and the prefect was forced to call out the
garrison of two Roman legions and five thousand Libyans before he
could re-establish peace in the city. The Jews were always the greatest
sufferers in these civil broils; and Josephus says that fifty thousand
of his countrymen were left dead in the streets of Alexandria. But this
number is very improbable, as the prefect was a friend to the Jewish
nation, and as the Roman legions were not withdrawn to the camp till
they had guarded the Jews in carrying away and burying the bodies of
their friends.

It was a natural policy on the part of the emperors to change a prefect
whenever his province was disturbed by rebellion, as we have seen in the
case of Flaccus, who was recalled by Caligula. It was easier to send a
new governor than to inquire into a wrong or to redress a grievance; and
accordingly in the next year C. Balbillus was sent from Rome as prefect
of Egypt. He reached Alexandria on the sixth day after leaving the
Straits of Sicily, which was spoken of as the quickest voyage known. The
Alexandrian ships were better built and better manned than any others,
and, as a greater number of vessels sailed every year between that port
and Puteoli on the coast of Italy than between any other two places, no
voyage was better understood or more quickly performed. They were out of
sight of land for five hundred miles between Syracuse and Cyrene. Hence
we see that the quickest rate of sailing, with a fair wind, was at that
time about one hundred and fifty miles in the twenty-four hours. But
these ships had very little power of bearing up against the wind; and
if it were contrary the voyage became tedious. If the captain on sailing
out of the port of Alexandria found the wind westerly, and was unable to
creep along the African coast to Cyrene, he stood over to the coast of
Asia Minor, in hopes of there finding a more favourable wind. If a storm
arose, he ran into the nearest port, perhaps in Crete, perhaps in Malta,
there to wait the return of fair weather. If winter then came on, he had
to lie by till spring. Thus a vessel laden with Egyptian wheat, leaving
Alexandria in September, after the harvest had been brought down to the
coast, would sometimes spend five months on its voyage from that port to
Puteoli. Such was the case with the ship bearing the children of Jove
as its figurehead, which picked up the Apostle Paul and the historian
Josephus when they had been wrecked together on the