The Alexandrian Bishops and the Grain Trade: Ecclesiastical Commerce in Late Roman Egypt

Abstract

The Alexandrian patriarchs of the fourth and fifth centuries advanced their religious and political interests in the eastern Mediterranean world with vigor and belligerence. This zealous diplomacy presents an inviting object for study 1). Its success seems to have been due in part to their firm control of Egyptian Christianity. Their power also had a material basis. Until the Arab conquest Egypt was the main resource of the emperors for feeding the population of Constantinople, and the army and imperial bureaucracy as well ). The maintenance of regular grain shipments from Alexandria was essential to their stability. No more fatal allegation could be made against a bishop than that he was meddling with the grain supply, and Alexandria's fractious Christians were not reluctant to use such an effective polemical weapon. The plausibility of the charge depends in part on what influence the bishops actually had on the movement of grain. This paper collects notices associating the bishops with the grain trade, and correlates them with what is otherwise known about grain transport in late Roman Egypt. The evidence is found in quite disparate sources ranging from the fourth to the early seventh centuries, a period which saw the emergence of an extensive patriarchal commercial activity. An important concern