The military government was under a count with two dukes, with a number of legions, cohorts, troops, and wedges of cavalry, stationed in about fifty cities, which, if they had looked as well in the field as they do upon paper, would have made Theodosius II. as powerful as Augustus.  But the number of Greek and Roman troops was small.  The rest were barbarians who held their own lives at small price, and the lives of the unhappy Egyptians at still less.  The Greeks were only a part of the fifth Macedonian legion, and Trajan’s second legion, which were stationed at Memphis, at Parembole, and at Apollinopolis; while from the names of the other cohorts we learn that they were Franks, Portuguese, Germans, Quadri, Spaniards, Britons, Moors, Vandals, Gauls, Sarmati, Assyrians, Galatians, Africans, Numid-ians, and others of less known and more remote places.  Egypt itself furnished the Egyptian legion, part of which was in Mesopotamia, Diocletian’s third legion of Thebans, the first Maximinian legion of Thebans which was stationed in Thrace, Constantine’s second Flavian legion of Thebans, Valens’ second Felix legion of Thebans, and the Julian Alexandrian legion, stationed in Thrace.  Beside these, there were several bodies of native militia, from Abydos, Syene, and other cities, which were not formed into legions.  The Egyptian cavalry were a first and second Egyptian troop, several bodies of native archers mounted, three troops on dromedaries, and a body of Diocletian’s third legion promoted to the cavalry.  These Egyptian troops were chiefly Arab settlers in the Thebaid, for the Kopts had long since lost the use of arms.  The Kopts were weak enough to be trampled on; but the Arabs were worth bribing by admission into the legions.  The taxes of the province were collected by a number of counts of the sacred largesses, who wrere under the orders of an officer of the same title at Constantinople, and were helped by a body of counts of the exports and imports, prefects of the treasury and of the mints, with an army of clerks of all titles and all ranks.  From this government the Alexandrians were exempt, living under their own military prefect and corporation, and, instead of paying any taxes beyond the custom-house duties at the port, they received a bounty in grain out of the taxes of Egypt.

Soon after this we find the political division of Egypt slightly altered.  It is then divided into eight governments; the Upper Thebaid with eleven cities under a duke; the Lower Thebaid with ten cities, including the Great Oasis and part of the Heptanomis, under a general; Upper Libya or Cyrene under a general; Lower Libya or Parastonium under a general; Arcadia, or the remainder of the Heptanomis, under a general; AEgyptiaca, or the western half of the Delta, under an Augustalian prefect; the first Augustan government, or the rest of the Delta, under a Corrector; and the second Augustan government, from Bubastis to the Red Sea, under a general.  We also meet with several military stations named after the late emperors:  a Maximianopolis and a Dioclesianopolis in the Upper Thebaid; a Theodosianopolis in the Lower Thebaid, and a second Theodosianopolis in Arcadia.  But it is not easy to determine what villages were meant by these high-sounding names, which were perhaps only used in official documents.