x times in arms against Rome;
and when the rebellion was put down by Diocletian, it was no longer
the same country that it had been under the Antonines. The framework of
society had been shaken, the Greeks had lessened in numbers, and still
more in weight. The fall of the Ptolemies, and the conquest by Rome, did
not make so great a change. The bright days of Egypt as a Greek
kingdom began with the building of Alexandria, and they ended with
the rebellions against Gallienus, Aurelian and Diocletian. The native
Egyptians, both Kopts and Arabs, now rise into more notice, as the Greek
civilisation sinks around them. And soon the upper classes among the
Kopts, to avoid the duty of maintaining a family of children in such
troubled times, rush by thousands into monasteries and convents, and
further lessen the population by their religious vows of celibacy. In
the twelfth year of the reign, that in which Alexandria rebelled and
the siege was begun, the Egyptian coinage for the most part ceased.
Henceforth, though money was often coined in Alexandria as in every
other great city of the empire, the inscriptions were usually in Latin,
and the designs the same as those on the coins of Rome. In taking leave
of this long and valuable series of coins with dates, which has been
our guide in the chronology of these reigns, we must not forget to
acknowledge how much we owe to the labours of the learned Zoega. In
his _Numi AEgypti Imperatorii_, the mere descriptions, almost without a
remark, speak the very words of history.

The reign of Diocletian is chiefly remarkable for the new law which was
then made against the Christians, and for the cruel severity with which
it was put into force. The issuing of this edict in 304 A.D., which was
to root out Christianity from the world, took place in the twentieth
year of the reign, according to the Alexandrians, or in the nineteenth
year after the emperor's first installation as consul, as years were
reckoned in the other parts of the empire. The churches, which since
the reign of Gallienus had been everywhere rising, were ordered to be
destroyed and the Bibles to be burnt, while banishment, slavery, and
death were the punishments threatened against those who obstinately
clung to their religion. In no province of the empire was the
persecution more severe than in Egypt; and many Christians fled to
Syria, where the law, though the same, was more mildly carried into
execution. But the Christians wer