Roman Egypt replaces Ptolemaic Kingdom
History
Early Roman Egypt (30 BC–4th century)
The province was established in 30 BC after Octavian (the future Roman emperor Augustus) defeated his rival Mark Antony, deposed Pharaoh Cleopatra, and annexed the Ptolemaic Kingdom to the Roman Empire.The first prefect of Aegyptus, Gaius Cornelius Gallus, brought Upper Egypt under Roman control by force of arms, and established a protectorate over the southern frontier district, which had been abandoned by the later Ptolemies.
The second prefect, Aelius Gallus, made an unsuccessful expedition to conquer Arabia Petraea and even Arabia Felix. The Red Sea coast of Aegyptus was not brought under Roman control until the reign of Claudius. The third prefect, Gaius Petronius, cleared the neglected canals for irrigation, stimulating a revival of agriculture. Petronius even led a campaign into present-day central Sudan against the Kingdom of Kush at Meroe, whose queen Imanarenat had previously attacked Roman Egypt. Failing to acquire permanent gains, in 22 BC he razed the city of Napata to the ground and retreated to the north.
The reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius were mainly peaceful in Egypt, with intermittent civil strife between Greeks and Jews in Alexandria.: 12  According to the Latin historian Tacitus, Germanicus visited Egypt without the permission of Tiberius and caused a rift with his uncle, the emperor.: 12  Claudius refused Alexandrian demands for self-government under their own senate, and attempted to quell the unrest between Alexandrian Greek and Jews.: 12  Under Nero, perhaps influenced by Chaeremon of Alexandria – an Egyptian priest and the emperor's Stoic tutor – an expedition to Meroë was undertaken, though possible plans for an invasion of the southern kingdom was forestalled by the military demands of the First Jewish–Roman War, a revolt in Judaea.: 13 The first praefectus Aegypti of Alexandrian origin was Tiberius Julius Alexander, who was governor through the Year of the Four Emperors and who eventually proclaimed the general Vespasian, victor in the Jewish War, emperor at Alexandria in July 69 AD.: 13  This prefect was himself of Hellenized Jewish descent and related to Philo of Alexandria.: 13  The importance of the Egyptian grain harvest (Latin: claustra annonae, lit. 'key to the grain supply') to Rome helped Vespasian assert control over the whole empire.: 13 From the reign of Nero onward, Aegyptus enjoyed an era of prosperity which lasted a century. Much trouble was caused by religious conflicts between the Greeks and the Jews, particularly in Alexandria, which after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 became the world centre of Jewish religion and culture.Vespasian was the first emperor since Augustus to appear in Egypt.: 13  At Alexandria he was hailed as pharaoh; recalling the welcome of Alexander the Great at the Oracle of Zeus-Ammon of the Siwa Oasis, Vespasian was proclaimed the son of the creator-deity Amun (Zeus-Ammon), in the style of the ancient pharaohs, and an incarnation of Serapis in the manner of the Ptolemies.: 13–14  As Pharaonic precedent demanded, Vespasian demonstrated his divine election by the traditional methods of spitting on and trampling a blind and crippled man, thereby miraculously healing him.: 14  (This Egyptian tradition of healing is related to the healing the man blind from birth, one of the miracles of Jesus of Nazareth.): 14 In 114, during the reign of Trajan (r. 98–117), unrest among the Jews of Alexandria broke out after the coming of a Messiah was announced at Cyrene.: 14  The uprising that year was defeated, but between 115 and 117 a revolt continued in the countryside in the absence of the armies away on Trajan's Parthian campaign.: 14  This Kitos War meant that the Greeks and the Egyptian peasants took up arms in the fight against the Jews, which culminated in their defeat and the effective destruction of the Alexandrian Jewish community, which did not recover until the 3rd century.: 14–15  The city of Oxyrhynchus, by contrast, celebrated their survival of the rebellion with annual festivals for at least eighty years.: 15
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