Constantinople and to see it put on board the ships; and as for the supply which was promised to the Alexandrians, the magistrates were to collect it at their own risk, and by means of their own cohort.  The grain for Constantinople was required to be in that city before the end of August, or within four months after the harvest, and the supply for Alexandria not more than a month later.  The prefect was made answerable for the full collection, and whatever was wanting of that quantity was to be levied on his property and his heirs, at the rate of one solidus for three artabo of grain, or about three dollars for fifteen bushels; while in order to help the collection, the export of grain from Egypt was forbidden from every port but Alexandria, except in small quantities.  The grain required for Alexandria and Constantinople, to be distributed as a free gift among the idle citizens, was eight hundred thousand artabo, or four millions of bushels, and the cost of collecting it was fixed at eighty thousand solidi, or about three hundred thousand dollars.  The prefect was ordered to assist the collectors at the head of his cohort, and if he gave credit for the taxes which he was to collect he was to bear the loss himself.  If the archbishop interfered, to give credit and screen an unhappy Egyptian, then he was to bear the loss, and if his property was not enough the property of the Church was to make it good; but if any other bishop gave credit, not only was his property to bear the loss, but he was himself to be deposed from his bishopric; and lastly, if any riot or rebellion should arise to cause the loss of the Egyptian tribute, the tribunes of the Augustalian Cohort were to be punished with forfeiture of all property, and the cohort was to be removed to a station beyond the Danube.

Such was the new law which Justinian, the great Roman lawgiver, proposed for the future government of Egypt.  The Egyptians were treated as slaves, whose duty was to raise grain for the use of their masters at Constantinople, and their taskmasters at Alexandria.  They did not even receive from the government the usual benefit of protection from their enemies, and they felt bound to the emperor by no tie either of love or interest.  The imperial orders wrere very little obeyed beyond those places where the troops were encamped; the Arabs were each year pressing closer upon the valley of the Nile, and helping the sands of the desert to defeat the labours of the disheartened husbandmen; and the Greek language, which had hitherto followed and marked the route of commerce from Alexandria to Syene, and to the island of Socotra, was now but seldom heard in Upper Egypt.  The Alexandrians were sorely harassed by Haephasstus, a lawyer, who had risen by court favour to the chief post in the city.  He made monopolies in his own favour of all the necessaries of life, and secured his ill-gotten gains by ready loans of part of it to Justinian.  His zeal for the emperor was at the cost of the Alexandrians, and to save the public granaries he lessened the supply of grain which the citizens looked for as a right.  The city was sinking fast; and the citizens could ill bear this loss, for its population, though lessened, was still too large for the fallen state of Egypt.