In this chapter the reader is introduced to the background to Roman Egypt, starting with Egypt’s experience of foreign rule under the Kushites, Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks. The impact of the three centuries of rule by the dynasty of the Ptolemies, who took over after the death of Alexander the Great, is explored; many traditional Egyptian institutions remained in place, most importantly the great temples. Many Persian administrative innovations were also kept, but the Greeks brought in their own financial practices. Substantial immigration from the Greek world and the Levant changed the population, and Greek largely displaced Egyptian as a language of power, even though Egyptian society was substantially multilingual. Periodic revolts show that foreign rule was not universally accepted, but many Egyptians became part of the Ptolemaic administration and served its economic goals, which depended heavily on exporting wheat. Romans began to settle in Alexandria in the last decades before the Roman conquest.

After the violent murders of the emperor Valentinian (March 16, 455) and his senatorial successor, Petronius Maximus (May 31, 455), in a series of coups, the Vandals occupied and then systematically plundered the city. Yet Roman elites – senators, contenders for the imperial throne, and military leaders – marshalled the will and resources after 455 to restore the city. Within a decade, Rome had reconstituted its government, with a stronger senatorial and military presence but a weakened imperial presence. Papal response after 455 focused on restoring clergy and church property.

The reorganization of the empire and administrative reforms of the emperor Diocletian at the end of the third century brought changes to Egypt, particularly in taxation and coinage, now more similar to those elsewhere in the empire. Alexandria suffered yet more damage in the revolt of Domitius Domitianus, and rebuilding took many years. The civic elite reached its peak of influence in this period, but by the fifth century its lower and middle ranks were losing ground to the wealthiest, and new fortunes were being founded on salaried careers in the imperial administration. The Christian church became a major institutional power after the end of persecutions, developing a large network of churches, clergy, monasteries, and then charitable institutions such as hospitals. A Christian educational culture and Coptic literary culture began to develop, as well. At the same time, there were signs of a rebirth of a visible Jewish community in Egypt.

With the death of Antony and Cleopatra after the battle of Actium in 30 BC, the Roman general Octavian, soon to be called Augustus, took control of Egypt. Roman rule brought a standing garrison of some 20,000 troops and began the long process of making the administration of Egypt more like that used elsewhere in the Romans’ diverse empire. Although no longer a royal capital, Alexandria remained a center of commerce and culture. Much of Egypt’s wheat surplus was shipped to Rome to feed its population, and Egypt was partly integrated into regional economic networks. Roman taxation policies favored the concentration of wealth in private hands and the development of an urban elite that could take on many of the tasks of governance. The cult of the emperors was introduced into Egyptian temples, which continued as vital cultural centers during the first two centuries of Roman rule. The Jewish community of Egypt was destroyed during a revolt in the early second century.

The Sack of Rome in 410 by the Gothic General Alaric was the result of years of failed imperial negotiations. It dealt a significant psychological blow to the city, but the physical damage was limited. By focusing on the actions of Rome’s civic officeholders, I demonstrate how senatorial aristocrats engaged in competitive reconstruction efforts as they also developed new ties to the imperial court and the military. In contrast, the popes of Rome had limited resources and so left wide-scale rebuilding efforts to the emperor and senatorial officeholders. Only with the return to Rome of the emperor Valentinian III (425–55) do we see a rise in the civic profile of Rome’s then bishop, Leo (440–61).

Although Egypt in the fifth century was highly integrated into the empire, it also began to develop new elements of distinctiveness. In part this trend resulted from divisions in theology and church politics that emerged around the Council of Chalcedon in 451, leading to deep splits in the church by the middle of the sixth century and the creation of competing church hierarchies. The native Egyptian language came to have its own literature and began to be used more widely in official contexts. At the same time, Alexandria remained a vibrant center of Greek culture, which permeated the rest of Egypt as well. The economic and social elite of the cities, increasingly closely tied to the imperial administration, concentrated wealth and power in their hands to a degree not seen earlier, even as most of the population continued to live in villages and work the land.

For those with an interest in understanding the evolution of Judaism in the Islamic lands of the Middle Ages, but not necessarily with a specialized knowledge or training as historians, it is necessary to offer a few general words of warning about the nature, variety, and exploitation of the sources from which history is derived. Though now virtually axiomatic for those who research and write about the past in a scientific fashion, such cautions need to be sounded because there are still approaches to the history of medieval religion – perhaps particularly to that area of study – that may, at least sometimes, take it for granted that the circumstances, personalities, and interpretations that are noted in the early and traditional texts of a faith community are to be understood literally. The reality is that what is reflected in such data is not only a view on a particular period but also the notions and commitments of their chroniclers. History is lived forward but written backward so that all assessments have more than a small element of hindsight and bias.

Chapter One: Counting Change presents the theoretical models and methodologies used in preparing coin finds for this kind of examination. This chapter should be read in conjunction with Appendix 1, which provides a more technical description and examples of how the dataset was collected and examined digitally.