The election of Dioscorus, however, the third patriarch of this reign, was not brought about peaceably.  He was the cousin of a former patriarch, Timotheus AElurus, which, if we view the bishopric as a civil office, might be a reason for the emperor’s wishing him to have the appointment.  But it was no good reason with the Alexandrians, who declared that he had not been chosen according to the canons of the apostles; and the magistrates of the city were forced to employ the troops to lead him in safety to his throne.  After the first ceremony, he went, as was usual at an installation, to St. Mark’s Church, and there the clergy robed him in the patriarchal state robes.  The grand procession then moved through the streets to the church of St. John, where the new bishop went through the communion service.  But the city was much disturbed during the whole day, and in the riot Theodosius, the son of Calliopus, a man of Augustalian 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 for the throne.