Note 242 — Chapter XII · EGYPT.

When the Romans ask from the famous rhetor Proaeresios (end of the third and beginning of the fourth century) one of his disciples for a professorial chair, he sends to them Eusebius from Alexandria; “as respects rhetoric,” it is said of the latter (Eunapius, Proaer. p. 92 Boiss.), “it is enough to say that he was an Egyptian; for this people, no doubt, pursues versemaking passionately, but earnest oratory (ὁ σπουδαῖος Ἕρμης) is not at home among them.” The remarkable resumption of Greek poetry in Egypt, to which, e.g. the epic of Nonnus belongs, lies beyond the bounds of our narrative.