Egypt had lost with its liberties its gold coinage, and it was now made to feel a further proof of being a conquered country in having its silver much alloyed with copper.  But Tiberius, in the tenth year of his reign, altogether stopped the Alexandrian mint, as well as those of the other cities which occasionally coined; and after this year we find no more coins, but the few with the head and name of Augustus Caesar, which seem hardly to have been meant for money, but to commemorate on some peculiar occasions the emperor’s adoption by his stepfather.  The Nubian gold mines were probably by this time wholly deserted; they had been so far worked out as to be no longer profitable.  For fifteen hundred years, ever since Ethiopia was conquered by Thebes, wages and prices had been higher in Egypt than in the neighbouring countries.  But this was now no longer the case.  Egypt had been getting poorer during the reigns of the latter Ptolemies; and by this time it is probable that both wages and prices were higher in Rome.

It seems to have been usual to change the prefect of Egypt every few years, and the prefect-elect was often sent to Alexandria to wait till his predecessor’s term of years had ended.  Thus in this reign of twenty-three years AEmilius Rectus was succeeded by Vetrasius Pollio; and on his death Tiberius gave the government to his freedman Iberus.  During the last five years Egypt was under the able but stern government of Flaccus Avillius, whose name is carved on the temple of Tentyra with that of the emperor.  He was a man who united all those qualities of prudent forethought, with prompt execution and attention to business, which was so necessary in controlling the irritable Alexandrians, who were liable to be fired into rebellion by the smallest spark.  Justice was administered fairly; the great were not allowed to tyrannise over the poor, nor the people to meet in tumultuous mobs; and the legions were regularly paid, so that they had no excuse for plundering the Egyptians.

On the death of Tiberius, in A.D. 37, the old quarrel again broke out between Jews and Greeks.  The Alexandrians were not slow in learning the feelings of his successor, Caius, or Caligula, towards the Jews, nor in turning against them the new law that the emperor’s statue should be honoured in every temple of the empire.  They had very unwillingly yielded a half-obedience to the law of Augustus that the Jews should still be allowed the privileges of citizenship; and, as soon as they heard that Caligula was to be worshipped in every temple of the empire, they denounced the Jews as traitors and rebels, who refused so to honour the emperor in their synagogues.  It happened, unfortunately, that their countryman, King Agrippa, at this time came to Alexandria.  He had full leave from the emperor to touch there, as being the quickest and most certain way of making the voyage from Rome to the seat of his own government.  Indeed, the Alexandrian voyage had another merit in the eyes of a Jew; for,