chapter 10.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

ALEXANDRIA: A. D. 273. Destruction of the Bruchium by Aurelian.

After subduing Palmyra and its Queen Zenobia, A. D. 272, the Emperor Aurelian was called into Egypt to put down a rebellion there, headed by one Firmus, a friend and ally of the Palmyrene queen. Firmus had great wealth, derived from trade, and from the paper-manufacture of Egypt, which was mostly in his hands. He was defeated and put to death. "To Aurelian's war against Firmus, or to that of Probus a little before in Egypt, may be referred the destruction of Bruchium, a great quarter of Alexandria, which according to Ammianus Marcellinus, was ruined under Aurelian and remained deserted everafter."

_J. B. L. Crevier, History of the Roman Emperors, book 27._

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ALEXANDRIA: A. D. 296. Siege by Diocletian.

A general revolt of the African provinces of the Roman Empire occurred A. D. 296. The barbarous tribes of Ethiopia and the desert were brought into alliance with the provincials of Egypt, Cyrenaica, Carthage and Mauritania, and the flame of war was universal. Both the emperors of the time, Diocletian and Maximian, were called to the African field. "Diocletian, on his side, opened the campaign in Egypt by the siege of Alexandria, cut off the aqueducts which conveyed the waters of the Nile into every quarter of that immense city, and, rendering his camp impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multitude, he pushed his reiterated attacks with caution and vigor. 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 obnoxious 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 Alexandria; those proud cities … were utterly destroyed."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,