The conquest of Egypt by Octavian in 30 bc brought Egypt into the Roman Empire, and it remained a Roman province, apart from brief Palmyrene (269-74) and Sassanid Persian (619-28) interludes until the Arab conquest in ad 642. The main imperial concerns were to ensure that no-one was able to repeat Mark Antony’s use of the country as a power base and to guarantee the effective economic exploitation of the country which was required to provide Rome with a third of its corn supplies and also to guarantee access to elite goods derived from the flourishing trade down the Red Sea with India and Ceylon, the riches of the incense and spice coming through the Nabataeans of Arabia, the exploitation of high-quality stone resources available from the Eastern Desert (Mons Porphyrites, Mons Claudianus), and the profitable trade route running through the oases of the Western Desert. Road and military installations were maintained wherever appropriate to safeguard these activities, but the Roman army in Egypt also had to carry out policing operations within the country as well as defensive campaigns to deal with threats on the southern frontier and nomads in the deserts. Internally the main cultural trends were (1) the widespread development of urbanization along a Graeco-Roman pattern which, amongst other things, encouraged Egyptian elites to adopt a Graeco-Roman lifestyle and (2) the advent of Christianity which was widely current by the fourth century. These two factors between them were responsible for the erosion of traditional Egyptian culture so that Egypt in the Late Antique period lost its purchase on Pharaonic civilization and became yet another example of the provincial culture of the late Roman Empire.
World History
