small, multitudes were compelled to seek shelter on the sea shore, or among the tombs and dunghills, or wherever they could m.

Upon another occasion, in a sedition at Alexandria, U. C. 819, 50,000 Jews lost their lives at once"; which, I should think, to judge from the context of the account, was about one third of their numbers at that time living in the city. This makes the entire Jewish population of Alexandria about 150,000: which being estimated at two-fifths of the whole, would make the entire population of the city about 375,000. This must be considered the sum total of the free population; for the Jews of Alexandria were all citizens, as much as the Greeks.

In the time of Diodorus, who visited Egypt, Olymp. 180, about B. C. 60, U. C. 694, Alexandria contained a free population of 300,000 and upwards, as he ascertained from the public register or album of citizens. At the same time the general population of Egypt was about three millions. By the time of the breaking out of the Jewish war, U. C. 819, this general population had mounted upwards to 7,500,000, as we shall see elsewhere; exclusive of the population of Alexandria. It was to be expected that the population of Alexandria would increase also, if the general population of the country did the same; though not in the same proportion with that: and therefore that if its free population, B. C. 60, was about 300,000, it might be about 375,000, U. C. 819, A.D. 66.

The statement of Diodorus which professes to give the number of the Neulepot, in his time, must be understood to comprehend all who were entitled to that denomination, whether male or female, young or old,

sqq.

m Philo, Adversus Flaccum loco citato, et ii. 531. 5: De Virtutibus, ii. 563. 27. n Jos. Bell. Jud. ii. xviii. 7, 8. o Lib. xvii. 52; i. 31. 44. 83.

We have seen

in opposition to those who were not. that at Rome, in the time of the emperors, an account of the births of children was strictly kept, and by the proper officers, as well as in the provinces: and we may collect from a letter of Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, in the reign of Gallienus, about A. D. 256o, that persons of all ages, from puberty to 80, were included in the roll of citizens, kept there in his time.

As it is admitted that Alexandria, whatever was the extent of ground which it covered, whether 80 stades, or 120, yet in wealth, grandeur, and the number of its inhabitants, was very nearly equal to Rome; it is to be presumed that the population of the one, at any time during a given period, would be found almost on a par with that of the other, for the same. We have computed the population of Rome for the reign of Augustus at about a million: and we may compute that of Alexandria at seven or eight hundred thousand. In the number of its citizens, or free men, the duos properly so called-I should be disposed to think that Alexandria was actually equal to Rome, if not greater than it. The difference between their comparative total population consisted probably in the greater number of slaves and strangers, mixed up with the population of Rome, than with that of Alexandria. The latter were perhaps in the proportion of two or three to one at Rome; but not more than in that of one or two to one at Alexandria, or in any other city, however great, besides Rome*.

* A fact is mentioned by Procopius, De Historia Arcana, xxvi. 77. D. which may throw some light on the magnitude and numbers of Alexandria in comparison of those of Rome. He observes there, incidentally,

that Διοκλητιανὸς Ρωμαίων γεγονώς αὐτοκράτωρ, σίτου μέγα τι χρήμα δίδοσθαι παρὰ τοῦ δήμου τῶν ̓Αλεξανδρέων τοῖς δεομένοις ἀνὰ πᾶν ἔτος dopive the time of which ordinance, though no otherwise specified by Procopius than as

:

p Eusebius, E. H. vii. xxi. 267, ad calcem.

The next city, the magnitude of which we shall consider, is Seleucia ad Tigrim: the chief Grecian city in Upper Asia, and founded by Seleucus Nicator, about B. C. 312, in the vicinity of Ninus, the ancient Nineveh, and Babylon. The wealth and opulence of this single city may be judged of from the fact, that, though isolated by its situation, and almost in the midst of the Parthian dominions, it was yet able to set their power at defiance, and for a long time to maintain its own independence.

Though not equal in size and population to Alexandria, it was not much inferior to it: and their equality may be further estimated from this fact, that as the Jews of Egypt lost 50,000 of their numbers, U. C.

above, would probably be when Diocletian reduced Alexandria, in the thirteenth of his reign, A. D. 296 or 297, according to Jerome in Chronico. This allowance, it seems, continued down to Procopius' own time; when Hephaestus, præfect of Alexandria, under Justinian, to please the emperor, ἔνθενδε μυριάδας ἐς διακοσίας ἐπετείους μεδίμνων τοὺς τῶν ἀναγκαίων ὑποσπανίζοντας ἀφελόμενος τῷ δημοσίῳ ἐντέθεικε.

If we may understand the medimni, here spoken of, as meaning modii, which I think the necessity of the case requires, then two hundred myriads are equivalent to two millions of modii: and two millions of modii annually are at the rate of about 166,000 per month: and 166,000 per month, at the rate of one modius among five persons, would be adequate to the daily supply of about 33,000 persons.

It is evident that these reci

pients in the present instance are restricted to the poorer part of the Alexandrine community as such ; the δεόμενοι or the ἀναγκαίων ὑποσπανίζοντες. The question is, what proportion would these bear to the gross population, and how is that to be ascertained? By the same rule, we may answer, as at Antioch; where we shall see, by and by, that Chrysostom, while he reckons the duos in the gross at 200,000, estimates the poor in particular at a tenth of the whole P. On this principle the poor of Alexandria would be one tenth of the Sμos-and therefore the poor amounting to 33,000 persons, the duos amounted to 330,000, and upwards. It is true, this is a computation instituted for the reign of Justinian. But mutatis mutandis, it might apply to the time of Augustus.

p In like manner, Operum ix. 93. D. In Acta Apostolorum Homilia xi. 3, he estimates the poor of Constantinople at 50,000: which if the numbers of the dâμos were nearly 500,000 not many years before (see page 38. supra) is evidently a just proportion. 9 Tacitus, Annales, xi. 8, 9. Strabo, xvi. 2. §. 5. 304. Cf. 1. §. 5. 252. §. 16. 274.

r

819, who were living at Alexandria, so did those of Babylonia lose the same number of theirs, U. C. 791, who were living at Seleucia 3.

We are told by Jerome in Chronico, that when Seleucia was taken by Avidius Cassius, in the Parthian war, U. C. 917, the fourth of Marcus Aurelius, it contained a population of 300,000. If this be understood of the free population, it is very much in proportion to what was probably the amount of that both of Rome and of Alexandria, at the same period of time. When Pliny was writing, however, viz. U. C. 830, he mentions it as a report which he had heard of its numbers, that it contained 600,000 plebis urbana. The necessity of the case seems to require that this should be understood of its entire population: in which case, the magnitude of this city will actually bear that proportion to the size and grandeur of Alexandria, which from the comparative estimate of their respective extent, left on record, we should naturally expect to find it did.

Let us consider, in the last place, the magnitude of Antioch upon the Orontes, the metropolis of Syria; of which Josephus observes, that in his time it was confessedly to be reckoned the third principal city in the empire" meaning that it was inferior only to Rome, and Alexandria in Egypt.

Strabo calls Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea, and Laodicea, the four largest cities of Syria. Of these, Apamea, according to an inscription in Orellius, at the time of the census of Syria, by Quirinus, U. C. 760, contained a population of 117,000 citizens, which I should consider equivalent to a gross population of two or three hundred thousand. Antioch undoubtedly was more populous than Apamea.

u De Bello, iii. ii. 4: v Lib. xvi.

s Jos. Ant. Jud. xviii. ix. 1. 9. t H. N. vi. 30. Cf. Herodian, iv. 5. Ausonius, De Urbibus Nobilibus, carmen 3. 2. §. 4. 302. x Synagoge Inscriptionum, vol. i. art. 625. p. 459.

Those who have described Antioch, tell us it was TETрÚTоλs, consisting of four divisions, as added or augmented by different founders at different times, with a distinct wall to each division, and a common one to the four. It was founded originally by Seleucus, on the site or in the vicinity of Antigonia, a city so named from its founder Antigonus, who was defeated and killed in battle, B. C. 301*. The first division was consequently his work; the next was added by its own inhabitants; the third by Seleucus Callinicus, or Antiochus Magnus; the fourth by Antiochus Epiphanesy. Its principal street ran from east to west, with a colonnade on either side of it, and a stone pavement between. The rest of the streets branched out from this at right angles, north and south. Josephus tells us that among the other munificent actions of Herod done abroad, he paved this street with marble, the length of which he says was 20 stades a; besides providing it with a colonnade also, upon each side of it, as long as the street. But we may collect from Dio Chrysostom, that Antioch was 36 stades in length; in which case the dimensions of the street are underrated in Josephus. On this principle too, the perimeter of the city was at least 72 stades in all.

Libanius, indeed, loc. cit., says the difference of magnitude between the city in his time, and the city as originally built, was 40 stades. Whether he means Antigonia, or the Antioch of Seleucus, does not clearly appear. I apprehend the former. If Antioch was

Both Eusebius and Jerome

in Chronico date its foundation in the twelfth of Seleucus, deduced from B. C. 312, which

would be soon after the battle in question. So also Syncellus, i. 520. 5.

y Strabo, xvi. 2. §. 4. 303: Libanius, Antiochica Oratio, i. 309. 10, l. 14. 310, &c.: Eustathius, ad Dionysium Periegetem, 917. Geographi Minores, iv. z Libanius, Antiochica Oratio, 337. 1. 15. sqq. a De Bell. i. xxi. 11. Ant. xvi. v. 3.

b Oratio xlvii. 229. 15.

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