disobedience of the imperial orders are directed against the præfects, who alone are held responsible, in their persons and their effects, for the strict execution of them. In some instances a denunciation is published against the higher orders of the clergy, who, by unauthorised acts of protection, shall have pretended to release any individuals from the payments to which they were subject.

"The state of property in Egypt continued, under the Romans, very similar to what it had been in the earliest times. The proprietor of a district, or of a certain part of it, had a kind of feudal claim over his vassals, from whose gratuitous labour he exacted all that was not absolutely necessary for their existence. While Egypt retained its independence it was fully sufficient to supply its own wants; but, as a province, it suffered all the evils of a corrupt and vicious administration; and it never received any returns, in money or kind, for its annual supply of grain to the capital. As this supply did not diminish, but rather increased in an inverse proportion to the means which were to furnish it, the proprietors, when obliged to add to their demands upon the peasants, found them in a situation to afford less. Industry was at a stand; and the distressed serfs had no other method of evading such claims, than either by abandoning their farms for others more favourably situated, or by seeking the protection of some powerful individual, whose patronage they purchased. This abuse had been the natural consequence of the system of honours established by Constantine; and

in Egypt it was productive of the most prejudicial effects. The evil grew rapidly: what was first dictated by necessity was soon resorted to by choice; and, when necessity could not be pleaded in excuse, temptations were not wanting on the part of the protectors, who soon found the means of converting their powers of granting privileges into a pecuniary speculation; and the next step was that the proprietors, being abandoned by their vassals, and, consequently, reduced to poverty, were obliged to yield up their estates to those who had succeeded in seducing them. This iniquitous traffic particularly prevailed among the military; and for some years the new possessors were able to disguise from the government the truth of their situation, by paying no taxes from the estates they had thus procured, and by returning as defaulters the names of those whom they had ejected.

"Various laws, from the time of Constantine to Theodosius the Second and Justinian, were enacted against these grievances; they successively increased in severity; and nothing but the extremest rigour, and the attachment of responsibility on the person of the præfects themselves, could succeed in putting an end to them. At first, the peasants who remained behind were to make up for what the fugitives ought to have paid. Afterwards, an ignominious punishment was denounced against such fugitives, and the protectors sentenced to a fine-this fine was gradually augmented to a sum equal to the whole fortune of the delinquent. Theodosius the Second, finally established all such

usurpations of property as had taken place in this manner, prior to the consulate of Cæsarius and Atticus, and ordered the immediate restitution of all that had taken place since that period, subjecting, at the same time, the new proprietors to all the ancient charges and contributions attached to their estates, including those that would have fallen on the fugitive as well as the other vassals.

"The peculiar nature of the soil and locality of Egypt had fixed, at a very early period, the system of agriculture, the most congenial to them. No innovations appear to have been introduced on this head; and, as laws have only been made where changes were thought necessary, we are left without any other materials, whence we might form our judgment relative to the employment of the soil in ancient times, beyond those customs which have been handed down to the present age.

"Agriculture was always the principal object to which the government of Egypt was directed; and when the king, the priests, and the military, had each an equal share in the produce of the soil, the common interest would effectually prevent any abuses in the management of it. But, under a foreign yoke, these interests were too divided; and the defects of administration were to be supplied by the rigour of the laws. The destroyer of a dyke was, at one time, to be condemned to the public works and to the mines; at another, to be branded, and transported to the Oasis, - punishments more severe than are ever thought of even under the present Mahometan government.

"Some laws were made for the encouragement of the growth of timber trees in Egypt, but the same misguided policy, which had failed in so many other laws, preferred the menaces of a punishment for the sale or the use of the sycamore and napka*, rather than the offer of a reward for extending plantations of them. Here may be traced the same hand which, instead of ameliorating the situation of the oppressed peasantry, was contented with accumulating upon the fugitives useless punishments, or bringing them to their homes by an armed force.

"With respect to the amount of the public revenues of Egypt, Diodorus Siculus states them to have been, in his time, equal to six thousand talents, or about one million two hundred thousand pounds and, notwithstanding the much higher amount stated by Strabo, we may conclude that in no future period they exceeded this sum. The disorders to which the people were subjected under its last kings would have tended rather to diminish its means of contribution; and, under the Roman government, its wealth and resources must have proceeded in an inverse ratio to the demands from the capital. Augustus, indeed, relieved Egypt from one cause of oppression, whereby Sicily and Sardinia had successively been ruined, the presence and controlling authority of powerful Romans.

"The levying of the taxes, both in money and in

Rhamnus Nabeca: in Arabic, nebq or sidr. Vide Egypt and Thebes, p. 211.

kind, appears to have been left to the immediate care of the natives, whereof one or more presided over each district and village; these, however, were successively placed under the superintendence of the præfects of Egypt, the governors of the Thebaïd, and the military force; and the responsibility, which at first rested with the superior officers, was afterwards extended to the soldiers themselves.

"The tributes, in whatever form they were paid, were received at Alexandria by Roman agents commissioned for the purpose. After the time of Constantine, it appears that the transport of the grain was at the expense of a collective body of the principal inhabitants of that city. This burden was, at a later period, commuted for an annual payment; but the object was still subject to many delays, till the edict of Justinian directed the charge to be borne by the chief custom-house officer at Alexandria.

"Other expenses were also payable by individuals, in addition to the regular taxes of the country. The freight of the corn vessels down the Nile, the baking of the bread for the military, where they happened to be quartered, and the clothing of the troops, became so many occasions of extortion.

"It is difficult to fix the precise portion of the entire taxes of Egypt which was paid, whether in grain or in money, anterior to the reign of Justinian. When this emperor framed an edict expressly for the purpose of regulating the transmission of the grain to the capital, and of facilitating the levying of the rest of the taxes, the quantity of corn