The Provinces of the Roman Empire 64

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 64

Chr. Pasch._ p. 514; Procopius, _Hist. arc._ 26; Gothofred. on

_Cod. Theod._ xiv. 26, 2. Stated distributions of corn had already been

instituted earlier in Alexandria, but apparently only for persons old

and decayed, and--it may be conjectured--on account of the city, not of

the state (Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ vii. 21).

 

[227] In the town of Alexandria there appears to have been no landed

property to the strict sense, but only a sort of hereditary lease

(Ammianus, xxii. 11, 6; _Staatsrecht_, ii. 963, note 1); but otherwise

private property in the soil prevailed also in Egypt, in the sense in

which the provincial law knows such a thing at all. There is often

mention of domanial possession, _e.g._ Strabo, xvii. 1, 51, p. 828, says

that the best Egyptian dates grow on an island on which private persons

might not possess any land, but it was formerly royal, now imperial,

and yielded a large income. Vespasian sold a portion of the Egyptian

domains and thereby exasperated the Alexandrians (Dio, lxvi. 8)--beyond

doubt the great farmers who then gave the land in sub-lease to the

peasants proper. Whether landed property in mortmain, especially of

the priestly colleges, was in the Roman period still as extensive as

formerly, may be doubted; as also whether otherwise large estates or

small properties predominated; petty husbandry was certainly general.

We possess figures neither for the domanial quota nor for that of the

land-tax; that the fifth sheaf in Orosius, i. 8, 9, is copied including

the _usque ad nunc_ from Genesis, is rightly observed by Lumbroso,

_Recherches_, p. 94. The domanial rent cannot have amounted to less

than the half; even for the land-tax the tenth (Lumbroso, _l. c._ p.

289, 293) may have hardly sufficed. Export of grain otherwise from

Egypt needed the consent of the governor (Hirschfeld, _Annona_, p.

23), doubtless because otherwise scarcity might easily set in in the

thickly-peopled land. Yet this arrangement was certainly more by way

of control than of prohibition; in the Periplus of the Egyptian corn

is on several occasions (c. 7, 17, 24, 28, comp. 56) adduced among the

articles of export. Even the cultivation of the fields seems to have

become similarly controlled; “the Egyptians, it is said, are fonder

of cultivating rape than corn, so far as they may, on account of the

rape-seed oil” (Plinius, _H. N._ xix. 5, 79).

 

[228] In the edict of Diocletian among the five fine sorts of linen

the first four are Syrian or Cilician (of Tarsus) and the Egyptian

linen appears not merely in the last place, but is also designated as

Tarsian-Alexandrian, that is, prepared in Alexandria after the Tarsian

model.

 

[229] It was related of a rich man in Egypt that he had lined his

palace with glass instead of with marble, and that he possessed papyrus

and lime enough to provide an army with them (_Vita Firmi_, 3).

 

[230] That the alleged letter of Hadrian (_Vita Saturnini_, 8) is a

late fabrication, is shown _e.g._ by the fact, that the emperor in

this highly friendly letter addressed to his father-in-law, Servianus,

complains of the injuries which the Alexandrians at his first departure

had heaped on his son Verus, while on the other hand it is established

that this Servianus was executed at the age of ninety in the year 136,

because he had disapproved the adoption of Verus, which had taken place

shortly before.

 

[231] The ναύκληροι τοῦ πορευτικοῦ Ἀλεξανδρεινοῦ στόλου, who set up

the stone doubtless belonging to Portus, _C. I. Gr._ 5889, were the

captains of these grain-ships. From the Serapeum of Ostia we possess a

series of inscriptions (_C. I. L._ xiv. 47), according to which it was

in all parts a copy of that at Alexandria; the president is at the same

time ἐπιμελητὴς παντὸς τοῦ Ἀλεξανδρείνου στόλου (_C. I. Gr._ 5973).

Probably these transports were employed mainly with the carriage of

grain, and this consequently took place by succession, to which also

the precautions adopted by the emperor Gaius in the straits of Reggio

(Josephus, _Arch._ xix. 2, 5) point. With this well comports the fact,

that the first appearance of the Alexandrian fleet in the spring was a

festival for Puteoli (Seneca, _Ep._ 77, 1).

 

[232] This is shown by the remarkable Delian inscriptions, _Eph.

epigr._ i. p. 600, 602.

 

[233] Already in the Delian inscriptions of the last century of the

republic the Syrians predominate. The Egyptian deities had doubtless

a much revered shrine there, but among the numerous priests and

dedicators we meet only a single Alexandrian (Hauvette-Besnault, _Bull.

de corr. Hell._ vi. 316 f.). Guilds of Alexandrian merchants are known

to us at Tomi (I. 310, note) and at Perinthus (_C. I. Gr._ 2024).

 

[234] After Juvenal has described the wild drinking bouts of the native

Egyptians in honour of the local gods of the several nomes, he adds

that therein the natives were in no respect inferior to the Canopus,

_i.e._ the Alexandrian festival of Sarapis, notorious for its unbridled

licentiousness (Strabo, xvii. 1, 17, p. 801): _horrida sane Aegyptus,

sed luxuria quantum ipse notavi, barbara famoso non cedit turba Canopo_

(_Sat._ xv. 44).

 

[235] Ammianus, xxii. 16, 23: _Erubescit apud (Aegyptios), si qui non

infitiando tributa plurimas in corpore vibices ostendat_.

 

[236] This was according to Juvenal Tentyra, which must be a mistake,

if the well known Tentyra is meant; but the list of the Ravennate

chronicler, iii. 2, names the two places together.

 

[237] Seneca, _ad Helv._ 19, 6: _loquax et in contumelias praefectorum

ingeniosa provincia ... etiam periculosi sales placent_.

 

[238] Dio Chrysostom says in his address to the Alexandrians (_Or._

xxxii. p. 663 Reiske): “Because now (the intelligent) keep in the

background and are silent, there spring up among you endless disputes

and quarrels and disorderly clamour, and bad and unbridled speeches,

accusers, aspersions, trials, a rabble of orators.” In the Alexandrian

Jew-hunt, which Philo so drastically describes, we see these

mob-orators at work.

 

[239] Dio Cassius, xxxix. 58: “The Alexandrians do the utmost in all

respects as to daring, and speak out everything that occurs to them. In

war and its terrors their conduct is cowardly; but in tumults, which

with them are very frequent and very serious, they without scruple come

to mortal blows, and for the sake of the success of the moment account

their life nothing, nay, they go to their destruction as if the highest

things were at stake.”

 

[240] The “pious Egyptians” offered resistance, as Macrobius, _Sat._

i. 7, 14, reports, but _tyrannide Ptolemaeorum pressi hos quoque deos_

(Sarapis and Saturnus) _in cultum recipere Alexandrinorum more, apud

quos potissimum colebantur, coacti sunt_. As they thus had to present

bloody sacrifices, which was against their ritual, they did not admit

these gods, at least into the towns; _nullum Aegypti oppidum intra

muros suos aut Saturni aut Sarapis fanum recepit_.

 

[241] The often-quoted anonymous author of a description of the

empire from the time of Constantius, a good heathen, praises Egypt

particularly on account of its exemplary piety: “Nowhere are the

mysteries of the gods so well celebrated as there from of old and

still at present.” Indeed, he adds, some were of opinion that the

Chaldaeans--he means the Syrian cultus--worshipped the gods better;

but he held to what he had seen with his own eyes--“Here there are

shrines of all sorts and magnificently adorned temples, and there are

found numbers of sacristans and priests and prophets and believers

and excellent theologians, and all goes on in its order; you find

the altars everywhere blazing with flame and the priests with their

fillets and the incense-vessels with deliciously fragrant spices.”

Nearly from the same time (not from Hadrian), and evidently also from a

well-informed hand, proceeds another more malicious description (_vita

Saturnini_, 8): “He who in Egypt worships Sarapis is also a Christian,

and those who call themselves Christian bishops likewise adore Sarapis;

every grand Rabbi of the Jews, every Samaritan, every Christian

clergyman is there at the same time a sorcerer, a prophet, a quack

(_aliptes_). Even when the patriarch comes to Egypt some demand that

he pray to Sarapis, others that he pray to Christ.” This diatribe is

certainly connected with the circumstance that the Christians declared

the Egyptian god to be the Joseph of the Bible, the son of Sara, and

rightfully carrying the bushel. The position of the Egyptian orthodox

party is apprehended in a more earnest spirit by the author, belonging

presumably to the third century, of the Dialogue of the Gods, preserved

in a Latin translation among the writings attributed to Appuleius, in

which the thrice-greatest Hermes announces things future to Asklepios:

“Thou knowest withal, Asklepios, that Egypt is a counterpart of heaven,

or, to speak more correctly, a transmigration and descent of the whole

heavenly administration and activity; indeed, to speak still more

correctly, our fatherland is the temple of the whole universe. And yet

a time will set in, when it would appear as if Egypt had vainly with

pious mind in diligent service cherished the divine, when all sacred

worship of the gods will be without result and a failure. For the deity

will betake itself back into heaven, Egypt will be forsaken, and the

land, which was the seat of religious worships, will be deprived of the

presence of divine power and left to its own resources. Then will this

consecrated land, the abode of shrines and temples, be densely filled

with graves and corpses. O Egypt, Egypt, of thy worships only rumours

will be preserved, and even these will seem incredible to thy coming

generations, only words will be preserved on the stones to tell of thy

pious deeds, and Egypt will be inhabited by the Scythian or Indian or

other such from the neighbouring barbarian land. New rights will be

introduced, a new law, nothing holy, nothing religious, nothing worthy

of heaven and of the celestials will be heard or in spirit believed.

A painful separation of the gods from men sets in; only the bad

angels remain there, to mingle among mankind” (according to Bernays’s

translation, _Ges. Abh._ i. 330).

 

[242] When the Romans ask from the famous rhetor Proaeresios (end of

the third and beginning of the fourth century) one of his disciples for

a professorial chair, he sends to them Eusebius from Alexandria; “as

respects rhetoric,” it is said of the latter (Eunapius, _Proaer._ p. 92

Boiss.), “it is enough to say that he was an Egyptian; for this people,

no doubt, pursues versemaking passionately, but earnest oratory (ὁ

σπουδαῖος Ἕρμης) is not at home among them.” The remarkable resumption

of Greek poetry in Egypt, to which, _e.g._ the epic of Nonnus belongs,

lies beyond the bounds of our narrative.

 

[243] A “Homeric poet” ἐκ Μουσείου is ready to sing the praise of

Memnon in four Homeric verses, without adding a word of his own (_C.

I. Gr._ 4748). Hadrian makes an Alexandrian poet a member in reward

for a loyal epigram (Athenaeus, xv. p. 677 _e_). Examples of rhetors

from Hadrian’s time may be seen in Philostratus, _Vit. Soph._ i. 22, 3,

c. 25, 3. A φιλόσοφος ἀπὸ Μουσείου in Halicarnassus (_Bull. de corr.

Hell._ iv. 405). At a later period, when the circus was everything, we

find a noted pugilist figuring (so to say) as an honorary member of the

philosophical class (inscription from Rome, _C. I. Gr._ 5914: νεωκόρος

τοῦ μεγά[λου Σαράπιδ]ος καὶ τῶν ἐν τῷ Μουσείῳ [σειτου]μένων ἀτελῶν

φιλοσόφων; comp. _ib._ 4724, and Firmicus Maternus, _de errore prof.

rel._ 13, 3). Οἱ ἐν Ἐφέσῳ ἀπὸ τοῦ Μουσείου ἰατροί (Wood, _Ephesus,

inscriptions from tombs_, n. 7), a society of Ephesian physicians, have

relation doubtless to the Museum at Alexandria, but were hardly members of it; they were rather trained in it.