ian rank, was killed by the mob. The
Alexandrians treated the affair as murder, and punished with death those
who were thought guilty; but the emperor looked upon it as a rebellion
of the citizens, and the bishop was obliged to go on an embassy to
Constantinople to appease his just anger.

Anastasius, who had deserved the obedience of the Egyptians by his
moderation, pardoned their ingratitude when they offended; but he was
the last Byzantine emperor who governed Egypt with wisdom, and the last
who failed to enforce the decrees of the council of Chalcedon. It may
well be doubted whether any wise conduct on the part of the rulers
could have healed the quarrel between the two countries, and made the
Egyptians forget the wrongs that they had suffered from the Greeks.

In the tenth year of the reign of Anastasius, A.D. 501, the Persians,
after overrunning a large part of Syria and defeating the Roman
generals, passed Pelusium and entered Egypt. The army of Kobades
laid waste the whole of the Delta up to the very walls of Alexandria.
Eustatius, the military prefect, led out his forces against the invaders
and fought many battles with doubtful success; but as the capital was
safe the Persians were at last obliged to retire, leaving the people
ruined as much by the loss of a harvest as by the sword. Alexandria
suffered severely from famine and the diseases which followed in
its train; and history has gratefully recorded the name of Urbib, a
Christian Jew of great wealth, who relieved the starving poor of that
city with his bounty. Three hundred persons were crushed to death in the
church of Arcadius on Easter Sunday in the press of the crowd to receive
his alms. As war brought on disease and famine, they also brought on
rebellion. The people of Alexandria, in want of grain and oil, rose
against the magistrates, and many lives were lost in the attempt to
quell the riots.

In the early part of this history we have seen ambitious bishops quickly
disposed of by banishment to the Great Oasis; and again, as the country
became more desolate, criminals were sufficiently separated from the
rest of the empire by being sent to Thebes. Alexandria was then the last
place in the world in which a pretender to the throne would be allowed
to live. But Egypt was now ruined; and Anastasius began his reign by
banishing, to the fallen Alexandria, Longinus, the brother of the late
king, and he had him ordained a presbyter, to mark him as unfit fo