Egypt: No longer reliable “breadbasket” of Rome

[guy]

I had long believed that the Roman Empire exerted full control over Egypt from the time of Augustus until the late Empire, possibly extending as far as the Vandal invasion in the fifth century.

The informative article below discusses Egypt during the Roman era and explains that Egypt ceased to be the "breadbasket of Rome" after a revolt led by the Egyptian priest Isidorus in AD 172-173. The unsuccessful revolt, known as the Bucolic revolt, resulted from tax issues and cultural resistance against the Romans and had a lasting detrimental impact on the Egyptian economy.

 

Quote

Egypt was no longer a major supplier of corn to Rome following the Boucolic Marshes revolt in AD 172, when the priest Isidorus led a rebellion in the Nile Delta against the oppressive taxation of Marcus Aurelius; although the revolt was eventually put down, it left much of rural Egypt outside Rome’s control and severely damaged the Egyptian economy. In addition, the southern Roman frontier was under constant threat from an Eastern Desert people called the Blemmyes, who established a kingdom above the First Cataract (in Lower Nubia), threatening the Thebaid (the 12 southernmost nomes).

 

https://the-past.com/feature/palmyra-blemmyes-diocletian-and-egypt/

 

See Cassius Dio “Roman History” Book LXXII

 

Quote

The people called the Bucoli began a disturbance in Egypt and under the leader­ship of one Isidorus, a priest, caused the rest of the Egyptians to revolt. At first, arrayed in women's garments, they had deceived the Roman centurion, causing him to believe that they were women of the Bucoli and were going to give him gold as ransom for their  husbands, and had then struck down when he approached them. They also sacrificed his companion, and after swearing an oath over his entrails, they devoured them. Isidorus surpassed all his contemporaries in bravery. Next, having conquered the Romans in Egypt in a pitched battle, they came near capturing Alexandria, too, and would have succeeded, had not Cassius been sent against them from Syria. He contrived to destroy their mutual accord and to separate them from one another (for because of their desperation as well as of their numbers he had not ventured to attack them while they were united), and thus, when they fell to quarrelling, he subdued them.

 

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/72*.html

 

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isidorus#:~:text=According to the Roman historian,marshes of the Nile Delta.

 

It appears that after the revolt, the gain supply to Rome resumed. This new supply, however, seems to have been neither as reliable or plentiful. Unforfortunately, there appears to be very little written on the revolt and its effect on the Egyptian economy.

Edited September 12 by guy