The coins of Marcus Aurelius, the successor of Antoninus Pius, have a rich variety of subjects, falling not far short of those of the last reign.  On those of the fifth year, the bountiful overflow of the Nile is gratefully acknowledged by the figure of the god holding a cornucopia, and a troop of sixteen children playing round him.  It had been not unusual in hieroglyphical writing to express a thought by means of a figure which in the Koptic language had nearly the same sound; and we have seen this copied on the coins in the case of a Greek word, when the bird phoenix was used for the palm-branch phoenix, or the hieroglyphical word year; and a striking instance may be noticed in the case of a Latin word, as the sixteen children or cupids mean sixteen cubits, the wished-for height of the Nile’s overflow.  The statue of the Nile, which had been carried by Vespasian to Rome and placed in the temple of Peace, was surrounded by the same sixteen children.  On the coins of his twelfth year the sail held up by the goddess Isis is blown towards the Pharos lighthouse, as if in that year the emperor had been expected in Alexandria.

We find no coins in the eleventh or fourteenth years of this reign, which makes it probable that it was in the eleventh year (A.D. 172) that the rebellion of the native soldiers took place.  These were very likely Arabs who had been admitted into the ranks of the legions, but having withdrawn to the desert they now harassed the towns with their marauding inroads, and a considerable time elapsed before they were wholly put down by Avidius Cassius at the head of the legions.  But Cassius himself was unable to resist the temptations which always beset a successful general, and after this victory he allowed himself to be declared emperor by the legions of Egypt; and this seems to have been the cause of no coins being struck in Alexandria in the fourteenth year of the reign.  Cassius left his son Moecianus in Alexandria with the title of Pretorian Prefect, while he himself marched into Syria to secure that province.  There the legions followed the example of their brethren in Egypt, and the Syrians were glad to acknowledge a general of the Eastern armies as their sovereign.  But on Marcus leading an army into Syria he was met with the news that the rebels had repented, and had put Cassius to death, and he then moved his forces towards Egypt; but before his arrival the Egyptian legions had in the same manner put Moecianus to death, and all had returned to their allegiance.

When Marcus arrived in Alexandria the citizens were agreeably surprised by the mildness of his conduct.  He at once forgave his enemies; and no offenders were put to death for having joined in the rebellion.  The severest punishment, even to the children of Cassius, was banishment from the province, but without restraint, and with the forfeiture of less than half their patrimony.  In Alexandria the emperor laid aside the severity of the soldier, and mingled with the people as a fellow-citizen in the temples and public places; while with the professors in the museum he was a philosopher, joining them in their studies in the schools.