S. Rappoport - History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)

S >> S. Rappoport >> History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12)

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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.

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