ade a hippodrome, or race-course, for the amusement of the
citizens of Alexandria, and built two gates to the city, called the gate
of the sun and the gate of the moon, the former fronting the harbour and
the latter fronting the lake Mareotis, and joined by the great street
which ran across the whole width of the city. But this reign was not
wholly without trouble; there was a rebellion in which the prefect
Dinarchus lost his life, and for which the Alexandrians were severely
punished by the emperor.

[Illustration: 117.jpg COINS OF MARCUS AURELIUS]

The coins of Marcus Aurelius, the successor of Antoninus Pius, have a
rich variety of subjects, falling not far short of those of the last
reign. On those of the fifth year, the bountiful overflow of the Nile is
gratefully acknowledged by the figure of the god holding a cornucopia,
and a troop of sixteen children playing round him. It had been not
unusual in hieroglyphical writing to express a thought by means of a
figure which in the Koptic language had nearly the same sound; and we
have seen this copied on the coins in the case of a Greek word, when the
bird phoenix was used for the palm-branch phoenix, or the hieroglyphical
word _year_; and a striking instance may be noticed in the case of a
Latin word, as the sixteen children or _cupids_ mean sixteen _cubits_,
the wished-for height of the Nile's overflow. The statue of the Nile,
which had been carried by Vespasian to Rome and placed in the temple of
Peace, was surrounded by the same sixteen children. On the coins of his
twelfth year the sail held up by the goddess Isis is blown towards the
Pharos lighthouse, as if in that year the emperor had been expected in
Alexandria.

We find no coins in the eleventh or fourteenth years of this reign,
which makes it probable that it was in the eleventh year (A.D. 172) that
the rebellion of the native soldiers took place. These were very likely
Arabs who had been admitted into the ranks of the legions, but having
withdrawn to the desert they now harassed the towns with their marauding
inroads, and a considerable time elapsed before they were wholly put
down by Avidius Cassius at the head of the legions. But Cassius himself
was unable to resist the temptations which always beset a successful
general, and after this victory he allowed himself to be declared
emperor by the legions of Egypt; and this seems to have been the cause
of no coins being struck in Alexandria in the fourteenth