© Richard Randall

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Byzantine Egypt

The reign of Constantine also saw the founding of Constantinople as a new capital for the Roman Empire, and in the course of the 4th century the Empire was divided in two, with Egypt finding itself in the Eastern Empire with its capital at Constantinople. This meant that within a few years Latin, never well established in Egypt, disappeared, and Greek reasserted itself as the language of government. During the 5th and 6th centuries the Eastern Roman Empire gradually became the Byzantine Empire, a Christian, Greek-speaking state that had little in common with the old Empire of Rome, which disappeared in the face of the barbarian invasions in the 5th century. Another consequence of the triumph of Christianity was the final demise of the old Egyptian culture: with the disappearance of the pagan priesthood, no-one could read the hieroglyphics of Pharaonic Egypt, and its temples were converted to churches or abandoned to the desert.

The Eastern Empire became increasingly "oriental" in style as its links with the old GrÊco-Roman world faded. The Greek system of local government by citizens had now entirely disappeared. Offices, with new Byzantine names, were almost hereditary in the wealthy land-owning families. The rule of the Church in alliance with the State grew more oppressive. But Alexandria, the second city of the Empire, continued to be a centre of religious controversy and violence. Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria, convinced the city's governor to expel the Jews from the city in 415 with the aid of the mob, in response to the Jews' nighttime massacre of many Christians. The murder of the philosopher Hypatia marked the final end of classical Hellenic culture in Egypt. Another schism in the Church produced a prolonged civil war and alienated Egypt from the Empire.

The new religious controversy was over the nature of the Trinity. The majority of the Christian world supported the orthodox view that God is three persons in one (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and that Jesus was therefore of the same nature as God. But Egypt was a stronghold of Monophysitism: the belief that God has only one nature, that of God the Father, and that Jesus (God the Son) and the Holy Spirit are of a different nature: they are from God but not of God. This may seem an arcane distinction, but in an intensely religious age it was enough to divide an empire. The Monophysite controversy arose after the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and continued until the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which ruled in favour of the orthodox position. Many of the monophysites claimed that they were misunderstood, that there was really no difference between their position and the orthodox position, and that the Council of Chalcedon ruled against them because of political motivations. But Egypt and Syria remained hotbeds of Monophysite sentiment, and organised resistance to the orthodox view was not suppressed until the 570s.

The reign of Justinian (482–565) saw the Empire recapture Rome and much of Italy from the barbarians, but these successes left the Empire's eastern flank exposed.

Persian and Arab Conquests

The Persian occupation of Egypt, beginning in 619 or 618, was one of the triumphs in the last Sassanid war against Byzantium. Khosrow II ParvÍz, of the revived Persian Empire had begun this war in retaliation for the assassination of the emperor Mauricius (582-602) and had achieved a series of early successes, culminating in the conquests of Jerusalem (614) and Alexandria (619). A Byzantine counteroffensive launched by Heraclius in spring 622 shifted the advantage, however, and the war was brought to an end by the fall of Khosrow on 25 February 628 (Frye, pp. 167-70). The Egyptians had no love of the Emperor in Constantinople and put up little resistance. Khosrow's son and successor, Kavadh II ŠÍrÙe (ŠÍrÙy), who reigned until September, concluded a peace treaty returning territories conquered by the Sasanians to the eastern Roman empire.

The Persian occupation allowed Monophysitism to resurface in Egypt, and when imperial rule was restored by Heraclius in 629, the Monophysites were persecuted and their patriarch expelled. Egypt was thus in a state of both religious and political alienation from the Empire when a new invader appeared.

This was an army of 4,000 Arabs led by Amr ibn al-As, sent by the Caliph Umar, successor to the Prophet Muhammad, to spread his new faith, Islam, to the west. The Arabs crossed into Egypt from Palestine in December 639, and advanced rapidly into the Nile Delta. The Imperial garrisons retreated into the walled towns, where they successfully held out for a year or more. But the Arabs sent for reinforcements, and in April 641 they captured Alexandria, thus completing the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Most of the Egyptian Christians welcomed their new rulers: the accession of a new regime meant for them the end of the persecutions by the Byzantine state church. Thus ended 973 years of GrÊco-Roman rule over Egypt.

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