The Emperor Hadrian, as we have seen, speaks of the Alexandrians as being spiteful; and, no doubt, a great deal of their vaunted wit had that character. The young Græco-Egyptian was inordinately vain and self-satisfied; and no critic so soon adopts a spiteful tone as he who has thought himself above criticism. The conceit of these smart young men was very noticeable, and is frequently referred to by early writers. They appear to have been much devoted to the study of their personal appearance; and if one may judge by the habits of the upper-class Egyptians and Levantines of present-day Alexandria, many of them must have been intolerable fops. The luxury of their houses was probably far greater than that in Roman life at this date, and they had studied the culinary arts in an objectionably thorough manner. Dion Chrysostom says the Alexandrians of his day thought of little else but food and horse-racing. Both Greeks and Egyptians in Alexandria had the reputation of being fickle and easily influenced by the moment’s emotion. “I should be wasting many words in vain,” says the author of ‘De Bello Alexandrino,’ “if I were to defend the Alexandrians from the charges of deceit and levity of mind.... There can be no doubt that the race is most prone to treachery.” They had few traditions, no feelings of patriotism, and not much political interest. They did not make any study of themselves, nor write histories of their city: they lived for the moment, and if the Government of the hour were distasteful to them they revolted against it with startling rapidity. The city was constantly being disturbed by street rioting, and there was no great regard for human life.
The population of Alexandria is said to have been about 300,000 during the later years of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which was not much less than that of Rome before the Civil War, and twice the Roman number after that sanguinary struggle.[10] In spite of its reputation for frivolity it was very largely a business city, and a goodly portion of its citizens were animated by a lively commercial spirit which quite outclassed that of the Italian capital in enterprise and bustle. This, of course, was a Greek and not an Egyptian characteristic, for the latter are notoriously unenterprising and conservative in their methods, while the Greeks, to this day, are admirable merchants and business men. Alexandria was the most important corn-market of the world, and for this reason was always envied by Rome. Incidentally I may remark that proportionally far more corn was consumed in Cleopatra’s time than in our own; and Cæsar once speaks of the _endurance_ of his soldiers in submitting to eat meat owing to the scarcity of corn.[11] The city was also engaged in many other forms of commerce, and in the reign of Cleopatra it was recognised as the greatest trading centre in the world. Here East and West met in the busy market-places; and at the time with which we are dealing the eyes of all men were beginning to be turned to this city as being the terminus of the new trade-route to India, along which such rich merchandise was already being conveyed.