This was in the year 265.  The new emperor called himself Alexander, and was even thought to deserve the name.  He governed Egypt during his short reign with great vigour.  He led his army through the Thebaid, and drove back the barbarians with a courage and activity which had latterly been uncommon in the Egyptian army.  Alexandria then sent no tribute to Rome.  “Well! cannot we live without Egyptian linen?” was the forced joke of Gallienus, when the Romans were in alarm at the loss of the usual supply of grain.  But AEmilianus was soon beaten by Theodotus, the general of Gallienus, who besieged him in the strong quarter of Alexandria called the Bruchium, and then took him prisoner and strangled him.

During this siege the ministers of Christianity were able to lessen some of the horrors of war by persuading the besiegers to allow the useless mouths to quit the blockaded fortress.  Eusebius, afterwards Bishop of Laodicea, was without the trenches trying to lessen the cruelties of the siege; and Anatolius, the Christian peripatetic, was within the walls, endeavouring to persuade the rebels to surrender.  Gallienus in gratitude to his general would have granted him the honour of a proconsular triumph, to dazzle the eyes of the Alexandrians; but the policy of Augustus was not wholly forgotten, and the emperor was reminded by the priests that it was unlawful for the consular fasces to enter Alexandria.

The late Emperor Valerian had begun his reign with mild treatment of the Christians; but he was overpersuaded by the Alexandrians.  He then allowed the power of the magistrate to be used, in order to check the Christian religion.  But in this weakness of the empire Gallienus could no longer with safety allow the Christians to be persecuted for their religion.  Both their numbers and their station made it dangerous to treat them as enemies; and the emperor ordered all persecution to be stopped.  The imperial rescript for that purpose was even addressed to “Dionysius, Pinna, Demetrius, and the other bishops;” it grants them full indulgence in the exercise of their religion, and by its very address almost acknowledges their rank in the state.  By this edict of Gallienus the Christians were put on a better footing than at any time since their numbers brought them under the notice of the magistrate.

[Illustration:  158b.jpg EGYPTIAN SLAVE]

     From the painting by Siefert

When the bishop Dionysius returned to Alexandria, he found the place sadly ruined by the late siege.  The middle of the city was a vast waste.  It was easier, he says, to go from one end of Egypt to the other than to cross the main street which divided the Bruchium from the western end of Alexandria.  The place was still marked with all the horrors of last week’s battle.  Then, as usual, disease and famine followed upon war.  Not a house was without a funeral.  Death was everywhere to be seen in its most ghastly form.  Bodies were left