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Egypt Egypt under Rome and Byzantium, 30 B.C.-A.D. 640
With the establishment of Roman rule by Emperor Augustus in
30 B.C., more than six centuries of Roman and Byzantine control
began. Egypt again became the province of an empire, as it had
been under the Persians and briefly under Alexander. As the
principal source of the grain supply for Rome, it came under the
direct control of the emperor in his capacity as supreme military
chief, and a strong force was garrisoned there. Gradually, Latin
replaced Greek as the language of higher administration. In 212
Rome gave the Egyptians citizenship in the empire.
The emperor ruled as successor to the Ptolemies with the
title of "Pharaoh, Lord of the Two Lands," and the conventional
divine attributes assigned to Egyptian kings were attributed to
him. Rome was careful, however, to bring the native priesthood
under its control, although guaranteeing traditional priestly
rights and privileges.
Augustus and his successors continued the tradition of
building temples to the local gods on which the rulers and the
gods were depicted in the Egyptian manner. The Romans completed
the construction of an architectural jewel, the Temple of Isis on
Philae Island (Jazirat Filah), which was begun under the
Ptolemies. A new artistic development during this period was the
painting of portraits on wood, an art that originated in the
Fayyum region. These portraits were placed on the coffins of
mummies.
The general pattern of Roman Egypt included a strong,
centralized administration supported by a military force large
enough to guarantee internal order and to provide security
against marauding nomads. There was an elaborate bureaucracy with
an extended system of registers and controls, and a social
hierarchy based on caste and privilege with preferred treatment
for the Hellenized population of the towns over the rural and
native Egyptian population. The best land continued to form the
royal domain.
The empire that Rome established was wider, more enduring,
and better administered than any the Mediterranean world had
known. For centuries, it provided an ease of communication and a
unity of culture throughout the empire that would not be seen
again until modern times. In Western Europe, Rome founded a
tradition of public order and municipal government that outlasted
the empire itself. In the East, however, where Rome came into
contact with older and more advanced civilizations, Roman rule
was less successful.
The story of Roman Egypt is a sad record of shortsighted
exploitation leading to economic and social decline. Like the
Ptolemies, Rome treated Egypt as a mere estate to be exploited
for the benefit of the rulers. But however incompetently some of
the later Ptolemies managed their estate, much of the wealth they
derived from it remained in the country itself. Rome, however,
was an absentee landlord, and a large part of the grain delivered
as rent by the royal tenants or as tax by the landowners as well
as the numerous money-taxes were sent to Rome and represented a
complete loss to Egypt.
The history of Egypt in this period cannot be separated from
the history of the Roman Empire. Thus, Egypt was affected by the
spread of Christianity in the empire in the first century A.D.
and by the decline of the empire during the third century A.D.
Christianity arrived early in Egypt, and the new religion quickly
spread from Alexandria into the hinterland, reaching Upper Egypt
by the second century. According to some Christian traditions,
St. Mark brought Christianity to Egypt in A.D. 37, and the church
in Alexandria was founded in A.D. 40. The Egyptian Christians are
called Copts, a word derived from the Greek word for the country,
Aegyptos. In the Coptic language, the Copts also called
themselves "people of Egypt." Thus the word Copt
originally implied nationality rather than religion.
In the third century A.D., the decay of the empire gradually
affected the Roman administration of Egypt. Roman bureaucracy
became overcentralized and poorly managed. The number of
qualified applicants for administrative positions was seriously
reduced by Roman civil war, pestilence, and conflict among
claimants to imperial power.
A renaissance of imperial authority and effectiveness took
place under Emperor Diocletian. During his reign (284-305), the
partition of the Roman Empire into eastern and western segments
began. Diocletian inaugurated drastic political and fiscal
reforms and sought to simplify imperial administration. Under
Diocletian, the administrative unity of Egypt was destroyed by
transforming Egypt from one province into three. Seeing
Christianity as a threat to Roman state religion and thus to the
unity of the empire, Diocletian launched a violent persecution of
Christians.
The Egyptian church was particularly affected by the Roman
persecutions, beginning with Septimius Severus's edict of 202
dissolving the influential Christian School of Alexandria and
forbidding future conversions to Christianity. In 303 Emperor
Diocletian issued a decree ordering all churches demolished, all
sacred books burned, and all Christians who were not officials
made slaves. The decree was carried out for three years, a period
known as the "Era of Martyrs." The lives of many Egyptian
Christians were spared only because more workers were needed in
the porphyry quarries and emerald mines that were worked by
Egyptian Christians as "convict labor."
Emperor Constantine I (324-337) ruled both the eastern and
western parts of the empire. In 330 he established his capital at
Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople (present-day
Istanbul). Egypt was governed from Constantinople as part of the
Byzantine Empire. In 312 Constantine established Christianity as
the official religion of the empire, and his Edict of Milan of
313 established freedom of worship.
By the middle of the fourth century, Egypt was largely a
Christian country. In 324 the ecumenical Council of Nicea
established the patriarchate of Alexandria as second only to that
of Rome; its jurisdiction extended over Egypt and Libya. The
patriarchate had a profound influence on the early development of
the Christian church because it helped to clarify belief and to
formulate dogmas. In 333 the number of Egyptian bishops was
estimated at nearly 100.
After the fall of Rome, the Byzantine Empire became the
center of both political and religious power. The political and
religious conflict between the Copts of Egypt and the rulers of
Byzantium began when the patriarchate of Constantinople began to
rival that of Alexandria. The Council of Chalcedon in 451
initiated the great schism that separated the Egyptian Church
from Catholic Christendom. The schism had momentous consequences
for the future of Christianity in the East and for Byzantine
power. Ostensibly, the council was called to decide on the nature
of Christ. If Christ were both God and man, had he two natures?
The Arians had already been declared heretics for denying or
minimizing the divinity of Christ; the opposite was to ignore or
minimize his humanity. Coptic Christians were Monophysites who
believed that after the incarnation Christ had but one nature
with dual aspects. The council, however, declared that Christ had
two natures and that he was equally human and equally divine. The
Coptic Church refused to accept the council's decree and rejected
the bishop sent to Egypt. Henceforth, the Coptic Church was in
schism from the Catholic Church as represented by the Byzantine
Empire and the Byzantine Church.
For nearly two centuries, Monophysitism in Egypt became the
symbol of national and religious resistance to Byzantium's
political and religious authority. The Egyptian Church was
severely persecuted by Byzantium. Churches were closed, and
Coptic Christians were killed, tortured, and exiled in an effort
to force the Egyptian Church to accept Byzantine orthodoxy. The
Coptic Church continued to appoint its own patriarchs, refusing
to accept those chosen by Constantinople and attempting to depose
them. The break with Catholicism in the fifth century converted
the Coptic Church to a national church with deeply rooted
traditions that have remained unchanged to this day.
By the seventh century, the religious persecutions and the
growing pressure of taxation had engendered great hatred of the
Byzantines. As a result, the Egyptians offered little resistance
to the conquering armies of Islam.
Data as of December 1990
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