stone, was used as the symbol of their hard way of living (see Fig. 48). We find numerous small models of it of all sizes buried with them in the tombs, to gether with the models of their gods, their mummies, and their beetles. Fig. 48. 69. Tacitus, A.D. 19. Mionnet, A.D. 23. (29) The Romans, like the Greeks, feeling but little partiality in favour of their own gods, were rarely guilty of intolerance against those of others; and would hardly have checked the introduction of a new religion unless it made its followers worse citizens. But in Rome, where every act of its civil or military authorities was accompanied with a religious rite, any slight towards the gods Horace, was a slight towards the magistrate; many devout Serm. i. 9. Romans had begun to keep holy the seventh day; and Egypt was now so closely joined to Italy that the Roman serate made a new law against the Egyptian and Jewish superstitions, and banished to Sardinia four thousand men who were found guilty of being Jews. (30) Egypt had lost with its liberties its gold coinage, and it was now made to feel a further proof of being a conquered country in having its silver much Med. antiq. alloyed with copper. But Tiberius, in the tenth year of his reign, altogether stopped the Alexandrian mint, as well as those of the other cities which occasionally coined; and after this year we find no more Egyptian coins, either in this or the next reign, but the few with the head and name of Augustus Cæsar, which seem hardly to have been meant for money, but to commemorate on some peculiar occasions the emperor's adoption by his step-father. We are left to guess at the reasons for this policy, but it was most likely an intention on the part of Tiberius to put down all the provincial mints of the empire, and to have no money coined but by his own authority. The Nubian gold mines were probably by this time wholly deserted; they had been so far worked out, as to be no longer profitable. For fifteen hundred years, ever since Ethiopia was conquered by Thebes, wages and prices had been higher in Egypt than in the neighbouring countries. But this was now no longer the case. Egypt had been getting poorer during the reigns of the latter Ptolemies; L f and by this time it is probable that wages and prices were both higher in Rome. Dion lib. lvii. (31) It seems to have been usual to change the prefect of Egypt every few years, and the prefect elect was often sent to Alexandria to wait till his predecessor's term of years had ended. Thus in this reign of twenty-three Cassius, years Æmilius Rectus was succeeded by Vetrasius Pollio; and on his death Tiberius gave the governLib. Iviii. ment to his freedman Iberus. During the last five Philo, in years Egypt was under the able but stern governFlaccum. ment of Flaccus Avillius, whose name is carved on Wilkinson, the temple of Tentyra with that of the emperor. Thebes. He was a man who united all those qualities of prudent forethought with prompt execution and attention to business, which was so necessary in controlling the irritable Alexandrians, who were liable to be fired into rebellion by the smallest spark. Justice was administered fairly; the great were not allowed to tyrannize over the poor, nor the people to meet in tumultuous mobs; and the legions were regularly paid, so that they had no excuse for plundering the unfortunate Egyptians. (32) On the death of Tiberius the old quarrel again broke out between Jews and Greeks. The Alexandrians were not slow in learning the Philo, Legat. A.D. 37. feelings of his successor CAIUS or CALIGULA (see Fig. 49) towards the Jews, nor in turning against them the new law that the emperor's statue should be worshipped in every temple of the empire. They had very unwillingly yielded a half obedience to the law of Augustus that the Jews should still be allowed the privileges of citizenship; and as soon as they heard that Caligula was to be worshipped as a god in every temple of the empire, they denounced the Jews as traitors and rebels, who refused so to honour the Flaccum. emperor in their synagogues. It happened unfortunately that their countryman, King Agrippa, at this time came to Alexandria. He had full leave from the emperor to touch there, as being the quickest and most Philo, in Fig. 49. certain way of making the voyage from Rome to the seat of his own government. Indeed the Alexandrian voyage had another merit in the eyes of a Jew; for whereas wooden water-vessels were declared by the Law to Mishna, De be unclean, an exception was made by their tradition in favour of the larger size of the water wells in the Alexandrian ships. Agrippa had seen Egypt before, vasis. Philo, in Legat. on his way to Rome, and he meant to make no Flaccum, et stay there; but though he landed purposely after dark, and with no pomp or show, he seems to have raised the anger of the prefect Flaccus, who felt jealous at any man of higher rank than himself coming into his province. The Greeks easily fell into the prefect's humour, and during Agrippa's stay in Alexandria they lampooned him in songs. and ballads, of which the raillery was not of the most delicate kind. They mocked him by leading about the streets a poor idiot dressed up with a paper crown and a reed for a sceptre, in ridicule of his rather doubtful right to the style of royalty. Philo, in Flaccum. (33) As these insults towards the emperor's friend passed wholly unchecked by the prefect, the Greeks next assaulted the Jews in the streets and market-place, attacked their houses, rooted up the groves of trees round their synagogues, and tore down the decree by which the privileges of citizenship had been confirmed to them. The Greeks then proceeded to set up by force a statue of the emperor in each Jewish synagogue, as if the new decree had included those places of worship among the temples; and not finding statues enough they made use of the statues of the Ptolemies, which they carried away from the Gymnasium for that purpose. During the last reign, under the stern government of Tiberius, Flaccus had governed with justice and prudence, but under Caligula he seemed to have lost all judgment in his zeal against the Jews. When the riots in the streets could no longer be overlooked, instead of defending the injured party, he issued a decree in which he styled the Jews foreigners; thus at one word rubbing them of their privileges and condemning them unheard. By this the Greeks were hurried forward into further acts of injustice and the Jews of resistance. But the Jews were the weaker party; they were overpowered and all driven into one ward, and four hundred of their houses in the other wards were plundered, and the spoil divided as if taken in war. They were stoned and even burnt in the streets if they ventured forth to buy food for their families. Flaccus seized and scourged in the theatre thirty-eight of their venerable councillors, and to show them that they were no longer citizens the punishment was inflicted by the hands of Egyptian executioners. While the city was in this state of riot, the Greeks gave out that the Jews were concealing arms; and Flaccus, to give them a fresh proof that they had lost the rights of citizenship, ordered that their houses should be forcibly entered and searched by a centurion and a band of soldiers. (34) During their troubles the Jews had not been allowed to complain to the emperor, or to send an embassy to Rome to make known their grievances. But the Jewish king Agrippa, who was on his way from Rome to his kingdom, forwarded to Caligula the complaints of his countrymen the Jews, with an account of the rebellious state of Alexandria. The riots, it is true, had been wholly raised by the prefect's zeal in setting up the emperor's statue in the synagogues to be worshipped by the Jews, and in carrying into effect the emperor's decree; but, as he had not been able to keep his province quiet, it was necessary that he should be recalled, and punished for his want of success. To have found it necessary to call out the troops was of course a fault in a governor; but doubly so at a time and in a province where a successful general might so easily become a formidable rebel. Accordingly a centurion, with a trusty cohort of soldiers, was sent from Rome for the recall of the prefect. On approaching the flat coast of Egypt, they kept the vessel in deep water till sunset, and then entered the harbour of Alexandria in the dark. The centurion on landing met with a freedman of the emperor, from whom he learned that the prefect was then at supper, entertaining a large company of friends. The freedman led the cohort quietly into the palace, into the very room where Flaccus was sitting at table; and the first tidings that he heard of his government being disapproved of in Rome was his finding himself a prisoner in his own palace. The friends stood motionless with surprise, the centurion produced the emperor's order for what he was doing, and as no resistance was attempted all passed off quietly; Flaccus was hurried on board the vessel in the harbour on the same evening and immediately taken to Rome. (35) It so happened that on the night that Flaccus was seized the Jews had met together to celebrate their autumnal feast, the Feast of the Tabernacles; not as on former years with joy and pomp, but in fear, in grief, and in prayer. Their chief men were in prison, their nation smarting under its wrongs and in daily fear of fresh cruelties; and it was not without alarm that they heard the noise of soldiers moving to and fro through the city, and the heavy tread of the guards marching by torchlight from the camp to the palace. But their fear was soon turned into joy when they heard that Flaccus, the author of all their wrongs, was already a prisoner on board the vessel in the harbour; and they gave glory to God, not, says Philo, that their enemy was going to be punished, but because their own sufferings were at an end. xviii. 8. (36) The Jews then, having had leave given them by the prefect, sent an embassy to Rome, at the head of Josephus, which was Philo, the Platonic philosopher, who Antiq. lib. was to lay their grievances before the emperor, and to beg for redress. The Greeks also at the same time sent their embassy, at the head of which was the learned grammarian Apion, who was to accuse the Jews of not worshipping the statue of the emperor, and to argue that they had no right to the same privileges of citizenship with those who boasted of their Macedonian blood. But as the Jews did not deny the charge that was brought against them, Caligula would hear nothing that they had to say; and Philo withdrew with the beautiful remark, "Though the emperor is against us, God will be our friend." (37) We learn the sad tale of the Jews' suffering under Caligula from the pages of their own historian only. But though Philo may have felt and written as one of the sufferers, his truth is undoubted. He was a man of unblemished character, and the writer of greatest learning and of the greatest note at that time in Alexandria; being also of a great age, he well deserved the honour of being sent on the embassy to Caligula. He was in religion a Jew, |