dy numismatics, the games and conquests of the emperors,
the bountiful overflow of the Nile, and sometimes the worship of
Serapis; but we now enter upon the most brilliant and most important
period of the Egyptian coinage, and find a rich variety of fables taken
both from Egyptian and Greek mythology. The coins of Rome in this and
the following reigns show the wealth, good taste, and learning of the
nation, but they are surpassed by the coins of Egypt. While history
is nearly silent, and the buildings and other proofs of Roman good
government have perished, the coins alone are quite enough to prove
the well-being of the people. Among the Egyptian coins those of Trajan,
Hadrian, and the Antonines equal in number those of all the other
emperors together, while in beauty they far surpass them. They are
mostly of copper, of a small size, and thick, weighing about one hundred
and ten grains, and some larger of two hundred and twenty grains; the
silver coins are less common, and of mixed metal.

Though the Romans, while admiring and copying everything that was Greek,
affected to look upon the Egyptians as savages, who were only known to
be human beings by their power of speech, still the Egyptian physicians
were held by them in the highest repute. The more wealthy Romans often
sailed to Alexandria for the benefit of their advice. Pliny the Elder,
however, thought that of the invalids who went to Egypt for their
health more were cured by the sea voyage than by the physicians on their
arrival.

[Illustration: 083.jpg TRINITY OF ISIS, HORUS AND NEPHTHYS]

One of Cicero's physicians was an Egyptian. Pliny the Younger repaid his
Egyptian oculist, Harpocrates, by getting a rescript from the emperor
to make him a Roman citizen. But the statesman did not know under what
harsh laws his friend was born, for the grant was void in the case of an
Egyptian, the emperor's rescript was bad as being against the law; and
Pliny had again to beg the greater favour that the Egyptian might first
be made a citizen of Alexandria, without which the former favour was
useless. Thus, even in Alexandria, a conquered province governed by
the despotic will of a military emperor, there were still some laws or
principles which the emperor found it not easy to break. The courts of
justice, those to whom the edicts were addressed and by whom they were
to be explained and carried into effect, claimed a power in some cases
above the emperor; and the first arti