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By Archibald Robertson.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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76 Pages (Part II)
Page 75
The Civil and Military Government of Egypt in the Lifetime of Athanasius.
The name Egypt in the fourth century was applied firstly to the 'diocese' or group of provinces governed by the Praefectus Aegypti or 'Praefectus Augustalis,' secondly to the Delta or Aegyptus Propria, one of the provinces of which the diocese was made up. These provinces (Ammian. Marc. XXII. xvi.) were originally three in number: Egypt proper, Libya, and the Thebais. During our period they became five, firstly by the separation of the Eastern Delta from Egypt proper under the name of Augustamnica in 341 (infr. pp. 130, 504, note 17a); secondly by the subdivision of Libya (at an uncertain date) into Hither Libya (Libya 'Inferior,' or 'Siccior'), and the Pentapolis or Libya Superior of which Ptolemais was the capital. At a later date still the Heptanomis was separated from 'Aegyptus' under the name of Arcadia, given in honour of the Emperor Arcadius. These then are the six provinces which make up 'Egypt' in the Notilia (shortly after a.d. 400). Each province, with the exception of Augustamnica, whose governor enjoyed the title of 'corrector,' was under a praeses (hegoumenos): not one of the six was of consular rank. This regulation was due to the peculiar constitution of the diocese or province of Egypt in the wider sense. At the head of this latter, and subordinate in rank, though scarcely second in dignity, to the Comes Orientis, was the Prefect of Egypt, who enjoyed an exceptional position among the greater provincial officers. He appears to have been, at least in practice, directly under the Praefectus Praetorio per Orientem, the supreme civil representative of 'Augustus' throughout the Eastern Empire. The title Praefectus had in fact a different history as applied to the Prefect of the East and the Prefect of Egypt respectively. As applied to the latter, it was as old as Augustus. The importance of Egypt, mainly but not solely as a granary of Rome, had led the politic heir of Julius Caesar to ensure its complete and peculiar dependence on the emperor. For this object, its government was committed to a nominee of the emperor, who must be not a Senator but an Eques only; i.e. he must never have held one of the great offices of state from Consul to quaestor. No one of senatorial rank was to be permitted to set foot in Egypt. (For the prerogatives of the praefectus Aegypti under Augustus see Tacitus Ann. xii. 60. also Ulp. Digest. I. xvii.). This arrangement survived the various vicissitudes of Egypt in the third century, and even the reorganisation of the Empire by Diocletian. Egypt was severed off between 365 and 386 from the Eastern 'Diocese' (Sievers, p. 117, appealing to Mommsen in Abhandl. der Berliner Akad. 1862). Upon the above facts was founded the (perhaps merely popular) title 'Augustalis' which we find already applied to the Prefect of Egypt about a.d. 350 (infr. p. 143, cf. p. 93 note). But Sievers (ubi supr.), following Mommsen, contends that there is reason to think that the dignity of 'Augustal' Prefect was officially created about a.d. 367. This view cannot be adequately discussed here, but it rests only in part upon the series of governors furnished by the Festal Index.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/athanasius-life-arianism-2.asp?pg=75
