Roman Egypt

The Ptolemaic Kingdom (, the Thirty-first Dynasty) had ruled Egypt since the Wars of Alexander the Great that overthrew Achaemenid Egypt. The Ptolemaic pharaoh Cleopatra VII sided with Julius Caesar during Caesar's Civil War (49–45 BC) and Caesar's subsequent Roman dictatorship. After Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, Cleopatra aligned Egypt with Mark Antony, the Roman triumvir who controlled the eastern Mediterranean. In the last war of the Roman Republic (32–30 BC), Antony (with Cleopatra's support) fought against Octavian. The decisive naval Battle of Actium was won by Octavian, who then invaded Egypt. In August 30 BC, following the Battle of Alexandria the defeated Antony and Cleopatra killed themselves. The Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt ceased to exist; Egypt was seized by Octavian as his personal possession. The legal status was settled in January 27 BC, when Octavian was granted the honorific name of Augustus and Egypt became an imperial province of the newly established Roman Empire. Augustus (and succeeding Roman emperors) ruled Egypt as the Roman pharaoh. The Ptolemaic institutions were dismantled: the government administration was wholly reformed, as was the social structure, though some bureaucratic elements were maintained. The Graeco-Egyptian legal system of the Hellenistic period continued in use, but within the bounds of Roman law. The tetradrachm coinage minted at the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria continued to be the currency of an increasingly monetized economy, but its value was made equal to the Roman denarius. Augustus introduced land reforms that enabled wider entitlement to private ownership of land (previously rare under the Ptolemaic cleruchy system of allotments under royal ownership) and the local administration reformed into a Roman liturgical system, in which land-owners were required to serve in local government. The priesthoods of the Ancient Egyptian deities and Hellenistic religions of Egypt kept most of their temples and privileges, and in turn the priests also served the Roman imperial cult of the deified emperors and their families. == Roman government in Egypt ==

As Rome overtook the Ptolemaic system in place for areas of Egypt, they made many changes. The effect of the Roman conquest was at first to strengthen the position of the Greeks and of Hellenism against Egyptian influences. Some of the previous offices and names of offices under the Hellenistic Ptolemaic rule were kept, some were changed, and some names would have remained but the function and administration would have changed. The Romans introduced important changes in the administrative system, aimed at achieving a high level of efficiency and maximizing revenue. The duties of the prefect of Aegyptus combined responsibility for military security through command of the legions and cohorts, for the organization of finance and taxation, and for the administration of justice. with a uraeus'', as pharaoh (Louvre) The Egyptian provinces of the Ptolemaic Kingdom remained wholly under Roman rule until the administrative reforms of the augustus Diocletian (). Local government in the hinterland () outside Alexandria was divided into traditional regions known as nomoi. The mētropoleis were governed by magistrates drawn from the liturgy system; these magistrates, as in other Roman cities, practised euergetism and built public buildings. To each nome the prefect appointed a strategos (); the strategoi were civilian administrators, without military functions, who performed much of the government of the country in the prefect's name and were themselves drawn from the Egyptian upper classes. The strategoi in each of the mētropoleis were the senior local officials, served as intermediaries between the prefect and the villages, and were legally responsible for the administration and their own conduct while in office for several years. Each strategos was supplemented by a royal scribe (). These scribes were responsible for their nome's financial affairs, including administration of all property, land, land revenues, and temples, and what remains of their record-keeping is unparalleled in the ancient world for its completeness and complexity. The royal scribes could act as proxy for the , but each reported directly to Alexandria, where dedicated financial secretaries – appointed for each individual nome – oversaw the accounts: an and a . The was responsible for general financial affairs while the likely dealt with matters relating to the Idios Logos. In 200/201, the emperor Septimius Severus () granted each metropolis, and the city of Alexandria, a boulē (a Hellenistic town council). in Lower Egypt (British Museum, London) The nomoi were grouped traditionally into those of Upper and Lower Egypt, the two divisions each being known as an "epistrategy" after the chief officer, the epistrategos (), each of whom was also a Roman procurator. Soon after the Roman annexation, a new epistrategy was formed, encompassing the area just south of Memphis and the Faiyum region and named "the Heptanomia and the Arsinoite nome". In the Nile Delta however, power was wielded by two of the epistrategoi. The epistrategos's role was mainly to mediate between the prefect in Alexandria and the strategoi in the mētropoleis, and they had few specific administrative duties, performing a more general function. Their salary was sexagenarian – 60,000 sesterces annually. Each village or kome () was served by a village scribe (), whose term, possibly paid, was usually held for three years. Each, to avoid conflicts of interest, was appointed to a community away from their home village, as they were required to inform the strategoi and epistrategoi of the names of persons due to perform unpaid public service as part of the liturgy system. They were required to be literate and had various duties as official clerks. Other local officials drawn from the liturgy system served for a year in their home kome; they included the practor (), who collected certain taxes, as well as security officers, granary officials (), public cattle drivers (), and cargo supervisors (). Other liturgical officials were responsible for other specific aspects of the economy: a suite of officials was each responsible for arranging supplies of particular necessity in the course of the prefect's official tours. The liturgy system extended to most aspects of Roman administration by the reign of Trajan (), though constant efforts were made by people eligible for such duties to escape their imposition. ) The reforms of the early 4th century had established the basis for another 250 years of comparative prosperity in Aegyptus, at a cost of perhaps greater rigidity and more oppressive state control. Aegyptus was subdivided for administrative purposes into a number of smaller provinces, and separate civil and military officials were established; the praeses and the dux. The province was under the supervision of the count of the Orient (i.e. the vicar) of the diocese headquartered in Antioch in Syria. Emperor Justinian abolished the Diocese of Egypt in 538 and re-combined civil and military power in the hands of the dux with a civil deputy (praeses) as a counterweight to the power of the church authorities. All pretense of local autonomy had by then vanished. The presence of the soldiery was more noticeable, its power and influence more pervasive in the routine of town and village life. == Military ==

and tempera painted Fayum mummy portrait of a Roman officer , with a green sagum, gold fibula, white tunic, and red leather balteus (British Museum) The Roman army was among the most homogenous Roman structures, and the organization of the army in Egypt differed little from its organization elsewhere in the Roman Empire. The Roman legions were recruited from Roman citizens and the Roman auxilia recruited from the non-citizen subjects. Egypt was unique in that its garrison was commanded by the praefectus Aegypti, an official of the equestrian order, rather than, as in other provinces, a governor of the senatorial class. Alexandria was the Mediterranean's second city in the early Roman empire, the cultural capital of the Greek East and rival to Rome under Antony and Cleopatra. Because only a few papyri are preserved from the area, little more is known about the legionaries' everyday life than is known from other provinces of the empire, and little evidence exists of the military practices of the prefect and his officers. Most papyri have been found in Middle Egypt's villages, and the texts are primarily concerned with local affairs, rarely giving space to high politics and military matters. Not much is known about the military encampments of the Roman imperial period, since many are underwater or have been built over and because Egyptian archaeology has traditionally taken little interest in Roman sites. Because they supply a record of soldiers' service history, six bronze Roman military diplomas dating between 83 and 206 are the main source of documentary evidence for the in Egypt; these inscribed certificates rewarded 25 or 26 years of military service in the with Roman citizenship and the right of conubium. That the army was more Greek-speaking than in other provinces is certain. The heart of the Army of Egypt was the Nicopolis garrison at Alexandria, with at least one legion permanently stationed there, along with a strong force of cavalry. These troops would both guard the residence of the against uprisings among the Alexandrians and were poised to march quickly to any point at the prefect's command. At Alexandria too was the , the provincial fleet of the Roman Navy in Egypt. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, there were around 8,000 soldiers at Alexandria, a fraction of the megalopolis's huge population. Initially, the legionary garrison of Roman Egypt consisted of three legions: the Legio III Cyrenaica, the Legio XXII Deiotariana, and one other legion. The station and identity of this third legion is not known for sure, and it is not known precisely when it was withdrawn from Egypt, though it was certainly before 23 AD, during the reign of Tiberius (). In the reign of Tiberius's step-father and predecessor Augustus, the legions had been stationed at Nicopolis and at Egyptian Babylon, and perhaps at Thebes. After August 119, the III Cyrenaica was ordered out of Egypt; the XXII Deiotariana was transferred sometime afterwards, and before 127/8, the Legio II Traiana arrived, to remain as the main component of the Army of Egypt for two centuries. After some fluctuations in the size and positions of the garrison in the early decades of Roman Egypt, relating to the conquest and pacification of the country, the contingent was mostly stable during the Principate, increasing somewhat towards the end of the 2nd century, and with some individual formations remaining in Egypt for centuries at a time. Three or four alae of cavalry were stationed in Egypt, each ala numbering around 500 horsemen. There were between seven and ten cohortes of infantry, each cohors about 500 strong, although some were cohortes equitatae – mixed units of 600 men, with infantry and cavalry in a roughly 4:1 ratio. Besides the stationed at Alexandria, at least three detachments permanently garrisoned the southern border, on the Nile's First Cataract around Philae and Syene (Aswan), protecting Egypt from enemies to the south and guarding against rebellion in the Thebaid. Besides the main garrison at Alexandrian Nicopolis and the southern border force, the disposition of the rest of the Army of Egypt is not clear, though many soldiers are known to have been stationed at various outposts (), including those defending roads and remote natural resources from attack. Roman detachments, centuriones, and beneficiarii maintained order in the Nile Valley, but about their duties little is known, as little evidence survives, though they were, in addition to the strategoi of the nomoi, the prime local representatives of the Roman state. Archaeological work led by Hélène Cuvigny has revealed many ostraca (inscribed ceramic fragments) which give unprecedently detailed information on the lives of soldiers stationed in the Eastern Desert along the Coptos–Myos Hormos road and at the imperial granite quarry at Mons Claudianus. Another Roman outpost, known from an inscription, existed on Farasan, the chief island of the Red Sea's Farasan Islands off the west coast of the Arabian Peninsula. As in other provinces, many of the Roman soldiers in Egypt were recruited locally, not only among the non-citizen , but among the legionaries as well, who were required to have Roman citizenship. An increasing proportion of the Army of Egypt was of local origin in the reign of the Flavian dynasty, with an even higher proportion – as many as three quarters of legionaries – under the Severan dynasty. Of these, around one third were themselves the offspring () of soldiers, raised in the canabae settlements surrounding the army's base at Nicopolis, while only about one eighth were Alexandrian citizens. Egyptians were given Roman-style Latin names on joining the army; unlike in other provinces, indigenous names are nearly unknown among the local soldiers of the Army of Egypt. One of the surviving military diplomas lists the soldier's birthplace as Coptos, while others demonstrate that soldiers and centurions from elsewhere retired to Egypt: veterans from Chios and Hippo Regius (or Hippos) are named. Evidence from the 2nd century suggests most came from Egypt, with others drawn from the provinces of Africa and Syria, and from Roman Asia Minor. from the Balkans, who served throughout the Roman army, also served in Egypt: many Dacian names are known from ostraca in the Trajanic period, perhaps connected with the recruitment of Dacians during and after Trajan's Dacian Wars; they are predominantly cavalrymen's names, with some infantrymen's. Thracians, common in the army in other Roman provinces, were also present, and an auxiliary diploma from the Egyptian garrison has been found in Thracia. Two diplomas connect Army of Egypt veterans with Syria, including one naming Apamea. Large numbers of recruits mustered in Asia Minor may have supplemented the garrison after the Diaspora Revolt, a Jewish uprising in Egypt, Libya and Cyprus. == Society ==

The social structure in Aegyptus under the Romans was both unique and complicated. On the one hand, the Romans continued to use many of the same organizational tactics that were in place under the leaders of the Ptolemaic period. At the same time, the Romans saw the Greeks in Aegyptus as "Egyptians", an idea that both the native Egyptians and Greeks would have rejected. To further compound the whole situation, Jews, who themselves were very Hellenized overall, had their own communities, separate from both Greeks and native Egyptians. In between those classes was the metropolite, who was almost certainly of Hellenic origin. Gaining citizenship and moving up in ranks was very difficult and there were not many available options for ascendancy. One of the routes that many followed to ascend to another caste was through enlistment in the army. Although only Roman citizens could serve in the legions, many Greeks found their way in. The native Egyptians could join the auxiliary forces and attain citizenship upon discharge. The different groups had different rates of taxation based on their social class. Roman citizens and citizens of Alexandria were exempted from the poll tax. Hellenized inhabitants of the nome capitals paid a low rate of poll tax, while native Egyptians paid a higher rate. Within the mētropoleis there was a Hellenic socio-political élite, an urban land-owning aristocracy that dominated Egypt by the 2nd and throughout the 3rd centuries through their large private estates. The city of Oxyrhynchus had many papyri remains that contain much information on the subject of social structure in these cities. This city, along with Alexandria, shows the diverse set-up of various institutions that the Romans continued to use after their takeover of Egypt. Just as under the Ptolemies, Alexandria and its citizens had their own special designations. The capital city enjoyed a higher status and more privileges than the rest of Egypt. Just as it was under the Ptolemies, the primary way of becoming a citizen of Roman Alexandria was through showing when registering for a deme that both parents were Alexandrian citizens. Alexandrians were the only Egyptians that could obtain Roman citizenship. |left If a common Egyptian wanted to become a Roman citizen he would first have to become an Alexandrian citizen. The Augustan period in Egypt saw the creation of urban communities with "Hellenic" landowning elites. These landowning elites were put in a position of privilege and power and had more self-administration than the Egyptian population. Within the citizenry, there were gymnasiums that Greek citizens could enter if they showed that both parents were members of the gymnasium based on a list that was compiled by the government in 4–5 AD. The candidate for the gymnasium would then be let into the ephebus. There was also the council of elders known as the gerousia. This council of elders did not have a boulai to answer to. All of this Greek organization was a vital part of the metropolis and the Greek institutions provided an elite group of citizens. The Romans looked to these elites to provide municipal officers and well-educated administrators. Egyptian landholders paid about 3 times more than the elites per aroura of land in tax-rates, and about 4–5 times more than Alexandrians per aroura of land in tax-rates. Although Alexandria enjoyed the greatest status of the Greek cities in Egypt, it is clear that the other Greek cities, such as Antinoöpolis, enjoyed privileges very similar to the ones seen in Alexandria; for instance, like Alexandrians, Antinoöpolites were exempted from paying poll-taxes. The Gnomon of the Idios Logos shows the connection between law and status. It lays out the revenues it deals with, mainly fines and confiscation of property, to which only a few groups were apt. The Gnomon also confirms that a freed slave takes his former master's social status. The Gnomon demonstrates the social controls that the Romans had in place through monetary means based on status and property. == Economy ==

started from Aegyptus according to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century). The economic resources that this imperial government existed to exploit had not changed since the Ptolemaic period, but the development of a much more complex and sophisticated taxation system was a hallmark of Roman rule. Taxes in both cash and kind were assessed on land, and a bewildering variety of small taxes in cash, as well as customs dues and the like, was collected by appointed officials. A massive amount of Aegyptus' grain was shipped downriver (north) both to feed the population of Alexandria and for export to the Roman capital. There were frequent complaints of oppression and extortion from the taxpayers. For land management and tenure, the Ptolemaic state had retained much of the categorization of land as under the earlier pharaohs, but the Roman Empire introduced a distinction between private and public lands – the earlier system had categorized little land as private property – and a complex arrangement was developed consisting of dozens of types of land-holding. Land's status was determined by the hydrological, juridical, and function of the property, as well as by the three main categories of ownership held over from the Ptolemaic system: the sacred property belonging to the temples (); the royal land () belonging to the state and forming most of its revenue; and the "gifted land" (; ) leased out under the cleruchy system. By the end of the 3rd century, major problems were evident. A series of debasements of the imperial currency had undermined confidence in the coinage, and even the government itself was contributing to this by demanding more and more irregular tax payments in kind, which it channelled directly to the main consumers, the army personnel. Local administration by the councils was careless, recalcitrant, and inefficient; the evident need for firm and purposeful reform had to be squarely faced in the reigns of Diocletian and Constantine I. There are numerous indications of Roman trade with India during the period, particularly between Roman Egypt and the Indian subcontinent. Kushan Empire ruler Huvishka (150–180 CE) incorporated in his coins the Hellenistic-Egyptian god Serapis (under the name ϹΑΡΑΠΟ, "Sarapo"). Since Serapis was the supreme deity of the pantheon of Alexandria in Egypt, this coin suggests that Huvishka had a strong orientation towards Roman Egypt, which may have been an important market for the products coming from the Kushan Empire. == Architecture ==

making offerings to Egyptian Gods, on the Roman Mammisi at the Dendera Temple complex, Egypt. In the administrative provincial capitals of the nomoi, the mētropoleis mostly inherited from the Pharaonic and Ptolemaic period, Roman public buildings were erected by the governing strategos and the local gymnasiarch. In most cases, these have not survived and evidence of them is rare, but it is probable that most were built in the classical architecture of the Graeco-Roman world, employing the classical orders in stone buildings. Prominent remains include two Roman theatres at Pelusium, a temple of Serapis and a tetrastyle at Diospolis Magna at Thebes, and, at Philae, a triumphal arch and temples dedicated to the worship of the emperor Augustus and the goddess Roma, the personification of Rome. Besides a few individual stone blocks in some mētropoleis, substantial remains of Roman architecture are known in particular from three of the mētropoleis – Heracleopolis Magna, Oxyrhynchus, and Hermopolis Magna – as well as from Antinoöpolis, a city founded by the emperor Hadrian (). All these were sacred cities dedicated to particular deities. The ruins of these cities were first methodically surveyed and sketched by intellectuals attached to Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, eventually published in the ''Description de l'Égypte series. Illustrations produced by Edme-François Jomard and Vivant Denon form much of the evidence of these remains, because since the 19th century many of the ruins have themselves disappeared. South of Thebes, the mētropoleis may have been largely without classical buildings, but near Antinoöpolis the classical influence may have been stronger. Most mētropoleis were probably built on the classical Hippodamian grid employed by the Hellenistic polis, as at Alexandria, with the typical Roman pattern of the Cardo (north–south) and Decumanus Maximus'' (east–west) thoroughfares meeting at their centres, as at Athribis and Antinoöpolis. Vivant Denon made sketches of ruins at Oxyrhynchus, and Edme-François Jomard wrote a description; together with some historical photographs and the few surviving remains, these are the best evidence for the classical architecture of the city, which was dedicated to the medjed, a sacred species of Mormyrus fish. Two groups of buildings survive at Heracleopolis Magna, sacred to Heracles/Hercules, which is otherwise known from Jomard's work, which also forms the mainstay of knowledge about the architecture of Antinoöpolis, founded by Hadrian in honour of his deified lover Antinous. The Napoleonic-era evidence is also important for documenting Hermopolis Magna, where more buildings survive and which was dedicated to the worship of Thoth, equated with Hermes/Mercury. The oldest known remains of church architecture in Egypt are at the Roman village of Kellis; following the house church of the early 4th century, a three-aisled, apsed basilica church was built in the Constantinian period, with pastaphoria on either side, while a third church was accompanied by a Christian cemetery. All these churches were built on an east–west axis, with the liturgical focus at the east, and the pastaphoria (side-rooms) were a common mark of churches in the country. Churches were built quickly after the victory of Constantine over Licinius, and in the 4th century even towns like ‘Ain el-Gedida in the Dakhla Oasis had their own churches. The earliest known monumental basilica of which remains survive is that at Antinoöpolis; a five-aisled, apsed basilica facing east and set in a cemetery is long and wide. of Sohag In the late 4th century, monastic churches differed from the other churches by building rectangular sanctuaries – rather than semi-circular ones – at their east ends where the altar stood, and in place of the apse was an aedicula or niche embellished with an arch and columns in applied in plaster. In the 5th century, regional styles of monumental church basilica with pastaphoria emerged: on the coast of the Mediterranean and throughout the northern part of the country the churches were basilicas of three or five aisles, but in Middle Egypt and Upper Egypt the basilicas were often given a colonnade all the way around the structure, forming a continuous ambulatory by the addition of a transverse fourth aisle to the west of the other three. In eastern Egypt, the columns and colonnade were emphasized, and the sanctuary distinguished with a triumphal arch in front of it. A transept plan was adopted only in urban environments like Abu Mena and Marea in the western Nile Delta. In the middle 5th century, the Great Basilica, one of the largest churches in Egypt, was built at Hermopolis Magna at the central crossroads of the city. Unusually, the three-aisled transept basilica had semicircular extensions on the north and south walls. At the Coptic White Monastery at Sohag, the 5th-century church was built with a triconch apse, an unusual design also found at Sohag's Dayr Anbā Bishoi; in the Wadi El Natrun at Dayr as-Suyrān; in the Dakhla Oasis in the Western Desert at Dayr Abū Mattā, and at Dendera. The tomb-chapel of the White Monastery's founder, Shenoute, was also built with this triconch plan and was the first instance of a monastic founder's tomb built in a monastery. Some of the White Monastery's limestone ashlars were spolia; the stones were likely taken from the pharaonic buildings at Upper Egyptian Athribis nearby. The main church's interior is a three-aisled basilica with an ambon and seat, and the usual Egyptian western transverse aisle, but its exterior resembles an Egyptian temple, with cavetto cornices on the roof. Unusually for the Coptic churches, the White Monastery's church has two narthexes, perhaps to accommodate worshippers from outside the monastic community. The affiliated Red Monastery nearby preserves the most extensive painted decoration from late antiquity anywhere and is probably representative of the period's Egyptian churches' interior decoration. Besides the main monumental basilica at Antinoöpolis, there were two other cruciform churches built there in the later 5th century. == Religion ==

Imperial cult in Rome (National Roman Museum) The worship of Egypt's rulers was interrupted entirely by the fall of the Ptolemaic dynasty, who together with their predecessor Alexander the Great had been worshipped with an Egypto-Hellenistic ruler cult. After the Roman conquest of Egypt, Augustus instituted a new Roman imperial cult in Egypt. Instead, the image of Augustus was identified with Zeus Eleutherios (), and modelled on the example of Alexander the Great, who was said to have "liberated" Egypt from the old pharaohs. Serapis assumed the role of Osiris in the Egyptian pantheon as god of the afterlife and regeneration, the husband of the fertility goddess Isis, and the father of the child Horus, known to the Hellenistic world as Harpocrates. as a Roman cavalryman killing the crocodile, Setekh (Louvre)|left The Julio-Claudian emperors Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero all sponsored religious monuments and institutions at Coptos and Dendera.After Domitian's assassination, the emperor Nerva's patronage of Egyptian temples is recorded only at Esna. After inscriptions of Commodus, Greek inscriptions are no longer found in the temples of the Faiyum. ( and .) An Alexandrian Jew, Apollos, is recorded in the Book of Acts as speaking in the synagogue at Ephesus, and because of an interpolation to current by the 5th-century – e.g. in the Codex Bezae – which suggested Apollos had been converted to Christianity in Egypt (), Christianity's arrival has been dated to the 1st century, but there is no sure evidence of this, as Apollos may have been converted elsewhere. No sooner had the Egyptian Church achieved freedom and supremacy than it became subject to a schism and prolonged conflict which at times descended into civil war. Alexandria became the centre of the first great split in the Christian world, between the Arians, named for the Alexandrian priest Arius, and their opponents, represented by Athanasius, who became Archbishop of Alexandria in 326 after the First Council of Nicaea rejected Arius's views. The Arian controversy caused years of riots and rebellions throughout most of the 4th century. In the course of one of these, the great temple of Serapis, the stronghold of paganism, was destroyed. Athanasius was alternately expelled from Alexandria and reinstated as its Archbishop between five and seven times. and chi-rho carved into older reliefs at the Temple of Isis at Philae|left Patristic authorship was dominated by Egyptian contributions: Athanasius, Didymus the Blind and Cyril, and the power of the Alexandrian see embodied in Athanasius, Theophilus, his nephew, Cyril and shortly by Dioscuros. Egypt had an ancient tradition of religious speculation, enabling a variety of controversial religious views to thrive there. Not only did Arianism flourish, but other doctrines, such as Gnosticism and Manichaeism, either native or imported, found many followers. Another religious development in Egypt was the monasticism of the Desert Fathers, who renounced the material world in order to live a life of poverty in devotion to the Church. Egyptian Christians took up monasticism with such enthusiasm that the Emperor Valens had to restrict the number of men who could become monks. Egypt exported monasticism to the rest of the Christian world. Another development of this period was the development of Coptic, a form of the Ancient Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet supplemented by several signs to represent sounds present in Egyptian which were not present in Greek. It was invented to ensure the correct pronunciation of magical words and names in pagan texts, the so-called Greek Magical Papyri. Coptic was soon adopted by early Christians to spread the word of the gospel to native Egyptians and it became the liturgical language of Egyptian Christianity and remains so to this day. Christianity eventually spread out west to the Berbers. The Coptic Church was established in Egypt. Later on in the seventh and eighth centuries, Christianity spread out to Nubia. The fall of the Western Empire in the 5th century further isolated the Egyptian Romans from Rome's culture and hastened the growth of Christianity. The success of Christianity led to a virtual abandonment of pharaonic traditions: with the disappearance of the Egyptian priests and priestesses who officiated at the temples, no-one could read the hieroglyphs of Pharaonic Egypt, and its temples were converted to churches or abandoned to the desert. ) Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria, convinced the city's governor to expel the Jews from the city in 415 with the aid of the mob, in response to the Jews' alleged night-time massacre of many Christians The murder of the philosopher Hypatia in March 415 marked a dramatic turn in classical Hellenic culture in Egypt but philosophy thrived in sixth century Alexandria. Another schism in the Church produced prolonged disturbances and may have alienated Egypt from the Empire. The countless papyrus finds mark the continuance of Greek culture and institutions at various levels. The new religious controversy was over the Christ's human and divine nature. The issue was whether he had two natures, human and divine, or a combined one (hypostatic union from his humanity and divinity). In an intensely religious age, it was enough to divide an empire. The Miaphysite controversy arose after the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and continued until well after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which ruled in favour of the position that Christ was "one person in two natures" as opposed to Monophysitism (a single nature). Monophysite belief was not held by the 'miaphysites' as they stated that Jesus was out of two natures in one nature called, the "Incarnate Logos of God". Many of the 'miaphysites' claimed that they were misunderstood, that there was really no difference between their position be the Chalcedonian position, and that the Council of Chalcedon ruled against them because of political motivations alone. The Church of Alexandria split from the Churches of Rome and Constantinople over this issue, creating what would become the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, which remains a major force in Egyptian religious life today. Egypt and Syria remained hotbeds of Miaphysite sentiment, and organised resistance to the Chalcedonian view was not suppressed until the 570s. ==History==

Early Roman Egypt (30 BC–4th century) The province was established in 30 BC after Octavian (the future Roman emperor Augustus) defeated his rival Mark Antony, deposed Pharaoh Cleopatra, and annexed the Ptolemaic Kingdom to the Roman Empire. ) The first prefect of Aegyptus, Gaius Cornelius Gallus, brought Upper Egypt under Roman control by force of arms, following the Revolt of Thebes, and established a protectorate over the southern frontier district, which had been abandoned by the later Ptolemies. The second prefect, Aelius Gallus, made an unsuccessful expedition to conquer Arabia Petraea and even Arabia Felix. The Red Sea coast of Aegyptus was not brought under Roman control until the reign of Claudius. The third prefect, Gaius Petronius, cleared the neglected canals for irrigation, stimulating a revival of agriculture. Petronius even led a campaign into present-day central Sudan against the Kingdom of Kush at Meroe, whose queen Imanarenat had previously attacked Roman Egypt. Failing to acquire permanent gains, in 22 BC he razed the city of Napata to the ground and retreated to the north. The reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius were mainly peaceful in Egypt, with intermittent civil strife between Greeks and Jews in Alexandria. Claudius refused Alexandrian demands for self-government under their own senate, and attempted to quell the unrest between Alexandrian Greek and Jews. The Sasanian Empire invaded the Nile Delta in the reign of Anastasius I (), though the Sasanian army retreated after they failed to capture Alexandria or make significant gains. suffragans of the Patriarchate of Alexandria are enumerated in the following. The list here, however, does not cover other provinces such as Augustamnica, Arcadia and Thebais. Ancient episcopal sees of the Roman province of Aegyptus Secundus (II) listed in the Annuario Pontificio as titular sees : The Egyptians had no love of the emperor in Constantinople and put up little resistance. Khosrow's son and successor, Kavadh II Šêrôe (Šêrôy), who reigned until September, concluded a peace treaty returning territories conquered by the Sassanids to the Eastern Roman Empire. The Sassanian conquest allowed Miaphysitism to resurface in the open in Egypt, and when imperial rule was restored by Emperor Heraclius in 629, the Miaphysites were persecuted and their patriarch expelled. Egypt was thus in a state of both religious and political alienation from the Empire when a new invader appeared. Arab Islamic conquest (639–646 AD) An army of 4,000 Arabs led by Amr Ibn Al-Aas was sent by the Caliph Umar, successor to Muhammad, to spread Islamic rule to the west. Arabs crossed into Egypt from Palestine in December 639, and advanced rapidly into the Nile Delta. The Imperial garrisons retreated into the walled towns, where they successfully held out for a year or more. The Arabs sent for reinforcements, and in April 641 they besieged Alexandria. Following a brief truce, the imperial forces retreated, ending 671 years of Roman government. The Byzantines assembled a fleet with the aim of recapturing Egypt, and briefly won back Alexandria in late 645. However, the Muslims retook the city in 646, completing the Muslim conquest of Egypt. 40,000 civilians were evacuated to Constantinople with the imperial fleet. == Gallery ==

File:Mummy Mask of a Man, early 1st century C.E.,72.57.jpg|Mummy Mask of a Man, early 1st century AD, 72.57, Brooklyn Museum File:Vaso canopo (26797992031).jpg|Canopic jar from the 3rd or 4th century (National Archaeological Museum, Florence) File:FuneraryMasksRomanEgypt.jpg|Funerary masks uncovered in Faiyum, 1st century. File:Egitto, horus imperatore, II sec dc..JPG|2nd-century statuette of Horus as Roman general (Louvre) File:Egitto, horus legionario, I sec. ac-IV dc ca..JPG|1st–4th-century statuette of Horus as a Roman soldier (Louvre) File:Figure of Isis-Aphrodite MET DT6643.jpg|2nd-century statuette of Isis–Aphrodite (Metropolitan Museum of Art) File:Basso egitto, iside-afrodite, II sec dc ca..JPG|2nd-century statuette of Isis–Aphrodite from Lower Egypt (Louvre) File:Egitto, iside che allatta arpocrate, I sec ac.-IV dc ca..JPG|1st–4th-century statuette of Isis lactans (Louvre) File:Musee Pio Clementino-Isis lactans.jpg|Isis lactans: the mother goddess suckles Harpocrates (Pio-Clementino Museum) File:Anubis, Anzio, Villa Pamphili, 1st-2nd century AD, Pario marble - Museo Gregoriano Egizio - Vatican Museums - DSC00818.jpg|1st/2nd-century Parian marble statue of Anubis (Gregorian Egyptian Museum) File:Berenike Buddha (drawing).jpg|The Berenike Buddha, discovered in Berenice, Egypt, 2nd century CE. File:Floor mosaic with Anubis, from a domus in Ariminum (Rimini), end 2nd - early 3rd century, Museo della Città, Rimini, Italy (19716812562).jpg|2nd/3rd-century mosaic of Anubis from Ariminum (Museo della Città, Rimini) File:Luxor Museum Koptischer Grabstein 01.jpg|6th- or 7th-century Christian sandstone grave stela (Luxor Museum) File:Luxor Museum Frühchristliche Stele 01.jpg|6th- or 7th-century Christian sandstone stela (Luxor Museum) File:Luxor Museum Relief 01.jpg|6th- or 7th-century Christian sandstone relief (Luxor Museum) File:As-Hadrian-Aegyptus-RIC 0839,As.jpg|Hadrian coin celebrating Aegyptus Province, struck . In the obverse, Egypt is personified as a reclining woman holding the sistrum of Hathor. Her left elbow rests on a basket of grain, while an ibis stands on the column at her feet. File:Denarius-Zenobia-s3290.jpg|Zenobia coin reporting her title as queen of Egypt (Augusta), and showing her diademed and draped bust on a crescent. The obverse shows a standing figure of Ivno Regina (Juno) holding a patera in her right hand and a sceptre in her left hand, with a peacock at her feet and a brilliant star on the left. == See also ==