this time. They prophesied the re-establishment of
the Jews at Jerusalem, and, as the wished-for time drew near, all the
eastern provinces of the Roman empire were disturbed by rebellious
risings of the Jews. Moved by the religious enthusiasm which gave birth
to the writings, the Jews of Egypt in the eighteenth year of this
reign (116 A.D.) were again roused into a quarrel with their Greek
fellow-citizens; and in the next year, the last of the reign, they rose
against their Roman governors in open rebellion, and they were not put
down till the prefect Lupus had brought his forces against them. After
this the Jews of Cyrene marched through the desert into Egypt, under the
command of Lucuas, to help their brethren; and the rebellion took the
regular form of a civil war, with all its usual horrors. The emperor
sent against the Jews an army followed by a fleet, which, after numerous
skirmishes and battles, routed them with great slaughter, and drove
numbers of them back into the desert, whence they harassed the village
as robbers. By these unsuccessful appeals to force, the Jews lost all
right to those privileges of citizenship which they always claimed, and
which had been granted by the emperors, though usually refused by the
Alexandrians. The despair and disappointment of the Jews seem in many
cases to have turned their minds to the Christian view of the Old
Testament prophecies; henceforth, says Eusebius, the Jews embraced the
Christian religion more readily and in greater numbers.

In A.D. 122, the sixth year of the reign of Hadrian, Egypt was honoured
by a visit from the emperor. He was led to Egypt at that time by some
riots of a character more serious than usual, which had arisen between
two cities, probably Memphis and Heliopolis, about a bull, as to whether
it was to be Apis or Mnevis. Egypt had been for some years without a
sacred bull; and when at length the priests found one, marked with the
mystic spots, the inhabitants of those two cities flew to arms, and
the peace of the province was disturbed by their religious zeal, each
claiming the bull as their own.

Hadrian also undertook a voyage up the Nile from Alexandria in order to
explore the wonders of Egypt. This was the fashion then, for the ancient
monuments and the banks of this mysterious river offered just as many
attractions at that time as they have done to all nations since
the expedition of Napoleon. That animal-worship, which had remained
unchanged f