During the reign of Pertinax, which lasted only three months (194 A.D.), we find no trace of his power in Egypt, except the money which the Alexandrians coined in his name.  It seems to have been the duty of the prefect of the mint, as soon as he heard of an emperor’s death, to lose no time in issuing coins in the name of his successor.  It was one of the means to proclaim and secure the allegiance of the province for the new emperor.

During the reign of Commodus, Pescennius Niger had been at the head of the legion that was employed in Upper Egypt in stopping the inroads of their troublesome neighbours, who already sometimes bore the name of Saracens.  He was a hardy soldier, and strict in his discipline, while he shared the labours of the field and of the camp with the men under him.  He would not allow them the use of wine; and once, when the troops that guarded the frontier at Syene (Aswan) sent to ask for it, he bluntly answered, “You have got the Nile to drink, and cannot possibly want more.”  Once, when a cohort had been routed by the Saracens, the men complained that they could not fight without wine; but he would not relax in his discipline.  “Those who have just now beaten you,” said Niger, “drink nothing but water.”  He gained the love and thanks of the people of Upper Egypt by thus bridling the lawlessness of the troops; and they gave him his statue cut in black basalt, in allusion to his name Niger.  This statue was placed in his Roman villa.

[Illustration:  138b.jpg A NATIVE OF ASWAN]

But on the death of Pertinax, when Septimus Severus declared himself emperor in Pannonia, Niger, who was then in the province of Syria, did the same.  Egypt and the Egyptian legions readily and heartily joined his party, which made it unnecessary for him to stay in that part of the empire; so he marched upon Greece, Thrace, and Macedonia.  But there, after a few months, he was met by the army of his rival, who also sent a second army into Egypt; and he was defeated and slain at Cyzicus in Mysia, after having been acknowledged as emperor in Egypt and Syria for perhaps a year and a few months.

[Illustration:  139b.jpg PAINTING AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE FIFTH TOMB]

We find no Alexandrian coins of Niger, although we cannot allow a shorter space of time to his reign than one whole year, together with a few months of the preceding and following years.  Within that time Severus had to march upon Rome against his first rival, Julian, to punish the praetorian guards, and afterwards to conquer Niger.

After the death of his rival, when Severus was the undisputed master of the empire, and was no longer wanted in the other provinces, he found leisure, in A.D. 196, to visit Egypt; and, like other active-minded travellers, he examined the pyramids of Memphis and the temples at Thebes, and laughed at the worship of Serapis and the Egyptian animals.  His visit to Alexandria wras marked by many new laws.  Now