in the reign of Trajan resulted, after a
stubborn conflict of many months with the Roman army under Marcius
Livianus Turbo, in the virtual extermination of the Jews in Alexandria
and the loss of all their privileges. Hadrian, who twice visited Egypt
(A.D. 130, 134), founded Antinoe in memory of his drowned favourite.
From this reign onwards buildings in the Graeco-Roman style were erected
throughout the country. A new Sothic cycle began in A.D. 139. Under
Marcus Aurelius a revolt of the Bucolic or native troops recruited for
home service was taken up by the whole of the native population and was
suppressed only after several years of fighting. The Bucolic war caused
infinite damage to the agriculture of the country and marks the
beginning of its rapid decline under a burdensome taxation. The province
of Africa was now of equal importance with Egypt for the grain supply of
the capital. Avidius Cassius, who led the Roman forces in the war,
usurped the purple, and was acknowledged by the armies of Syria and
Egypt. On the approach of Marcus Aurelius, the adherents of Cassius slew
him, and the clemency of the emperor restored peace. After the downfall
of the house of the Antonines, Pescennius Niger, who commanded the
forces in Egypt, was proclaimed emperor on the death of Pertinax (A.D.
193). Severus overthrew his rival (A.D. 194) and, the revolt having been
a military one, did not punish the province; in 202 he gave a
constitution to Alexandria and the nome capitals. In his reign the
Christians of Egypt suffered the first of their many persecutions. When
Christianity was planted in the country we do not know, but it must very
early have gained adherents among the learned Jews of Alexandria, whose
school of thought was in some respects ready to welcome it. From them it
rapidly passed to the Greeks. Ultimately the new religion spread to the
Egyptians; their own creed was worn out, and they found in Christianity
a doctrine of the future life for which their old belief had made them
not unready; while the social teaching of Christianity came with special
fitness to a subject race. The history of the Coptic Version has yet to
be written. It presents some features of great antiquity, and, unlike
all others, has the truly popular character of being written in the
three dialects of the language. Side by side there grew up an
Alexandrian church, philosophic, disputative, ambitious, the very centre
of Christian learning, and an Egypti