ef mark
of the Gnostic sect. He thought much of the sacred power of numbers.
Abraham had three hundred and eighteen servants when he rescued Lot,
which, when written in Greek numerals thus, IHT formed the sacred sign
for the name of Jesus. Ten was a perfect number, and is that of the
commandments given to Moses. Seven was a glorious number, and there
are seven Pleiades, seven planets, seven days in the week; and the
two fishes and five barley loaves, with which the multitude were
miraculously fed, together make the number of years of plenty in Egypt
under Joseph. Clemens also quotes several lines in praise of the seventh
day, which he says were from Homer, Hesiod, and Callimachus; but here
there is reason to believe that he was deceived by the pious fraud of
some zealous Jew or Christian, as no such lines are now to be found in
the pagan poets.

During the reign of Pertinax, which lasted only three months (194 A.D.),
we find no trace of his power in Egypt, except the money which the
Alexandrians coined in his name. It seems to have been the duty of the
prefect of the mint, as soon as he heard of an emperor's death, to lose
no time in issuing coins in the name of his successor. It was one of the
means to proclaim and secure the allegiance of the province for the new
emperor.

During the reign of Commodus, Pescennius Niger had been at the head of
the legion that was employed in Upper Egypt in stopping the inroads of
their troublesome neighbours, who already sometimes bore the name of
Saracens. He was a hardy soldier, and strict in his discipline, while he
shared the labours of the field and of the camp with the men under him.
He would not allow them the use of wine; and once, when the troops that
guarded the frontier at Syene (Aswan) sent to ask for it, he bluntly
answered, "You have got the Nile to drink, and cannot possibly want
more." Once, when a cohort had been routed by the Saracens, the men
complained that they could not fight without wine; but he would not
relax in his discipline. "Those who have just now beaten you," said
Niger, "drink nothing but water." He gained the love and thanks of the
people of Upper Egypt by thus bridling the lawlessness of the troops;
and they gave him his statue cut in black basalt, in allusion to his
name Niger. This statue was placed in his Roman villa.

[Illustration: 138b.jpg A NATIVE OF ASWAN]

But on the death of Pertinax, when Septimus Severus declared himself
emperor in Pan