OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 431 Achilleus at Alexandria, and even the Blemmyes, re- CHAP, newed, or rather continued, their incursions into the ' Upper Egypt. Scarcely any circumstances have been preserved of the exploits of Maximian in the western parts of Africa ; but it appears by the event, that the progress of his arms was rapid and decisive, that he van- quished the fiercest barbarians of Mauritania, and that he removed them from the mountains, whose inaccessible strength had inspired their inhabitants with a lawless confidence, and habituated them to a life of rapine and violence*. Diocletian, on his side, opened the cam- A. D. 296. paign in Egypt by the siege of Alexandria, cut off the Diocletian aqueducts which conveyed the waters of the Nile into i" Egypt. every quarter of that immense city "", and rendering his camp impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multi- tude, he pushed his reiterated attacks with caution and vigour. After a siege of eight months, Alexandria, wasted by the sword and by fire, implored the clemency of the conqueror ; but it experienced the full extent of his severity. Many thousands of the citizens perished in a promiscuous slaughter ; and there were few ob- noxious persons in Egypt who escaped a sentence either of death or at least of exile "". The fate of Busiris and of Coptos was still more melancholy than that of Alex- andria : those proud cities, the former distinguished by its antiquity, the latter enriched by the passage of the Indian trade, were utterly destroyed by the arms and by the severe order of Diocletian^. The character of the Egyptian nation, insensible to kindness, but ex- tremely susceptible of fear, could alone justify this ex- cessive rigour. The seditions of Alexandria had often affected the tranquillity and subsistence of Rome itself. Since the usurpation of Firmus, the province of Upper
- Tu ferocissimos Mauritaniae populos, inaccessis montium jugis et naturali
munitione fidentes, expugnasti, recepisti, transtulisti. Panegyr. Vet. vi. 8. " See the description of Alexandria, in Hirtius de Bel. Alexandrin. c. 5. ^ Eutrop. ix. 24; Orosius, vii. 25; John Malela in Chron. Antioch. p. 409, 410. Yet J2umenius assures us, that Egypt was pacified by the cle- mency of Diocletian. y Eusebius in Chron. places their destruction several years sooner, and at a time when Egypt itself was in a state of rebellion against the Romans.
