MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

THE ARAB CONQUEST OF EGYPT AND THE LAST THIRTY YEARS OF THE ROMAN DOMINION

THE THIRD PART

CHAPTER XIX . MARCH ON ALEXANDRIA

The siege of Babylon, which ended on April 9, 641, had lasted for seven months. That fact is clearly preserved in Arab tradition, although the abortive treaty made by Al Mukaukas at high Nile, a few weeks after the siege began, is confounded by practically all the Arab writers with the final treaty of surrender, made when Al Mukaukas was banished from Egypt. In the light of the true story one sees how the confusion arose, and with it another confusion scarcely less remarkable. No question is more keenly debated by these writers than the question whether Misr—by which they sometimes mean Babylon and sometimes Egypt—was taken by treaty or by force. As regards Babylon we now know that there is a real foundation for a difference of opinion; for on the one hand it was an act of force —the storming of Zubair—which put an end to the resistance of the Romans, and on the other hand that act of force was not a full capture by storm, though it caused the fortress forthwith to capitulate. Still the truth remains that Babylon was surrendered under treaty, and that the treaty provided for the retirement of the garrison. Hence we must reject the story of great slaughter wrought within the walls as a mere growth of legend upon the version of capture by force.

But the compact made at Babylon was a military convention and not a political treaty. 'Amr was content to purchase possession of the fortress at the price of the withdrawal of the Romans, who neither accepted Islam nor agreed to pay tribute. But tribute was laid on all the inhabitants of the city who remained behind. As this arrangement was of purely local significance, so the tribute imposed was but slight and temporary. One authority gives it as a dinar for each of the Arabs, together with a change of raiment, which latter they greatly needed. This squares very well with a story told by another writer, who says that after the surrender there remained at Misr a great number of Coptic soldiers. These seeing the Muslims in rags and tatters remarked, ‘Alas I why did we not know that the Arabs were in such an evil plight? For we would have continued the struggle, and not delivered the city.’ When 'Amr heard of this, he invited some of the leaders among them to dinner. He had a camel slaughtered, and the flesh boiled in salt water and set before a mixed company of Copts and Arabs. The Arabs ate of the meat, but the Copts only turned away in disgust, and went home dinnerless. Next day 'Amr ordered his cooks to search the town of Misr for every dainty and delicate dish it could provide to dress a banquet. This was done, and the same company sat down to a sumptuous repast. When dinner was over, 'Amr spoke to the Copts as follows: ‘I must have for you all the regard which our kinship imposes. But I understand that you are plotting to take up arms once more against me. Now aforetime the Arabs ate camel’s meat, as you saw yesterday; but now when they have discovered all this dainty fare that you see before you, do you think that they will surrender this city? I tell you they will give their lives first; they will fight to the death. Do not therefore hurl yourselves to destruction. Either embrace the religion of Islim, or pay your tribute, and go your ways to your villages’.

This anecdote is at least curious as showing the other side to those lofty professions of indifference to the good things of this world which we have seen uttered by ‘Ubad ah and quoted by Cyrus. It is perhaps memorable for another reason, because it cannot be questioned that now the alternative of Ishim was chosen by some of the Copts rather than payment of tribute. The temptation of equality and honour and brotherhood with the conquerors, together with the prospect of plunder in lieu of taxation, proved too strong for many of those Egyptians whose own creed had been crushed out by the millstones of Cyrus’ persecution; and some of the Roman soldiers and settlers similarly abandoned their religion. These are the men who, in the words of the Coptic bishop of Nikiou, ‘apostatized from the Christian faith and embraced the faith of the beast’; renegades who now, under the cloak of zeal for the Muslim cause, aided in seizing the possessions of those Christians whom the war had driven from their homes and in blaspheming them as ‘enemies of God.’ But these apostates were few in number; the bulk of the Coptic people scorned them and their new-found religion alike, as is proved by the bishops language. Once more, however, it must be repeated that the Copts at this period had neither leader nor organic unity. They were therefore incapable of corporate action. Isolated persons and isolated communities among them determined their own course of conduct from time to time, but always in isolation, since there were no means either for the formation or for the execution of any collective purpose. Accordingly it is quite erroneous to speak of the Copts in general as party to the treaty of Babylon, which concerned only the people of that locality. But the terms of the convention were offered to people in the vicinity; thus Abdallah ibn Hudhafah as Sahmi went by ‘Amr’s orders to Heliopolis and received the submission of the town and the country round it, a fact which seems to show that at the previous occupation of the place no Muslim administration was established.

But though the treaty was local, its results were felt all over the Roman Empire. Babylon or Mem­phis had long ceased to be the capital of Egypt: it had been eclipsed by the power and splendour of Alexander’s city: but it was the gate between Upper and Lower Egypt, and a strong enemy planted in the wellnigh impregnable fortress had all Upper Egypt at his mercy, and dominated the Delta far northwards. What the Roman generals were doing all the winter through, and why they allowed the Muslim army to slowly wear down the resistance of Babylon, are questions that perhaps will never be answered; but it is certain that by the capture of the fortress their own power, both moral and material, was greatly shaken, and that of the Arabs immensely strengthened. By Pelusium, Bilbais, Athrib, and Heliopolis 'Amr now held all the east side of the Delta: at Babylon he held its apex and gripped the whole valley of the Nile in the middle. The conquest of Egypt was half accomplished.

It must have been after the fall of the fortress, and not before as the chronicles imply, that 'Amr ordered a bridge of boats to be built—or rather restored—from Babylon to Raudah, and Raudah to Jizah, thus spanning the whole width of the Nile and controlling all traffic and transport upon it. But the Arab commander was anxious to launch his army, too long chained to their camp at Misr, on the way towards Alexandria. In less than three months the Nile would begin to rise again, and therefore time was precious. While dispatches were sent to Omar reporting progress and requesting more troops, arrangements were rapidly made for the administration of the conquered town and territory: the fortress walls were repaired, and a strong garrison was left under the command of Kharijah ibn Hudhafah. Then, with his army remounted, 'Amr turned his back on Babylon, rejoicing to take the field again, and pushed northwards, following the western main of the Nile. The general’s tent was left in position; for just as it was ordered to be struck, it was discovered that a dove had nested in the top part and there laid her eggs; whereupon ‘Amr remarked, ‘She has taken refuge under our protection. Let the tent stand, till she has hatched her brood and they are flown away.’ It is even said that a sentinel was left to prevent the dove from being molested.

It is not very easy to trace the movements of the Arab forces in the campaign which now opened, because the Chronicle of John of Nikiou in these last chapters often seems a mere collection of frag­ments of history flung together at haphazard, and such narrative as can be founded upon it is often at total variance with Arab records. Yet a certain amount of reconcilement is possible, and there are points on which the coincidence is striking.

There can be no doubt that the first point at which ‘Amr aimed on his march to Alexandria was Nikiou. This was a city of great importance and a fortress of great strength. It lay on the river bank—on the east side of the western or Rosetta branch of the Nile—a long day’s journey from Babylon, but only about two hours distant from Manuf, which was already in the Arabs’ possession. Nikiou was not merely a flourishing town, marking its antiquity by colossal remains from the days of the Pharaohs; it was also the seat of one of the chief bishoprics of Christian Egypt, and a place of the highest strategical value in the defence of the military route between Babylon and Alexandria. It was here therefore that the Roman resistance should have centred for a fresh stand against the Arabs.

Moreover it seems that 'Amr began his north­ward march on the western or desert side of the Nile, where his cavalry could move with freedom, unhampered by the network of canals in the Delta. The Romans were prepared in a fashion for this movement, and the first encounter took place at the ancient and important city of Terenouti, or Tarnut, or Tarranah, as the Arabs learned to call it. Tarranah was a regular crossing-place on the Nile, on the way to Alexandria: it was also the point of departure for the great Coptic monasteries in the Libyan desert: and it was natural that the Roman armies should not yield it without resistance. They gave battle to 'Amr, and at least saved their honour, though they suffered defeat, and the Arabs were able to continue their advance towards Nikiou.

Nikiou lay, as we have seen, on the right bank of the river, near the place where the Pharaonic canal from Athrib and Manuf joined the Nile. It was too strong a fortress to leave on his flank: so the Arab leader was compelled to cross the river for its reduction, and to recross subse­quently. The Roman commander therefore had a fine opportunity for aggressive tactics. But instead of taking the command here in person with the bulk of his forces, Theodore relied on the weak and cowardly Domentianus to hold Nikiou with an inadequate garrison. Domentianus had a considerable fleet of boats, which he meant to employ merely for the defence of the town or to contest the subsequent passage of the Nile, which ‘Amr here must make, and which possibly he might even essay if he failed to capture the fortress. But when the Roman general found that the Muslim army was in close proximity, his heart failed, and abandoning army and fleet he took flight in a boat to Alexandria. Finding themselves thus betrayed by their leader, the garrison flung away their arms and rushed down into the canal in a mad endeavour to cross it or to reach the boats. But the panic spread to the boat­men, who, thinking of their own safety, unmoored with all speed and fled in disorder down the Nile, each man making for his own village. Meanwhile the Arabs came up, and falling on the defenceless Roman soldiers in the water put every man to the sword, with the single exception of Zachariah, a man who showed extraordinary valour, and was perhaps spared for that reason. The entry of the Arabs into the town was unopposed : there was not a soldier left to offer resistance. Nevertheless they signalized their victory by a cruel massacre. ‘ They slew every one whom they encountered in the streets, and those who had taken refuge in the churches, sparing neither men nor women nor little children. From Nikiou they went to other places round about, plundering and killing all before them. In the town of Satind they found Scutaeus and his people (who were related to Theodore) hiding in a vineyard, and they put them to the sword. But it is time to cease : for it is impossible to recount the iniquities committed by the Muslims after their capture of the island of Nikiou on Sunday, the eighteenth day of the month Genbot, in the fifteenth year of the cycle,’ which date corresponds to May 13, 641.

This passage of the Coptic bishop I have given in full, because it shows how little reason the Copts as a body had to sympathize, and how little they did in fact sympathize, with their Saracen conquerors. For Nikiou was a stronghold of the Coptic faith; and though Cyrus had scourged the people till they renounced its open profession, yet it cannot be questioned that in their hearts the victims of the persecution retained their old allegiance. But Copts and Romans alike were now overwhelmed in indiscriminate slaughter, the record of which contains no word to suggest that Copts were entitled to look for different treatment. At the same time it is clear that division and disorder were spreading like a plague through the country, and it was not long before civil war was added to the calamities of the time. Lower Egypt was split into two camps, one party siding with the Romans, while the other wished to join the invaders. Whether the dividing lines were those of race or creed, or, as seems probable, of faction, is a question left unanswered. But battle and pillage and burning of towns were common incidents in the conflict of the two parties, while the Arabs looked with contempt and distrust on these uncovenanted partisans.

The capture of Nikiou and the dispersal of the Roman fleet on the Nile opened the way for the advance on Alexandria, towards which the main body of the Roman army under Theodore was slo ly retiring.

'Amr took up his quarters at Nikiou for a few days; but, ere resuming his march after crossing the river, he sent his lieutenant, Sharik, to pursue the retreating enemy. The way now lay along the left bank of the Nile, skirting the edge of the desert, and the country was favourable for cavalry. The Muslim advance forces overtook the Romans at a place about sixteen miles due north of Tarranah, but they found the enemy in greater strength than they had expected. Indeed, so far from routing the Romans at the first onset, they are said to have fought for three days; and at one period of the contest the Arabs were repulsed and driven up some rising ground, where they stood at bay under fierce assaults from the Romans, who surrounded them. In this dangerous plight Sharik ordered Malik ibn Naimah, who possessed a bay horse of unrivalled swiftness, to make his way through or round the enemy and carry a message to 'Amr. This Malik succeeded in doing : for though some of the Romans gave chase, they were unable to overtake him. On hearing of the danger in which Sharik stood, 'Amr hurried troops forward at the utmost speed. It is said that the mere news of their coming turned the army of Theodore to flight: it is certain that Sharik was relieved, and the Romans lost the opportunity of overwhelming this detachment of the Saracens, as they had lost every opportunity which fortune offered. The scene of the battle was called after the Arab leader, Kim Sharik, or the Mound of Shank, which name remains to this day.

Steadily pushing the enemy before him, 'Amr now probably marched north-east, still following the canal which borders the desert, till he reached Dalingat, and from that point struck due northwards in the direction of Damanhur. Once more he found a Roman army barring his passage at a place called Suntais, about six miles south of Damanhur, and once more an obstinate engagement resulted in the retreat of the Romans. They made no effort to rally at Damanhur or to hold the town; but streaming north from the battlefield they struck the high road to Alexandria, crossed the canal, which now was nearly empty, and took refuge under the fort of Kariun after a march of some twenty miles. Kariun was the last in the chain of fortresses between Babylon and Alexandria, and it was a place of great importance for the corn traffic. Strategically too it controlled the canal on which Alexandria mainly depended both for food and for water: but although the defences had been strengthened by the Romans, they in no wise compared with strongholds like Babylon or even Nikiou. Here, however, Theodore resolved to make his last stand, nor could he have chosen a better position than this, where the advantage of numbers was aided by the works of the fortress and the canal, while his retreat on Alexandria was easy to secure.

Although the Roman army had been greatly dejected by the fall of Babylon and Nikiou, and by the treason and cowardice displayed by some of its leaders, yet even the Muslim writers admit that during this phase of the struggle it fought with obstinate valour. It was strong in numbers, large reinforcements having come over-sea from Constantinople. Theodore himself, though totally incompetent as general, was not wanting in courage or fighting spirit. Not merely the Alexandrian army, but all the country round, realized the critical nature of the coming conflict at Kariun, and contin­gents flocked to the Roman standard, not only from Suntais, but from more distant towns like Khais, Sakha, and Balhib. It was no single engagement that decided the fate of Kariun. The fighting was not only severe, but it lasted over a period of ten days. In one of the battles, Warden, the well-known freedman of ‘Amr, was carrying the Muslim colours, and 'Amr’s son ‘Abdallah was badly wounded by his side. Half fainting in the heat of the combat, ‘Abdallah asked his comrade to retreat a little that they might have more air to breathe in. ‘Air? ’ replied Warden: ‘ ou want air in front of you and not behind you’: and they pressed forward together. 'Amr, hearing of his son’s mishap, sent a messenger to inquire of his welfare, whereupon 'Abdallah quoted some verses of reassuring tenour. This answer was brought to the chief, who exclaimed, ‘He is my son indeed’. Fiercely, however, as the Muslims charged time after time, the issue hung in doubt, and 'Amr prayed the ‘prayer of fear.’ It looks as if this was a drawn battle, although the Arab writers make it a crowning victory. However that may be, there can be no doubt that at the end of the ten days the Muslims were so far victorious that they captured the town and fortress of Kariun, driving back the Roman army. Whether the Romans were chased in headlong flight to the gates of Alexandria, or whether Theodore retreated in good order, cannot be determined, although the impartial record of John of Nikiou seems in favour of the latter alternative.

These various engagements from Tarranah to Kariun must have caused serious losses on both sides. The- Romans were better able to bear them; but if allowance is made for the garrisons left by the Muslims at Babylon and various points in the Delta, it becomes clear that 'Amr’s further advance would have been impossible, if he had not received heavy reinforcements during the preceding winter or spring. He could not have ventured to appear before Alexandria with less than 15,000 men: it would probably be nearer the truth to place his effective force now at 20,000. The capture of Kariun had completely cleared the way to the capital; and as soon as his troops had recovered from the strain of the recent fighting, 'Amr moved on, and covered unopposed the last stage of the march to Alexandria.

Many of the soldiers in that army must have seen beautiful cities in Palestine, like Edessa, Damascus, and Jerusalem; some may even have gazed on the far-famed splendours of Antioch or the wonders of Palmyra; but nothing can have prepared them for the extraordinary magnificence of the city which now rose before them, as they passed among the gardens and vineyards and convents abounding in its environs. Alexandria was, even in the seventh century, the finest city in the world: with the possible exception of ancient Carthage and Rome, the art of the builder has never produced anything like it before or since. Far as the eye could reach ran that matchless line of walls and towers which for centuries later excited the. enthusiasm of travellers. Beyond and above them gleamed domes arid pediments, columns and obelisks, statues, temples, and palaces. .To the left the view was bounded by the lofty Serapeum with its gilded roofs, and by the citadel on which Diocle­tian’s Column stood conspicuous: to the right the great cathedral of St. Mark was seen, and further west those obelisks, called Cleopatra’s Needles, which even then were over 2,000 years old, or twice as old as the city’s foundation. The space between was filled with outlines of brilliant architecture: and in the background, towering from the sea, stood that stupendous monument known as the Pharos, which rightly ranked as one of the wonders of the world. Even these half-barbarian warriors from the desert must have been strangely moved by the stateliness and grandeur, as well as by the size and strength, of the city they had come to conquer.

The garrison amounted at this time to not less than 50,000 men: the place was amply provisioned, resting on the sea, where the Muslims had not a single vessel to contest the Emperor’s supremacy: and the walls were armed with that powerful artillery which, as we have seen, in the time of Nicetas had availed to crush and sink the river-fleets of an enemy. On the other hand the Arabs were totally destitute of siege equipment, being unable to transport the engines of war they had captured, and totally un­trained in the art of siege warfare. The Romans therefore had every material reason for confidence in defying the rude methods of the Saracen horse­men; while they in turn, reviewing their extraordinary successes against the fenced cities of Palestine and of Egypt, found moral causes enough to give them assurance of ultimate victory. But such moral causes were destined to operate slowly: and when ‘Amr launched his troops in a mad tilt against the walls, the Roman catapults on the battlements hurled such a rain of heavy stones upon them that they were driven back out of range, nor could they again face the fire delivered by that artillery. All that the Muslims could do was to maintain their camp at a respectful distance in the hope that the enemy might be unwise enough to sally out and give battle.

There is no trustworthy record of any such engage­ment. This incident of the ill-judged attack and its easy repulse under the pounding of the catapults sums up all that John of Nikiou has to say about the use of force against Alexandria; and his silence must be taken to mean that siege in the proper sense there was none. On the north the city was defended by the sea, on the south by the canal and Lake Mareotis, and on the west again by the Dragon Canal: on the east side and south-east alone the approach was open, and here the besiegers were unable to come even within bowshot of the walls. They were accordingly reduced to the necessity of proceeding by blockade, and that could only be of the most partial and ineffective kind: the idea of surrounding the city even on the landward side was quite chimerical. At the same time the main­tenance of an army encamped outside Alexandria was a permanent challenge to the Romans, and cut them off from the rest of Egypt. Precisely where the camp was pitched is hard to determine. Suyati says that it was  between Hulwah and Kasr Faris, and beyond the latter.’ Kasr Faris, or the Fort of the Persians, was on the east side, and it may have been built by them as a necessary part of their siege operations, just as we know that Diocletian had been totally unable to make any impression on the strength of Alexandria until he had built a fortress to the east of the city. But even then it required a vast army, a siege of long duration, and treason within the walls, to enable Diocletian to break through the almost impregnable defences. But we may take it for granted that the Muslims were at once reduced to passive measures, and that their camp, wherever situated, was merely a camp of observation. Indeed there is reason to doubt whether any encampment was maintained within sight of Alexandria, or nearer than Kariun.

It was now about the end of June. The Arab leader was not the man to cherish illusions with regard to the chances of storming the city. He realized that for offensive warfare he was completely powerless against it. On the other hand, he could trust his followers to hold their own against superior numbers, if the enemy dared come out to battle. Therefore, as the Nile was now about to rise, he resolved to leave an adequate army in the camp, and to take such troops as could be spared across the Delta before the country became impassable. But as the Romans had abandoned the country round Alexandria, all the pleasant houses and wealthy villas outside the walls fell a prey to the Saracens. They secured an immense booty, and pulled most of the dwellings to pieces, merely for the sake of the wood and the iron, which they sent by barges on the Nile to Babylon for use in bridging operations there against some hitherto inaccessible city.

The column which 'Amr now led across the Delta cannot have been a large one. Little resistance was likely to be encountered, except at the fortified places, and these it was now too late in the season to besiege, even had he any such intention. But as he had to return to Babylon, 'Amr purposed at any rate to make his presence felt in Lower Egypt. Accordingly he marched back to Kariun and Damanhur, and thence struck eastward through the province now called Gharbiah till he came to Sakih. This place, which lies about twenty-two miles nearly due north of the modern Tantah, was then and for long after the conquest regarded as the capital of the province, and it was strongly fortified. Any hopes of sur­prising the town were disappointed: once again the Arabs had to acknowledge their weakness and failure against strong walls encompassed by water : and they pushed on southward, probably following the Bahr al Nuzam, till they came to Tukh, which lies about six miles north-east of Tantah, and from Tukh to Damsis. At both places they were easily repulsed. A raid down the eastern branch of the river to Damietta is mentioned in the same connexion, and may have been made by ‘Amr’s column at this time. Its object was to burn the crops now ripening for harvest, and it achieved no other result. No progress was made in the task of reducing the Delta to subjection, a task in which the Muslims had now been occupied for twelve months , and 'Amr, after many futile acts of violence and pillage, brought his column back to the fortress of Babylon. The number of points at which 'Amr encountered resistance throughout the Delta, and his almost total failure against the more northern provinces, add one more to the many proofs destructive of the two current fallacies—that ‘Egypt surrendered almost without striking a blow,’ and that ‘the Egyptians hailed the invaders as deliverers.’

CHAPTER XX.EVENTS AT CONSTANTINOPLE

While the events thus chronicled were passing in Egypt, great changes had also taken place at Constantinople. The death of Heraclius has been briefly recorded as happening towards the end of the siege of Babylon. After his melancholy farewell to Syria in 636, his mind, which had suffered some derangement, slowly recovered its balance in the seclusion of Chalcedon: and in dealing with the crisis on the European side of his Empire he displayed something of his old alertness and skill in diplomacy. But his health was broken: and the ravages of a painful disease were quickened by the monotonous recurrence of disasters, first in Syria, then in Egypt. The fall of Jerusalem had been followed by the fall of Antioch and of Caesarea and by the practical abandonment of Syria to the enemy: yet Heraclius was keenly alive to the importance of saving Egypt for the Empire. The drain of men and money caused by years of war had been enormous, but his diminished armies and exchequer could still furnish large reinforcements for the defence of the Nile. When Arab historians assert that he intended to command an expedition in person, they forget that the invasion of Egypt began little more than a year before his death, and by that time the mortal disease which was upon him had robbed him of all physical activity, if not of the very power of motion. The Emperor died on Sunday, February 11, 641, in the thirty-first year of his reign, aged sixty-six, two months before the surrender of Babylon.

So ended the strange vicissitudes of a great career. The work of his life had been to rebuild the shattered fabric of the Eastern Empire. It was a hopeless task when he essayed it: yet he accomplished it, or seemed to accomplish it, in an almost miraculous manner. But his downfall began with his triumph. The fabric he had raised lacked all cohesion, since his own unwisdom loosened or destroyed those bonds of common citizenship and common Christianity which might have held the people together under a system of religious toleration. That this fatal policy of the Emperor synchronized with the rise of the Muslim power from unknown Arabia is one of the most strange and most inscrutable coincidences of history. So fell, however, the destined order of the world: and Heraclius lived long enough to realize the mistakes he had committed, or at least to deplore the fatality which destroyed all the fruits of his labours. In matters relating to the Church he had followed the maxims of his time: his misfortune was that he had not risen above them, nor devised new principles of Church statesmanship to meet the new requirements of the age. For that failure he deserves rather pity than blame, though some re­morse must have been added to the physical sufferings which closed his life. Before he died, he made all arrangements for the succession, and he made his son Constantine swear to show mercy to all prisoners and exiles, and to recall those whom he had banished. The Emperor was buried in the church of the Holy Apostles, and his tomb was left open for three days: with his body was placed the crown of gold. This Constantine removed, but it was subsequently restored by Heraclius II, and dedicated to the church.

By the will of Heraclius, Constantine, the son of his first wife Eudocia, and Heraclius, the son of his second wife Martina, were left co-heirs of the Empire with the Empress. It was an impossible compromise; and the strong-willed Martina, who had virtually ruled alone during the close of her husband’s life, was not a woman to brook such a division of authority. Constantine, the elder of the two half-brothers, was given the pre-eminence by the people, and the treasurer, Philagrius, sided with him as well as Valentine, who was now created general and sent in command to Asia Minor: so that Martina’s designs in favour of her own son, Heraclius (or Heraclonas, as he was called for distinction), met with strong resistance. Sergius, the Patriarch, had passed away before his sovereign, and a monk named Pyrrhus had been elected in his place. Pyrrhus seems for a while at first to have sided against Martina with Constantine, and to have proclaimed Constantine Emperor to the exclusion of Martina and her children. But David and Marinus had Pyrrhus kidnapped and secretly conveyed to an island in the west of Africa.

In fulfilment of his father’s behest, Constantine now sent a large fleet to bring Cyrus back from exile². He wished to confer with the Archbishop on the state of Egypt, and Martina also pressed for his recall, as she was sure of his sympathy with her ambitions. Both the date and the result of this conference are quite uncertain, because it is not known where Cyrus was exiled, or how long it took for him to return to the capital. But Theodore was also summoned from Egypt to advise the Emperor, while Anastasius was left in command of Alexandria and the towns on the littoral, which had not yet fallen to the Muslims. Theodore was not in favour of any peace policy: and, whatever Cyrus may have said, he prevailed on the Emperor to promise that he would send large reinforcements to Egypt during the summer. Orders were actually given and vessels were made ready for the embarkation of troops, when Constantine, whose health had been failing ever since his accession to the throne, was seized by a fatal illness. He died on May 25, 641, after a reign of about a hundred days. Whether he died a natural death, or whether he suffered from foul play at the hands of Martina, is uncertain: but the charge of murder was openly made by Constans against the Empress, and the suspicion of it haunts the records of the time.

Martina profited by the death of Constantine to proclaim Heraclonas sovereign of the Roman Empire. As a concession to popular feeling, Pyrrhus was recalled from exile; but the renewed ascendency of Martina kindled a resentment which soon flamed into rebellion. When Valentine heard of the death of Constantine and of Philagrius’ disgrace which followed, he came with his army to Chalcedon, where Martina was, and demanded Philagrius’ reinstatement. This was agreed to by the troops of the Empress, and confirmed in a set speech by Heraclonas; but, not content with this measure of success, Valentine crossed with Domentianus and other patricians to the capital, and ‘there crowned the son of Constantine, known as Constans II, in association with Heraclonas  .

It seems certain that before this revolt of Valen­tine broke out, Heraclonas had already arranged for the restoration of Cyrus to his charge in Alexandria. The coronation of Constans must have taken place early in September, 641, after the departure of Cyrus on his journey to Egypt. Cyrus was accompanied by a large number of priests; but so far from being shorn of his civil power, he was expressly authorized by the Emperor to conclude peace with the Arabs, to put an. end to all further resistance in the country, and to arrange for the proper administration of Egypt. ‘The terms of the authority given him suggest that Cyrus still cherished some hope of retaining the suzerainty of Egypt for the Empire: but there can be no doubt that he had impressed his conviction—honest or dishonest—of the necessity for surrender upon the childish Emperor, the feeble senate, and the incapable courtiers of the capital. It is clear too that he had won over Martina to his pusillanimous counsels, that the party of Martina was the party of peace at any price with the Muslims, and that her policy was the policy of surrender incessantly preached by Cyrus.

What tangle of motives crossed in the recesses of the Patriarch’s mind, almost passes conjecture. He had been a craven, if not a traitor to the Empire, for months before the question of the imperial succession had divided men to the point of civil war. Why was he so ready to abandon the field of his work, or at least the fruits of his labours? For ten years he had scourged and smitten the Copts into some semblance of subjection, but he knew that upon the removal of his heavy pressure they would spring back to their old faith. Had he come to see that his whole plan of persecution was a blunder and a failure? Nothing is further from the fact. It is far more probable that, with the lessons of Syria before his eyes, he despaired of the fortunes of the Empire in Egypt, and counted not merely on tolerance for his own form of religion in Egypt, but on such a reward for his aid to the Muslims as would enable him to maintain his ascendency over the Coptic Church in Egypt, while securing at the same time absolute independence of Constantinople.

Upon the ruins of the Empire Cyrus was building new schemes for the aggrandizement of the patri­archate of Alexandria. Such at least seems the most probable theory of his action, the theory which best explains his mysterious relations with 'Amr and his betrayal of the Roman cause. He was a traitor to- the State in the imagined interest of the Church.

Meanwhile he was content to follow or to guide the Empress, and to set at nought the strongly-expressed opinion of his Church against the scandal of allowing the issue of an incestuous marriage to sit upon the throne. There is clear evidence that Cyrus on his return journey to Egypt was furnished with a military force, destined presumably to strengthen the garrison, in case his peace proposals were rejected, or it may be to strengthen the faction of the Empress among them. Moreover, a new general of militia, named Constantine, was sent with him to replace the fallen John ; and Theodore either sailed at the same time, or was already at Rhodes when Cyrus arrived, waiting to join the expedition. Martina was also there, though it is doubtful whether her journey was caused by the progress of Valen­tine’s rebellion, or by alarm at the specific act of the coronation of Constans. Probably she wished to consult with Theodore and Cyrus on this new development: but there was matter enough for anxiety in the troubled state of the court and the capital.

For the plots of Valentine were as unscrupulous and as far-reaching as those of Cyrus. He had already sounded the depth of the army’s affection for the Empress, and found it, at least in places, very shallow. All the treasure of Philagrius he squandered in bribing the soldiers in Egypt, and he so divided the forces there, that they ceased fighting the Muslims and turned their arms against each other. Civil war therefore had already broken out, and that not between Copts and Romans, but between different portions of the imperial army. It was, however, important to secure the adherence of Theodore, and to detach him from the cause of the Empress. Nothing was impossible in that atmosphere of conspiracy and cabal; and Theodore had his own unavowed ambitions. When therefore Theodore received at Rhodes a secret missive from Valentine urging him to renounce allegiance to Martina, and when he learned that a similar message had been sent to Pentapolis and in fact to every province of the Empire, while treason was at work among the very troops ordered to Egypt with Cyrus, he made up his mind to abandon the cause of the Empress and to sail clandestinely for Pentapolis. His motive in this is by no means clear. He may have desired merely retirement and shelter from the coming storms; or he may have resolved, like Heraclius, to stake his fortune on a throw for the crown, and to found a new empire at Carthage; or he may have wished to gather resources and watch events, detesting the policy of surrender and hoping to strike a blow at the Muslims from Carthage. His scheme was to part company in the darkness with the fleet convoying Cyrus, and the captain of the vessel on which he sailed was the only soul made privy to it. Apparently the captain promised acquiescence, but repented of his promise, and alleged that the wind was contrary for the voyage to Pentapolis. So it befell that Theodore’s design miscarried, and he found himself in Cyrus’ company, with the rest of the convoy, in the harbour of Alexandria before daylight on the morning of Holy Cross Day, September 14, 641.

CHAPTER XXI.SURRENDER OF ALEXANDRIA

During the absence of Cyrus in exile, there had been frequent outbreaks of civil strife in Egypt. For a time the people of the province of Misr were at open war with those of the more northernly provinces. Peace was restored after many acts of hostility; but no sooner had this quarrel ceased than fierce feuds arose within the walls of the capital. The Roman commanders were divided by jealousy and hatred, while the Green and Blue factions were more ready to fly at each other’s throats than to face the enemy at their gates. Domentianus, the betrayer of the Fayum and of Nikiou, was at odds with Menas, his rival for the reversion of the commandership-in-chief. Menas had a bitter grudge against Eudocianus (brother to Domentianus) for the barbarities he had committed that Easter Day on the Copts in Babylon; while Theodore had not forgiven Domentianus for his cowardly desertion of his post and his army at Nikiou. The wonder is that Domentianus was not cashiered 01 put to death; the resentment of his superior office: was a small punishment. But he probably escapee the fate he deserved by the favour of Martina and by reason of his kinship to Cyrus, whose sister he had married. Still in spite of kinship and friendship and claims of gratitude, Domentianus showed to wards Cyrus disrespect and unreasoning hatred The Blue Faction were with Domentianus, and he enlisted a large force of the Blues in his quarrel—a move which Menas met by enrolling a body o the Greens. In this dangerous state of tension there came to Alexandria one Philiades, Prefect o the province of Fayum, and brother to George the predecessor of Cyrus in the office of Melkite Patriarch. Philiades had been befriended by Menas but ill requited his friendship. Moreover, he hac been guilty of corruption or embezzlement of public money, and had made himself as unpopular with the army as Menas was popular.

Matters soon came to a head. One day while Menas was at service in the great church called Caesarion with his Coptic fellow worshippers, the townsfolk rose in revolt against Philiades, and meant to kill him. He escaped, however, and hid in his friend’s house, whereupon the rioters went to his own dwelling, plundered it, and set it on fire. The rioters were of the Green Faction, and Domentianus at once sent his Blue company against them. A fierce encounter took place in the streets; six men were killed and many wounded; and Theodore had the greatest difficulty in repressing the disorder In the end Philiades had his property restored, and Domentianus was deprived of his military rank, though he seems to have been reinstated later when Theodore was summoned to Constantinople. The fact is that Domentianus, in spite of his personal hostility to Cyrus, was in close agreement with him on political questions; both were high in the favour of the Empress Martina; and both pressed upon her the policy of surrender to the Arabs.

In relating the story of the faction fight in Alexandria, John of Nikiou seems to confess that he is unable to explain its causes. For while his language suggests that the riot arose both from private enmities and from political partisanship, he is careful to add that by some its ferocious character was attributed to religious dissension: and yet he throws no ray of light on the nature of that dissension. Was it between Monophysite and Melkite? or between orthodox Melkite and Monothelite? or between Jew and Christian? The matter is too complex for conjecture: but when one remembers that a vast number of refugees from the Delta and Upper Egypt had flocked to Alexandria for protec­tion, and that John here speaks of the Caesarion as the scene of a Coptic service, it might be argued both that the number of Copts in Alexandria had greatly increased, and that during the absence of their persecutor, Al Mukaukas, in exile, they had recovered some of their confidence and freedom. The Copts therefore may have been strong enough to fling their sympathies and antipathies into the seething cauldron of Alexandrian party warfare. Yet one is astounded to read that when Cyrus, Al Mukaukas, landed on that September morning, the whole city went wild with delight, ‘rejoicing and giving thanks for the arrival of the Patriarch of Alexandria’; and all the people, men and women, young and old, flocked to greet him and do him honour. Not a note of discord is sounded or a whisper of fear. Yet the Copts can have felt no joy or even hope at the return of Al Mukaukas, and the conclusion is irresistible that after all they were but a very small body, lost in the great popula­tion of the capital.

But ere the news of his arrival spread through the waking city, Cyrus betook himself in secret with Theodore to the convent of the monks of Tabennesi, which probably lay near the landing-place. The door of the church was closed, and a message was sent summoning Menas to the monastery. Theodore at once gave Menas the office of military commander of the garrison, deposing Domentianus, whom the populace forthwith hounded out of the city. The coincidence of Cyrus’ arrival with the festival of the Exaltation of the Cross was well calculated to revive the drooping spirits of the Romans, and Cyrus made the most of it. It will be remembered that when John, general of militia, was dispatched to Egypt by Heraclius as bearer of the famous Ecthesis to Cyrus, he brought also with him for the Patriarch a cross of special sanctity— possibly enclosing a portion of the Holy Rood itself'. This treasured relic had been deposited in the convent of the monks of Tabennesi, and nothing was more natural than that it should be carried in procession with Cyrus to the great church of Caesarion, at which the festival service was to be holden. All the way from the convent to the cathedral Cyrus’ path was strewn with carpets, while streamers and banners of silk fluttered, the smoke of incense rose, and hymns resounded in his honour. Yet broad as were the streets of the Great City, they were so thronged that people trod one upon another, and the Archbishop had the utmost difficulty in making his passage through the crowds to reach the cathedral. The procession, however, moved slowly onward, and at length, after passing between the two ancient Egyptian obelisks and through the cloistered court, entered the door of the Caesarion.

There, as was fitting, the Archbishop in his sermon dwelt upon the Invention of the Cross and its Exaltation, which the Eastern Church, then as now, celebrated together. It was a theme which might have fired a less eloquent tongue than that of Cyrus, as he recalled the strange eventful history of Heraclius’ crusade, the recovery of the Holy Rood from captivity with the Persians, and its uplifting on that day of triumph in Jerusalem.. Yet what lesson did Cyrus draw, or wish to draw, from the story ? Jerusalem itself was now in captivity to the Muslims, and the Muslims were at the very gates of Alexandria. The position was almost as bad as when Chosroes held all Palestine, Syria, and Egypt: but did Cyrus dare to point the moral of hope and faith to his hearers, to encourage them in resistance in the name of the Cross, when in his own heart he had forsaken the cause of the Cross and resolved to bow it down before the standards of Mohammed? Perhaps he avoided politics altogether: but it is certain that he did not unburden ‘the secrets of his overcharged soul’ that day in the ambon.

But the service ended unhappily. When they came after the sermon to the mass, the deacon instead of reading the verses proper to the day gave out another psalm with ‘direct reference to the return of the Archbishop, whom he desired to praise and congratulate. The people who heard it said at once that the change was against the canons and was of very evil omen for the Archbishop, and, as the story runs, that he would never look upon another Easter. No doubt they thought him looking worn and ill. His exile had told upon him physically: his rough passage through the crowds and the exertion of preaching had tried his strength : and above all he must have carried on his face tokens of that inner conflict which was tearing him to pieces. These people trusted him; hailed him as their champion and deliverer; their hearts were lifted up and their faith in the Cross exalted; they would fight and conquer in that sign. But while their hopes were kindled, the Archbishop was de­pressed by the gnawing consciousness that he was about to betray them all, to betray the cause of the Cross and the cause of the Roman Empire. It was a dramatic situation, and it is small wonder that haggard looks told of the strain even on that haughty temper, and that in them men read the omen of death.

For some little time after his arrival Cyrus was busied in dealing with matters of Church and State which demanded urgent attention in Alexandria. Anastasius seems to have acted as civil governor of the city during the absence of Cyrus, and it is just possible that the George to whom Cyrus had delegated his episcopal authority upon his departure was none other than his predecessor in the office of Patriarch. George was now an old man but very influential, and he was treated with great deference by all from the governor downwards. He had no part in the persecution of the Copts; indeed the absence of Cyrus on the one hand, and the severance of whole districts from imperial control on the other, had given the Copts a breathing-space. But Cyrus had not forgotten his hatred against the native Church of Egypt, He was ready to hand over the country to the enemy, and to make peace with the unbeliever; but for the Copts there was no peace and no forgiveness. The sword was again drawn : and so far from being softened by his own adversity, Cyrus hardened his . heart and renewed his reign of violence and oppression against those who were not beyond his reach.

It is indeed strange that the Mukaukas should have thought it worthwhile to revive his persecution. Possibly, however, his action may have served to blind the people of Alexandria to his real design, which was to deliver all Egypt over to the Arabs. For that he had no doubt the Emperor’s warrant; but it was a warrant wrung from a puppet ruler by cowardice and chicanery, and a warrant which he dared not avow either, as it seems, to the highest officers of state in Alexandria or to the people. Alone, or accompanied only by some of his priests, who may have shared his secret, the Mukaukas made his way to Babylon. It was now the season of high Nile again—towards the end of October— and just about a year had passed since he had made his abortive treaty of Babylon, which the old Emperor tore up in indignation.

‘Amr himself had only just returned to Babylon; but whether up to this time he had been engaged against those Delta towns which foiled him, or whether he had in person led an expedition which was sent to Upper Egypt, is uncertain. The fact of the expedition is not doubtful, and a small column of Muslims got as far as Antinoe, the modern Ansinu, then the capital of the Thebaid. As the Roman troops were not yet all withdrawn from this region, the townsfolk took counsel with their Pre­fect, named John, and desired to offer resistance to Arabs. John, however, absolutely refused to fight: he seized all the public money which had been collected, and carried it off with his troops, making his way across the desert westward to Alexandria. He had no wish to meet the fate which had befallen the garrison of the Fayum, and was besides quite unable to cope with the Muslims. So the conquest of Upper Egypt was comparatively easy. ‘When the Muslims saw the weakness of the Romans and the hostility of the people to the Emperor Heraclius because of the persecution, wherewith he had visited all the land of Egypt, against the orthodox faith at the instigation of Cyrus, the Chalcedonian Patriarch, they became bolder and stronger in the war’: for little as the Copts loved the Saracens, here in Upper Egypt the feeling against their persecutors was most bitter. In the Fay6m, which was already settling down under Arab rule as a tributary province, matters had gone so far that the inhabitants killed any Roman soldier they chanced to encounter, and further south the Copts had even less motive to fight for the Empire.

But, after the subjugation of Upper or at least Middle Egypt, the Arab commander had come back to Babylon to rest there during the flood-time  and it was in the great fortress that he received Cyrus, when he came on his mission of surrender. 'Amr gave him a kindly welcome, and, on hearing that his purpose was to sue for peace, he remarked ‘You have done well to come to us.’ The Patriarch said that in order to put an end to the war, the people would be willing to pay tribute, adding, ‘God has given this country to you : let there be no more enmity between you and the Romans.’ One may well believe that negotiations and consultations were spun out over several days in oriental fashion; but in the end an agreement was reached on all points, and a treaty was signed on November 8, 641.

This treaty—which may be called the Treaty of Alexandria, both to distinguish it from the former Treaty of Babylon and because it turned mainly on the surrender of Alexandria—sealed the Arab con­quest of Egypt. Its terms are somewhat variously reported, but the principal covenants are given by John of Nikiou as follows :—

Payment of a fixed tribute by all who came under the treaty.

An armistice of about eleven months, to expire the first day of the Coptic month Paophi, i. e. Sep­tember 28, 642 .

During the armistice the Arab forces to main­tain their positions, but to keep apart and undertake no military operations against Alexandria; the Roman forces to cease all acts of hostility.

The garrison of Alexandria and all troops there to embark and depart by sea, carrying all their possessions and treasure with them: but any Roman soldiers quitting Egypt by land to be subject to a monthly tribute on their journey.

No Roman army to return or attempt the recovery of Egypt.

The Muslims to desist from all seizure of churches, and not to interfere in any way with the Christians.

The Jews to be suffered to remain at Alex­andria.

Hostages to be given by the Romans, viz.  150 military and 50 civilian, for the due execution of the treaty.

These articles are not set out by the Coptic historian quite in the order in which, for the sake of convenience, I have ventured here to place them. Under the first article a general security was given for the life, property, and churches of the Egyptians, who were also to be allowed the free exercise of their religion. For the payment of tribute and taxes constituted them a protected people with a status implying these privileges. The tribute was fixed at two dinars per head for all except very old men and children, and the total capitation-tax was found to amount to 12,000,000 dinars: but in addition to the capitation-tax, a land-tax or property­tax was imposed. The third article must, I think, be limited by reference to Alexandria alone, because, although Cyrus made the treaty on behalf of the Egyptians in general, he could not guarantee that every city and community would consent to be bound by it; and it would be unreasonable that the Arabs should be debarred from fighting in case of further resistance. It is, moreover, clear that in fact such resistance was offered in places, and was conquered, during the term of the armistice.

It will be noticed that John of Nikiou’s version of the treaty says nothing about the date of the first payment of tribute or of subsequent payments, but he implies clearly that an instalment was demanded very shortly, and this is explicitly confirmed by the Arab writer Ibn Khaldun.

We are now in a position to appreciate the perplexity of the Arab writers and the divergence of their answers to the question they are so fond of debating—whether Egypt was taken by treaty or by force. One must, however, so far anticipate the later history of Alexandria as to remark that, three or four years after its surrender by Cyrus, it was recovered by the Romans, and retaken by the Arabs : but the second capture was by force of arms, and not by capitulation. Here, then, we have some curious coincidences. First of all Babylon was surrendered by Al Mukaukas at the time of high Nile under a convention, which the Emperor refused to ratify. Subsequently the fortress was stormed; but, before the storming party made good their entry, the garrison offered to surrender, and did actually capitulate under treaty. Next, Alexandria surrendered at the time of high Nile under a treaty and almost without pressure; but after the city had been for some time in possession of the Arabs, it was recovered by the Romans, who were only driven out after a siege which ended in capture by force.

Looking at these strange results, when one remembers that the earliest Arab authorities wrote some two hundred years after the conquest, and when one reflects on the immense difficulty of preserving these bewildering coincidences in their original shape through two centuries of tradition mainly oral, then one may feel astonished, not that the story has passed through endless confusions and contortions, but that the Arab mind, so wanting in historic sense, so blind to historic proportion, should have stored up so many fragments of truth, however out of order and relation. It is quite intelligible now that some writers should represent Babylon as taken by treaty, others by force ; and the same in regard to Alexandria. The fact is, that while both versions are in a sense true in each case, neither is true in either case without qualification.

It is worthwhile briefly to examine some of these authorities, who add some interesting details. Thus Baladhuri, who wrote in the ninth century, quotes 'Abdallah, the son of 'Amr, as saying, that after the capture of Babylon by force, 'Amr took counsel with his chiefs and resolved to come to terms with the Egyptians. He made a treaty imposing a tribute of two dinars a head on all able-bodied males, and a tax on all landowners: moreover, every Muslim was to be provided with a complete change of raiment every year. By request of the governor, Al Mu-kaukas, this treaty was to apply to the whole of Egypt, but all Romans who wished were permitted to quit the country. Baladhuri wrongly represents the Emperor as rejecting this treaty, for it is quite clear that he is describing the Treaty of Alexandria. On the other hand, in proof of the statement that Egypt was taken by force, he records a story that ‘Amr, speaking once from the pulpit, said, ‘I have taken my seat in this country without a compact with one of the Copts. If I please, I can kill them or sell them as slaves.’ These words, if rightly reported, could only mean that the Copts had no voice in the matter—that the only parties to the treaty were the Arabs and the Romans. This, of course, was true; but the Copts were covered by the treaty; and Baladhuri goes on to prove this. For he relates that when Mu'awiah wrote to Warden pressing him to increase the tribute of the Copts, Warden pointed out that he could not do so without violating the treaty of peace. So too he quotes a son of Zubair as saying, ‘ I lived seven years in Egypt and married there. The people were taxed above their means and were in distress, although 'Amr had made a treaty with them with fixed conditions’. He adds that there is other evidence for the existence of the treaty. But be cannot get rid of the idea that Alexandria was taken by force, although he admits ‘that ‘Amr did not kill or enslave the inhabitants, only making them protected allies.’ The two things are quite inconsistent, and his admission is proof that, in speaking of capture by force, Baladhuri is thinking of the second capture of Alexandria.

But the text of the treaty is actually given by Tabari, who by a strange confusion calls it the Treaty of ‘Ain Shams, instead of the Treaty of Alexandria. Here are the words:—

‘ This is the security which 'Amr ibn al 'Asi gave to the people of Egypt for themselves, their bodies, and their possessions, for the whole and the part and all their numbers. Nothing shall be added to this treaty or taken away from it. The Nubians shall not be allowed to invade the country. The people of Egypt are bound to pay the poll-tax as soon as they have come to an agreement on this treaty of peace, and when the overflow of the river has ceased—fifty millions in amount. 'Amr is bound to protect those whom he taxes. But if any of the Egyptians refuse to accept the treaty, the tribute shall be reduced in proportion; nevertheless we decline to give protection to those who refuse payment. If the Nile fails to rise to its full height in any year, the tax shall be abated in proportion to the level it reaches. All Romans and Nubians who come under this treaty of peace shall retain their possessions and shall be bound to pay the same taxes; but those who refuse and prefer to depart shall have a safe-conduct, until they leave our dominions and reach a place of security. The tribute is to be paid in three instalments, each instalment being a third of the total. Upon all within this document is the covenant of God and His protection, and the protection of His Apostle, and the protection of the Khalifah and Prince of the Faithful, and the protection of all the faithful. Nubians who come under this treaty are bound to help the Muslims with so many slaves and so many horses; not to make raids into Egypt; and not to hinder the passage of merchandise, going or coming.

Witnessed by Zubair and his two sons, 'Abdallah and Muhammad. Written by Wardan’

This form of treaty, though by no means inconsistent with the terms given by John of Nikiou, is not coextensive with them: one account in fact supplements the other. Yakut quotes Ibn 'Abd al Hakam as saying, ‘All Egypt was occupied by treaty, a tribute of two dinars a head being imposed on every man, with the understanding that it was not to be increased, while landowners also had to give a proportion of their produce. The Alexandrians, however, had to pay poll-tax and land-tax, the amount to be determined at the will of the governor, because they were conquered by force of arms without treaty or compact.’ Here again the second capture is confused with the first surrender of Alexandria. But the best discussion on the subject is to be found in Makrizi, who states the various views with great clearness, and cites the various authorities. The evidence for the occupation by treaty is overwhelming, and one may sum up the matter in the words of the old man who, on hearing it remarked that there was no treaty with the Egyptians, retorted, ‘He who says there was no treaty will forget to say his prayers.’

CHAPTER XXII. REDUCTION OF THE COAST TOWNS

When the treaty was duly completed, 'Amr called Mu'awiah ibn Hudaij al Kindi, and told him to carry the news of the surrender to Omar¹. Mu’awiah asked for a letter, but 'Amr retorted, ‘What have I to do with a letter ? Are you not an Arab who can give a report of what you have witnessed?’ So Mu'awiah departed on his long desert journey, and, arriving at Medina at noonday, he made his camel kneel down at the door of the mosque and entered. While he was there, a maid came out of Omars house, and, seeing a stranger with the marks of travel upon him, asked his name. He gave it, adding that he brought a message from 'Amr ibn  al ‘Asi. The maid went back to the house, but returned so hastily that Muawiah ‘heard the veil flapping against her feet’ as she ran. She bade Muawiah follow to the house, where Omar de­manded his news. ‘Good news, O Commander of the Faithful,’ was the answer; ‘God has opened Alexandria to us.’ They went back at once to the mosque, where the muezzin called the people together, and a service was held in thanksgiving. On returning to his house with Muawiah, Omar said a further prayer, and then ordered bread and oil to be set before his guest, who was somewhat embarrassed and ate shyly. Dates were added to the repast, but there the Caliph’s luxuries ended. When Muawiah excused himself for the rather tardy delivery of his message on the ground that he thought Omar would be taking his noontide rest, the Caliph answered, ‘Bad is what you said, and bad is what you thought. If I slept by day, I should lose my subjects : if I slept by night, I should lose myself. How can I sleep with these two reasons against it’ So simply was the news delivered and received at Medina: very different was its reception in Alexandria.

The Treaty of Alexandria was signed at Babylon on Thursday, November 8, 641. It of course required ratification by the Roman Emperor as well as by the Caliph Omar; but the armistice of eleven months allowed ample time for all formalities. Cyrus now hastened back to the capital, bearing the treaty with him.

His first care was to communicate the terms of the compact to the general Theodore, commander-in-chief, and to Constantine, general of militia. It is curious to find that, although Theodore bore the title of Augustal Prefect, he had no lot or part in the negotiations, and was not even present at Babylon. But Theodore’s position altogether is puzzling. One cannot even say whether he was made privy to Cyrus’ design of surrendering the city. If he was, he must have changed his mind and come over to the peace party: if he was not, it is strange that he should acquiesce so readily in what can only be called a shameful capitulation.

Meanwhile news of the secret treaty passed in confidential whispers among the heads of depart­ments and the leading men in the capital. The populace were kept in ignorance; but dispatches were sent to the Emperor Heraclonas, announcing the terms of surrender and recommending them for ratification. It seems that both the generals concurred in this recommendation, and their concurrence must be held in some measure to exonerate Cyrus from responsibility, although Theodore’s proved incompetence as military commander deprives his judgement upon the military situation of all real value. However, when Cyrus had prepared the ground in Alexandria, he summoned the chiefs of the army and of the civil government to a council. Headed by Theodore and Constantine, they came and presented their homage to the Patriarch, whom we must imagine seated and robed in full pontificals. With his wonted skill he explained the terms of the treaty, enlarging upon its necessity and its advan­tages, till he saw with melancholy triumph conviction carried to the minds of his hearers.

Thus one more step was gained by Cyrus in his plans for the betrayal of Egypt. But the veil of mystery in which he had shrouded them could not last much longer. The disclosure to the people was made not by open avowal of Cyrus, or by the voice of rumour, but by the sudden appearance of an Arab force advancing towards the city. The alarm rang out, and from every quarter the people hastened to man the walls and towers. The Arabs rode forward unconcerned, while the Roman generals, who had now destroyed all fighting spirit in the army, tried to calm the people by arguing that further resistance was hopeless and impossible. Ere the Saracens came within range of the Roman artillery, they were seen to be bearing flags of truce. Answering signals were made: but when the Saracens stood within speaking distance, what was the amazement of the Romans to hear that the enemy had come, not to attack the city, but to receive the tribute agreed upon by Cyrus, Al Mukaukas, in the treaty which he had proposed and had signed for the capitulation of Alexandria. Furious and incredulous the mob tore through the streets towards the Archbishop’s palace; and when at last Cyrus appeared, for a moment his life was in danger, as the people ran upon him to stone him.

His age and dignity saved the Archbishop. Stay­ing the rage of the people with a gesture, he found his tongue, and summoned all his eloquence to soften the public confession of his treason, and to justify his conduct. The action he had taken, he said, was forced upon him: no other course was possible in the interests of his hearers and of their children. The Arabs were irresistible: God had willed to bring the land of Egypt under their dominion. Either the Romans must come to terms, or they must see their streets deluged with blood, and after pillage and massacre the survivors must forfeit the remnant of their possessions. The capitulation secured life and property and religion. Besides, all who preferred to live under a Christian government were free to quit Alexandria. The alternatives of exile from Egypt and submission to Muslim rule were indeed bitter; and the Patriarch was moved to tears, as he besought the people to believe that he had done his best and to accept the treaty which he had made for their deliverance.

Once more the sinister counsel of Cyrus prevailed. Popular opinion swung round into agreement with the army, and consented to surrender the Great City to the Arabs on the terms of the treaty. The rioters felt ashamed of their outburst of anger against His Holiness the Archbishop, who had used his powerful intercession to save them from destruction at the hands of their conquerors. So the citizens not only furnished the instalment of tribute now demanded, but added to it a large sum of gold. The money was placed on board a vessel, which passed out of the southern water-gate of the city, and was delivered by Cyrus himself to the Muslim com­mander.

 Thus was sealed the surrender of Alexandria. A computation of dates makes it possible that this first payment of tribute took place on the first day of Muharram, a. h. 21 (December 10, 641). Although there is no specific authority for such a statement, Arab tradition fixes that day as the day of the conquest; and the tradition may well have arisen from the impression made upon those present when the act of submission was performed by the first payment of tribute. It is true, nevertheless, that the Arabic authorities one and all make the 1st Muharram fall on a Friday, whereas no 1st Muharram fell on a Friday at this time, or nearer than 645. It follows that the tradition cannot be true in its entirety, and it may therefore be altogether false: but it is so firmly rooted in the Arab lore of the conquest that it probably possesses some historical basis. In any case it is interesting to remark one more of those singular coincidences which emerge from, and partly explain, the confusion in the chronology of this period. It is this; that, although some of the Arab historians insist that the fall of Alexandria took place three years after the entry of 'Amr’s army into Egypt, while others aver that both Babylon and Alexandria fell in the same year, viz. a. 11. 20; yet, in spite of the apparent discrepancy, both sets of historians are right. Babylon sur­rendered in April, 641, and Alexandria in November, 641, which dates both fall within a.h. 20: and on the other hand, while 'Amr’s invasion began in December, 639, his army did not actually occupy Alexandria till three years later, in October, 642, at the end of the eleven months’ armistice. It is pleasant to find truth behind such a veil of contradictions.

But what is to be said of this amazing treaty of surrender? Of the dark and subtle part played by Al Mukaukas or Cyrus, the Patriarch, of his strange intimacy with the leader of the Arabs, and of his strange anxiety all through the war to hasten the submission of Egypt, it is difficult to speak in measured language. The guilt of deliberate treason to the Roman Empire must remain an indelible stain on his memory, stained already by the folly and the brutality of the ten years’ persecution. If from the moment of his appointment the Archbishop had bent all his powers to the single end of destroy­ing the Roman dominion over Egypt, he need not have swerved for a moment from the course he actually followed. But one is filled with wonder to see with what avidity he seized that opportunity of betraying Egypt which was mainly the result of his own scandalous misgovernment. It is no palliation of his conduct to say that he had the formal authority of Heraclonas, the Emperor, for the capi­tulation. It was easy to talk over a weakling prince who knew nothing of Egypt, and whose policy answered every touch of the helm in his mother’s hand.

Moreover the treachery of Cyrus began months before at Babylon. This fact alone disposes of any defence on the ground of military necessity. True, the greater part of Egypt was now conquered; but that was not true at the time of the abortive treaty of Babylon. Besides, Alexandria had not even been seriously menaced, nor had any of the coast towns fallen. When the Muslim army had first ventured to assault the capital, it was beaten off ignominiously, nor, as was hinted above, is there any reason to believe that it remained permanently encamped within sight of the city. This is clear both from the silence of John of Nikiou with regard to any such encampment, and from his statement that when a Muslim force was seen advancing—the force sent to receive the tribute—its appearance caused a stir of alarm in the city. No such commotion could have arisen if the Muslim army had been in daily view from the walls for some months, as the Arab writers allege. It is clear that here again they are confounding the first surrender of Alex­andria with the second capture, when there really was some kind of siege; but this first surrender did not result from any military necessity .

It must be repeated that Alexandria was practi­cally impregnable to any force which 'Amr could bring against it. The total circuit of the walls was some nine or ten miles, of which about three rested on the sea, while lake, morass, and canal protected the greater part of the remainder. Since, then, only a very small section of the walls was open to attack, it was easy for the defenders to concentrate all their force in repelling an assault: and even if the Arabs could have put out of action the formidable engines on the ramparts, their rude methods would never have breached the walls. In fact there appears no instance in all the history of Alexandria in which the city was captured by storm without betrayal from within.

Consequently, as long as the fleets of the Empire ruled the sea—and the Muslims had not yet dreamed of sea-power—there can have been no military reason for the treaty made by Cyrus. The army no doubt was disheartened by the fall of Babylon and by the remembrance that they had been beaten in every pitched battle during the campaign; they knew also that their leaders were either cowardly or incapable. But .all that might have been changed by fresh troops with fresh leaders and fresh spirit. The fact, however, is that since the death of Heraclius there was no longer a ruler able to weld or to wield the forces of the Empire. At Alexandria itself the population was split into groups so divided in sentiment and interest that a state of feud and riot was the normal state of society; but the death of Heraclius rent in two the central government, leaving nothing but a war of factions. ‘It broke the strength of the Romans’ in more ways than the Arab writer meant: for the great issue of the moment—the defence of the Empire—fell into abeyance. In the chaos wrought by the intrigues of Martina and the plots of Valentine Egypt was cast adrift; and Alexandria, on which the fate of Egypt now depended, lost hope of any such help from without as would not merely save the city but clear the enemy out of the country.

That at the time of the surrender there was no apparent prospect of the Romans taking the offen­sive and rolling back the invasion, may be granted. But Alexandria might have defied capture for two or three years at least; and when once the sceptre was in firm hands again, the hope of recovering all Egypt would not be chimerical, though the blunders of the past had given the Muslims a grip on the country difficult to loosen. The military position was by no means past retrieval; and though Cyrus could plead the moral weakness of the army and the political disunion of the people, nothing can acquit him of the charge of losing Egypt to the Empire. Alexandria should have been held at all costs: Cyrus delivered it to the enemy by a clandestine and gratuitous surrender.

It remains a problem why the people of Alexandria, who were ready to stone Cyrus for his treason, were so quickly prevailed upon to pardon him and to accept the treaty. Fickle and frivolous as the people were, it was no mere whim which decided them to abandon their allegiance to the Empire and to bow under the dominion of Ishim. There can, I think, be but one explanation beyond those already suggested, and that is that the Alexandrians were wearied out both by the vicissitudes and by the misgovernment which they had suffered during the past forty years, and that they hoped to find under Muslim rule a period of settled peace, of religious tolerance, and of lighter taxation. It may have been this relief from taxation which turned the scale: for while it is difficult to estimate the fiscal burdens borne under the Romans, there can be no doubt that the taxes were manifold and heavy, as well as vexatious, whereas the poll-tax and land-tax demanded by 'Amr had at least the charm of simplicity, directness, and fixity, and amounted, or seemed to amount, to less than the sums exacted for the imperial exchequer. In proportion as patriotism in Egypt was weak, the appeal to the purse was strong: and this promise of reduced taxation may count for a great deal in all the Muslim conquests. In the case of Alexandria it may have been the determining factor ’, although it is known that the hope of financial relief was bitterly disappointed.

The treaty was ratified—possibly by the last act of Heraclonas, whose reign ended that November. It seems that the terms were rehearsed in a proclamation now issued by 'Amr to the people of Egypt. The proclamation offered protection to the ‘person, property, religion, churches, and crosses’ of the Egyptians, and promised to defend the people against Nubians and all other enemies on condition of payment of tribute. But neither the news of the surrender of the Great City, nor the liberal nature of the terms offered, availed to paralyse all further resistance. The cause of the Empire was now quite hopeless, with Alexandria under captivity, and it was the plainest unwisdom to reject the treaty: yet although the country as a whole came under it, some few towns in the north of the Delta stood loyal to their colours. These towns therefore had to be conquered before the campaign was over; but 'Amr was free to move against them at a time of his own choosing.

Meanwhile he had other work in hand at Babylon. He had resolved to build a new Muslim city in the plain which stretched from the Roman fortress to the Mukattam Hills, and which had been the scene of his encampment. This city is said by Baladhuri to have been planned by Zubair, who built himself a house, in which the ladder used in scaling the fortress was kept till it perished in a fire. Yakut, however, mentions four different persons as directly appointed by 'Amr to superintend the laying-out of the streets and quarters, which were assigned to different tribes of the Arabs. In any case it may be taken for granted that both the architect and the builders of the new town were Copts, no Arab as yet possessing the requisite art and knowledge. The name Fustat, by which the town became known, is clearly a foreign word, and it is a source of perplexity to the Arab writers. They say generally that it means either a tent of leather or skin, such as ‘Amr is said to have used, or else an assembling ­place: one tradition even avers that every city is a fustat. But Yakut gives six ways of pronouncing the word, and its connexion with the tent of ‘Amr and the story of the dove’s nest has at least an element of truth. For the form Fussat takes us back at once to the Byzantine-Roman fossatum, which was in common use at the time of the conquest in the sense of camp. The Romans at Babylon naturally spoke of the place where 'Amr’s army encamped as the fossatum, and the Arabs learned the word from them. It is strange that this explanation should appear novel.

It is very unlikely that at first the town of Fustat was laid out on any large scale or with any idea of making it the Muslim capital  The troops in the fortress were too cramped for either health or pleasure, and it was not lawful or not desirable to dispossess the people of Misr of their houses. Con­sequently, as all fear of further war in this part of the country was removed, the Arabs could build outside the walls of Babylon quite unmolested. From small beginnings the town had a rapid growth when, a year later, Omar refused Amr permission to retain the seat of government at Alexandria. Fustat Misr—for it was called by the double name— soon spread over the whole area now occupied by the rubbish mounds south of Cairo, and became the recognized capital of Egypt. Outside the city of Fustat to the northward later arose the suburb of Al 'Askar, to which the central power was attracted. Further north again Al Katii' was founded by Ahmad ibn Tulun, and all the rulers of the Tulunide dynasty had their palaces in that quarter. After the Tulunides, Al Askar regained for a while its preeminence, until it was finally discrowned towards the end of the tenth century, in the time of the Fatimides, by the building of Misr al Kahirah—Misr the Victorious, or Cairo as it was called by the Venetians, who passed on the epithet instead of the name to Europe.

A little to the north of the ruined Roman fortress there stands to this day the venerable mosque of 'Amr—the oldest mosque in Egypt. It is a familiar object to travellers, and no description of it is here necessary. But it seems probable that the first foundation of the original mosque took place in this same winter of 641-2. The spot chosen was that on which 'Amr had set up his standard and which came to be called the Place of the Standard. It lay ’among orchards and vineyards close to the bank of the river, and it had been occupied by one Abu Abdarrahman Kaisabah ibn Kulthum, but at the request of 'Amr he surrendered it as a free gift for all the Muslims. A common place of worship was their first necessity; but the original mosque of Amr was a very simple building. Its dimensions were only fifty cubits by thirty: the roof was very  low: there was an open space in front of the mosque, but no courtyard, and a roadway round it: six doors gave access to the building. It soon proved too small for the congregation, who had to sit in rows in the open space. The kiblah is said to have been built by eight of the Prophet’s companions, chief among them being Zubair, Al Kaddad ibn al Aswad, and 'Ubadah ibn as Sfimit. It had a more direct orientation than the present kiblah. When the building was finished, a minbar or pulpit was placed in it, and from this 'Amr used to hold forth, until Omar rebuked him for exalting himself above the heads of his fellow believers, and ordered its destruction. The first additions to the mosque were made, c. 673 a.d. by Maslamah ibn Mukhallad, who made an extension on the north side, substituted mats for the pebble pavement, built a turret at each angle, added minarets, on which his own name was inscribed, and increased the number of muezzins, ordering them also to chant the call to prayer at daybreak instead of beaming the wooden gong as heretofore. About the year 696 Abd al' Aziz pulled down a portion of 'Amr’s mosque—or possibly only the extension—and rebuilt it: and somewhat later in 711 the Caliph Walid ibn 'Abd al Malik wrote to Kurrah ibn Sharik, the governor of Egypt, ordering him to pull down the whole of the mosque and rebuild it. It was then that the mosque took in the main the form which it still preserves, although several subsequent alterations are recorded.

Of the domestic architecture at Fusat some few details are known. The houses were chiefly of brick, and soon rose to a height of four or five stories. We must picture large irregular piles of building, with Roman columns used freely as supports, but possessing no merit of design and little ornament— precisely such buildings as may be seen, or might be seen twenty years ago, still standing in Rosetta. Some of these blocks at Fustat are said to have contained as many as two hundred people, and the ground floor was seldom inhabited. Kharijah ibn Hudadfah, the well-known lieutenant of 'Amr, is said to have been the first to have a balcony or loggia built: but Omar on hearing of it wrote to 'Amr that it could only be for the purpose of spying out the secrets of the neighbours, and that it must be taken down. Baths also were built at Fustat, but they were called at once Hammam al Fdr, or the Mouse Baths, owing to their ridiculous smallness in comparison with the splendid baths of the Romans.

Besides houses and baths and a mosque, a grave­yard was necessary. A curious legend is told that Cyrus, the Mukaukas, offered 'Amr 70,000 dinars for a plot of ground by the ravine at the foot of the Mukattam hills; and when he was pressed to give his reason for offering so large a sum, he replied that, according to the ancient writings, this was the Plantation of Paradise. Omar settled the matter by remarking that he knew of no Plantation of Paradise save the ground in which believers are buried. The request of Cyrus was refused: the ground was marked out as the Muslim burial-place : and in after years 'Amr himself and four other of the Prophet’s companions were there laid to rest.

The other great work which 'Amr seems now to have undertaken was the excavation of Trajan’s Canal This ancient waterway, which had left the Nile a little to the north of Babylon, and, passing by Heliopolis and the Wadi Tumilat to Al Kantarah, had joined the Red Sea at Kulzum, had silted up through long neglect under the Romans. It was of far more ancient date than the time of Trajan, who merely restored it to utility, as 'Amr proposed doing. Indeed, as Weil shows, part of it at least was laid out by Pharaoh Necho, who also pierced the Isthmus of Suez from sea to sea. In the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus II the canal was repaired and reinstated, but it was made to branch off the Nile at Phacusa instead of Bubastis. The date at which the waterway was cut from near Babylon to Bubastis is uncertain: but this channel was not wholly successful, being available for use only at high Nile; and for want of proper care it became unnavigable sometime after the second century of our era. The mere drift of the sand would soon choke up the bed, when once it was neglected: and it is alleged that the line of the waterway was so lost, that it had to be pointed out to 'Amr by a Copt, whose services were rewarded by exemption from tribute. On the other hand, the rapidity with which the excavation was accomplished must be taken to show that some sections of the course of ninety miles were still in fair order, although it is true that rapid results were accomplished by the vast gangs of natives, who were driven like slaves to the work and kept at it by taskmasters, according to the custom in vogue from time immemorial. The Arabs indeed seem to have applied this system of forced labour with exceptional rigour: insomuch that the Egyptian bishop is betrayed into very strong language: ‘The yoke they laid on the Egyptians was heavier than the yoke which had been laid on Israel by Pharaoh. God judged by a righteous judgement by drowning him in the Red Sea after He had sent many plagues both on men and cattle. When God’s judgement lights upon these Muslims, may He do unto them as He did aforetime unto Pharaoh!  Yet it would seem that this great severity was rather incidental to the period of conquest than a permanent characteristic of 'Amr’s government.

It is related that 'Amr contemplated excavating a branch canal from Lake Timsah northward to join the Mediterranean, so that the whole isthmus would be pierced as now by a waterway: but Omar forbade the design on the ground that the Romans would then be able to sail through into the Red Sea and stop the pilgrimages. This story deserves all credence.

But these works of peace did not altogether divert the Arab commander’s attention from military matters. Although the Treaty of Alexandria had practically completed the subjugation of the country, there were still a few towns in the north of the Delta, particularly on the sea-coast, which refused to be bound by it. Against these 'Amr was entitled to proceed even during the armistice; and there seems no doubt that he sent an expedition to reduce them in the spring of 642. The movements of the Arab army are, however, difficult to follow. On this phase of the conquest John of Nikiou sheds no light whatever; while the details given by the Arab writers, who are our only authorities, are hard to correlate or to understand.

It may, however, be conjectured that the army set out from Karitin and moved along the coast eastward. In what was known as the western Hauf there was a town called Ikhad, not far from Alexandria. Talama, the governor of Ikhad, had received from 'Amr a dispatch communicating the terms of peace agreed upon with Cyrus; but being dissatisfied, he is said to have sought an interview with 'Amr and inquired about the amount of the poll-tax. The Arab chief, irritated by the discussion, pointed to a neighbouring church and exclaimed, ‘If you filled that building with gold to the roof, I would not define the amount of the poll-tax. You are our treasury, and if you give us abundant supplies, we shall treat you liberally, but if we are in want, we shall make heavy demands upon you.’ Talamca naturally resented this language and decided not to surrender; and it was against Ikhna accordingly that the Muslims now marched. But the town was soon forced to capitulate : and, although it yielded under a written treaty, many prisoners were taken and sent to Omar at Medina. A like fate befell Balhib, which was a strong place a few miles south of Rosetta: and it was here apparently that 'Amr received Omar’s ratification of the Treaty of Alexandria. In the Caliph’s letter, which was read out before the troops, instructions were given that all prisoners who chose to adopt Islam should be set at liberty and received as brothers. The story is that a great number of the captives went over to the Muslim religion, their decision being hailed with shouts of triumph by the Arabs. But a sudden and wholesale conversion of this kind was certainly an unusual, if not an unparalleled event. If made, it was clearly made under the strongest pressure of worldly motive by men of easy convictions: probably, however, the story is greatly exaggerated.

In close connexion with Ikhna, treaties of peace are recorded as made with Kuzman (perhaps Cosmas), governor of Rosetta, and with John, governor of Baralus. From Baralus it would seem as if the Arab forces still followed the coast line till they came to Damietta. John, the governor, offered no further resistance to the Arabs, who now con­trolled all the outlets of the Nile. Khais, in the region called the Hauf near Damietta, was also reduced to submission: and it is probable that the whole country of the Delta was now subjugated with the exception of some towns which stood on islands in the vast but shallow waters of Lake Manzalah.

A century before the Arab conquest this region, now covered by flood, had been unrivalled in Egypt, save perhaps by the Fayum, for its climate, its fertility, and its wealth. Gardens, palm-groves, vineyards, and cornlands were watered by never-failing streams from the Nile, and flourished in great luxuriance. But the sea broke through the line of sandhills, which served as a rampart, and year by year encroached further, till it swamped all the low- lying land, leaving only a number of islands lifted above the flood. Tilth and villages were swept away, though a number of towns stood high enough to escape the devastation. Of these the most famous was Tinnis—a town of some magnitude and architectural beauty, with an enormous manufacture of the finest textiles. Other towns on the lake, like Tanah, Damirah and Dabik, boasted the skill of their weavers, but they could not compare with Tinnis, which ranked with Damietta and Shatfi for the richness and delicacy of its fabrics. Only at Tinnis and Damietta could the weavers produce a robe of pure linen worth ioo dinars (50 guineas): while Masudi records a garment made for the Caliph in a single seamless piece costing 1,000 dinars. This was woven, of gold thread with an extremely small admixture of fine linen. It is also on record that the trade of Tinnis with Irak alone amounted to between 20,000 and 30,000 dinars yearly before it was crushed by vexatious tariffs.

Tinnis stood on an island of considerable size, and was reached from the south by a channel called Bahr ar Rum, which may have been identical with the Tanitic branch of the river and ran to Salahiah. There was also easy and direct communication by water with Pelusium, or at least with Tinah its harbour. Even as late as the tenth century Tinnis is said to have possessed many ancient monu­ments, besides 160 mosques, each adorned with a lofty minaret, 72 churches, and 36 baths; and its fortified walls had 19 gates, all heavily plated with iron. From other islands the dead are said to have been ferried across the lake for burial at Tinnis, where they seem to have been embalmed. A century later the Persian traveller, Nasiri Khusrau, who visited Tinnis in 1047 a.d., is amazed at its prosperity. He speaks of 10,000 shops and 50,000 male inhabitants. A thousand vessels were moored at the island, which grew nothing, and depended on trade for all provisions. The rise of the Nile swept away the girdling flood of salt water, and filled the vast underground cisterns and reservoirs with sweet water enough to last for a year. The splendid coloured stuffs woven by the Copts were of more value than ever. In the Sultan’s looms fabrics were woven for him alone; a single turban cost 4,000 dinars; but these fabrics were never put on the market. The Roman Emperor offered a hundred cities in exchange for Tinnis, but was refused. Besides these royal textiles, a fabric was woven called bukalimun—a shot silk of lustre so fine that it was said to change colour every hour of the day. But the steel cutlery of Tinnis was almost as famous as the products of its looms; and altogether it was a place of curious interest and great im­portance.

There is a legend that the governor of Tinnis at the time of the conquest was a Christian Arab named Abu Tur, who went out at the head of an army of 20,000 Copts, Romans, and Arabs to fight the Muslims on their advance against Tinnis after the capture of Damietta. Several engagements  were fought before the Muslims were able to rout the Christian army and to capture its commander. The surrender of Tinnis followed: and after the division of the spoil the Muslim army moved on to Farama. Whatever proportion of truth and error this story may contain, two things are fairly certain— that Tinnis came under the Muslim dominion at this time, and that its industrial activities were not directly impaired by the conquest. Neither here indeed nor at Tanah, Bara, Dabik, or the other islands lost in the blue expanses of Lake Manzalah, was there anything to attract Muslim settlers, and it may safely be said that this region remained almost exclusively Christian for a long time subsequently. Its disappearance from history can be dated.

The island of Tinnis was much exposed to raids from the sea, though it was always strongly garrisoned, and in the year 1192 Saladin ordered its evacuation. A few years later, in 1227, Malik al Kamil had its forts and walls razed to the ground, and it became a mere heap of ruins.

There is another anecdote relating to the conquest of this region, which claims at least some notice. Makrizi in speaking of Shata describes it as a town which lies between Tinnis and Damietta, and which legend avers to be named from one Shata, son of Al Hamak, the uncle of the Mukaukas. This derivation is pure romance: but the story goes on to say that when the Arabs laid siege to Damietta and captured it, Shata, who was governor of the town, went out at the head of 2,000 men and declared his adherence to Ishim—a religion which he had long studied with interest. When he saw that the Arabs encountered prolonged resistance at Tinnis, Shata collected and armed a force from the towns of Baralus, Damirah, and Asaman-Tanah; then, joining his levies to the Arab reinforcements sent by 'Amr, he marched against the enemy. In a battle which followed Shata displayed brilliant valour, slaying with his own hand twelve of the foremost captains of Tinnis: but he fell in the thick of the combat and was buried outside the town, where, says Makrizi, ‘ his tomb is still shown, and is still frequented on the day of his death, 15th Shaban, by pilgrims from all the country round.

Now it would be easy to destroy nearly the whole of this story. The town of Shatii was so named long before the Arab conquest, when it was already famed for the fineness and splendour of its textiles. Moreover we know from John of Nikiou that the governor of Damietta at this time was not called Shata at all, but John. And lastly, the relationship of Shatai to Al Mukaukas is clearly apocryphal. But though the personality of Shata is legendary, there is one circumstance which redeems the story from fiction, and that is the date. For the Arab historian gives the day of the hero’s death as Friday, 15th Shaban, a.h. 21. This corresponds to July 19, 642, and the date is one that cannot be shaken. For in the first place, the year 642 is the year postulated by the whole course of this history; and in the next place July 19 in that year did in fact fall on a Friday. Such a double coincidence is very rare, but where it occurs the date must be absolutely authentic: and it is further confirmed by the fact of the yearly pilgrimage, lasting even to the time of Makrizi. It may therefore be taken as proved that a battle took place on the date in question close to Tinnis on the island, and that a Roman or Coptic general from Shatai. was slain after greatly distinguishing himself while fighting on the side of the Muslims.

This date is both interesting and important, because it shows to what a length of time resistance to the Saracens was protracted in the Delta, even after the surrender of Alexandria. And when it is remembered how intensely Coptic in sentiment were the people of Tinnis and all this region of the lake, it will not be denied that the record of the battle at this date gives one more shock to those twin time-honoured fallacies—that ‘Egypt fell almost without striking a blow’ and that ‘the Copts welcomed the Arabs as deliverers.’ The betrayal of Alexandria by Cyrus must have extinguished the last hope of triumph for the Christian cause in Egypt; and it is astonishing that nevertheless these isolated com­munities in the Delta should. have held out for nearly a year longer. It argues in them a stubborn courage and a devotion to their religion, for which history has too long refused them the due meed of honour.

CHAPTER XXIII. END OF THE ROMAN DOMINION

Long before the last embers of hostility were thus smothered in the Delta, the reduction of Upper Egypt, at least as far as the Thebaid, seems to have been completed by a separate Arab column finder Kharijah ibn Hudhafah. The Nile valley had been denuded of Roman troops, with very few exceptions, during the previous year, 641; and the scanty remnant of the imperial garrisons had neither spirit nor numbers left to dispute the Muslim claim to dominion. Hence there is no record of further fighting in that region, and it may be taken that the surrender of Upper. Egypt followed peaceably on the surrender of Alexandria.

Upon what passed in the capital itself during the remainder of the armistice, history is not altogether silent. The city, as we have seen, was crowded with refugees swept in from all parts of the country before the advancing tide of invasion. By the terms of the treaty Roman soldiers and settlers within the walls were free to leave by land or by sea; while no provision was made for the Egyptians. But as the refugees witnessed the constant departure of vessels bound for Cyprus, Rhodes, and Byzantium, they became restless, and pined to return to their villages. Consequently they approached Cyrus, whose influence with 'Amr was known to be potent, and begged of him to sue for the requisite permission. Apparently leave was refused. Nor is the failure of the Patriarch’s mission surprising, when one re­members that it must have taken place before March, and therefore some time before the actual cessation of hostilities in the Delta. As most of the refugees belonged to Lower Egypt, clearly there was danger of their carrying arms or aid to some of the still unconquered cities.

But Cyrus took the refusal deeply to heart. It was a direct check to that policy of winning favour with the Copts by which, it seemed, he now hoped to cancel something from the heavy reckoning of their resentment. He appears already to have despaired of retaining the ascendency over them which he had hoped to found on his alliance with the Muslim power. Gloomy presentiments overcast the mind of the Mukaukas, as he saw the end of the Roman sovereignty drawing nearer. All the news from Constantinople was against him. Martina and her sons had been put aside, or put to death, and Constans had been proclaimed sole Emperor by the end of November (641). Pyrrhus, who was on friendly terms with Cyrus, and had apparently been converted by Cyrus to the interests of Martina, had been banished, and Philagrius, the enemy of Cyrus, had been recalled. A second revolt by Valentine had failed owing to the hostility of the populace: but when Valentine was seized and brought before Constans on a charge of usurping the purple, the rebel swore the most solemn oath that he was guiltless of any such design, and that his only purpose in gathering an army was to fight the Muslims. Thereupon the Emperor, accepting these professions of loyalty, reinstated Valentine, and agreed to marry his daughter: and Valentine gave proof of his sincerity by striking wildly at all who could be imagined to favour Martina and Pyrrhus. Among the rest, he charged Arcadius, Archbishop of Cyprus, with treason, and sent a troop of soldiers to arrest him. Death, however, intervened, and released Arcadius from the summons.

But the incident revealed to Cyrus his own imminent danger. Arcadius was a man of the most blameless and saintly repute; yet he was to have been haled like a malefactor to Constantinople to take his trial. How then could Cyrus hope to stand, if arraigned on the same charge of treason ? His friendship for Martina and for Pyrrhus was notorious, as well as his guilt for the loss of Egypt. Moreover the court party had now realized what the loss of Egypt meant, and were furious with the man who had brought this evil and dishonour upon the Empire.

It is no wonder that, as message followed mes­sage telling of these events at Constantinople, the Archbishop sank into profound depression. Menaced by fear of exile or death at the Emperor’s bidding, which was still law in Alexandria; baffled in his plans for conjuring away the memory of the per­secution and making friends of the Copts; his Church policy for ever discredited; and his state­craft rendered for ever infamous by its very triumph —Cyrus was now a broken man in mind and body. All his dreams of ambition had dissolved: his very hopes of personal safety were gone. As he felt the shadows closing round his life, his conscience awoke to a sense of his crimes as well as his failures. Torn by unavailing remorse, he deplored his betrayal of Egypt with ceaseless tears. So plunged in gloom and despondency he fell an easy victim to a dysentery, which seized him on Palm Sunday, and on the following Thursday, March 21, 642, he died.

It is quite clear that Cyrus died a natural death, and that his end was hastened by the misery and ignominy into which he had fallen. Of the two passages in which his death is recorded by John of Nikiou, the first says that ‘overwhelmed with sorrows, he was taken ill of a dysentery and died,’ the other says that ‘he wept unceasingly, fearing lest he should suffer the same fate that had befallen him previously, i. e. exile: and in the midst of this grief he died according to the law of nature.’ But in the one case it is stated that he was afflicted by the calamities which had come upon Egypt and the brutal treatment of the Egyptians by the Arabs, while in the other we are told that his chief sorrow was the refusal of his intercession on behalf of the Egyptians. There is no reason to doubt this account of his end, although a Coptic tradition as old as Severus gives a somewhat different version. ‘When 'Amr took Alexandria,’ it runs, ‘and settled the affairs of the city, the misbelieving governor, who was both Prefect and Patriarch of Alexandria, feared that 'Amr would put him to death. Accordingly the misbeliever touched a poisoned signet-ring with his tongue, and so perished on the spot.’ It was not so much 'Amr as the Roman Emperor whom Al Mukaukas feared: but the fact of his terror, and the fact that it hastened his death, are both curiously preserved in this dramatic legend.

One other point in connexion with the story of Cyrus’ death calls for notice. We have already seen that 'Amr treated the Egyptians during the conquest with great harshness, and that the Coptic historian’s wrath is roused against him for the severity of the tasks laid on his countrymen. So here, in speaking of the Patriarch’s last days, John says, “Amr had no mercy upon the Egyptians, and he failed to observe the treaty they had made with him: for he was of barbarian race.’ In another passage he enters into more detail, and records that a man named Menas, who had been nominated Prefect of Lower Egypt by Heraclius, was continued in office by the Arabs. Menas was a presumptuous man, unlettered, and a deep hater of the Egyptians. Similarly one Sinode, or Sanutius, was continued as Prefect of the Rif, and one Philoxenus as Prefect of Arcadia, or the Fayum. All three of these men are described as loving the heathen and hating the Christians, upon whom they laid grievous burdens. The Copts were forced to carry fodder for the cattle of the Arabs, and to provide them with milk, honey, fruit, vegetables, and other things in great abundance over and above the ordinary rations, i. e. the taxes in kind : and these orders the Copts executed under the stroke of incessant terror.

This account is highly interesting for two reasons. The three Prefects named—the most important in Egypt save the Prefect of Alexandria—were not only Roman officials, but Roman officials under the governorship of Cyrus, and therefore Melkites, without any religious or political sympathy with the Copts : and this is a proof that, so far from the converts to Islam coming exclusively from the Copts, some at least of the most influential of the renegades were from among the Romans. One almost begins to wonder whether the conduct of Al Mukaukas himself could not be explained on the theory that he was a secret convert to the religion of Mohammed. The second point is this. It is now established that 'Amr treated the Copts, both before and after the surrender of Alexandria, with the sternest rigour. But if so, how is it possible to maintain that, in the hackneyed phrase, the Copts welcomed the Arabs with open arms? Such a theory might be demolished from this passage alone in John of Nikiou: and those Arab writers, of much later date, who seem to countenance it, must be held either to convict themselves of error or to convict their hero 'Amr of the blackest ingratitude. But the closer one examines the history of this period the clearer it becomes that Cyrus was not alone in his treason to the Empire. The ease with which these three great Roman officials ransomed their office by the transfer of their political and their religious allegiance to Islam, and the manner in which they used their new lease of power to strike at the faith and the fortunes of the Copts—these things prove beyond cavil that there was a wider conspiracy against the Empire among the Romans, and that the conspirators were as hostile to the Copts as they were benevolent to the Arabs.

Little remains to be told of the six months in Alexandria between the death of Cyrus and the entry of the Arab forces. Indeed, the only event of which we have any certain knowledge is the appointment of the successor of Cyrus in the Melkite patriarchate. This did not take place till some three months later, when, on July 14 the festival of St. Theodore, the deacon Peter was duly clothed with the pallium and seated on the throne left vacant by the last of the imperial Patriarchs of Alexandria. The delay may have been caused by reference to Constantinople, or by the difficulty of finding a candidate for an office which was henceforth to be sundered from the hierarchy of the Empire, and therefore to be held on a most precarious tenure. For all hope of aid from Byzantium had now finally vanished. The boasted army of Valentine proved utterly powerless to attempt the recovery of Egypt, although the people there were already beginning to discover how idle were their dreams of a settled government with fixed taxation. The whole country is described as suffering oppression at the hands of the Muslims; but the burden fell most heavily upon the city of Alexandria. There the interruption of the traffic which had enriched the people, and also the departure of those wealthy nobles and merchants who had resolved to abandon their home in Egypt, made the incidence of the new taxation very severe upon those that remained. In spite of the smooth phrases of Cyrus, they were feeling now the bitterness of subjection to the enemies of their country and their religion.

Depression and melancholy hung over the city during the last few weeks of the armistice. Already many of the houses were left empty, and the bustle of departure from the quays grew less, as vessel after vessel, laden with retiring Romans and their goods and chattels, sailed northwards to return no more. But a great fleet was gathering in the harbour to remove the remaining legions of the imperial army. Theodore, who was appointed governor of Egypt on the death of Cyrus, and Constantine, who succeeded him as commander-in-chief, seem to have personally undertaken the mission of arranging for the withdrawal of the Roman forces throughout the Delta, acting in concert with the Arabs. The Nile was now rising high, and all the waterways were available for transport. This accordingly was the season agreed upon for the evacuation, and with its arrival the remnant of the Roman garrisons embarked in boats under Theodore and Constantine, and passed down to Alexandria. At the same time the hostages held at Babylon by the Arabs were released, or at least escorted down the river to join their comrades in the capital.

Once more the Feast of the Cross had come round. By a strange irony that festival of September 14, which a year ago was marked by the arrival of the traitor Archbishop, Al Mukaukas, was now marked by the final act in the downfall of the Christian dominion in Egypt. Even as the Exaltation Service was sounding in the Cathedral, the last touches were being given to the vessels in harbour and the last orders for embarkation were issued. And three days later. on September 17, Theodore’s fleet, bearing the mournful residue of the imperial army, cast off its moorings and set sail for Cyprus.

 Only a few days now remained for the wretched inhabitants to set their house in order. On September 29 the eleven months of the armistice expired : the great gates were flung open: and 'Amr at the head of his rude desert warriors marched in past the long lines of gleaming colonnade and the stately palaces of the great city of Alexandria. So the Roman Empire in Egypt ended.

CHAPTER XXIV. ALEXANDRIA AT THE CONQUEST

‘I have taken a city of which I can but say that it contains 4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 400 theatres, 12,000 sellers of green vegetables, and 40,000 tribu­tary Jews.’ Such is the current form of the well- known letter¹ of 'Amr reporting his capture to the Caliph. While these round numbers contain an obvious overstatement, which was probably not in the original letter but has arisen from copyists’ errors they show clearly enough what an impression the city made upon its conquerors. But amazed as they were at the size and splendour of Alexandria, they were even more struck by its extraordinary brilliancy. ‘Alexandria is a city containing much marble in pavements, buildings, and columns,’ says one writer.  ‘The city was all white and bright by night as well as by day,’ says another: and again, ‘By reason of the walls and pavements of white marble, the people used all to wear black or red garments: it was the glare of the marble which made the monks wear black. So too it was painful to go out by night: for the moonlight reflected from the white marble made the city so bright that a tailor could see to thread his needle without a lamp. No one entered the city without a covering over his eyes to veil him from the glare of the plaster and marble.’ Yet a third Arab writer, of the tenth century, alleges that awnings of green silk were hung over the streets to relieve the dazzling glare of the marble.

All the streets were colonnaded, according to the same author. This certainly was true.of the two great avenues which, as we have seen, intersected the city. One of these ran from east to west, joining the Sun Gate to the Moon Gate, while the other  ran from north to south: they met and crossed in a large open space enclosing gardens and surrounded by fine buildings. Beautiful gardens too belonged to many of the palaces in the middle of the city Suyftti, apparently quoting from Ibn ‘Abd al Hakam, writes that ‘Alexandria was composed of three cities side by side, each with its own wall, and the whole encircled by another wall.’ This must refer to the Egyptian quarter, the Roman quarter, and the Jews’ quarter: but its accuracy is perhaps doubtful. 'Abd­allah ibn Zarif alleges that there were seven forts and seven moats, and the Fort of the Persians wais certainly regarded as one of the wonders of Alexandria.

Nor were the Arabs less amazed at the buildings than at the substructure of the city—that marvellous subterranean labyrinth of cisterns, many descending to a depth .of four or five stories, and each story showing a forest of columns and chambers. ‘ Alexandria is a city upon a city: there is nothing like it on earth,’ exclaims Suyftti, ‘so full is it of columns loftier and larger than any to be seen elsewhere.’ These underground chambers were for the storage of fresh water. They were fed by conduits running from the Nile canal, which passed through the city in the Egyptian quarter; and being filled at flood­time they held enough water to last the whole year through.

In former times the most splendid part of the city was that called the Bruchion, which was bounded on the north by the harbour and on the south by the great avenue running from the Sun Gate to the central garden. The destruction wrought in this, quarter by Aurelian was no doubt great, but probably it has been exaggerated: and it is unlikely that the ruin would have been left unrepaired. Here in any case had stood the palaces of the Ptolemies: here also had been the Mausoleum, where Alexander’s body rested in its golden shell, and the Museum with its marvellous libraries, the centre of the learn­ing of the world. In the same quarter towards the east was still to be seen the Tetrapylus, an open temple or pavilion with four rows of columns about it. Here Alexander was said to have laid the bones of Jeremiah the Prophet, and the place was held in great veneration. Close by the Tetrapylus was the church of St. Mary Dorothea, built by Eulogius, and further east, near the walls and near the shore, the great church of St. Mark was still standing and within it the marble shrine containing the bones of the Apostle himself. ‘Coming from Egypt as one enters the city,’ says Arculfus, ‘one meets on the north side a large church, in which Mark the Evangelist is buried. His sepulchre is shown before the altar in the east end ... and a monument to him has been built of marble above it.’ In the same part of the town were the churches of St. Theodore and St. Athanasius.

But more renowned in the seventh century even than St. Mark’s was the church called the Caesarion, which stood in the same quarter toward the middle of the bend of the great harbour. This church had almost usurped the place of the Cathedral. Its vast fabric, with the two ancient Egyptian obelisks standing in its fore-court, towered above the city walls, and was the most conspicuous object in the near foreground of the view. just as the acropolis with the Serapeum and Diocletian’s Column was in the background, as the traveller entered the harbour by the Pharos. The Caesarion had originally been a heathen temple. It was begun by Cleopatra in honour of Caesar, and was finished by Augustus. The description given by Philo is worth quoting:— ‘That temple of Caesar’s in Alexandria under the name of Sebastian (Augustus) is a piece incomparably above all others. It stands situate over against a most commodious harbour; wonderful, high, and large in proportion; an eminent sea­mark ; full of choice paintings and' statues, with donatives and oblations in abundance; and then it is beautiful all over with gold and silver; the model curious and regular in the disposition of the parts, as galleries, libraries, porches, courts, halls, walks and consecrated groves, as glorious as expense and art could make them, and everything in the proper place; beside that the hope and comfort of sea­faring men, either coming in or going out.’

This ‘superb palace,’ as John of Nikiou terms it, was changed by Constantine the Great into a Christian church and dedicated to St. Michael, but at the date of the conquest it still retained its old name, Caesarion. It was about 350 a. d. that it became the patriarchal church or Cathedral. But in 366, in the days of Athanasius, a furious crowd of pagans and Arians met in the great open space before the church, and rushing in they burned the altar, the throne, carpets, veils, and all they could lay hands upon. If any books remained from the libraries mentioned by Philo, they must then have perished; but the church was restored in 368. Readers of Hypatia will remember that it was in the Caesarion, some fifty years later, that the maiden philosopher was torn to pieces by a mob of Christian  fanatics in an orgie truly worthy of the ancient temple of Saturn. It was in the baptistery of the Caesarion that Timothy Aelurus took refuge nearly half a century later, only to be dragged out and sent into exile; and when after twenty years of banish­ment Timothy landed again at Alexandria ‘he was received with great state, with torches and songs of praise, by the various people and lan­guages there,’ and escorted in triumph to the same Caesarion.

There is no description of the interior of the Caesarion remaining; but it may be taken for granted that it was of the basilican type, and retained its splendid embellishment. The last great scene of pomp under the Caesars was the service of rejoicing for the return of Cyrus, whose sermon must have rung strangely in the memories of those who now watched the entry of 'Amr’s army. But the church did not long outlast the conquest. Yet its name in the Arab form, Kaisariah, given first to some kind of palace or public building, survives today, though with a changed meaning.

The two obelisks of red Aswan granite, which stood before the Caesarion, excited the curiosity and wonder of the Arabs, and their historians have many particulars about them, Thus Yakubi (ninth cen­tury) says, ‘There are two obelisks of variegated stone standing on two brazen crabs with ancient inscriptions’; and I bn Rustah (early tenth century) in much the same manner speaks of ‘ two monuments like lighthouses (manarah), square, and standing on two figures of scorpions, made of copper or brass, on which are inscriptions. It is also reported that the figure of the scorpion was melted by a fire kindled beneath it, and that the monuments fell.’ His contemporary, Ibn al Fakih, discloses already the beginnings of a strange confusion between these obelisks and the great lighthouse or Pharos, which the Arabs called Al Manarah. For he says, ‘The manarah of Alexandria stands on a crab of glass in the sea’; and again, ‘ it has two pillars standing on two images, one of brass and one of glass, the brazen image in the form of a scorpion and the glass image in the form of a crab.’ By Masudi’s time the legend had crystallized into one of those fairy tales in which the imagination of the Arabs delighted. He says: ‘The lighthouse was built on a foundation of glass in the form of a crab, on a tongue of land projecting into the sea. On the top of the light­house were images of brass. One figure pointed with its right hand to the sun, wherever it might be in the heavens, and lowered its hand as the sun sank; another pointed to the sea in the direction from which an enemy was approaching, and as the enemy drew near, it cried out in a terrible voice, which could be heard two or three miles away, and so alarmed the inhabitants’.

Of course the Pharos was an entirely distinct monument—a solid structure of stone towering an immense height into the air—and it is ludicrous to imagine that its wide and vast foundations could rest on a crab of crystal. Nevertheless it is exceedingly interesting to trace the origin of this seemingly idle legend. For it comes from a mere misunderstanding of historical fact most accurately reported by the earliest Arab chroniclers. There is no doubt what­ever that, at the time of 'Amr s entry into Alexan­dria, the two obelisks in front of the Caesarion stood on crabs as described. This was proved at the time of the removal of the obelisk which is now at New York. It was found that the monolith rested on four gigantic crabs of metal, which held it clear of the pedestal. The pedestal was formed of a single block of granite, which rested in turn on three graduated courses of stone. At the time of the excavation—for the base had been buried for centuries—only one of the four crabs was discovered, and that in a mutilated condition; but the design and purpose of the crab were unmistakable, an inscription in Greek and in Latin upon the metal was still legible, and the truth of the Arab historians was vindicated. This is a striking example of the way in which archaeology sometimes comes to the rescue of history.

But, it will be said, what becomes of the crabs or scorpions of glass under the other monolith ? Is this a mere romantic fancy? No answer could be more illogical. Given two closely related statements, one of which is proved to be pure truth—to be indeed a statement of singular exactitude—to argue that the other is pure invention would be something like a wanton defiance of history. Nor is one forced to choose between defying the laws of history and defying the laws of natural science. Of course it may be the case that no monolith the size of Cleopa­tra’s Needle could rest on crabs of glass of modern make, nor could crystal have been found in blocks of size adequate for the purpose. But there is a mineral of extreme hardness and polish, viz. black obsidian, which so resembles glass that it is defined as natural glass. The crabs under the second  obelisk—that now in London—may have been formed of black obsidian; or, if this be impossible, then some other hard and highly polished stone was employed. Or finally, rather than discredit the Arab writers in a matter wherein their truth shines out clearly, one may accept their statement quite literally. That the Egyptians had not merely great skill but great secrets in the making of glass is undoubted; and it may well be that they were able to produce a ma­terial so toughened as to withstand the pressure of the monolith. One may note at the same time that the obelisk of London did actually fall long before its fellow.

We now see the two great monuments reared above their storied bases before the Caesarion, one held up on four crabs of copper or bronze, the other on four scorpions of toughened glass or obsidian. And, when we dispel the confusion between these obelisks and the Pharos, it is clear that the brazen images recorded by Makrizi stood not on the top of the Pharos, where they would have been almost invisible, but on the top of the obelisks. The figure ‘pointing to the sun’ was undoubtedly a winged Hermes or Nike, probably standing on one foot upon the cap of the column and stretching forth its right hand in an attitude familiar enough in Greek sculpture; while the other figure, ‘ pointing to the sea,’ was designed with a view to symmetry. Exceedingly splendid must have been the appearance of these ancient monoliths in the setting devised by the taste and skill of the Augustan age, and very impressive the view of their lofty summits, as seen from the ships passing in and out of the harbour.

Of the Museum itself there is practically no record  remaining at this time, and it must be taken to have perished long before—possibly in the conflagration caused by Julius Caesar when he was besieged in this quarter by the Egyptians under Achillas, possibly in later wars or in the convulsions of dying paganism.

But it is time to pass on to the Serapeum—a group of buildings of great beauty, and one which greatly struck the Arabs. It stood of course in a different part of the city, in a position now marked by Diocletian’s Pillar. This quarter was known as the Egyptian quarter, and never lost its original name of Rakoti: indeed to the Copts Alexandria was always known less by the name of its great founder than by that of the fishing-village which existed for ages before Alexander—a curious instance of their time­ defying conservatism. The site of the Serapeum is fixed precisely both by ancient written documents and by recent antiquarian researches. It is usually named in close connexion with Diocletian’s Pillar, which the Arabs called 'Amud as Saw art—Pillar of Columns— and this was near the southern gate of the city called by the Arabs the Gate of the Tree. It is not generally understood, and the present levels of Alexandria make it very difficult to realize, that the Serapeum was built on a veritable acropolis, rivalling that of Athens. This citadel, however, while it towered above the city, was mainly artificial. For although there was a core of natural rock in the middle of the site, the vast mass of the acropolis had been reared by the hand of man, the lofty outer walls enclosing vaulted substructures which rose story above story. Thus a huge quadrangular fort­ress was formed, with a broad level summit, adorned with magnificent buildings. There seem to have been two ways of access; one by a carriage road, the other by a long flight of one hundred steps, though it is not easy to see the use of the latter. The staircase lay on the eastern side of the acropolis. At the top of the long flight of stairs one entered the propylaeum, which was upheld by four enormous columns, two on each side of the passage ; the passage was closed by gates or grills of bronze.

The general arrangement of the buildings on the summit is not easy to understand from the descriptions which remain: but it seems to have been as follows. The space was oblong—some 500 cubits in length and 250 in breadth. On the edge of the plateau on every side stood a range of handsome and lofty buildings, connected in various ways with the service of the temple. All round the great quadrangle enclosed by these buildings ran a broad colonnade; while four other colonnades were built out at right angles, one from the centre of each side. Thus the outer colonnade with the others formed roughly the design of a cross set in an oblong. But the centre of the whole quadrangle and of the whole acropolis had been occupied by the temple of Serapis. This temple unfortunately had long been overthrown when the Arabs entered Alexandria: but there is no doubt that it was a building of sur­passing beauty and grandeur. The main fabric was oblong: it enclosed a central hall. upheld by great columns of most precious marble, and its walls were of marble, within and without. In the midst of the hall stood a colossal chryselephantine statue of Serapis, whose outspread arms nearly touched the wall on either side, the left hand bearing a sceptre, while under the right hand of the deity was a monstrous image of Cerberus, round whose triple head of lion, dog and wolf coiled the folds of a huge python. The whole chamber was embellished with priceless works of sculpture in marble and bronze, among which a series repre­senting the combats of Perseus was conspicuous. Adjoining the temple walls, and running round them, was a magnificent colonnade, which thus stood parallel with the outer colonnade, and was joined on to it by the four cross colonnades above mentioned. But those porticoes which girt the temple were of exceptional splendour. The capitals of the columns were made of bronze overlaid with gold; the ceilings were covered with gold or brilliant colours; and walls and floors were of costliest marble.

But, above all, it was from these temple cloisters that doors opened into those bays or chambers of the main fabric, some of which contained the great library of Alexandria, while others had served as shrines for the ancient divinities of Egypt. Somewhere in the temple precincts had stood two antique obelisks; there had also been a marble fountain of great size and beauty; and at whatever time the great column, familiarly known as Diocletian’s Pillar, was erected, it is certain that at the time of the Arab conquest it towered above the citadel. One part of the Serapeum was occupied by a church dedicated to St. John the Baptist. Among other churches, which were also standing in the citadel, are named that of SS. Cosmas and Damian, and the Angelion. The latter survived the conquest, and being in danger of falling was splendidly reinstated towards the end of the seventh century by the Patriarch Isaac.

One other building remains to be noticed. Ad­joining the propylaeum, and forming part of it, was the Oecus or House, distinguished from the other buildings of the acropolis by a lofty golden dome, which rested on a double ring of columns. Its purpose is not clear, and it may have been merely ornamental; but it seems to have survived the destruction of the temple, and is noticed in Arab chronicles with the 'Amdd as Sawdri. Strange stories are told of the latter. It was part of a temple built by Solomon, according to the general opinion. Ibn al Fakih says that if a man threw a bit of pottery or glass against it with the words ‘ By Solomon, son of David, break in pieces,’ then it broke; but without the talisman it broke not. Another legend was that if a man closed his eyes and walked towards the pillar, he always failed to reach it: and Suyati naively records that he proved the truth of this himself by several trials. The same writer quotes ‘the learned men of Alexandria’ as saying that upon the pillar was a cupola under which Aristotle sat to study astronomy—a reminiscence of the dome and the library. Makrizi’s account of the Serapeum, quoted from Mas'ftdi, is truthful enough: ‘There was in Alexandria a great palace without equal on earth, standing on a large mound opposite the gate of the city. It was 500 cubits long and 250 broad, with a huge massive gateway, each pier of which was a monolith and the lintel a monolith. In the palace were about 100 pillars, and in front of it a great pillar, of unheard-of size, surmounted by a capital.’ Yet the same writer alleges that the pillar rocks in a wind. All these extraordinary buildings were supposed to have been raised by genii' or giants of old. ‘The jinn built an assembly hall for Solomon at Alexandria with 300 columns, each 30 cubits high, of variegated marble polished like mirrors, so that a man could see in them who was walking behind him. In the midst of the hall was a pillar 111 cubits high. The roof was a single block of green marble, square, hewn by the jinn.’ These jinn were men whose heads resembled great domes, and whose eye would rend a lion. Another explanation, however, is that in ancient days the stones were as soft as clay, or, as another writer puts it, ‘In the marble quarries it was easy to work before midday, for the marble was as soft as paste; but in the afternoon it became hard and intractable.’

These tales record the astonishment of the Arabs at the buildings which now passed into their posses­sion. It is melancholy to trace the record of their destruction, though only fair to say that much of it was due to earthquakes. By the eleventh century the city was all in ruins, though strangely enough the many columns, which some writers make 500 in  number, are all described as standing. A hundred years later Idrisi saw them still: round the great pillar was a court with sixteen columns on each of the shorter sides and sixty-seven on each of the longer. Benjamin of Tudela in 1160 saw ‘a large and beautiful building with columns of marble dividing the various halls in what he calls the ‘school of Aristotle,’ just as the Muslim writers call it the ‘porch of Aristotle’ or the ‘house of wisdom.’ But in 1167 a wretched governor of Alexandria, named Karaja, the vizier of Saladin, had all these columns broken down and most of them taken to the seashore, where they were thrown into the sea to render an enemy’s landing more difficult. And from that day to this Diocletian’s Pillar has risen in solitary grandeur as the one remnant of that match­less group of buildings which stood on the acropolis of Alexandria.

Reserving for the moment the question of the fate which befell the great library, one may pass on to notice one or two other monuments. The amphitheatre, which the Arabs mention, seems to have been one which lay to the west of the citadel, although there certainly was a hippodrome also outside the eastern gate of the city. This amphitheatre, they say, held a million spectators, so arranged that one and all, from the highest tier of seats to the lowest, could see all that went on and hear every word uttered without any crushing or inconvenience. The theatre, which stood some­where in the Bruchion, was a distinct and a magnifi­cent building.

But it was on the Pharos that the Arabs lavished their greatest wonder and admiration. This colossal lighthouse-tower stood, as is well known, at the north-east corner of the island of Pharos, which was linked to the mainland city by a long causeway on arches called the Heptastadium. At the time of the conquest the island was fringed by quays and occupied by various buildings, conspicuous among which stood the two churches of St. Sophia and St. Faustus and the guest-house which lay between them. In Caesar’s time the island had been occu­pied by a large village, the people of which were lawless freebooters. The lighthouse itself he calls a marvellous piece of architecture. Strabo de­scribes it as a tower wonderfully constructed of white stone in several stories. It was built by Sostratus of Cnidus in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus as a guide for mariners, and though it had suffered from the action of the sea and other causes, yet it had always been strengthened as need arose, and at the time of the Arab conquest it was in full working order and flashed the sun by day and its own fire by night for many leagues over the sea. The coast was low and harbourless: moreover vessels coming to Alexandria had to cross a wide space of open sea out of sight of all land : so that it was an enormous advantage to have this conspicuous landmark visible by day and by night at a distance of sixty or seventy miles.

Many remarks on the Pharos may be found in the Arab writers. Istakhri says, ‘The manarah, founded on a rock in the sea, contains more than 300 rooms, among which the visitor cannot find his way without a guide.’ Ibn Haukal adds that it ‘was built of hewn stones fitted together and fastened with lead: there is nothing like it on earth,’ and the same style of construction is recorded by Idrisi more fully. ‘The lighthouse,’ he says, ‘is unparalleled in all the world for its architecture and strength of structure. It is built of the hardest Tiburtine stone, bedded in molten lead, and so firmly set that the joints cannot be loosened. On the north side the sea washes against it. Its height is 300 cubits, taking three palms to the cubit, and so its length is 100 statures of man. From the ground to the middle story are 70 statures, from the middle to the top 26, and the lantern on top is 4 statures.’ There is no doubt about the general design of the tower. It was built in four stories, each less in diameter than the one below. The lowest, or ground story, was square on plan; the next was octagonal; the third circular; and the topmost was an open lantern containing fireplaces for the beacons and a wonderful mirror. On the top of the square and at the foot of the octagonal section was a broad terrace commanding a wide view of city and sea, and a smaller terrace of the same kind marked the division between the octagonal and the circular section. The ascent was by a wide stai case roofed over with slabs spanning the space between the walls; and under the stairs were chambers. After the second story the staircase narrowed so as to fill the whole of the interior, save for a shaft like a well in the centre: it was lighted by small windows from top to bottom.

The number of the rooms and the intricacy of the interior made a great impression on the Arabs. ‘It is said that whoever entered this lighthouse became distracted and lost his way, by reason of the number of chambers and stories and corridors which it contained. ... So it is reported that when the Moors arrived at Alexandria in the caliphate of Al Muktadir with an army, a body of them entered the lighthouse on horseback and lost their way, till they came upon a crevice in the crab of glass upon which the structure was founded; and many of them fell through it and perished’. But even more marvellous stories are told about the mirror, which all the Arab writers agree in regarding, quite apart from the lighthouse on which it stood, as one of the wonders of the world. In the ancient Egyptian city of Rakoti there is said to have been a dome on pillars of brass, all gilded, and above this dome rose a lighthouse, on which was a mirror of composite metal, five spans in diameter. This mirror was used as a burning-glass to destroy the ships of an enemy. It was in imitation of this that in Alexander’s city the mirror was erected on the summit of the Pharos: but its purpose was rather to reveal a distant enemy ‘coming from the land of the Romans.’ This was soon exaggerated : and Abdallah, son of 'Amr, is quoted as saying, ‘ One of the wonders of the world is the mirror hanging in the manarah at Alexandria, which shows what is passing at Constantinople.’ But Masudi describes it as ‘a large mirror of transparent stone, in which ships could be seen coming from Rum at too great a distance for the eye to detect them’: while another  writer, in substantial agreement, alleges that the mirror was made of ‘finely wrought glass,’ and a third gives the material as ‘Chinese iron’ or polished steel. All say that it showed vessels at sea far beyond the range of common vision: a man sitting under the mirror could see all the way to Constantinople.

What was the purpose of this mirror? Was it a mere reflector to flash the sun-rays by day and the beacon-light by night? and was it an ordinary mirror, or had it a complex refracting surface, so that it might really serve as a burning-glass under the intense heat of the sun in Egypt? These are questions for men of science: but it is at least curious that, as early as the tenth century of our era, the Arab writers in their account of this mirror should anticipate the use of the telescope. It is also curious that different writers should describe the mirror as made of some transparent material— ‘ finely wrought glass ’ and ‘ transparent stone ’: for these terms suggest a lens rather than a mirror. Is it conceivable that the great Alexandrian school of mathematics and mechanics discovered and con­structed the lens, and that their discovery was lost and forgotten in the destruction of the Pharos?

That the Pharos was used as a signal-station as well as lighthouse is certain: but it is not quite clear whether the fire was kept up day and night. Idrisi speaks of a fire by night and ‘a cloud of smoke by day’: but another account represents the lighthouse keepers as living in the building and ready always to light the beacon by night. Unfortunately no evidence of the original practice is obtainable: for the Pharos suffered serious injury within a century of the conquest. The story is that in the caliphate of Al Walid ibn 'Abd al Malik, i. e. early eighth century, the Romans were so annoyed at the advantage which the Pharos gave to the Muslims as a watch-tower against sea-raids and surprises, that they resolved to destroy it by stratagem. Accordingly one of the courtiers of the Emperor went with rich presents to the Caliph, and feigning to have incurred the Emperor’s mortal enmity, professed his desire to become a Muslim. He was believed and welcomed to Islam, and to the friendship of Al Walid, whose imagination he fired with stories of buried treasure in Syria. This was duly discovered; and the Caliph, becoming greedy of wealth, listened eagerly to the report of the wily Roman, that a vast store of gold and jewels, which had belonged to the ancient kings of Egypt, was buried in vaults and chambers beneath the Pharos, ao the Caliph sent troops to conduct the search, and they pulled down half of the lighthouse tower, removing the mirror, before the plot was suspected. Then the people resolved to stop the work of destruction, and to send a report to the Caliph: whereupon the traitor fled by night to his own country. But of course the mischief was done: one half, or at least a third part, of the tower had been thrown down: and the traitor had accomplished his purpose by destroying the magic mirror. Too late the Arabs saw that they had been duped: ‘they rebuilt the manarah of brick, but could not raise it to its former height; and so, when they replaced the mirror, it was useless’.

There is no reason to question the substantial truth of this story: nor is it surprising that the damage proved irreparable. The Pharos must indeed have been a miracle of construction to stand secure for centuries, while towering in the air to that astonishing height; and the builders under the Arab dominion could not hope to rival the architecture of the Ptolemies. Indeed Masudi seems to deny that there was any attempt at restoration, though in this he is probably mistaken. Little is known of the subsequent history of the Pharos. Alimad ibn Tulun  built a wooden cupola on its summit c. 875 a.d.—a statement which seems to show that the building was no longer used as a lighthouse, but merely as a watch-tower. This cupola did not last very long; and when it was swept away by the winds, a small mosque was built in place of it under Al Malik al Kamil. A few years after Ibn Tulun one of the piers on the western side, where the sea washed the walls, was found to be ruined, and was rebuilt by Khamarawaih. In the next century, on the 10th day of Ramadan, a.h. 344 (December 28, 955 a.d.), about thirty cubits of the top were thrown down by a severe earthquake, which was felt all over Egypt, Syria, and North Africa, in a series of fierce shocks lasting half an hour. In 1182 another mosque on the summit is recorded by Ibn Jubair, who gives the height of the tower as ‘above 150 cubits,’ showing how it had diminished from its original stature: and Yakut, writing perhaps forty years later, actually gives a diagram showing ‘a square building like a fort,’ with a shortened second story, and a small cupola above it. Upon this he rather hastily argues that all accounts of the vast size of the Pharos are ‘shameless lies.’ But he hardly seems aware of the great changes which time had wrought. ‘I sought the place of the mirror and found no trace of it,’ he remarks; as if he expected to find it on the reduced and mutilated building, which was all that remained at the date of his visit. But even greater destruction followed. In the time of Kalaun the Pharos is already described by an Arab writer as a ‘shapeless ruin,’ in spite of some repairs carried out by the Sultan Baibars: and though there was some subsequent attempt at restoration, the earthquake of 1375 seems to have demolished all but the lowest story of the tower

But if the Pharos has long vanished, the tradition of its grace, and even of its use, has been preserved in the Egyptian minaret, to which it gave the name and to which it served as model. Though the mediaeval minarets of Cairo vary in combination of design, in many of them one may see an exact reproduction of the design of Sostratus, which was a tower springing four-square from the ground, then changing to a smaller octagonal and from the octagonal to a still smaller circular shaft, and crowned on the top with a lantern.

No antiquarian history of Alexandria has yet been written; and much research, of a kind now in many places impossible, would be needed to provide materials for it and to settle points at issue. But even a rough sketch like the present, wanting as it is, may serve to give some idea of what met the eyes of the Arabs as they entered the city. Nor was the view from without less imposing. The northern walls followed the curving shore, as we have seen, while the southern walls rested on the canal, till it entered and flowed through the city; and all round on every side they were built with such strength and skill, and so varied by towers and  bastions, that their architecture roused the enthusiasm of travellers far into the Middle Ages.

CHAPTER XXV. THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

Whether the Arabs upon the capture of the city burned or did not burn the great Library of Alexandria is a question which has long been keenly debated: but inasmuch as learned opinions still differ, and the problem remains unsolved, it cannot be left unexamined in a work professing to deal with the conquest.

The story as it stands in Abul Faraj is well known, and runs as follows. There was at this time a man, who won high renown among the Muslims, named John the Grammarian. He was an Alexandrian, and apparently had been a Coptic priest, but was deprived of his office owing to some heresy by a council of bishops held at Babylon. He lived to see the capture of Alexandria by the Arabs, and made the acquaintance of 'Amr, whose clear and active mind was no less astonished than delighted with John’s intellectual acuteness and great learning. Emboldened by 'Amr’s favour, John one day remarked, ‘You have examined the whole city, and have set your seal on every kind of valuable: I make no claim for aught that is useful to you, but things useless to you may be of service to us.’ ‘What are you thinking of?’ said 'Amr. ‘The books of wisdom,’ said John, ‘which are in the imperial treasuries.’ ‘That,’ replied 'Amr, ‘is a matter on which I can give no order without the authority of the Caliph.’ A letter accordingly was written, put­ting the question to Omar, who answered: ‘Touching the books you mention, if what is written in them agrees with the Book of God, they are not required: if it disagrees, they are not desired. Destroy them therefore.’ On receipt of this judgement, 'Amr accordingly ordered the books to be distributed among the baths of Alexandria and used as fuel for heating: it took six months to consume them. ‘Listen and wonder,’ adds the writer.

Such is the story as it makes its appearance in Arabic literature. Abul Faraj wrote in the latter half of the thirteenth century, and he says nothing about the source from which he derived the story: but he is followed by Abul Fida in the early fourteenth century, and later by Makrizi. It is true that Abdal Latif, who wrote about 1200, mentions incidentally the burning of the Library by Omar’s order, and, giving no details, seems to take the fact for granted. This allusion seems to show that in his day :he tradition was current. Nevertheless the story is not to be found in any written document until five and a half centuries after the capture of Alexandria, and it is challenged by the silence of every writer from John of Nikiou to Abu Salih. It may of course be argued that it survived for several hundred years as an unwritten tradition; and this view may be held to receive confirmation from the undoubted Fact that the tradition lives to this day among the Copts, although they give seventy days, instead of six months, as the period of burning. There is, however, nothing to show that this Coptic tradition is older than Abul Faraj : in other words, though current as a popular story, it may have been derived from mediaeval writers. This one can neither prove nor disprove : but the doubt deprives the tradition of independent value.

Let us, however, examine the story as it stands. It is undeniably picturesque, and the reply of Omar has the true Oriental flavour. This really is the strongest point about it. But unfortunately precisely the same reply of Omar is recorded in connexion with the destruction of books in Persia; and just as the story of ‘Amr’s captivity and his escape from detection and death owing to the timely cuff administered by Warden, has been taken out of its proper setting and put into the siege of Alexandria by Muslim writers, so may this anecdote be wrongly told of the Alexandrian Library, although it may rest on a foundation of fact, such as the evil wit of Omar’s words seems to postulate. But there are other points in the story which will not bear the strain of criticism. Granting for a moment that the destruc­tion of the Library took place as related, we have to believe that, instead of being made into a bonfire on the acropolis, the books were laboriously put into baskets and taken down to the city ; that they were then laboriously distributed among the countless baths; and that they served as fuel for the space of six months. This is a tissue of absurdities. Had the books been doomed, they would have been burnt on the spot. Had 'Amr refused them to his friend Philoponus, he would not have placed them at the mercy of every bath-keeper in the city. If he had so placed them, John Philoponus or any other person might have rescued a vast number of them at a trifling cost during the six months they are alleged to have lasted. Further, it cannot be questioned that in the seventh century a very large proportion of the books in Egypt were written on vellum Now vellum is a material which will not burn as fuel, and all the Caliph’s orders could not make it burn: what then became of all these manuscripts? And when one has deducted all the writings on vellum, how can it be seriously imagined that the remainder of the books would have kept the 4,000 bath­furnaces of Alexandria alive for 180 days? The tale, as it stands, is ridiculous; one may indeed listen and wonder.

But, it may be said, these small points are un­fairly pressed; a minute dissection of details will not get rid of the broad fact of the destruction by burning. Let us then relinquish mere internal criticism, and pass on to consider how far external evidence is for or against the main facts of the story. There are two points presumably vital— the existence of John Philoponus at the time of the conquest, and the existence of the Library. Now there can be very little doubt about the former point; John was not alive in 642. I need not recapitulate the whole proof of this statement. It is known that John was writing as early as 540, if not before the accession of Justinian in 527; and though he may have survived for a few years at the beginning of the seventh century, if he had been alive in the year 642 he would not have been less than 120 years old. It is therefore clear that Philo­ponus had been dead for some thirty or forty years when 'Amr entered Alexandria.

The question whether the Library itself was in existence at. that time is at once more interesting and more difficult of solution. The earliest and the most famous Library was, as is well known, in the Bruchion quarter. If the idea of founding this vast collection of the world’s literature came from Ptolemy Soter, and if he actually formed the Library, it was completely equipped and organized by Philadelphus his successor. It seems to have been part of the splendid group of buildings known as the Museum. The Museum, as Strabo says, adjoined the royal palaces, which were of vast extent, occupying quite one fourth of the whole area of the city. It con­sisted of a great central hall with a colonnade about it, and cloistered courts. These communicated with other buildings, such as the Schools of Medicine, Anatomy and Surgery, Mathematics and Astronomy, Law and Philosophy: a park was also attached, with a botanical garden and an observatory—all the apparatus of a great University. What was the precise structural arrangement of the Museum buildings, and where precisely the Library was situated, cannot be determined: nor indeed is there any agreement even about the site of the Museum. Strabo is provokingly silent concerning the Library, when his evidence would settle the question whether, as some ancient writers allege, it perished in the conflagration of 48 b.c., a few years before his visit. Caesar was then besieged in the Bruchion quarter by the Egyptians under Achillas, and he set fire to the harbour shipping : it is alleged that the fire spread and utterly destroyed the Library. Caesar himself—if he wrote the account—gives no hint of any such catastrophe; on the contrary, he remarks that Alexandria is practically fire-proof, as the architects used no timber, but raised their buildings on vaulted substructures, and roofed them with stone or concrete. Such a remark would be deliberately misleading, if the writer were suppressing the fact that he witnessed and caused the burning of the Library. It is difficult either to convict or to clear Caesar of the charge. Plutarch has no doubt of the fact: ‘ As his fleet was falling into the hands of the enemy, he was forced to repel the danger by fire: this spread from the dockyards and destroyed the great Library. Seneca clearly believed the story: ‘Four hundred thousand books were burned at Alexandria.’ The language of Dio Cassius is rather odd: ‘The conflagration was widespread; besides the dockyard and much else, the stores of corn perished, and the stores of books; and these books, it is said, in vast numbers and of great value.’ But there can be no doubt what the tradition was in the fourth century. The words of Ammianus Marcellinus are plain enough; he speaks of Alexandria’s ‘priceless libraries, about which ancient writers agree that the 700,000 volumes got together by the unre­mitting care of the Ptolemies were destroyed by fire in the Alexandrian war, when Caesar devastated the city.’ Orosius closely agrees with this account: ‘During the combat orders were given to fire the royal fleet, which happened to be drawn on shore. The conflagration spread to part of the city, and burned 400,000 books, which were stored in a building which happened to be contiguous. So perished that marvellous record of the literary activity of our forefathers, who had made this vast and splendid collection of works of genius On the whole it seems more natural to believe than to disbelieve that the Library perished in Caesar’s conflagration.

But seven or eight years after this adventure of Caesar’s, the library of the Kings of Pergamus was sent by Mark Antony to Alexandria. Whether the Museum was still able to house such a collection, or whether these volumes formed the foundation of the later Serapeum Library, is a question which has exercised scholars. I think it very possible that neither alternative is true. We have already seen that the great temple of the Caesarion was begun by Cleopatra in honour of Julius Caesar and finished by Augustus; and that its libraries are mentioned among its most splendid embellishments. Nothing would be more natural than to suppose that, if the Museum Library had perished, room was provided for the Pergamus collection, or some part of it, in the Caesarion, while the remainder perhaps went to the Serapeum.

However that may be, two things are fairly certain; that some of the Museum buildings remained in use till the time of Caracalla, who drenched the city with blood, closed the theatres, and suppressed the syssitia or Common Hall at the Museum in the year 216 a. d.; and that at some date early in the Christian era, in place of the vanished Museum Library, another great Library was founded in the Serapeum on the acropolis. The Museum buildings are said to have been razed to the ground by Aurelian in 273, when he wrought havoc in the Bruchion quarter to punish the Alexandrians for the revolt of Firmus; and the members or Fellows of the Museum then either fled over sea or took refuge in the Serapeum. The Serapeum Library was called the Smaller or ‘Daughter Library but it is not possible to fix a date either for the end of the Mother Library or for the beginning of the Daughter, though the latter is said to have been founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus. Nor is the question very material. We know that in the fourth century the elder Library had perished, and the younger had been some time established.

Here then in the Serapeum all the traditions of the earlier learning were maintained ; the Univer­sity, with its great collection of books, was established; and that association of Aristotle’s name with Alexandrian study which began at the Museum, was continued at the Serapeum unbroken. In other words, those courses of philosophic and scientific study which had made Alexandria the centre of the culture of the world were still in being; only the seat of learning had been moved from the Museum to the Serapeum.

But towards the end of the fourth century the Serapeum was doomed to destruction by the Christians under Theophilus. We have already seen that in 366 the Caesarion was wrecked and plundered in a fierce religious contest, in which there is too much reason to think that the Caesarion library perished. As Christianity gathered strength, the war with paganism became fiercer. The Serapeum naturally served as the camp and fortress of the pagans; and for a while they used the advantage, which the position gave them to raid the city and slaughter the most zealous of the Christians. Siege was laid to the acropolis; but before matters were forced to the last arbitrament it was agreed to take the Emperor’s decision. The edict of Theodosius pronounced wholly in favour of the Christians. It was read aloud between the contending parties in the court of the Serapeum ; and as the worshippers of the old Egyptian idols fled, the Christians, under their bishop Theophilus, dismantled and demolished the great temple of Serapis. This happened in the year 391, and the fact is uncontroverted.

The case is changed when we come to the question, Did the Library perish in the ruin? To that ques­tion no positive answer can be given; it is matter of debate: one can only examine and test certain fragments of evidence, in the hope that they may justify a conclusion. Now there can be no manner of doubt that the temple itself was destroyed in 391, and that the destruction was thorough. It was razed to the foundations, as Eunapius alleges, perhaps with some exaggeration; and one or more Christian churches were built upon the site. Since, however, there is no specific evidence that the Library perished in the destruction of the temple, one must show one of two things in order to prove the ruin of the Library—either (1) that the Library was housed in the temple, or (2) that the whole of the buildings on the acropolis were wrecked by the Christians under Theophilus. Of these alternatives the second is easily refuted. I have already shown that as late as the twelfth century there were remains of considerable magnificence still standing. The exact position of  these remains is as unknown as their original pur­pose. Accordingly their survival proves nothing except that, if the Library was in these buildings, it may have survived with them. There is, however, some fairly explicit evidence to show both the position of the Library and the amount of the destruction wrought by the Christians. For on the one hand we have the testimony of Aphthonius, who visited the Serapeum in the fourth century some time before its destruction; and on the other that of Rufinus, who was present at the destruction, and wrote after it. The two accounts help each other out: yet it is very curious that while Aphthonius does not directly mention the temple, Rufinus is totally silent about the Library. It is nevertheless quite clear that Aphthonius associates the Library with the temple building as opposed to the other buildings upon the acropolis; and that at the date of his visit the Library was there, open as usual to readers.

 But if the Library was part of the temple building, and if the temple building was utterly destroyed, how can it be argued that the Library did not perish? The destruction of the temple was com­plete: it was thrown down to the foundations. Eunapiu says that they wrought havoc with the Serapeum and made war on its statues... The foundations alone were not removed owing to the difficulty of moving such huge blocks of stone.’ Theodoret, speaking of the same events, says, ‘The sanctuaries of the idols were uprooted from their foundations.’ Socrates says that the Emperor’s order was for the demolition of all the heathen temples in Alexandria, and that ‘Theophilus threw down the temple of Serapis’: and again, ‘The temples were overthrown, and the bronze statues melted down to make domestic vessels.’ The same writer records the discovery of stones with hieroglyphic inscriptions during the demolition of the temple of Serapis; and similar language is used by Sozomen who describes the Christians as having uninterruptedly occupied the Serapeum from its capture by Theophilus to his own time. All these writers, be it noted, belong to the first half of the fourth century, and so are almost contemporary. It is to be regretted that they are not explicit about the fate of the Library, nor do they mention the destruction of other buildings on the acropolis. Rufinus, however, throws some light on the subject, because he speaks of the exterior range of buildings round the edge of the plateau as practically uninjured, though void of its former pagan occupiers : but he makes it clear, that while this outer range remained, with its lecture-rooms and dwelling-rooms, not only the great temple of Serapis, but the colonnades about it, had been leveled to the ground.

The argument now stands as follows: the Library is proved to have been stored in rooms which, like the shrines of the old Egyptian gods, formed part and parcel of the temple building. The temple building is proved to have been utterly demolished and destroyed. Therefore the Library suffered the same destruction.

Of course it may be urged that the books, as opposed to the chambers which contained them, may possibly have been rescued. It is indeed alleged that the books had been removed bodily by George of Cappadocia some thirty years before the capture of the Serapeum by the Christians under Theophilus: and it is asserted also that now, upon the capture, they were packed off to Constantinople. It may well be doubted whether the mob which hacked the statue of Serapis to pieces, burning the fragments on the spot, and which left not a stone standing of the grandest and most glorious temple in the world, was in any mood to care tenderly for those literary treasures, which after all were pagan, and were under the guardianship of the great idol. Strange as the silence is of contemporary writers, it is far easier to believe that the books perished in the flames which consumed the image of Serapis, than that they were plucked from the ruin of the temple and sent oversea. Orosius indeed is quoted as having seen the empty shelves or cases in the Serapeum. If the quotation were accurate, it would prove both that the books had disappeared by 416, when Orosius wrote, and that the Library building remained: but it is not accurate; the words do not justify the construction put upon them. For Orosius makes no mention of the Serapeum. He is speaking of the destruction by fire of the original Museum Library, and he argues roughly as follows :—Granted that in certain temples empty bookshelves may be seen to this day; and granted that they were emptied by acts of violence done in our own time; these facts prove that libraries existed in recent years, but they do not prove that a library survived which had formed a section of the old Museum Library and had escaped the fire through being housed in a separate building: they prove rather that other books were collected, in emulation of the old Library, at a date subsequent to the conflagration.

Such is Orosius’ argument: it is directed to show that no part of the great Ptolemaic Library was rescued from the burning; and, as Matter and others contend, it contains no reference to the Serapeum. Precisely; but that fact has a double bearing. For if there is one inference which the language of Orosius warrants beyond doubt, it is this—that at the time when he wrote there was no great and ancient library in existence in Alexandria. Had such a library  existed in the Serapeum in 416 a. d., it is simply inconceivable that Orosius, in following the train of thought which I have set out, should have passed it over in silence. Orosius therefore is really a witness not to the destruction of the Serapeum Library in 391, but to its non-existence in 416.

The case, however, against the existence of the Library in the seventh century, which is the point at issue, is not yet complete. Of course no one supposes that even in the great wars upon books— such as the war made by Diocletian upon Christian books and the war made by Theophilus upon pagan books—all the books in Alexandria perished. Even after the destruction of the great public libraries, there must have been many volumes in private collections, and many in the remoter monastic libraries. The very fact that Alexandrian learning was not extinguished proves the use of books. But if the great Serapeum Library had continued in existence into the seventh century, how comes it that not a single writer in the fifth or sixth century can be cited to establish the fact in clear and unmistakable language? Take one particular instance. I have already related the visit of John Moschus and his friend Sophronius to Egypt not many years before the Arab conquest; and I have shown the keen intellectual interest of the two scholars and their fondness for anything in the shape of a book: but though they were both fairly voluminous writers, and though they travelled and resided a great deal in Egypt, their pages will be searched in vain for any allusion to other than private libraries in the country. Two centuries of silence, ending in the silence of John Moschus and Sophronius, seem to render it impossible that any great public library can have existed when the Arabs entered Alex­andria.

One or two other points remain to be noticed. Let it be granted for a moment that all the fore­going reasoning has not seriously shaken the theory of the survival of the Serapeum Library; and suppose also that the Library was intact when the Arabs cap­tured Alexandria; I would still say that its destruc­tion by the Arabs is extremely improbable. For this reason: that the Arabs did not enter Alexandria for eleven months after its capture, and in the treaty of surrender it was expressly stipulated that during the interval, not only might the Romans them­selves depart, but that they might carry off all their movable possessions and valuables. During all this period the sea was open, and the passage to Constantinople and other ports was absolutely unhindered. The mere market value of the books in the Serapeum Library, if it existed, must have been enormous: their literary value must have been keenly appreciated by a large number of persons with intellectual interests: and these students would surely have forestalled the fabled zeal of John Philoponus by securing the removal of such priceless treasures while it was still time, instead of leaving them to the ignorant mercy of the desert warriors to whom the city was to be delivered.

Finally, the silence that prevails among fifth and sixth century writers reigns also after the conquest. There are no Arab historians of Egypt in the seventh or eighth century; and it might be said that later writers were anxious to suppress the story of the  burning of the Library. But this cannot apply to the Coptic bishop, John of Nikiou, who was a man of learning, and who wrote before the end of the seventh century. The range and the detail of his work prove that he had access to plentiful sources of information fifty years after the conquest. Abul Faraj himself—the author of the charge against the Arabs—proves that Alexandria continued to be frequented by students about the year 680 a. d.: for he represents James of Edessa as going to Alex­andria to complete his education after receiving a thorough instruction in the Greek language and in the Scriptures at a Syrian convent. This evidence warrants the assertion that some private and monas­tic libraries continued after, as before, the conquest. But if there had been a great public library before the conquest, and if it had been burned by the Arabs at the conquest, is it possible that John of Nikiou—an almost contemporary writer, who deals minutely with the capture of Alexandria—should have consigned to oblivion an event which not merely impoverished his history of its best materials, but robbed the literary world of its great storehouse of treasure for all time?

It may not be amiss to briefly recapitulate the argument. The problem being to discover the truth or falsehood of the story which charges the Arabs with burning the Alexandrian Library, I have shown—

that the story makes its first appearance more than five hundred years after the event to which it relates;

that on analysis the details of the story resolve into absurdities;

that the principal actor in the story, viz. John Philoponus, was dead long before the Saracens invaded Egypt;

that of the two great public Libraries to which the story could refer, the Museum Library perished in the conflagration caused by Julius Caesar, or, if not, then at a date not less than four hundred years anterior to the Arab conquest; while the Serapeum Library either was removed prior to the year 391, or was then dispersed or destroyed, so that in any case it disappeared two and a half centuries before the conquest;

that fifth, sixth, and early seventh century literature contains no mention of the existence of any such Library;

that if, nevertheless, it had existed when Cyrus set his hand to the treaty surrendering Alexandria, yet the books would almost certainly have been removed—under the clause permitting the removal of valuables—during the eleven months’ armistice which intervened between the signature of the con­vention and the actual entry of the Arabs into the city ;

and that if the Library had been removed, or if it had been destroyed, the almost contemporary historian and man of letters, John of Nikiou, could not have passed over its disappearance in total silence.

The conclusion of the whole matter can be no longer doubtful. The suspicion of Renaudot and the scepticism of Gibbon are more than justified. One must pronounce that Abul Faraj’s story is a mere fable, totally destitute of historical foundation.

CHAPTER XXVI. CONQUEST OF PENTAPOLIS

Though the fall of Alexandria extinguished the Roman Empire in Egypt, 'Amr ibn al 'Asi did not regard it as marking the accomplishment of his mission. The main of the Roman armies had left the country—under a compact never to return. Such resistance as still lingered clung to remote places in the Delta, relying on natural defences of river or lake, but powerless to reverse the broad result of the war : thus the cities of Manzilah, as we have seen, kept alive hostilities for several months after the occupation of Alexandria. But since the time when the Arab horsemen under Zubair had first saved the imperilled fortunes of 'Amr, a steady stream of reinforcements had been poured into Egypt, not merely repairing the waste of war, but swelling the strength of the Arab army. Consequently 'Amr now had at his disposal a large body of troops, apart from those required to garrison the chief towns and to capture the last remaining strong­holds of the enemy.

The spirit of conquest was as much in the genius of 'Amr as the spirit of expansion was in the genius of Islam. As soon, therefore, as Egypt was secured, and before the fighting there was all over, the Arab chief decided upon an expedition to Pentapolis, the next province of the Roman Empire westward of Egypt. The establishment of settled government for the Nile valley must have been nearly completed during the eleven months of the armistice; so that, when the Arabs entered Alexandria, they had to provide merely for the administration of the city. Had it been otherwise it would have been impossible for the expedition to follow so closely upon the occupation of the capital as it did follow; for the date cannot be much later than the beginning of the year 643.

It has been shown in connexion with the revolt of Heraclius against Phocas that, in the seventh cen­tury, stations or towns were dotted along the whole route between Alexandria and Cyrene, and that much of the way lay through fertile country . The march, which was an easy one for Roman troops, was a mere promenade for Arab horsemen. Nor was much opposition encountered. There is no record of any fighting at all at Barca, which seems at once to have capitulated under treaty, agreeing to pay 13,000 dinars as yearly tribute. Two curious stipulations were made, (1) that the people of Barca might sell their children to raise the tribute­money, and (2) that the tribute should be delivered in Egypt, no tax-collector being allowed to enter the country. According to Yakut, most of the people here became Muslims. From Barca 'Amr swept on to Tripolis, which was better fortified and had a larger Roman garrison. The city shut its gates, and for some weeks withstood the blockade which the Arabs established. The sea was open, but no relief came by the sea; and when the garrison was nearly worn out with fighting or hunger, the Arabs discovered that the city was undefended on the harbour side, and that an entrance was practicable. A few men managed to force a passage round between the city wall and the sea, and rushed on the enemy. As their war-cry, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ rang through the streets and the flash of the scimitars was seen, a panic seized the defenders, who caught up what goods they could carry, ran to the ships, and hoisted sail. Meanwhile the gates were abandoned, and 'Amr entered with the bulk of his army.

Moving with characteristic swiftness, 'Amr next surprised the city of Sabrah, dashing upon it early in the morning. The inhabitants were entirely off their guard, as they fancied that the Arabs were still occupied in beleaguering Tripolis, and the city fell at the first onset. It was taken by force of arms and plundered. This marked the end of the rapid campaign. 'Amr returned to Barca, where he re­ceived the formal submission of the Berber tribe of Lawatah, which occupied most of the country; and thence he led his victorious forces back to Egypt, with a long train of captives and with abundance of spoil.

It is said that 'Amr wished to take up his abode in Alexandria, particularly as he found so many of the splendid palaces deserted. But Omar had already determined that Fust at was to be the future capital of Egypt, and he did not choose to have his Viceroy established in a great city resting on the sea and sundered from the Arabian desert by all the network of the Nile. It was probably in the sum­mer of 643 that 'Amr returned to Babylon, where the two bridges over the Nile—joining the island of Raudah with Babylon on the eastern bank and with Jizah on the western—as we have seen, had been reinstated. But the western bank with the town of Memphis was exposed to sudden raids from the wild desert tribes beyond the Pyramids, and to meet this danger, as well as to plant the Arab power firmly astride the Nile, 'Amr ordered a fortress to be built at Jizah. The work was finished before November of that year.

Peace now reigned throughout the whole of the Delta and the Nile valley as far as the southern border of Egypt at Aswan. But the Sudan now, as ever, was a thorn in the side of the government. Its untameable tribes, secure in their mountains and deserts, had no notion of changing their Christian faith to I skim, nor of abandoning their ancestral right of raiding the wealthy cities of Egypt. An expedition which 'Amr sent against the Nubians not merely failed to vanquish them, but was forced to retreat having suffered much loss from the exceptional skill of the Nubian archers, whom the Arabs henceforth distinguished as the ‘eye-wounders.’ Desultory fighting lasted for some years; till in the reign of Othman a treaty of peace was made, under which the Nubians engaged to deliver an annual tribute of slaves to the ruler of Egypt, while the Arabs undertook to deliver convoys of provisions and a robe of honour. It was clearly a peace on equal terms: the time had not yet come for the conquest of the Sudan.

Meanwhile the country was settling down under the mild and just government of 'Amr ibn al 'Asi; for that was the character it assumed when the long struggle of the conquest was over. The description of Egypt, which he now wrote on the demand of the Caliph Omar, gives an interesting glimpse of 'Amr both as poet and as statesman. It was in rhymed prose, and ran as follows: ‘Know, O Commander of the Faithful, that Egypt is a dusty city and green tree. Its length is a month, and its breadth ten days. It is enclosed by a barren mountain range and yellow sands. The Nile traces a line through its midst: blessed are its early morning voyages and its travels at eventide I It has its season for rising and for falling, according to the course of the sun and the moon. It causes milk to flow, and brings cattle in abundance. When the springs and fountains of the land are loosened, it rolls its swelling and sounding waters till the fields are flooded on both sides. Then there is no escaping from village to village save in little boats, and frail skiffs, and shallops light as fancy or the evening mist. After the river has risen to its full measure, it sinks back again to its former level. Moreover the people, who are devout in worship, and are our protected allies, have learnt to plough the earth well and truly and to hasten the seed-time, trusting that the Most High will give the increase and will grant the fruit of their labour, though the labour is light. So the crop is grown, and streams of water bring on the harvest, as moisture from beneath gives nourishment. At one time Egypt is a white pearl; then golden amber; then a green emerald; then an embroidery of many colours.

‘Blessed be God, because it has pleased Him to bestow benefits upon this land, to give it increase, and so to establish the inhabitants in their country, that no sound of complaint is heard from the people to their ruler; that the land-tax is not demanded before its due season; and that a third of the revenue is spent on bridges and sluice-gates. If the governors continue to act thus, the revenue will be doubled, and God will reconcile the different religions and the variety of worldly interests.’

The same genial wisdom shines through the sermon which the conqueror of Egypt delivered at the mosque of 'Amr, as it is still called, on the Friday in Easter week of 644. It is recorded from the lips of one of his hearers, who went to the mosque with his father. He saw the crowd driven back with whips, as they   watched 'Amr as he mounted the pulpit. ‘Amr’s strong build, his capacious head, dark eyes, and cheerful countenance made a deep impression on the young Muslim, who notes also that he wore a striped garment in the texture of which were threads of gold.

'Amr briefly gave praise and glory to God, and prayed for the Prophet. He urged his hearers to give alms, and to render dutiful obedience to their parents. He recommended moderation and forbade excess. He warned the Muslims against those things which cause fatigue in place of repose, narrow means in place of abundance, and weakness in place of strength : and those things are mainly the enlarge­ment of the household, avarice in heaping up money, and vain and purposeless chatter. Idleness and frivolity are the chief sources of vice, and crush out the nobler desires of the soul. Then 'Amr changed his subject and said: ‘O ye congregation, the Twins are hanging in the sky and Sirius is still covered; the heavens have begun their yearly course, the sky is clear and there is no plague; the flood is diminished, the pasture is good; milk abounds for kids and lambs, and the shepherd must watch well over his flock. Therefore go forth with the blessing of God to your cultivated land, and enjoy its benefits—milk and flocks and herds and game: feed your horses and fatten them, guard them and better them, for they are your defence against the enemy, and through them you gain booty and wealth.

‘And take good care of your neighbours the  Copts. Omar, the Commander of the Faithful, told me that he heard the Apostle of God say: God will open Egypt to you after my death. So take good care of the Copts in that country ; for they are your kinsmen and under your protection. Cast down your eyes therefore, and keep your hands off them.

‘ Know that you are an army of defence up to the Day of Resurrection, because of the many enemies who surround, you, and the desire of their hearts towards you and your country, which is a storehouse of corn and money and wealth and blessings of every kind. Omar told me that he heard the Apostle of God say : When God opens Egypt to you, gather a large army there, and it will be the best army in the world. So Abu Bakr asked : Why, O Apostle of God ? And he said : Because they and their wives form an army of defence until the Day of Resurrection.

‘ Therefore praise God, O ye congregation, because He has made you rulers of this country ; and enjoy your green fields, so long as they remain pleasant to you. But when the weather grows oppressive, and the posts grow hot; when flies multiply and the milk turns sour; when the herbage withers, and the roses are gathered from the trees ; then come back to your Fustat with God’s blessing.

‘ I have said my say, and may God preserve you.’

The Muslims have a curious tradition that one of the first acts of 'Amr’s administration was to abolish the annual custom of sacrificing a virgin to ensure the rise of the Nile. The story is that the river, deprived of its immemorial tribute by 'Amr’s ordinance, refused to lift its flood, until a letter of the Caliph’s was thrown in the stream and secured its obedience. This of course is mere legend: there is no more reason to believe in the toleration of human sacrifice in Christian Egypt than in the miraculous power of the Caliph’s letter. Yet this legend, like most others, seems to have some foundation in history, inasmuch as among the savage tribes in the far south of the Sudan the custom did prevail of throwing into the Nile a virgin apparelled as a bride; and it is possible that a similar custom was found in some barbarous region of Nubia which was conquered in the early days of Isldm. It is possible also that in Egypt itself the practice of sacrificing a maiden to the Nile subsisted under the Pharaohs, as it is certain that a good deal of more innocent superstition of ancient origin was preserved in ceremonies attending the invocation of the river, which lasted down to the fourteenth century. But it is quite false to charge the Christians with keeping up inhuman rites totally repugnant to their religion. .

The utterances of 'Amr already quoted indicate clearly enough his methods of government and the relations he sought to establish between victor and vanquished. Even more decisive evidence of the same spirit was shown in the order, which he now issued, for the recall and reinstatement of the Patriarch Benjamin. It was a recognition of the fact that the political and the religious settlement of the country were bound up together.

CHAPTER XXVII. RESTORATION OF BENJAMIN

By the death of the Roman Patriarch, Cyrus, and by the departure of the Roman armies on which his power had rested, a tremendous change had been wrought in the position of religious parties. The long ordeal of the Great Persecution was over. Though a new Melkite Patriarch had been appointed in Alexandria, he had little or no jurisdiction beyond the city walls : his power was gone, and his following greatly minished. But the Coptic Patriarch was still in hiding—an exile and a wanderer in Upper Egypt. His Church lay weakened and almost lifeless, it seemed, from the blows rained upon it during the space of ten years by the relentless hand of Cyrus. Now, however, Christianity had ceased to be the state religion; over both parties was thrown the shield of Islam, and between them its sword. This state of things allowed free play to religious sentiment. The Muslims had no interest in the truth or falsehood of the pronouncement of Chalcedon; while the Copts were no longer under the dominion of a terror which forced them to renounce or to conceal their true belief. In the novel atmosphere of religious freedom the Coptic Church revived, and soon proved its claim to be considered the Church of the nation. ‘Amr’s admission of this claim was sealed by his decree for the recall of Benjamin.

The decree is said to have been prompted by information given to 'Amr by one Sanutius (or Shanhdah), who, though a Copt by creed, had held the position of dux or general in the Roman army’. But even Sanutius was ignorant of Benjamin’s hiding­place, so that the decree had to be published in general terms. It ran as follows: ‘In whatsoever place Benjamin, the Patriarch of the Egyptian Christians, is living, to that place we grant protec­tion and security, and peace from God. Wherefore let the Patriarch come hither in security and tran­quillity, to administer the affairs of his Church and to govern his nation.’ It is not improbable that the action of Sanutius coincided with a general act of submission to Muslim authority made by the monks of Wadi ’n Natrim; For Makrizi quotes Christian historians as relating that 70,000 monks from these monasteries went to meet 'Amr ibn al ‘Asl, each carrying a staff, and that when they declared their allegiance, he gave them a letter—doubtless a ‘ writing of security,’ and perhaps the very decree in question. As usual in Arab documents, cyphers have grown upon the original number and swollen it to absurdity; but that a deputation of 70, or even 700, monks waited upon the conqueror and was very well received may be regarded as historical.

The bill of immunity was not long in reaching Benjamin, who now came forth from his retreat, and went in triumph to Alexandria. Great were the rejoicings of the people upon his return. It was now full thirteen years since he had abandoned his seat on the arrival of Cyrus, and had stolen away by the western desert. Ten years of this period corresponded to the ten years’ persecution, and three years had been spent under the rule of the Muslims. During the whole of this time Benjamin had been moving about among his people in secret, or lurking in desert monasteries; and it is worth remarking that neither the decisive conquest of Egypt by the Muslims nor the expulsion of the Roman armies furnished the exiled Patriarch with any reason for emerging from concealment. No fact could more clearly show how history has maligned the Copts in charging them with aiding the Arabs or hailing their country’s enemies as deliverers. If the Copts had welcomed the Arabs, it could only have been by command or consent of their Patriarch: and if Benjamin had sanctioned any such alliance, he would not have waited for three years after the complete victory of the Arabs, and then have been lured from his retreat only by an uncovenanted promise of protection. Such an argument, if it stood alone, would be strong, if not conclusive: it is, however, but a link added to a chain of evidence which has become wellnigh irresistible.

When Sanutius reported Benjamin’s arrival in Alex­andria, 'Amr commanded the Patriarch’s presence, giving orders at the same time that he should be received with all due honour and ceremony. Benjamin’s handsome and dignified bearing and his grave eloquence are represented as having made a deep impression on 'Amr, who remarked to his companions, ‘In all the countries I have conquered up to this day, I have never seen a man of God like this.’ Of the ‘noble oration,’ which Benjamin is said to have delivered, 'Amr can have understood nothing; but the practical suggestions of the Patriarch were well entertained, and he was given full authority to bear rule over his people and to administer the affairs of the Church.

The restitution of Benjamin saved the Coptic Church from a perilous crisis, if not from destruc­tion. Never was the guidance of a strong character more needed. Under the persecution of Cyrus, as we have seen, thousands had been forced out of their allegiance, and had professed adherence to Chalcedon. Of course conversions wrought by threat or violence could not at first be real. But the process had been working for ten years; habit had been growing; and the result could not be undone in a moment. Even more formidable, however, was the defection of the Copts to Islam. Nor would it be right to attribute this defection solely to motives of worldly advantage. The offer of brotherhood with the conquerors and of freedom from tribute was potent enough to sweep down the tide all those whose religion was not strongly anchored; but it must be sorrowfully granted also that many men of thoughtful mind may have sickened of a Christianity which so belied its Founder—a Christianity out of which all love and all hope had vanished in the war of sects—and hence may have sought refuge and repose in the calm simplicity of Islam.

There was little or no prospect of bringing back to the fold those who had renounced the Christian faith altogether; but it was otherwise with regard to many of those who had been driven by force or fear into the Melkite communion. The news of Benjamin’s reappearance and return to the throne of Alexandria roused the greatest enthusiasm throughout Egypt. Most of the common people returned with joy to their old pastor, ‘and received the crown of confession’. The apostate bishops, who had joined the Church of the Empire, were also invited to resume their old allegiance. Some of them were received back with bitter tears of penitence; but one bishop in particular is mentioned as refusing to return for very shame and for fear of being known as an apostate. His case was probably typical of many. Still the cause of the Coptic Church progressed. While at first Benjamin ‘ turned all his thoughts by day and by night to bringing back the scattered members of his flock that had gone astray in the days of Heraclius,’ later, as he succeeded in reuniting and reorganizing the body of his people, he gave his mind to rebuilding the ruined monas­teries, particularly those of the Wadi ’n Natrun, which had never recovered from the devastation wrought early in the seventh century.

The money was found and the work was done. Severus gives a long and interesting account of events in this connexion. He shows how a deputation of monks came to Alexandria and entered the ‘ Porch of the Angels,’ as Benjamin was celebrating on Christmas Day; how they begged him to come and consecrate the newly built church of St. Macarius in the desert; how Benjamin granted their request, and travelling by Al Muna and Mount Barnuj arrived at the monastery of Baramas, whence he went to visit other monasteries. So on the 2nd January he came to the Dair Macarius, whence he was welcomed by the ‘great teacher’ Basil, bishop of Nikiou, and a procession with palm-branches and censers. On the following day, 8th Tubah, the church was solemnly consecrated—with attendant miracles which need not here be recorded. One may, however, notice the words of Basil, who ‘ gave thanks to the Lord who had made the Patriarch worthy to see that glorious desert once more, and those holy fathers and brethren, and the procla­mation of the orthodox faith; who had saved him from the heretics, and had delivered his soul from the great and cruel dragon which drove him away, and had granted him to behold his children once more around him’.

This is not the language of people suffering under oppression, but the language of people rejoicing in deliverance. Its tenour is fully confirmed by other passages of the same writer. ‘I was in my city of Alexandria, and found a time of peace and safety after the troubles and persecutions caused by the heretics,’ are the words put into the mouth of Benjamin; and his people are described as ‘rejoicing like young calves when their bonds are loosened, and they are set free to suck their mother’s milk.’ John of Nikiou wrote fifty years after the conquest, and he is unsparing in his denunciation of the Muslim religion and the renegades who adopted it; but of 'Amr he remarks that ‘while he exacted the taxes which had been determined upon, he took none of the property of the churches, and committed no act of spoliation or plunder; nay, he preserved the churches to the end of his days.’ The relief, therefore, of the Copts was very great. They had passed out of the long reign of terror, under which the folly of the Byzantine government had placed them, into a state of peace and security. Before they had been under a double bondage, civil and religious; now their civil bondage was lightened and their religious bondage removed. True, their new rulers brought a strange and unchristian creed into the land, but even in this result they could read the divine judgement. For all agreed in saying, 'This expulsion of the Romans and victory of the Muslims is due to the wickedness of the Emperor Heraclius and his persecution of the orthodox by means of the Patriarch Cyrus; this was the cause of the ruin of the Romans and the subjugation of Egypt by the Muslims.’ Such was the popular verdict. The verdict of history will not take quite so sectarian a colour; but it will most surely confirm the reasoning which links together the misgovern­ment and the downfall of the Roman Empire.

CHAPTER XXVIII. MUSLIM GOVERNMENT

After all that the Copts had suffered at the hands of the Romans and the Patriarch Cyrus, it would not have been unnatural if they had desired to retaliate upon the Melkites. But any such design, if they cherished it, was sternly discountenanced by 'Amr, whose government was wisely tolerant but perfectly impartial between the two forms of religion. Many facts might be cited in proof of this contention: for example, the admission of Severus that a Melkite bishop remained a Melkite to his death; his evidence that Benjamin worked on the perverts only by persuasion and remonstrance; the continued mention of Melkite churches in later history; and the fact that the Melkites are spoken of in considerable numbers fifty years after the conquest. So that the two forms of Christianity must be imagined as subsisting side by side under the equal protection of the conquerors.

Nor does this protection seem at that early date to have been trammelled with conditions which the law of I stem carried in its later developments. The status of a protected people was created by the treaty of peace, by which the Christians engaged to pay tribute in return for security at home and protection against foreign enemies. But as early as the tenth century the law declares that the obligation to pay tribute is governed by two classes of conditions—the first absolutely binding in all cases, the second depending in each case on the terms of the treaty. The binding conditions are these: (1) the Kuran is not to be reviled, nor copies of it burned; (2) the Prophet must not be called a liar nor spoken of contemptuously; (3) the religion of Islam is not to be condemned, nor must any attempt be made to refute it; (4) no Christian may marry a Muslim woman ; (5) no attempt may be made to seduce a Muslim from his religion, nor to injure him in purse or person; (6) the enemies of Islim must not be assisted, nor the rich men among them entertained. The contingent conditions are as follows: (1) subjects must wear a distinctive garment with a girdle fastened round the waist; (2) their houses must not be built higher than those of the Muslims; (3) the sound of their bells must not be forced on the ears of Muslims, nor their reading or chanting, nor their opinions on their peculiar tenets, whether Jewish or Christian; (4) crosses must not be displayed nor wine drunk in public, nor must swine be seen; (5) the dead are to be mourned in private and to be buried in private; (6) subjects must ride only common horses or mules, not thorough breeds. There is nothing very unreasonable in any of these conditions, but it may be doubted whether they were attached to the payment of tribute so early as the conquest of Egypt. Many regulations, which grew out of usage into laws came in the days of law to be regarded as part of the original constitution of Islam. For example, Ma'ward! says, ‘It is not lawful for subject people to build a new church or syna­gogue in the territory of Islam, and any such building must be demolished; but they may restore old churches or synagogues which have fallen into ruin.’ But this distinction cannot be traced in the beginnings of Muslim rule in Egypt, because not only is Benjamin described as receiving a large sum of money from the duke Sanutius for the purpose of building a church to St. Mark in Alexandria, but the Patriarch John of Samanad did actually build a church with the same dedication, and under his successor, Isaac, the ruler of Egypt 'Abd al 'Aziz himself is represented as giving orders for the erection of a church at his newly settled town of Hulwon. It would seem, therefore, that in matters ecclesiastical the Copts were granted every reason­able freedom.

It is less easy to define the political settlement of the country. Broadly speaking, however, the civil administration was maintained unaltered. The Arabs were good fighters, but they had received no tradition and no training in the arts of government, nor did they possess any system which they could substitute for or graft upon the ancient and highly organized civil service of Egypt. But they had a quick and receptive intelligence, and were perfectly capable of taking over and directing machinery which they found in working order. It has been shown above that some of the highest Roman officials not merely retained their posts, but adopted the religion of Islam, and probably a number of Roman people followed their example. On the other hand, a great number of vacancies must have been created by the departure of those Romans who declined to remain as Muslim subjects. These places were filled with Coptic Christians, and in no long time practically the whole business of the state was managed by Christians. This was not merely a result logically flowing from the conquest of a highly civilized by an uncivilized people, but it was prudently foreseen and expressly sanctioned by Mohammed himself. In this way, unfettered by worldly cares, the Muslims could better devote themselves to religion. It is, however, curious to find with what vitality the old Roman titles persisted under Arab rule: for quite at the end of the seventh century the Copts continued to speak of a registrar or secretary as chartularius, of his superior as eparchos of the land of Egypt or archon, of the governor’s residence as the praetorium, while the governor of Alexandria is actually called the augustal: moreover, the term dux is found in several eighth-century documents, mostly legal, and is used by the tenth-century writer Severus.

But while the Roman system of registration and of collection was continued, it seems probable that the taxation fixed under treaty by the Arabs was at once somewhat less vexatious and less burdensome than the Roman. It is hard to get at the truth in such matters. One is dependent upon Arab writers, whose proneness to differ on points of history reaches its climax on questions of statistics. Thus Ibn 'Abd al Hakam alleges that when 'Amr was firmly established, he made the Copts pay a similar tribute to that exacted by the Romans, but it was to fluctuate in proportion to their wealth and prosperity. This, I think, can only mean that he continued the Roman system of land-tax: for the poll-tax imposed by the Arabs was a fixed payment, while undoubtedly the land-tax varied in accordance with the rise of the Nile and the general conditions of agriculture. Ibn 'Abd al Hakam goes on to say that it was the duty of the village headmen to meet and examine into the state of agriculture, and to distribute the burden of taxation accordingly. They were in fact a sort of local commissioners for the assessment of the land-tax. Any surplus above the prescribed amount was to be expended on local improvements, and a portion of land in every township was set aside to provide a fund for the maintenance of public build­ings, such as churches and baths. Any hospitality which the Muslims claimed of right from the Copts was to be taken into account, as well as the stated expenses for the entertainment of the governor upon his visit.

Such no doubt is a fair description of the inci­dence of the land-tax. But it is not clear whether this land-tax was specially imposed by treaty at the conquest, or was merely continued and regarded as the ordinary incident of land tenure; nor is it always clear whether Arab writers in speaking of the revenue of Egypt refer to the total of taxation, or to the amount of the poll-tax, or tribute, alone. On the whole it would seem that they are dealing with the tribute. For on the one hand we are told that the population paying the capitation-tax of two dinars under the capitulation was 6,000,000; and on the other the revenue raised by 'Amr after the settlement is given as 12,000,000 dinars. This sum is contrasted by Muslim historians with the 20,000,000 said to have been levied by Al Mukaukas. If these figures could be taken as accurate, and as calculated upon the same basis, so as to furnish a fair comparison, they would of course prove that Arab rule brought to the Egyptians a great relief of taxation. But while the Arab figures denote the revenue raised by the poll-tax alone, it is hardly likely that the Roman figures refer to that one heading, although a poll-tax was one among the many items in the Roman schedule of taxation. Still there can be no doubt either that the Roman taxes were excessive in amount and unjust in their incidence, owing to the exemp­tion of privileged persons or communities, or that Heraclius was very hard pressed for money in the years preceding the Arab conquest: and there is no reason for discrediting the plain statement of the Muslim ’historians that upon the conquest the burden of taxation was lightened. On the other hand, exemptions were abolished. Some obscurity hangs over the position in Alexandria. It is certain that the people sorely fretted under the new system. This result might be due to the loss of a privileged immunity from poll-tax, if such immunity existed; or it might be due to the fact that the city suffered out of all proportion both by the interruption and the loss of its lucrative commerce during the long war, and by the departure of many wealthy mer­chants and burghers upon the capitulation. But the capitulation itself is harder to understand, ii under it the city had to sacrifice an ancient immu­nity from direct tribute. On the whole it seems more probable that Alexandria had been robbed ol its privilege at some time before the conquest.

The tribute, which the Arabs call jizzah, was fixed, as has been shown, at two dinars a head, and was not levied on old men or children, or women oi slaves, or madmen or beggars. But although every man was liable for his share of tribute, so that the total amount of the poll-tax depended on the couni of polls, it seems that the incidence of the tax varied, and consequently shares were not equal. The two gold pieces would be nothing to a rid man, but a heavy burden to the fellah. Hence the governor seems to have had the right to divide the tributaries into three classes—the poor, the middle class, and the wealthy—and to assign to each s different proportion of the tribute. This arrangement, however just in theory, was obviously liable to abuse; and it did in fact lead to arbitrary increase of taxation in defiance of the treaty. Nothing could be more equitable in the abstract than that the tax on each poll should vary with a man’s means of payment, while the total remained unchanged; or that, while the total of land-tax varied with the season, the charge on any particular holding should vary with the productiveness of the soil: but it was not in human nature that such a system should continue to be honestly administered. It demanded ideal justice, but opened the door to every form of avarice and corruption: and it is no wonder that it broke down in practice.

In this connexion it is interesting to notice Ibn 'Abd al Hakam’s story that ‘Amr, upon the request of the Caliph Omar, asked the Patriarch Benjamin what was the best way of keeping the country in order and raising the revenue. The conditions laid down by the Patriarch were these: (1) that the taxes should be collected at the right time, viz. the end of the agricultural season; (2) that no taxes should be demanded after the vintage; (3) that the canals should be dug out yearly; (4) that the dykes and sluice-gates should be kept in repair; and (5) that no unjust or tyrannical official should be appointed. This fifth condition was the hardest of all to secure; for the very nature of the appoint­ment tended to develop just those qualities which would render it fatal.

That the early government of 'Amr was animated by a spirit of justice and even sympathy for the subject population, can hardly be questioned. He received, however, little encouragement from the Caliph. 'Amr had filled the Caliph’s granaries with corn from Egypt, had poured gold into his coffers, and had extended his dominion: in return he re­eived little but abuse and ingratitude from Omar. The relations of the two men at this time are shown in a vivid light by some correspondence which has been preserved, and which must be regarded as quite authentic. ‘ I have been thinking,’ writes Omar, ‘upon you and your condition. You find yourself in a great and splendid country, whose inhabitants God has blessed in number and power, by land and by water. It is a land which even the Pharaohs, in spite of their unbelief, brought by useful works to a state of prosperity. I am therefore greatly astonished that it does not bring in the half of its former revenue, although this falling-off cannot be excused by reason of famine or failure of crops. Moreover you have written ere this of many taxes which you have laid upon the country. I hoped now that they would come to me, instead of which you bring excuses which have no meaning. I shall surely not take less than was formerly paid... Even in the past year I might have demanded this of you, but I hoped that you would yourself fulfil your duty. Now, however, I see that it is your bad administration which hinders you. But, by the help of God, I have means to compel you to render me what I demand’; and so forth.

'Amr answers by admitting that under the Pharaohs, who gave great attention to agriculture, Egypt was more productive than now under the rule of the Muslims: but he goes on to complain of the hard words used by the Caliph. ‘I have served the Apostle of God,’ he proceeds, ‘and his successor, Abu Bakr; I have (praise be to God) answered to the trust reposed in me, and I have rendered towards my prince the duty which God laid upon me ... Now take back the governorship which you have given me: for God has kept me free from the avarice and meanness wherewith you have charged me in your letters ... You could not have said more of a Jew of Khaibar. God forgive you and me.’

This simple and dignified language produced no effect upon Omar, who replied bluntly: ‘I did not send you to Egypt in order to sate your lusts and those of your people, but because I hoped you would by good administration increase our revenue. Therefore upon receipt of this letter send me the taxes; for I have here people in great need.’

'Amr begged for a respite till the time of harvest —precisely in accordance with Benjamin’s maxim. He urged that he could not raise a large revenue without injustice to the natives, and that it was better to be merciful to them than to oppress them, or to force them to provide the money by selling their necessaries . It is needless to credit him, as Weil does, with insincerity and with sordid motives : for even if the love of money was growing upon the conqueror, it had not at this time filled his mind to the dispossession of his sense of justice and sense of duty to the Egyptians. But Omar set his face like flint against mercy in money matters. He dispatched Muhammad ibn Maslamah to Egypt with orders to raise what he could beyond the tribute which ‘Amr had already remitted, or, according to another account, to demand from 'Amr one half of his private possessions. It is true that Ibn Maslamah charged 'Amr with protecting the Egyptians for his own profit, just as Omar charged him with neglect of duty and fraud. But the admission that 'Amr did protect the Egyptians, together with the language of his own apology, outweighs the evidence against him. And in truth the charge of greed recoils on Omar, who, as Baladhuri says, ‘was in the habit of fixing and writing down the total of the revenues of each province, when he appointed a governor for it; and whatever was raised beyond this amount he used to share with the governor, or in some cases take entirely for himself'. Thus even the heroic Khalid had been called upon in Syria to give an account of all his possessions, and had been ordered to surrender one half of them, even it is said to the abandonment of one of the sandals on his feet. When counselled to restore what he had taken, Omar replied, 'Before God, I restore nothing: I am a merchant for the benefit of the Muslims.’ By the Muslims he meant either himself or the narrow clique at Mecca: and this purblind view of his duty to Islcim, this policy of filling his exchequer at the expense of his newly won do­minions, was destined to cost him his life.

But the disastrous lesson had been too well learnt by his successor. When 'Abdallah ibn Sa'd, who was made governor of Upper Egypt and the Fayum by Omar, replaced the conqueror as Viceroy of Egypt, he contrived to wring another 2,000,000 dinars from the natives, raising the sum to 14,000,000. ‘The milch-camel gives more milk than in your time,’ said Othman to 'Amr. ‘ Yes,’ was the reply; and the reason is that you are starving her young ones.’ Not merely that, but to raise the tribute was clearly unlawful. I have already shown that when Warden was ordered by the Caliph Mu'awiah to increase the tribute levied on the Copts, he answered that it was impossible owing to the terms of the treaty: and I have quoted 'Urwah son of Zubair as saying that ‘ the people were taxed above their means and were in distress, notwithstanding the fact that 'Amr had made with them a treaty on fixed conditions.’

All this contrasts with and vindicates the justice of 'Amr. One anecdote told by Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, if it deserved credence, would give rather a different impression. 'Amr, he says, threatened death to any Copt who concealed treasure. A Christian of Upper Egypt, named Peter, was charged with such concealment, but when brought before 'Amr, he stoutly denied it, ‘and so was imprisoned.’ Shortly afterwards 'Amr inquired if Peter had mentioned any name, and was told that he had only spoken of a monk of Mount Sinai. Thereupon 'Amr had Peter’s signet-ring removed, wrote a letter to the monk saying, ‘Send me what you have,’ and sealed it in Peter’s name. In due time there came a messenger bearing in answer a small jar closed with a leaden seal. This was opened by 'Amr, who found inside a paper with the words, ‘Your property is under the cistern.’ So 'Amr had the water drawn off from the cistern, and when the stone slabs of the floor were taken up, a chamber was found containing thirty-two bushels of gold coin. Thereupon Peter was beheaded in front of the mosque of 'Amr at Babylon. One ought not perhaps to pass over such a story in silence; but it would not stand and is hardly worth serious criticism. It is just one of those romances with which the writer loves to embellish his history. It is certain that the Copts had bitter reason to regret the removal of 'Amr from the government.

Little more need be said here about the incidence of the taxation: there is, however, one point of great importance to notice. The Muslims were at first forbidden to acquire land, and the land grants made were very few. The idea was that they should remain as soldiers, and not engage in agri­culture as settlers. As the permanency of the occupation was realized, this restriction was withdrawn or abandoned, and the Muslims became landowners. But in all cases the land which they acquired remained subject to land-tax, of which the equitable apportionment in no wise varied when possession was transferred from a Copt to a Muslim. Consequently if a Copt changed his religion for Isam, he gained no remission of the land-tax. It was otherwise, however, with the poll-tax. The payment of poll-tax or tribute was the sign of subjection and the token of unbelief. The adoption of Islam cancelled at once the unbelief and the subjection. On this point the Arab writers are agreed. The Caliph Omar ibn 'Abd al 'Aziz (who died in January, 720 a. d.) is condemned by Makrizi for his rule that if a tributary dies, the poll-tax is due from his representatives: because ‘it seems,’ he says, ‘that Egypt capitulated, and the terms of the capitulation are still in force: so if a man dies, the tribute, which is a tax on polls, cannot be levied from his survivors.’ But the same Omar II ‘released all converts to Ishim from payment of the poll-tax, although it had been exacted in such cases. The first to exact tribute from members of the protected peoples who were converted to I slim was Al Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. Then the Caliph ‘Abd al Malik wrote to ‘Abd al 'Aziz ibn Marwin bidding him do the same in Egypt: but Ibn Hujairah persuaded the latter not to intro­duce this unjust innovation, saying, ‘Let us exact the poll-tax from Christian monks, but how can we take it from converts to Islam? ’

It is related that Ibn Sharik, who received this ruling of the Caliph’s, made a remonstrance showing that conversions had largely reduced the total of the poll-tax, causing a deficit of 20,000 dinars in the sum apportioned for official salaries in the government service. The answer of the Caliph was in sharp, decisive language: ‘I have received your letter. I made you commander-in-chief of the army in Egypt, but I recognize your weakness: therefore I have bidden my messenger to give you twenty blows on the head, after which I order you to relieve converts from payment of the poll-tax. Your opinion is hateful to God, who sent Mohammed as a guide, not as a tax-collector.’ On this the Arab historian comments very justly: ‘ Upon my life, Omar’s great desire was to convert all men to Islam’

There was therefore a direct premium placed on a change of religion; and although religious freedom was in theory secured for the Copts under the capitulation, it soon proved in fact to be shadowy and illusory. For a religious freedom which became identified with social bondage and with financial bondage could have neither substance nor vitality. As Islam spread, the social pressure upon the Copts became enormous, while the financial pressure at least seemed harder to resist, as the number of Christians or Jews who were liable for the poll-tax diminished year by year, and their isolation became more conspicuous. This vicious system of bribing the Christians into conversion had also the obvious effect of crippling the state revenues. The fall in the income from tribute was rapid. For while ‘Amr, as we have seen, raised 12,000,000 dinars, and the tyrannical 'Abdallah ibn Sa'd raised 14,000,000 ; in the caliphate of Mu'awiah, when many had been converted, the total was reduced to 5,000,000. Under the great Harun ar Rashid it fell to 4,000,000; and after that it remained at 3,000,000, till towards the end of the ninth century. As the public exchequer thus became impoverished, new methods of taxation had to be devised to counterbalance the loss on the tribute; and it can scarcely be doubted that in fixing fresh taxes some discrimination was made in favour of the Muslims as against the Christians. It is thus probable that in fact, as well as in seeming, the burdens of the Christians grew heavier in proportion as their numbers lessened. The wonder, therefore, is not that so many Copts yielded to the current which bore them with sweep­ing force over to Islam, but that so great a multitude of Christians stood firmly against the stream, nor have all the storms of thirteen centuries moved their faith from the rock of its foundation.

Nevertheless, few things are more remarkable in history than the manner in which a handful of victorious Arabs from the desert absorbed and destroyed in Egypt,, broadly speaking, both the Christian religion and that older Byzantine culture, which owed at once its refinement and its frailty to the blending of the three great and ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece, and Egypt.

CHAPTER XXIX. REVOLT OF ALEXANDRIA UNDER MANUEL

But the conquest of Egypt was not quite ended. The war, which seemed to have closed, was reopened by a fierce attempt on the part of the Romans to recover their dominion, and the story of this adventure has yet to be briefly recounted.

Omar’s evil policy of keeping all his Viceroys under suspicion and displeasure, and of wringing the last farthing from his dominions, hastened his end. He was assassinated a few days before the close of a. h. 23, and buried on 1 Muharram, a.h. 24, on which day Othman was proclaimed his successor in the caliphate. But bad as the rule of Omar had been, the change of rulers was a doubtful gain to the Muslim Empire. If Omar worried and abused his best agents, Othman deposed them. One of Omar’s last acts had been to diminish the authority of 'Amr ibn al 'Asi by giving the government of Upper Egypt and the Fayum to ‘Abdallah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi Sarli, whom he also made controller of the land-tax. Othman completed 'Amr’s discomfiture by removing him altogether from the government of Egypt in favour of this same 'Abdallah, who was summoned from Shadmuh in the Fayum where he happened to be residing.

Estimates of the new governor vary somewhat unaccountably. According to Nawawi, ‘he was one of the most intelligent and noblest of the Kuraish’: while 'Amr unsparingly condemned his incompetence both as governor and as military commander, and Tabari brands him with the strongest possible censure: ‘Of all the wakils of Othman the worst was 'Abdallah, governor of Egypt’; and this at a time when the whole Muslim Empire was in. a ferment of revolt against the iniquitous rule of the Caliph and his Viceroys. The more favourable opinion of 'Abdallah seems merely a pleasant platitude, void of historical value. His oppression of the Egyptians is not a text which admits of two readings. The Caliph’s purpose in appointing 'Abdallah was to get a larger return from the tribute, and there is reason to think that 'Abdallah’s first measure was to increase the proportion borne by the Alexandrians. Unquestionably the burden of taxation now lay very heavily upon them; and it was their distress under its weight which prompted some of their leading men to write letters to the Emperor Constans at Byzantium, praying to be delivered from the tyranny of the Muslims. At the same time they pointed out that Alexandria was held by a very weak garrison, quite incapable of resisting a Roman army.

These arguments prevailed with Constans, who had never forgotten the wound to the pride and to the prosperity of the Empire caused by the loss of Egypt. He ordered a large armament to be prepared with the utmost secrecy. The Romans were still masters of the sea: their naval supremacy was as yet uncontested and unchallenged. Omar had heard vague rumours of ocean warfare, and had written to ask 'Amr’s opinion about it, saying, ‘Describe to me the sea and its rider.’ To this 'Amr had quaintly answered: ‘Verily I saw a huge construction, upon which diminutive creatures mounted. If the vessel lie still, it rends the heart; if it move, it terrifies the imagination. Upon it a man’s power ever diminishes and calamity increases. Those within the ship are like worms in a log. If it rolls over, they are drowned; if it escapes peril, they are confounded.’ And this description had sufficed to daunt Omar, who was remarkable for his fierce courage, and to deter him from ordering Mu'awiah to adventure upon the sea. It was not till Mu'awiah himself became Caliph that the Arabs learned the meaning and the value of sea­power.

There was therefore no Arab vessel afloat now to bring news of the expedition which the Emperor had dispatched under the command of Manuel for the recovery of Alexandria. A great fleet of three hundred sail bore into the harbour without warning, and anchored without resistance. There were only a thousand Arab soldiers to defend the city: these were quickly overpowered and slain, very few making good their escape : and Alexandria came once more under the dominion of the Caesars.

It is this incident which has given rise to the curious statement, found in Gibbon and other writers, that three or four days after the original capture of Alexandria the Romans, who had de­parted by sea, returned and surprised the scattered forces of the Arabs, and regained for a brief space possession of the city. There is no foundation for such a story, which rests on a mere misunderstanding. It springs in fact out of that confusion between the first and the second capture of Alexandria which blends the details of the two events. For example, the story postulates a capture by storm in the first instance, and has nothing to rest on if there was no capture by storm. But it has been proved beyond question that Alexandria was taken in the first instance under capitulation; that an armistice of eleven months was granted to the inhabitants; and that on the expiry of that term the Arabs made a peaceable, entry. Their occupation of the city was undisturbed from that moment until the arrival of Manuel.

Upon the date of this seizure of Alexandria by the Romans there is unusual agreement among the Arab writers, who place it at the beginning of A. h. 25, i.e. towards the end of 645 of our era. With regard to the position of 'Amr ibn al 'Asi at that moment, the same consent is not to be found. If Tabari is to be believed—and his authority is very high—‘Amr had actually been recalled to Mecca, and, when the news of the revolt arrived, he there received orders to resume the command in Egypt. In any case it seems certain that he had been removed from office prior to the landing of the Romans, and that his incapable successor had let the defences of the country fall into a state of dangerous weakness. Manuel’s army not only held Alexandria unchallenged, but they roamed over the adjacent country of the Delta, plundering the towns and villages and levying supplies of corn and wine and money with impunity. Nor do they seem to have paid much regard to professions of friendship: wherever the army moved, or detachments were scattered in idle occupation, the people were for the most part treated as conquered enemies.

Yet there must have been marked exceptions. For this revival of Roman power was due of course to the Roman element, which was strong in Alexandria, and which counted on a certain amount of sympathy among the people of the Delta: and whole villages are mentioned as having sided with the Romans. On the other hand, the Copts had little enough to hope from a renewal of Roman ascendency. The record of Cyrus’ persecution was graven too deep upon their memories: and even now, though the shadow of another tyranny was coming over them, they had a measure of civil and religious freedom greater than they could dream of retaining under the rule of Byzantium. The Copts, therefore, not only sided with the Arabs at this crisis, but they would have been guilty of supreme folly if they had again courted the stripes and fetters of the imperial government. Whether the Patriarch Benjamin remained in Alexandria, or whether he fled before the returning Roman army, is not quite certain, although the evidence points strongly to his flight or absence at the moment: but there is no question that both in act and in sympathy he stood with his people loyal to the cause of the Arabs, as bound by the Treaty of Alexandria.

While the Roman army were amusing themselves in tasting the delights of Egypt again, and were proving again their skill in throwing away golden opportunities, ‘Amr had, on the urgent petition of the Arabs, been reinstated in the military command at Babylon. It was felt at once that his unrivalled prestige and unrivalled ability were demanded to cope with a situation as dangerous as any in the history of the conquest. For if the Roman army, instead of wasting their time in the Delta, had marched straight for Fustat, it is quite possible that they might have defeated ‘Abdallah and have recaptured Babylon. As it was, they allowed 'Amr ample time to take up his post and to organize his army. He was in no way hurried. Indeed Khairijah ibn Hudhafah, the commander of the fortress of Babylon, thinking that delay was all in favour of the Romans, urged 'Amr to strike at once before the enemy were reinforced, or the whole of Egypt would be in insurrection. 'Amr took a different view. ‘ Nay,’ he said, ‘ I will challenge them to come out and attack me. So they will do damage to the people of the country through which they pass, and God will confound one part of our enemies by the other.’ It is worth remarking that the Arab generals at this stage made no distinction between Copts and Romans : they clearly thought that both parties alike were in armed rebellion. This proves that they had no ground of presumption that the Copts were friendly or even neutral: yet they would have had very strong ground if it had been true that the Copts on the original invasion hailed the Arabs as deliverers.

Accordingly the Romans, moving leisurely, were drawn on southwards as far as Nikiou before they encountered the advance of the Arabs, who numbered perhaps 15,000 men. We are not told whether Nikiou itself was taken: but a desperate battle took place between the two armies under the walls of the fortress and on the canal or river which ran by the town. The Roman army fought with signal valour. 'Amr himself was in the thick of the combat, and having his horse wounded by an arrow was obliged to dismount and fight on foot. In one part of the field the Arabs were routed and put to flight. Conspicuous on the Roman side, both for his prowess and for the magnificence of his armour chased and inlaid with gold, was a mounted officer, who, as the battle hung in doubt, shouted a challenge to the Arabs to single combat. One Hamil, of the tribe of Zubaid, took up the challenge, and the two champions tilted with spears without decisive result. Then the Roman flung away his lance and a long duel followed, sword against scimitar. Meanwhile the two armies paused and watched the encounter, standing in serried ranks beside the lists and shouting encouragement to the combatants. At last a fierce lunge made by the Roman was parried and returned with a blow of the Arab’s scimitar, which clove deep through the collar-bone of his adversary and killed him. Hamil himself was covered with wounds, which shortly proved fatal; and ‘Amr had his body sent on a litter to Fustat, where it was buried at the foot of the Mukattam Hills.

On the fall of the Roman champion the battle was renewed with fresh fury; but it ended at last in the defeat of Manuel’s forces, which were driven in headlong rout towards Alexandria. The broken army reached the capital in great disorder, hotly pursued by the Arabs, but they closed the gates and prepared to stand a siege. As ‘Amr marched through the Delta he was everywhere assisted by the Coptic villages, which provided bridge-builders and such supplies as they could furnish after being plundered by the Romans. When the Saracen army came once more before the walls of Alex­andria, and ‘Amr surveyed the almost impregnable defences of the city, he was keenly mortified, as he reflected on the folly which had left them standing, and yet unarmed by a proper garrison; and he swore that if he captured the city a second time, he would level its walls and make it as easy to enter as the house of a harlot. The Arab camp was pitched on the eastern side of the city—the only side open to siege operations—and he is said to have set up his engines of war, and battered the walls till a breach was effected. This story, how­ever, runs counter to all that is known of the vast strength of the ramparts; and it is much easier to credit another account which in this siege, as in the siege of Diocletian, makes the capture due largely to treason from within. For it is said that one of the warders of the gate, named I bn Bisamah, entered into communication with ‘Amr, and undertook to throw open the gate, if his own safety and that of his family and property was guaranteed.

In whatever manner an entrance was made, the city was taken by storm in act of resistance, and the Arabs rushed in plundering, burning, and slaying all before them. Nearly all that remained in the eastern quarter by the gate, including the church of St. Mark, perished in the fire; and the work of slaughter went on till somewhere in the middle of the city 'Amr himself put an end to it. The spot on which he had bidden his followers to sheath the sword was afterwards marked by a mosque called the Mosque of Mercy. Some part of the Roman soldiers managed to reach their ships and put out to sea: but great numbers perished in the city, and Manuel himself was among the fallen. The women and children were taken as the prize of war.

This was the second capture of Alexandria; it took place in the summer of 646, and it was a capture by force. The two events are very clearly distinguished in time and in circumstance: but unfortunately they have not been kept apart by Arab writers, and it is past the power of criticism to bring back to their right order the two series of incidents, which are found in almost every possible permutation. This, however, is beyond question the place for recording one incident which has caused much perplexity, having been taken out of its proper setting and thrust into the story of the first capture, viz. the visit said to have been paid by Al Mukaukas to 'Amr for the purpose of making some very strange proposals. Of course Al Mukaukas was dead long ago: but just as the title is mistakenly carried back by Arab writers to the governor before the conquest who received Mohammed’s mission, so it is mistakenly pre­served after the conquest, and applied to Benjamin, the Coptic Patriarch. Accordingly, when one reads that during the siege of Alexandria Al Mukaukas came to 'Amr and offered to help him on three condi­tions, the episode must be construed as referring to Benjamin’s action in connexion with the revolt of Alexandria, when Manuel’s army had seized the city.

The dislocation of this incident is of extreme im­portance for the history of the conquest: it is in fact the main cause of the misunderstanding upon which the most erroneous versions are founded. There is no such thing as a critical history of the conquest. All the Arab historians give a selection of passages from various writers recording different events; but in their process of selection they often fail to distinguish what ought to be distinguished, and they group together incidents which are out of true chronology and order. When once the story gets out of place and out of relation to its true context, it becomes insensibly modified to suit its new surroundings, and in many cases degenerates into falsehood or absurdity. So it is here. For Makrizi gives the three stipulations named by Al Mukaukas to 'Amr as follows: (1) that the Arabs should never break their treaty with the Copts, and should reckon him (Al Mukaukas) among them, (2) that they should make no treaty with the Romans; (3) that they should bury him by the bridge at Alexandria. Now this statement of the terms is not only wholly improbable in itself, but it is a gross perversion of the original account from which it was taken. It represents Al Mukaukas as, by inference, a Roman begging the Arabs to observe their compact with the Copts and to make no compact with the Romans; and from this springs the story that the Copts, as opposed to the Romans, made a treaty with the Arabs on their arrival in Egypt; and from this again springs the legend that the Copts welcomed the Arabs as deliverers. But the same authority gives another version of the terms, as follows, from I bn'Abd al Hakam: (1) that the Romans should not be treated as generously as the Copts, because they had suspected Al Mukaukas on account of the advice he had given them; (2) that the treaty made with the Copts, to which they assuredly would adhere, should not be broken; (3) that Al Mukaukas himself should be buried at St. John’s church. Here we get back to an earlier version and so nearer the truth; and it is specially to be noted that there is not a word corresponding to the sentence I have put in italics. The supposed request of Al Mukaukas to be reckoned as a Copt is a wholly unauthorized insertion of a writer who sought by it to clear up a position which quite naturally passed his understanding. The insertion was made to support the erroneous theory that Al Mukaukas was with the Copts in sympathy, and had negotiated a treaty in their favour.

But fortunately there survives in Baladhuri a version of the demands of Al Mukaukas, which proves clearly that the incident belongs not to the first capture of Alexandria but to the revolt of Manuel, and that by Al Mukaukas only Benjamin can originally have been intended. In that version what Benjamin asked of 'Amr was as follows: (1) not to grant as favourable terms to the Romans as to me, and (2) not to ill-treat the Copts, because it is not they who have broken the treaty; and (3) if I die, have me buried in such a church. Now this phrase in italics illuminates the whole matter. The Copts were no party to the rebellion of Alexandria, which was a breach of the treaty made by Cyrus, Al Mukaukas. They had no sympathy with this conspiracy to restore the Roman Empire. Accordingly their chief—Benjamin as he now was—approached 'Amr, and promised the aid of his people, provided that they, who had been loyal, should be honourably treated and not confounded with the rebels. Thus replaced in its proper context the incident becomes as intelligible and interesting as before it was obscure and puzzling. I venture to dwell upon it at some length, because it really is of great historical moment, and because it gives a good illustration of the difficulties which criticism has to encounter, and may hope to remove.

Such then were the Patriarch’s proposals. On hearing them 'Amr had remarked, ‘The last is the easiest of the three.’ It was easy to promise Benjamin burial in the church of St. John, but it was not easy to distinguish in all cases between the action of the Copts and that of the Romans, or to decide how far the Copts were responsible for the insurrection. The point at which the interview between 'Amr and Benjamin took place is doubtful, but it may be conjectured that it was at Babylon before 'Amr set out on his march to meet the Romans, and before he felt sure what part the Copts had been playing. From the first they had probably shown a passive hostility to Manuel; they certainly aided the march of the Arabs through the Delta; and this attitude must have been determined by Benjamin in virtue of his arrangement with the Arab leader.

Here, then, at last we find the Copts in willing co­operation, under regular agreement, with the Arabs, and their co-operation continued until the Roman army was destroyed and Alexandria recaptured. And this discovery reveals the true foundation on which rests the story of an alliance made between the Copts and the Arabs upon the first entry of the Arabs into Egypt—a story which is false in itself and has been refuted over and over again in these pages, but which has been built on a basis of mingled fact and misunderstanding. Briefly the story is true of the campaign ending with the second capture of Alexandria, and not of any earlier campaign; it is true of the rebellion, and not true of the conquest; it is a historical picture, but set in the wrong framing.

But there is one other legend which has perplexed and misled historians, and which may now be once for all banished. I have already mentioned the story—found in the pages of Severus and Theophanes—that Cyrus paid tribute to the Arabs for three or more years before the invasion of Egypt and in order to buy off the Arabs; and this story I have denounced as wholly unworthy of credence without finally demonstrating its falsity. Now, however, the clearest light is thrown upon its genesis, and it is seen to be a fallacious inference from a misunderstood passage in a compressed and garbled narrative. I have no doubt that the story came originally from a Greek authority, such as Theophanes, who had run the events of several years together in a confused summary which has little or no regard for chronology. Theophanes alleges that when the Arabs attacked Egypt, Cyrus promised under a convention that Egypt should pay a yearly tribute of 200,000 dinars; and he goes on to say: ‘So Cyrus for three years saved Egypt from extermina­tion. Cyrus then was accused before the Emperor of paying Egyptian gold in tribute to the Arabs, and the Emperor in wrath summoned Cyrus and appointed Manuel, an Armenian, as Augustal. When the year was out, the Arabs sent to receive their money; but Manuel answered, “I am no defenceless Cyrus to pay you tribute, but am well armed,” and so sent them empty away. Then the Arabs armed against Egypt, and, making war, drove Manuel before them; but he got safely with a few followers to Alexandria. Then the Arabs again put Egypt under tribute. When the Emperor heard of all this, he sent Cyrus to persuade the Arabs to retire from Egypt under the former convention. Cyrus came to their camp, and said he was innocent of the treachery, and would confirm on oath the former agreement. The Arabs wholly refused this arrangement.’ It is really impossible to characterize the blunders and the confusions of this narrative: it is a tissue of misstatement. Yet any one reading it would be bound to infer that the Arabs were met by Cyrus on their first advance, and bribed to retire from the country; that Manuel was sent by Heraclius directly he heard of the arrangement; and that after the defeat of Manuel, the Arabs refused to renew the original convention, which bound them to evacuate the country. Such is the per­version of history upon which this legend of the tribute is founded : it needs no further refutation: and yet serious works of the present day regard the legend as truth.

CHAPTER XXX, CONCLUSION

Alexandria met and deserved the fate of a conquered town. The city had been guilty of rebellion in taking up arms against the Arabs and in calling upon the Romans for aid. The revolt might have been justified, if it had been successful: but the rebels now were doubly in the wrong—they had broken the treaty of capitulation, and they had failed to reconquer the country. It is not easy to decide whether they had any moral ground for the breach of treaty. Such ground could only be furnished if the treaty had been broken by the Arabs. There are hints that this was the case—that tribute, had been exacted in excess of the covenanted amount; but clear proof is wanting. In any case the action taken by the Emperor would seem quite indefensible. He had put his hand and seal to a solemn compact, in which he had promised that the withdrawal of his forces from Egypt should be final, that no Roman army should again land in the country. If he considered that the Arabs had not kept the terms of the treaty, he might have denounced it as no longer binding: but it was against all the laws of war to equip a vast armament in secret, and to seize the capital of Egypt in direct defiance of treaty. The Arabs therefore were entitled to treat the rebels with some sternness. And in their entry, when the city was given over to fire and sword, no discrimina­tion could well be made between friend and foe, Copt and Roman. It was otherwise with regard to the country places. As soon as the revolt had been stamped out in Alexandria, 'Amr in fulfilment of his vow ordered the walls on the eastern side of the city to be razed to the ground. He then turned his arms against those towns in the Delta which had overtly aided the rebellion. It seems that Talama, the governor, or ex-governor, of Ikhans, a coast­town between Alexandria and Rosetta, had been one of the prime movers in the rebellion, having himself journeyed to Constantinople and returned in company with the Roman armament. The defeat of the Romans left him in a forlorn position. He was taken prisoner, and brought. before 'Amr, who was advised to put him to death. The Arab commander, however, treated the matter lightly. He ordered golden armlets to be put on TalamA, a crown on his head, and a purple robe on his  shoulders: then mockingly told him to depart and bring another of his imperial armies against Egypt In the end Talama was thankful to be allowed to stay in Egypt and pay the poll-tax. The other towns which fought on the side of the Romans in the revolt of Manuel were in the main the same as those which offered strongest resistance to the Arabs in the original conquest of Egypt, viz. Balhib, Khais, Suntais, Fartasa, and Sakha. From all these places, as from Alexandria itself, captives were taken and were sent to Medina: but when the Caliph Othman was formally consulted with regard to the treatment of the rebel towns, he had the good sense to return the captives and to grant an indemnity to the inhabitants concerned in the revolt, restoring their status as protected people, subject to payment of the fixed poll-tax. In other words, the Caliph renounced his right to treat Alexandria and the other places as the lawful prize of war and their inhabitants as slaves at the mercy of their conquerors. There seems to have been a strong desire on the part of some of 'Amr’s forces both to divide the city of Alexandria and to remain there: it is even said that ‘Amr himself wished to fix his abode in the sea-side capital. But any such intention, now as before, was repressed by the Caliph. Moreover, 'Amr was only allowed to stay for one month in Alexandria, after which he handed it over to 'Abdallah ibn Sa'd.

One characteristic anecdote must not be passed over in silence. After the recapture of Alexandria, the Copts of the various Delta villages which had been ruthlessly plundered by the Roman army, came to 'Amr and complained that while they had stood loyal to the Arabs as bound under treaty, they had not received the protection to which under the same treaty they were entitled, and in con­sequence they had suffered severely. The justice of this remonstrance is obvious: but it is not every victorious general whose conscience would be troubled by such a protest. Of 'Amr, however, it is recorded that he was struck with remorse, and exclaimed: ‘Would that I had encountered the Romans as soon as they issued forth from Alexandria!’ What is more, he at once ordered full compensation to be paid to the Copts for all their losses. This frank admission of responsibility and frank restitution prove at once the excellence of 'Amr’s principles of government and the nobility of his nature.

But these very virtues were regarded as vices by the jaundiced eye of the Caliph. He was not blind to the supreme military talent of the conqueror, and so offered to reward his service by giving him the post of commander-in-chief of the army, while the unscrupulous 'Abdallah was to be retained as controller of the taxes and governor-general. Such an offer could only meet with contemptuous rejection; and 'Amr’s resentment of the mockery is well preserved in his caustic remark, ‘I should be like a man holding a cow by the horns while another milked her.’ But he had served the Caliph’s turn in crushing the rebellion, and was no longer wanted. What the Caliph required was a man to wring money out of the Egyptians, and the man for that purpose was 'Abdallah’. 'Amr accordingly quitted the country.

Here then the story of the Arab conquest may fitly close. The suppression of Manuel’s revolt and the recapture of Alexandria by the Arabs mark the definitive establishment of Muslim dominion upon the Nile valley. It is true that nine years later the Emperor Constans fitted out a second armada, which he destined for the recovery of Egypt. But it was too late. By this time the Arabs had learned something of seamanship; and their fleet, though inferior in numbers and fighting capacity, so baffled the Roman force that the expedition never effected a landing in Egypt. Its failure in battle was turned to disaster by storm: the broken remnant of the great fleet was scattered and driven over the seas. From that moment the Muslim power was not again seriously menaced, although the coast towns long continued subject to isolated and fruitless raids on the part of Byzantine sailors or pirates.

It might perhaps be interesting to follow out the social and other changes which resulted from the conquest; to trace the rapid decay of Graeco-Roman culture and the slow growth of a new Saracenic civilization; and to distinguish those unyielding elements of old Egyptian life and thought which no transmutation of society could alter. One might show how the old classical learning strove in vain to maintain its position in the fallen city of Alexandria, but was dispossessed by slow degrees and finally banished to the cells and convents of the desert; where it lingered in inanition till the Coptic language itself dwindled and disappeared. One might study the process by which the use of Arabic spread over the country, finding its first expression in the coinage late in the seventh century and then adopted in the public offices and public documents, gaining upon the Coptic and driving out the use of Greek in common speech, save for some few words which took Arabic shape or those terms and phrases which remain as fossils to this day embedded in Coptic literature. One might also sketch the decline of those great and splendid cities which the Romans had left in Egypt: for Alexandria, though first among the cities of the East, if not of the world, was only one among many which reached from Syene to the Mediterranean. One would find that temples and palaces were suffered to fall into ruins; that precious marbles were quarried for building or burned for lime; that bronze statues were melted down and turned into coin or domestic vessels; and yet that, through all the melancholy history of decadence and destruction, certain forms and traditions of classical art were kept alive by Coptic craftsmen, and that from these traditions, moulded afresh by the Arab spirit, there sprang a new school of art and architecture, with schemes of decoration from which all suggestion of the human form was banished, but which achieved results as remarkable for originality as for grace and beauty and splendour. But a great deal has already been done towards tracing the descent of Saracenic from Byzantine art; and in any case researches of this kind lie beyond the limits of the present work.

So too of the Coptic race and religion. It has already been shown how powerful were the forces tending to drive the Copts into complete social and religious union with Islam: and few things are stranger in history than the absolute absorption of the one part of the Copts and the stubborn refusal of the other part to renounce their ancestral customs and their religion—a refusal which has stood the test not only of the severest persecution, under which sufferers may be sustained by fire of enthusiasm, but also of that long dull wearing pressure of a daily life in which a sense of subjection, a consciousness of inferiority, was ever present. Of course the survival of Christianity was largely due to the influence of the monasteries, and their security was due in some degree to their remoteness in desert or mountain fastness. Yet few passages in the annals of Egypt are more agreeable reading than those which tell of the extremely friendly relations which prevailed between some of the Coptic abbots and the Caliphs, and the delight which the latter took in visiting picturesque and pleasant convents. But studies of this kind belong to a later period, and here must be left alone.

It might be thought perhaps that one ought at least to follow out the fortunes of the conqueror of Egypt. This would be an easy task: for in coming to the time of settled Arab government one emerges from the dark labyrinth of controversy and contradiction into the open light of history. But the part which 'Amr played in the troubled politics of Islam after his dismissal from Egypt; the story of Othman’s murder; the contest between 'Ali and Mu'awiah; 'Amr’s victorious march into Egypt and his reinstatement as governor—all this is written in the chronicles of the caliphate, which have been long accessible to the reader.

It was in Rabi' I of a.h. 38 (Aug.-Sept. 658) that 'Amr entered upon his second governorship. He soon pacified the country, and after rewarding his army entered on the enjoyment of the revenues, in the disposal of which Mu'awiah left him unfettered discretion. The curious episode of the arbitration between the rival claims of 'Alt and Mu'awiah recalled him for a short space from Egypt, and upon his return he had a narrow escape of being assassinated. A conspiracy having been formed to put to death the three great leaders of Islam— 'Ali, Mu'awiah, and 'Amr—one Yazid was told off to murder 'Amr while he was leading the Friday prayers at the mosque. On the day destined for the deed it so happened that 'Amr was somewhat unwell, and he deputed the well-known general Kharijah ibn Hudhiifah to take his place. Unaware of the change, the assassin plunged his dagger into Kharijah. When confronted with the governor Yazid said boldly, ‘ By God, it was you I wanted.’ ‘But God wanted Kadrijah,’ said 'Amr.

On January 3, 662, the Patriarch Benjamin passed away after a long period of illness and infirmity. He had been Archbishop of Alexandria for the space of thirty-nine years—a strange and stormy epoch, rich in great events, stirred with the adventure of nations, as race met race and creed encountered creed in combat for the dominion of souls and for the empire of the East. Benjamin, elected under Roman rule, had seen the Persians under Chosroes take possession of Egypt and of almost the whole realm of the Caesars. He had seen the grandly victorious campaigns of Heraclius ending in the recall of the Persians from the Nile valley; and with the return of the Roman armies he had seen the arrival of Cyrus, before whose persecution he fled into the desert, there to remain for thirteen years till the era of Roman dominion was closed for ever. Above all he had seen a new power and a new religion issue from the wastes of Arabia, challenging Magian and Christian alike, sweeping in conquest over Syria, Persia, and Egypt. After all the wars and revolutions he had witnessed, he was able to leave his Church in comparative peace under the rule of the conquering Muslims and their great chieftain 'Amr ibn al 'Ast.

'Amr survived him almost exactly two years. The Berbers of Pentapolis had been causing continual trouble, and from 661 to 663 'Amr had sent more than one expedition against them. When at the end of 663 his lieutenants returned in triumph, they found 'Amr at Fustat in his last illness. It is related that when he lay dying, Ibn 'Abbas went to 'Amr and said: ‘You have often remarked that you would like to find an intelligent man at the point of death, anti to ask what his feelings were. Now I ask you that question.’ ‘Amr replied: ‘ I feel as if the heaven lay close upon the earth, and I between the two, breathing as through the eye of a needle.’ When his son 'Abdallah entered the room, 'Amr pointed to a chest and said, ‘ That is for you.’ ‘I have no need,’ said 'Abdallah. ‘Take it,’ said 'Amr; ‘it is full of money’: but 'Abdallah still refused’. The last words of 'Amr are recorded as follows: ‘Almighty God, thou hast commanded, and I have disobeyed; thou hast forbidden, and I have transgressed. I am not innocent enough to deserve thy pardon, nor have I strength to prevail against thy will.’ He died on January 6, 664, at the age of about seventy. 'Abdallah carried his body to the place of prayer and prayed over it, his prayer being followed by all who were present.

'Amr was buried at the foot of the Mukattam Hills, near the entrance to the ravine. But the place of his grave has been clean forgotten. For centuries the mountains have been scarped and quarried, till even the landmark of the ravine has so long disappeared that tradition itself has sunk into silence. The new capital of Fustat which 'Amr founded, and which rose later to great magnificence, has long since been levelled with the dust, leaving no vestige but the mosque which bears 'Amr’s name, and which still marks at least the site of his original building. Close by in Dair Abu’s Saifain and in Kasr ash Shama' churches are still standing which date their foundation, if not their structure, back to the Roman Empire. The very walls of Babylon, which were nearly complete some twenty years ago, still remain in places, and probably the whole circuit could be revealed to a great depth, like the gateway, by excavation. But one may search the desolate plain and the fringe of the mountains in vain for any stone to mark the grave of 'Amr: for the Muslims haye neither memorial nor remembrance of the place where the conqueror of Egypt is buried.