Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume I Part 1.djvu/116

 were aggravated. The army was disorganised; trade and agriculture declined; the Alexandrian people grew more servile and vicious: even the Museum exhibited symptoms of decrepitude. Its professors continued, indeed, to cultivate science and criticism, but invention and taste had expired. It depended upon Rome whether Alexandreia should become tributary to Antioch, or receive a proconsul from the senate. The wars of Rome with Carthage, Macedon, and Syria alone deferred the deposition of the Lagidae. The influence of Rome in the Ptolemaic kingdom commenced properly in B.C. 204, when the guardians of Epiphanes placed then: infant ward under the protection of the senate, as his only refuge against the designs of the Macedonian and Syrian monarchs. (Justin, xxx. 2.) M. Aemilius Lepidus was appointed guardian to the young Ptolemy, and the legend "Tutor Regis" upon the Aemilian coins commemorates this trust. (Eckhel, vol. v. p. 123.) In B.C. 163 the Romans adjudicated between the brothers Ptolemy Philometor and Euergetes. The latter received Cyrene; the former retained Alexandreia and Egypt In B.C. 145, Scipio Africanus the younger was appointed to settle the distractions which ensued upon the murder of Eupator. (Justin, xxxviii. 8; Cic. Acad. Q. iv. 2, Off. iii. 2; Diod. Legat. 32; Gell. N. A. xviii. 9.) An inscription, of about this date, recorded at Delos the existence of amity between Alexandreia and Rome. (Letronne, Inscr. vol.i. p. 102.) In B.C. 97, Ptolemy Apion devised by will the province of Cyrene to the Roman senate (Liv. lxx. Epit.)^ and his example was followed, in B.C. 80, by Ptolemy Alexander, who bequeathed to them Alexandreia and his kingdom. The bequest, however, was not immediately enforced, as the republic was occupied with civil convulsions at home. Twenty years later Ptolemy Auletes mortgaged his revenues to a wealthy Roman senator, Rabirius Postumus (Cic. Fragm. xvii. Orelli, p. 458), and in B.C. 55 Alexandreia was drawn into the immediate vortex of the Roman revolution, and from this period, until its submission to Augustus in B.C. 30, it followed the fortunes alternately of Pompey, Gabinius, Caesar, Cassius the liberator, and M. Antonius.

The wealth of Alexandreia in the last century B.C. may be inferred from the fact, that, in B.C. 63, 6250 talents, or a million sterling, were paid to the treasury as port dues alone. (Diod. xvii. 52; Strab. p. 832.) Under the emperors, the history of Alexandreia exhibits little variety. It was, upon the whole, leniently governed, for it was the interest of the Caesars to be generally popular in a city which commanded one of the granaries of Rome. Augustus, indeed, marked his displeasure at the support given to M. Antonius, by building Nicopolis about three miles to the east of the Canobic gate as its rival, and by depriving the Greeks of Alexandreia of the only political distinction which the Ptolemies had left them — the judicial functions of the senate. The city, however, shared in the general prosperity of Egypt under Roman rule. The portion of its population that came most frequently in collision with the executive was that of the Jewish Quarter. Sometimes emperors, like Caligula, demanded that the imperial effigies or military standards should be set up in their temple, at others the Greeks ridiculed or outraged the Hebrew ceremonies. Both these causes were attended with sanguinary results, and even with general pillage and burning of the city. Alexandreia was favoured by Claudius, who added a wing to the Museum; was threatened witha visit from Nero, who coveted the skilful applause of its claqueurs in the theatre (Sueton. Ner. 20); was the head-quarter, for some months, of Vespasian (Tac. Hist. iii. 48, iv. 82) during the civil war which preceded his accession; was subjected to military lawlessness under Domitian (Juv. Sat. xvi.); was governed mildly by Trajan, who even supplied the city, during a dearth, with corn (Plin. Panegyr. 31. § 23); and was visited by Hadrian in A.D. 122, who has left a graphic picture of the population. (Vopisc. Saturn. 8.) The first important change in their polity was that introduced by the emperor Severus in A.D. 196. The Alexandrian Greeks were no longer formidable, and Severus accordingly restored their senate and municipal government. He also ornamented the city with a temple of Rhea, and with a public bath — Thermae Septimianae.

Alexandreia, however, suffered more from a single visit of Caracalla than from the tyranny or caprice of any of his predecessors. That emperor had been ridiculed by its satirical populace for affecting to be the Achilles and Alexander of his time. The ru- mours or caricatures which reached him in Italy were not forgotten on his tour through the provinces; and although he was greeted with hecatombs on his arri- val at Alexandreia in A.D. 211 (Herodian. iv. 9), he did not omit to repay the insult by a general mas- sacre of the youth of military age. (Dion Cass. Ixxvii. 22 ; Spartian. CaraeaU. 6.) Caracalla also introduced some important changes in the civil rela- tions of the Alexandrians. To mark his displeasure with the Greeks, he admitted the chief men of th« quarter Rhacdtis — i. e. native Egyptians — into the Roman senate (Dion Cass. li. 17; Spartian. CaracaU. 9); he patronised a temple of Isis at Rome ; and he punished the citizens of the Brucheiaii by retrmching their public games and their allow- ance of com. The Gredc quarter was charged witk the miuntenanoe of an additional Roman garrison, and its inner walls were repaired and lined with forts.

From the works of Aretaeus (de Morb. Acut. L) we learn that Alexandreia was visited by a pestilence in the reign of Gallus, A.D. 253. In 265, the prefect Aemilianus was proclaimed Caesar by his soldiers. (Trebell. Pol. Ti-ig. Tyrarm. 22, Gallien. 4.) In 270, the name of Zenobia^ queen of Palmyra, appears on the Alexandrian coinage; and the city had its full share of the evils con- sequent upon the frequent revolutions of the Ro- man empire. (Vopisc. Awrelian, 32.) After this period, A.D. 271, Alexandria lost much of its pre- dominance in Egypt, since the native population, hardened by repeated wars, and reinforced by Arsr bian immigrants, had become a martial and turbulmt race. In A.D. 297 (Eutrop. ix. 22), Diocletian be- si^ed and regained Alexandreia, which had declared itself in &vour of the usurper Achilleus. The em- peror, however, made a lenient use of his victory, and purchased the favour of the populace by an increased largess of com. The column, now well known as Pompey's Pillar, once supported a statue of this emperor, and still bears on its base the in- scription, " To the most honoured emperor, the de- liverer of Alexandreia, the invincible Diocletian." Alexandreia had its full share of the persecutions of this reign. The Jewish rabbinism and Greek philosophy of the city had paved the way for Christianity, and the serious temper of the Egyptian population sympathised with the earnestness of the new faith. The Christian population of Alexan