Said was seized by the Fatimites, already
+masters of Fayum and Alexandria, and the conquerors were on the point of
+encroaching still farther, when Kafur died in the year 357 a.h. Ahmed,
+surnamed Abu'l Fawaris, the son of Abu'l-Hasan Ali, and consequently
+grandson of Mu-hammed el-Ikshid, succeeded Kafur.
+
+The prince was only eleven years old, and therefore incapable of
+properly controlling Egypt, Syria, and his other domains. Husain, one
+of his relatives, invaded Syria, but in his turn driven back by the
+Karmates, returned to Egypt and strove to depose Ahmed. These divisions
+in the reigning family severed the ties which united the provinces of
+the Egyptian kingdom. To terminate the disturbances, the emirs resolved
+to seek the protection of the Fatimites. The latter, anxious to secure
+the long-coveted prize, gladly rendered assistance, and Husain was
+forced to return to Syria, where he took possession of Damascus, and the
+unfortunate Ahmed lost the throne of Egypt.
+
+With him perished the Ikshid dynasty, which, more ephemeral even than
+that of the Tulunid, flourished only thirty-four years and twenty-four
+days.
+
+The period upon which this history is now about to enter is of more than
+usual interest, for it leads immediately to the centuries during which
+the Arabic forces came into contact with the forces of Western Europe.
+The town and the coast of Mauritania were then ruled by the Fatimites,
+a dynasty independent of the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad. The Fatimites
+belonged to the tribes of Koramah, who dwelt in the mountains situated
+near the town of Fez in the extreme west of Africa. In the year 269 of
+the Hegira, they began to extend their sway in the western regions of
+Africa, pursuing their conquests farther east. The Fatimite caliph Obaid
+Allah and his son Abu'l Kasim cherished designs not only upon Egypt,
+but even aimed at the destruction of the Abbasid caliphate, these plans
+being so far successful as to leave the Fatimites in secure possession
+of Alexandria, and more or less in power in Fayum.
+
+The Fatimite caliphs had lofty and pretentious claims to the allegiance
+of the Moslem world. They traced their descent from Fatima, a daughter
+of the Prophet, whom Muhammed himself regarded as one of the four
+perfect women. At the age of fifteen she married Ali, of whom she was
+the only wife, and the partisans of Ali, as we have seen, disputed with
+Omar the right to the leadership of Islam upon the Prophet's death.
+Critics are not wanting who dispute the family origin of Obaid Allah,
+but his claim appears to have been unhesitatingly admitted by his own
+immediate followers. The Fatimite successes in the Mediterranean gave
+them a substantial basis of political power, and doubtless this outward
+and material success was more important to them than their claim to both
+a physical and mythical descent from the founder of their religion.
+
+Some accounts trace the descent of Obaid from Abd Allah ibn Maimun
+el-Kaddah, the founder of the Ismailian sect, of which the Carmathians
+were a branch. The Ismailians may be best regarded as one of the several
+sects of Shiites, who originally were simply the partisans of Ali
+against Omar, but by degrees they became identified as the upholders of
+the Koran against the validity of the oral tradition, and when, later,
+the whole of Persia espoused the cause of Ali, the Shiite belief
+became tinged with all kinds of mysticism. The Ismailians believed, for
+instance, in the coming of a Messiah, to whom they gave the name Mahdi,
+and who would one day appear on earth to establish the reign of justice,
+and revenge the wrongs done to the family of Ali. The Ismailians
+regarded Obaid himself as the Mahdi, and they also believed in
+incarnations of the "universal soul," which in former ages had appeared
+as the Hebrew Prophets, but which to the Muhammedan manifested itself as
+imans. The iman is properly the leader of public worship, but it is not
+so much an office as a seership with mystical attributes. The Muhammedan
+imans so far have numbered eleven, the twelfth, and greatest (El-Mahdi),
+being yet to come. The Ismailians also introduced mysticism into the
+interpretation of the Koran, and even taught that its moral precepts
+were not to be taken in a literal sense. Thus the Fatimite caliphs
+founded their authority upon a combination of political power and
+superstition.
+
+Abu'l Kasim, who ruled at Alexandria, was succeeded in 945 by his son,
+El-Mansur. Under his reign the Fatimites were attacked by Abu Yazid, a
+Berber, who gathered around him the Sunnites, and the revolutionaries
+succeeded in taking the Fatimite capital Kairwan. El-Mansur, however,
+soon defeated Abu Yazid in a decisive battle and rebuilt a new city,
+Mansuria, on the site of the modern Cairo, to commemorate the event.
+Dying in 953, he was succeeded by Muiz ad-Din.
+
+Muiz came to the throne just at the time when dissensions as to the
+succession were undermining the Ikshid dynasty. Seizing the opportunity
+in the year 969, Muiz equipped a large and well-armed force, with a
+formidable body of cavalry, the whole under the command of Abu'l-Husain
+Gohar el-Kaid, a native of Greece and a slave of his father El-Mansur.
+This general, on his arrival near Alexandria, received a deputation from
+the inhabitants of Fostat charged to negotiate a treaty. Their overtures
+were favourably entertained, and the conquest of the country seemed
+probable without bloodshed. But while the conditions were being
+ratified, the Ikshidites prevailed on the people to revoke their offer,
+and the ambassadors, on their return, were themselves compelled to seek
+safety in flight.
+
+Gohar el-Kaid incurred no delay in pushing his troops forward. He forced
+the passage of the Nile a few miles south of El-Gizeh at the head of his
+troops, and the Ikshidites suffered a disastrous defeat. To the honour
+of the African general, it is related that the inhabitants of Fostat
+were pardoned and the city was peaceably occupied. The submission of the
+rest of Egypt to Muiz was secured by this victory. In the year 359 a.h.
+Syria was also added to his domains, but shortly after was overrun by
+the Carmathians. The troops of Muiz met with several reverses, Damascus
+was taken, and those lawless freebooters, joined by the Ikshidites,
+advanced to Ain Shems. In the meanwhile, Gohar had fortified Cairo (the
+new capital which he had founded immediately north of Fostat) and taken
+every precaution to repel the invaders; a bloody battle was fought in
+the year 361 before the city walls, without any decisive result. Later,
+however, Gohar obtained a victory over the enemy which proved to be a
+decisive one.
+
+Muiz subsequently removed his court to his new kingdom. In Ramadhan 362,
+he entered Cairo, bringing with him the bodies of his three predecessors
+and vast treasure. Muiz reigned about two years in Egypt, dying in the
+year 365 a.h. He is described as a warlike and ambitious prince, but,
+notwithstanding, he was especially distinguished for justice and was
+fond of learning. He showed great favour to the Christians, especially
+to Severus, Bishop of El-Ashmunein, and the patriarch Ephrem; and under
+his orders, and with his assistance, the church of the Mu'allakah,
+in Old Misr, was rebuilt. He executed many useful works (among others
+rendering navigable the Tanitic branch of the Nile, which is still
+called the canal of Muiz), and occupied himself in embellishing Cairo.
+Gohar, when he founded that city, built the great mosque named El-Azhar,
+the university of Egypt, which to this day is crowded with students from
+all parts of the Moslem world.
+
+Aziz Abu-Mansur Nizar, on coming to the throne of his father,
+immediately despatched an expedition against the Turkish chief
+El-Eftekeen, who had taken Damascus a short time previously. Gohar again
+commanded the army, and pressed the siege of that city so vigorously
+that the enemy called to their aid the Carmathians. Before this united
+army he was forced to retire slowly to Ascalon, where he prepared to
+stand a siege; but, being reduced to great straits, he purchased his
+liberty with a large sum of money. On his return from this disastrous
+campaign, Aziz took command in person, and, meeting the enemy at Ramleh,
+was victorious after a bloody battle; while El-Eftekeen, being betrayed
+into his hands, was with Arab magnanimity received with honour and
+confidence, and ended his days in Egypt in affluence. Aziz followed his
+father's example of liberality. It is even said that he appointed a Jew
+his vizier in Syria, and a Christian to the same post in Egypt. These
+acts, however, nearly cost him his life, and a popular tumult obliged
+him to disgrace both these officers. After a reign of twenty-one years
+of great internal prosperity, he died (a.h. 386) in a bath at Bilbeis,
+while preparing an expedition against the Greeks who were ravaging
+his possessions in Syria. Aziz was distinguished for moderation and
+mildness, but his son and successor rendered himself notorious for very
+opposite qualities.
+
+Hakim Abu Ali Mansur commenced his reign, according to Moslem
+historians, with much wisdom, but afterwards acquired a reputation for
+impiety, cruelty, and unreasoning extravagance, by which he has been
+rendered odious to posterity. He is said to have had at the same time
+"courage and boldness, cowardice and timorousness, a love for learning
+and vindictiveness towards the learned, an inclination to righteousness
+and a disposition to slay the righteous." He also arrogated to himself
+divinity, and commanded his subjects to rise at the mention of his name
+in the congregational prayers, an edict which was obeyed even in the
+holy cities, Mecca and Medina. He is most famous in connection with the
+Druses, a sect which he founded and which still holds him in veneration
+and believes in his future return to the earth. He had made himself
+obnoxious to all classes of his subjects when, in the year 397 a.h., he
+nearly lost his throne by foreign invasion.
+
+[Illustration: 379.jpg MOSQUE OF HAKIM]
+
+Hisham, surnamed Abu-Rekweh, a descendant of the house of Ommaya in
+Spain, took the province of Barca with a considerable force and subdued
+Upper Egypt. The caliph, aware of his danger, immediately collected
+his troops from every quarter of the kingdom, and marched against the
+invaders, whom, after severe fighting, he defeated and put to flight.
+Hisham himself was taken prisoner, paraded in Cairo with every
+aggravation of cruelty, and put to death. Hakim having thus by vigorous
+measures averted this danger, Egypt continued to groan under his tyranny
+until the year 411 a.h., when he fell by domestic treachery. His sister
+Sitt el-Mulk had, in common with the rest of his subjects, incurred his
+displeasure; and, being fearful for her life, she secretly and by night
+concerted measures with the emir Saif ed-Dowlah, chief of the guard,
+who very readily agreed to her plans. Ten slaves, bribed by five hundred
+dinars each ($1,260), having received their instructions, went forth on
+the appointed day to the desert tract southward of Cairo, where Hakim,
+unattended, was in the habit of riding, and waylaid him near the village
+of Helwan, where they put him to death.
+
+Within a week Hakim's son Ali had been raised to the caliphate with
+the title of Dhahir, at the command of Sitt el-Mulk. As Dhahir was only
+eighteen years old, and in no way educated for the government, Sitt
+el-Mulk took the reins of government, and was soon looked upon as the
+instigator of Hakim's death. This suspicion was strengthened by the
+fact that his sister had the heir to the throne--who was at that time
+governor of Aleppo--murdered, and also the chief who had conspired with
+her in assassinating Hakim. She survived her brother for about four
+years, but the actual ruler was the Vizier Ali el-Jar jar.
+
+Dhahir's reign offers many points of interest. Peace and contentment
+reigned in the interior, and Syria continued to be the chief point of
+interest to the Egyptian politics. Both Lulu and his son Mansur, who
+received princely titles from Hakim, recognised the suzerainty of the
+Fatimites. Later on a disagreement arose between Lulu's son and Dhahir.
+One of the former's slaves conspired against his master, and gave Aleppo
+into the hands of the Fatimites, whose governor maintained himself there
+till 1023. In this year, however, Aleppo fell into the power of the Benu
+Kilab, who defended the town with great success against Romanus in
+1030. Not till Dhahir's successor came to the throne in 1036 was Aleppo
+reconquered by the Fatimites, but only to fall, after a few years, again
+into the hands of a Kilabite, whom the caliph was obliged to acknowledge
+as governor until he of his own free will exchanged the city for several
+other towns in Syria; but even then the strife about the possession of
+Aleppo was not yet at an end.
+
+Mustanssir ascended the throne at the age of four years. His mother,
+although black and once a slave, had great influence in the choice of
+the viziers and other officials, and even when the caliph became of age,
+he showed very few signs of independence. His reign, which lasted sixty
+years, offers a constant alternation of success and defeat. At one time
+his dominion was limited to the capital Cairo, at another time he was
+recognised as lord of Africa, Sicily, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and even of
+the Abbassid capital, Baghdad. A few days later his dominion was again
+on the point of being extinguished. The murder of a Turk by the negroes
+led to a war between the Turkish mercenaries and the blacks who formed
+the caliph's body-guard. The latter were joined by many of the other
+slaves, but the Turks were supported by the Ketama Berbers and some of
+the Bedouin tribes, and also the Hamdanite Nasir ed-Dowlah, who had
+long been in the Egyptian service. The blacks, although supported by the
+caliph's mother, were completely defeated, and the caliph was forced to
+acknowledge the authority of Nasir ed-Dowlah. He thereupon threatened
+to abdicate, but when he learned that his palace with all its treasures
+would then be given up to plunder, he refrained from fulfilling his
+threat. The power of the Hamdanites and the Turks increased with
+every victory over the negroes, who finally could no longer maintain
+themselves at all in Upper Egypt. The caliph was treated with contempt,
+and had to give up his numerous treasures, one by one, to satisfy the
+avarice of his troops. Even the graves of his ancestors were at last
+robbed of all they contained, and when, at last, everything had been
+ransacked, even his library, which was one of the largest and finest,
+was not spared. The best manuscripts were dispersed, some went to
+Africa, others were destroyed, many were damaged or purposely mutilated
+by the Sunnites, simply because they had been written by the Shiites;
+still others were burnt by the Turks as worthless material, and the
+leather bands which held them made into sandals.
+
+[Illustration: 383.jpg MUSTANSSIR'S GATE AT CAIRO]
+
+Meanwhile war between Mustanssir and Nasir ed-Dowlah continued to be
+waged in Egypt and Syria, until at last the latter became master of
+Cairo and deprived the caliph once more completely of his independence.
+
+Soon after, a conspiracy with Ildeghiz, a Turkish general, at its head,
+was formed against Nasir ed-Dowlah, and he, together with his relations
+and followers, was brutally murdered. Ildeghiz behaved in the same way
+as his predecessor had-done towards the caliph, and the latter appealed
+to Bedr el-Jemali for help. Bedr proceeded to Acre with his best Syrian
+troops, landed in the neighbourhood of Damietta and proceeded towards
+the capital, which he entered without difficulty (January, 1075). He was
+appointed general and first vizier, so that he now held both the highest
+military and civil authority.
+
+In order to strengthen his position, he had all the commanders of the
+troops and the highest officials murdered at a ball. Under his rule,
+peace and order were at last restored to Egypt, and the income of the
+state was increased under his excellent government.
+
+Bedr remained at his post till his death, and his son El-Afdhal was
+appointed by Mustanssir to succeed him. Upon the death of Mustanssir
+(1094), his successor El-Mustali Abu'l Kasim retained El-Afdhal in
+office. He was afterwards murdered under Emir (December, 1121) because,
+according to some, he was not a zealous enough Shiite, but, according
+to others, because the caliph wished to gain possession of the enormous
+treasures of the vizier and to be absolutely independent. Emir was
+also murdered (October 7, 1130), and was succeeded by his cousin, who
+ascended the throne under the name of Hafiz, and appointed a son of
+El-Afdhal as vizier, who, just as his father had done, soon became the
+real ruler, and did not even allow the caliph's name to be mentioned in
+the prayers; whereupon he also was murdered at the caliph's instigation.
+After other viziers had met with a similar fate, and amongst them a son
+of the caliph himself, at last Hafiz ruled alone. His son and successor,
+Dhafir (1149-1150), also frequently changed his viziers because they
+one and all wished to obtain too much influence. The last vizier,
+Abbas, murdered the caliph (March-April, 1154), and placed El-Faiz, the
+five-year-old son of the dead caliph, on the throne, but the child died
+in his eleventh year (July, 1160). Salih, then vizier, raised Adid, a
+descendant of Alhagiz, to the caliphate and gave him his daughter to
+wife, for which reason he was murdered at the desire of the harem. His
+son Adil maintained himself for a short time, and then El-Dhargham and
+Shawir fought for the post; as the former gained the victory, Shawir
+fled to Syria, called Nureddin to his aid, and their army, under Shirkuh
+and Saladin, put an end in 1171 to the rule of the Fatimites.
+
+END OF VOL. XI.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The
+Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12), by S. Rappoport
+
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+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #17331 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17331)