event, that the progress
of his arms was rapid and decisive, that he vanquished the fiercest
barbarians of Mauritania, and that he removed them from the mountains,
whose inaccessible strength had inspired their inhabitants with
a lawless confidence, and habituated them to a life of rapine and
violence. [42] Diocletian, on his side, opened the campaign in Egypt by
the siege of Alexandria, cut off the aqueducts which conveyed the waters
of the Nile into every quarter of that immense city, [43] and rendering
his camp impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multitude, he pushed
his reiterated attacks with caution and vigor. After a siege of eight
months, Alexandria, wasted by the sword and by fire, implored the
clemency of the conqueror, but it experienced the full extent of his
severity. Many thousands of the citizens perished in a promiscuous
slaughter, and there were few obnoxious persons in Egypt who escaped a
sentence either of death or at least of exile. [44] The fate of Busiris
and of Coptos was still more melancholy than that of Alexandria: those
proud cities, the former distinguished by its antiquity, the latter
enriched by the passage of the Indian trade, were utterly destroyed by
the arms and by the severe order of Diocletian. [45] The character of the
Egyptian nation, insensible to kindness, but extremely susceptible
of fear, could alone justify this excessive rigor. The seditions of
Alexandria had often affected the tranquillity and subsistence of Rome
itself. Since the usurpation of Firmus, the province of Upper Egypt,
incessantly relapsing into rebellion, had embraced the alliance of the
savages of Aethiopia. The number of the Blemmyes, scattered between
the Island of Meroe and the Red Sea, was very inconsiderable, their
disposition was unwarlike, their weapons rude and inoffensive. [46] Yet
in the public disorders, these barbarians, whom antiquity, shocked
with the deformity of their figure, had almost excluded from the human
species, presumed to rank themselves among the enemies of Rome. [47] Such
had been the unworthy allies of the Egyptians; and while the attention
of the state was engaged in more serious wars, their vexations inroads
might again harass the repose of the province. With a view of opposing
to the Blemmyes a suitable adversary, Diocletian persuaded the Nobatae,
or people of Nubia, to remove from their ancient habitations in the
deserts of Libya, and resigned to them an extensive but unprof