Egypt Under Roman Rule

Egypt , due to its plentiful water resources, was a fertile land and happened to be a situated in a good place to be used as a trade center. Because of this, other civilizations were keen on taking it over and using Egypt for its own purposes, first with Alexander the Great. Egypt was eventually taken over by the Roman empire.

The Roman rule over Egypt began with the arrival of Augustus in 30 B.C. Gaius Cornelius Gallus was the first Roman prefect of Aegyptus (Aegyptus was the Roman name for the area). Gaius gained control with the use of his soldiers, using the Roman trademark of brute force. Aelius Gallus, the second prefect, tried to conquer the side of Egypt that runs along side the Red Sea , but was unsuccessful. The land would remain free of Roman rule until Claudius came into power. Gaius Petronius, the third prefect, helped bring back the agriculture that the area had been previously known for but had since been uncared for.

Because the fertile land produced copious amounts of grain, food was often taken as tax and was sent by ship back to Rome . Later on, the food was shipped to Constantinople when it became the capital of the Eastern Roman empire .

The Egyptian way of governing (which by that point was mostly Greek in nature) was replaced by a Roman government. The biggest difference between the Roman way of ruling in Egypt and the Roman rule elsewhere was that the language of the ruling class was still Greek, not Latin. Having been overseen by the Greeks for so long, even the poorest of Egyptian people had a moderate handle on the Greek language.

Throughout Egypt , but especially in Alexandria, the residents of the country were not just Egyptians and Romans, but also Jews and Greeks, and later Christians. The tension and fighting between the groups required a lot of looking after and mediation. Roman soldiers did what they could to contain the fighting in order to keep the trade routes open and safe. They were well prepared after the years and years of rebellion through the whole of Roman history.

During the third and fourth centuries, as Christianity was becoming a larger and larger religion, the heads of the Roman government in the area did their best to persecute Christians, as they were practicing a religion that was considered to be illegal. But in 313 AD, under the rule of Emperor Constantine, Christianity was finally allowed to be practiced without fear of persecution.

The allowance of Christianity to be practiced openly changed many things, including the coming together of those who had previously followed Christianity in secret. Due to disagreements between different pockets of Christian groups in the area, there was still great amounts of fighting as no middle ground between the different beliefs they all held.

Ultimately, Roman held onto Egypt for around 700 years until their claim to the land was pushed aside by the Islamic forces in 641 AD. While the country was in the process of being turned into an Islamic state, and the grip of Rome had loosened, the most important men of Egypt were those heavily involved in the church. Not long after, however, Egypt became a part of the Islamic Empire until 1805.