from which Rome was saved
by the difference of language. The patriarch of Alexandria was no longer
the head of Greek Christendom. That rank was granted to the bishop of
the imperial city; many of the philosophers who hung round the palace
at Constantinople would otherwise have studied and taught in the museum;
and the Greeks, by whose superiority Egypt had so long been kept in
subjection, gradually became the weaker party. In the opinion of the
historian, as in the map of the geographer, Alexandria had formerly been
a Greek state on the borders of Egypt; but since the rebellion in the
reign of Diocletian it was becoming more and more an Egyptian city; and
those who in religion and politics thought and felt as Egyptians soon
formed the larger half of the Alexandrians. The climate of Egypt was
hardly fitted for the Greek race. Their numbers never could have been
kept up by births alone, and they now began to lessen as the attraction
to newcomers ceased. The pure Greek names henceforth become less common;
and among the monks and writers we now meet with those named after the
old gods of the country.

[Illustration: 199.jpg THE ISLAND OF RHODHA]

Constantine removed an obelisk from Egypt for the ornament of his new
city, and he brought down another from Heliopolis to Alexandria; but he
died before the second left the country, and it was afterwards taken
by his son to Rome. These obelisks were covered with hieroglyphics,
as usual, and we have a translation said to be made from the latter by
Hermapion, an Egyptian priest. In order to take away its pagan character
from the religious ceremony with which the yearly rise of the Nile wras
celebrated in Alexandria, Constantine removed the sacred cubit from the
temple of Serapis to one of the Christian churches; and nothwithstanding
the gloomy forebodings of the people, the Nile rose as usual, and the
clergy afterwards celebrated the time of its overflow as a Christian
festival.

The pagan philosophers under Constantine had but few pupils and met
with but little encouragement. Alypius of Alexandria and his friend
Iamblichus, however, still taught the philosophy of Ammonius
and Plotinus. The only writings by Alypius now remaining are his
_Introduction to Music_; in which he explains the notation of the
fifteen modes or tones in their respective kinds of diatonic, chromatic,
and enharmonic. His signs are said to be Pythagorean. They are in pairs,
of which one is thought to represe