he
fingers of the wealthy Romans which bore the figures of Harpocrates and
other Egyptian gods easily escaped the notice of the magistrate. But the
superstitious Domitian, who was in the habit of consulting astrologers
and Chaldaean fortune-tellers, allowed the Egyptian worship. He built
at Rome a temple to Isis, and another to Serapis; and such was the
eagerness of the citizens for pictures of the mother goddess with her
child in her arms that, according to Juvenal, the Roman painters all
lived upon the goddess Isis. For her temple in the Campus Martius, holy
water was even brought from the Nile to purify the building and the
votaries; and a regular college of priests was maintained there by their
zeal and at their cost, with a splendour worthy of the Roman capital.
Domitian, also, was somewhat of a scholar, and he sent to Alexandria for
copies of their books, to restore the public library at Rome which had
been lately burnt; while his garden on the banks of the Tiber was
richer in the Egyptian winter rose than even the gardens of Memphis and
Alexandria.

During this century the coinage continues one of the subjects of chief
interest to the antiquary. In 92 A.D., in the eleventh year of his
reign, when Domitian took upon himself the tribunitian power at Rome
for a second period of ten years, the event was celebrated in Alexandria
with a triumphal procession and games in the hippodrome, of all which we
see clear traces on the Egyptian coins.

[Illustration: 081.jpg COINS OF DOMITIAN]

The coinage is almost the only trace of Nerva (96--98 A.D.) having
reigned in Egypt; but it is at the same time enough to prove the
mildness of his government. The Jews who by their own law were of old
required to pay half a shekel, or a didrachm, to the service of their
temple, had on their conquest been made to pay that sum as a yearly
tribute to the Ptolemies, and afterwards to the emperors. It was a
poll-tax levied on every Jew throughout the empire. But Nerva had the
humanity to relieve them from this insulting tribute, and well did he
deserve the honour of having it recorded on the coins struck in his
reign.

The coinage of the eleventh year of his successor, Trajan (98-117
A.D.), is very remarkable for its beauty, its technical skill, and
variety, even more so than that of the eleventh year of Domitian.

[Illustration: 082.jpg COIN OF NERVA]

The coins have hitherto proclaimed, in a manner unmistakably plain to
those who stu