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.
Julianus, who was during a part of this reign the prefect of Egypt, was also a poet, and he has left us a number of short epigrams that form part of the volume of Greek Anthology which was published at Constantinople soon after this time. Christodorus of Thebes was another poet who joined with Julianus in praising the Emperor Anastasius. He also removed to Constantinople, the seat of patronage; and the fifth book of the Greek Anthology contains his epigrams on the winners in the horse-race in that city and on the statues which stood around the public gymnasium.
The poet’s song, like the traveller’s tale, often related the wonders of the river Nile. The overflowing waters first manured the fields, and then watered the crops, and lastly carried the grain to market; and one writer in the Anthology, to describe the country life in Egypt, tells the story of a sailor, who, to avoid the dangers of the ocean, turned husbandman, and was then shipwrecked in his own meadows.
The book-writers at this time sometimes illuminated their more valuable parchments with gold and silver letters and sometimes employed painters to ornament them with small paintings. The beautiful copy of the work of Dioscorides on Plants in the library at Vienna was made in this reign for the Princess Juliana of Constantinople. In one painting the figure of science or invention is holding up a plant, while on one side of her is the painter drawing it on his canvas, and on the other side is the author describing it in his book. Other paintings are of the plants and animals mentioned in the book. A copy of the Book of Genesis, also in the library at Vienna, is of the same class and date. A large part of it is written in gold and silver; and it has eighty-eight small paintings of various historical subjects. In these the story is well told, though the drawing and perspective are bad and the figures crowded. But these Alexandrian paintings are better than those made in Rome or Constantinople at this time.
With the spread of Christianity theatrical representations had been gradually going out of use. The Greek tragedies, as we see in the works of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, those models of pure taste in poetry, are founded on the pagan mythology; and in many of them the gods are made to walk and talk upon the stage. Hence they of necessity fell under the ban of the clergy. As the Christians became more powerful the several cities of the empire had one by one discontinued these popular spectacles, and horse-races usually took their place. But the Alexandrians were the last people to give up a favourite amusement; and by the end of this reign Alexandria was the only city in the empire where tragic and comic actors and Eastern dancers were to be seen in the theatre.
The tower or lighthouse on the island of Pharos, the work of days more prosperous than these, had latterly been sadly neglected with the other buildings of the country. For more than seven hundred years, the pilot on approaching this flat shore after dark had pointed out to his shipmate what seemed a star on the horizon, and comforted him with the promise of a safe entrance into the haven, and told him of Alexander’s tower. But the waves breaking against its foot had long since carried away the outworks, and laid bare the foundations; the wall was undermined and its fall seemed close at hand. The care of Anastasius, however, surrounded it again with piles and buttresses; and this monument of wisdom and science, which deserved to last for ever, was for a little while longer saved from ruin. An epigram in the Anthology informs us that Ammonius was the name of the builder who performed this good work, and to him and to Neptune the grateful sailors then raised their hands in prayer and praise.