[Illustration:  084.jpg COINS OF TRAJAN]

Trajan always kept in the public granaries of Rome a supply of Egyptian grain equal to seven times the canon, or yearly gift to the poor citizens; and in this prudent course he was followed by all his successors, until the store was squandered by the worthless Elagabalus.  One year, when the Nile did not rise to its usual height, and much of the grain land of the Delta, instead of being moistened by its waters and enriched by its mud, was left a dry, sandy plain, the granaries of Rome were unlocked to feed the city of Alexandria.  The Alexandrians then saw the unusual sight of ships unloading their cargoes of wheat in their harbour, and the Romans boasted that they took the Egyptian tribute in grain, not because they could not feed themselves, but because the Egyptians had nothing else to send them.

Alexandria under the Romans was still the centre of the trading world, not only having its own great trade in grain, but being the port through which the trade of India and Arabia passed to Europe, and at which the Syrian vessels touched in their way to Italy.  The harbour was crowded with masts and strange prows and uncouth sails, and the quays always busy with loading and unloading; while in the streets might be seen men of all languages and all dresses, copper-coloured Egyptians, swarthy Jews, lively, bustling Greeks, and haughty Italians, with Asiatics from the neighbouring coasts of Syria and Cilicia, and even dark Ethiopians, painted Arabs, Bactrians, Scythians, Persians, and Indians, all gay with their national costumes.  Alexandria was a spot in which Europe met Asia, and each wondered at the strangeness of the other.

Of the Alexandrians themselves we receive a very unfavourable account from their countryman, Dion Chrysostom.  With their wealth, they had those vices which usually follow or cause the loss of national independence.  They were eager for nothing but food and horse-races.  They were grave and quiet in their sacrifices and listless in business, but in the theatre or in the stadium men, women, and children were alike heated into passion, and overcome with eagerness and warmth of feeling.  A scurrilous song or a horse-race would so rouse them into a quarrel that they could not hear for their own noise, nor see for the dust raised by their own bustle in the hippodrome; while all those acts of their rulers, which in a more wholesome state of society would have called for notice, passed by unheeded.

[Illustration:  086.jpg EGYPTIAN WIG (BRITISH MUSEUM)]

They cared more for the tumble of a favourite charioteer than for the sinking state of the nation.  The ready employment of ridicule in the place of argument, of wit instead of graver reason, of nicknames as their most powerful weapon, was one of the worst points in the Alexandrian character.  Frankness and manliness are hardly to be looked for under a despotic government where men are forbidden to speak their minds openly;