cobite party, like the former
quarrel between the Athanasians and the Arians, was little more than
another name for the unwillingness of the Egyptians to be governed by
Constantinople.

Proterius, the new bishop, entered Alexandria supported by the prefect
Floras at the head of the troops.

But this was the signal for a revolt of the Egyptians, who overpowered
the cohort with darts and stones; and the magistrates were driven to
save their lives in the celebrated temple of Serapis. But they found no
safety there; the mob surrounded the building and set fire to it, and
burned alive the Greek magistrates and friends of the new bishop; and
the city remained in the power of the rebellious Egyptians. When the
news of this rising reached Constantinople the emperor sent to Egypt a
further force of two thousand men, who stormed Alexandria and sacked it
like a conquered city, and established Proterius in the bishopric. As a
punishment upon the city for its rebellion, the prefect stopped for some
time the public games and the allowance of grain to the citizens, and
only restored them after the return to peace and good order.

In the weak state of the empire, the Blemmyes, and Nubades, or Nobatae,
had latterly been renewing their inroads upon Upper Egypt; they
had overpowered the Romans, as the Greek and barbarian troops of
Constantinople were always called, and had carried off a large booty
and a number of prisoners. Maximinus, the imperial general, then led his
forces against them; he defeated them, and made them beg for peace.
The barbarians then proposed, as the terms of their surrender, never to
enter Egypt while Maximinus commanded the troops in the Thebaid; but the
conqueror was not contented with such an unsatisfactory submission,
and would make no treaty with them till they had released the Roman
prisoners without ransom, paid for the booty that they had taken, and
given a number of the nobles as hostages. On this Maximums agreed to a
truce of a hundred years.

The people now called the Nubians, living on both sides of the cataract
of Syene, declared themselves of the true Egyptian race by their
religious practices. They had an old custom of going each year to the
temple of Isis on the isle of Elephantine, and of carrying away one
of the statues with them and returning it to the temple when they had
consulted it. But as they were now being driven out of the province,
they bargained with Maximums for permission to visit