UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Egypt under Roman domination
victories were useless when the people sided with the invaders. Even when
Aurelian took the situation in hand and drove the Palmyrians out, some
anti-Roman sections of the population led by one Firmus joined those
of the invaders who still remained in Egypt. They also linked themselves
to a race which began to be spoken of with terror, the Blemmyes. These
were nomads who were spreading into Lower Nubia and often appeared
in Upper Egypt out of the desert, which they dominated, and terrorized
the cultivators.
The general who succeeded in dominating the Palmyrians, the Blemmyes
and their allies the Egyptian guerillas was Probus (276-82), who succeeded
Aurelian after commanding his forces. He made serious efforts to improve
the situation of the country, which was well on the road to ruin and no
longer reacted to a social life centred in a traditional administration. The
welcome given even the Blemmyes, who behaved like nomad raiders,
showed clearly that the community would have to be strengthened from
inside by giving its members new confidence. This was doubtless Probus'
aim when, having beaten the invading barbarians and become emperor,
he set his army to dig canals and improve agriculture.
Egypt's crisis merely reflected in a clearly defined setting the much larger
crisis of the empire itself. The man who had the courage to face this larger
problem was Diocletian (284-305), who remoulded the whole system of
the state. This subject is too vast to touch on here except so far as it concerns
Egypt. The new emperor saw the situation clearly and gave up Nubia
which was open to invasion by the Blemmyes and to the Nomads, who
were an African people akin to them, on condition that they should
undertake to guard the empire's southern frontier. For this service they
were paid sums which their petty kings (reguli, basiliskoi) enjoyed calling
tribute.
Egypt itself was now divided into three provinces, each of which had
formerly been an epistrategy. The two northern provinces, the Delta and
Heptanomis (the seven nomes), were now named Aegyptus Jovia and
Aegyptus Herculia and administered by a civil governor (praeses) who had
no authority over the armed forces. The southern province, the Thebaid,
which was more exposed to invasion, was placed under a dux, who held
both the civil and the military power. Egypt lost its character as a separate
province and struck the same coinage as the rest of the empire. Its
administration was brought into line with that of other provinces by the
appointment of a curator civitatis, the city taxation officer, who had charge
of fiscal problems. At the same time a new taxation system came into force
which, broadly speaking, fixed taxes for fifteen years at a stretch
(indictiones). This was an advance on the chaos of arbitrary and unexpected
taxation, but to be a significant change, required that a balance be struck
between taxation and the whole wealth-producing system. The community
tended, slowly at first and later more and more obviously, to fall into fixed
patterns which provided a refuge for the taxpayer when taxation became
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