TYRANTS OF THE NILE

Diocletian’s division of the Roman Empire and the creation of the Tetrarchic imperial administration brought great and unwelcome change to Egypt. Having become accustomed to its special provincial status under the preceding two centuries of imperial rule, the urban elite of Alexandria and the native Egyptian population resisted integration into Diocletian’s new provincial organization and the increased tax burdens that it imposed. Major revolts and usurpations required the military intervention by both Diocletian and his Caesar Galerius before the province accepted its new lot in the late Roman Empire. As the Roman Empire gradually transformed into the Byzantine Empire, with its new capital at Constantinople, Egypt became an important center of Christianity and the seat of powerful patriarchs whose influence extended over the provincial military and civil administration. At the same time, Egypt remained a critical exporter of grain for the Byzantine Empire into the early seventh century, when the province was lost temporarily to the Sasanian Persians in AD 619 and then permanently to the Islamic Arabs in 646.