Among other changes then brought in by the Romans was the use of a fixed year in all civil reckonings.  The Egyptians, for all the common purposes of life, called the day of the heliacal rising of the dogstar, about our 18th of July, their new year’s day, and the husbandman marked it with religious ceremonies as the time when the Nile began to overflow; while for all civil purposes, and dates of kings’ reigns, they used a year of three hundred and sixty-five days, which, of course, had a movable new year’s day.  But by the orders of Augustus all public deeds were henceforth dated by the new year of three hundred and sixty-five days and a quarter, which was named, after Julius Caesar, the Julian year.  The years from B.C. 24 were made to begin on the 29th of August, the day on which the movable new year’s day then happened to fall, and were numbered from the year following the last of Cleopatra, as from the first year of the reign of Augustus.  But notwithstanding the many advantages of the Julian year, which was used throughout Europe for sixteen centuries, till its faultiness was pointed out by Pope Gregory XIII., the Egyptian astronomers and mathematicians distrusted it from the first, and chose to stick to their old year, in which there could be no mistake about its length.  Thus there were at the same time three years and three new year’s days in use in Egypt:  one about the 18th of July, used by the common people; one on the 29th of August, used by order of the emperor; and one movable, used by the astronomers.

By the conquest of Egypt, Augustus was also able to extend another of the plans of his late uncle.  Julius Caesar, whose powerful mind found all sciences within its grasp, had ordered a survey to be taken of the whole of the Roman provinces, and the length of all the roads to be measured for the use of the tax-gatherers and of the army; and Augustus was now able to add Egypt to the survey.  Polyclitus was employed on this southern portion of the empire; and, after thirty-two years from its beginning by Julius, the measurement of nearly the whole known world was finished and reported to the senate.

At Alexandria Augustus was visited by Herod, who hastened to beg of him those portions of his kingdom which Antony had given to Cleopatra.  Augustus received him as a friend; gave him back the territory which Antony had taken from him, and added the province of Samaria and the free cities on the coast.  He also gave to him the body of four hundred Gauls, who formed part of the Egyptian army and had been Cleopatra’s bodyguard.  He thus removed from Alexandria the last remains of the Gallic mercenaries, of whom the Ptolemies had usually had a troop in their service.

[Illustration:  007.jpg plan of Alexandria]