When the Persian Empire was conquered by Alexander the Great, many Jews emigrated from Persia to the west, and settled down in the centres of Greek civilization; nor did it take very long before there was scarcely any part of the civilized world of those days in which Jewish settlements did not exist. “The greatly enlarged channels of commerce, especially by sea-routes, attracted many from the interior to the coasts. The newly-founded Grecian cities, rendered attractive by all the achievements of Greek art and civilization, became favourite resorts. Henceforth, trade relations, the desire to see the world, soon also political considerations and (we may well suppose) a certain conscious or unconscious craving for culture, became operative in promoting the dispersion of the Jews over the civilized world.”[63] About the middle of the second century B.C. the _Sybilline Oracles_ (iii. 271) bear witness to the wide dispersion of the Jews in saying that “every land and every sea is full of thee”; the language is hyperbolic, but testifies, nevertheless, to the ubiquity of the Jews at this time. Somewhat later Strabo (_circa_ B.C. 60-A.D. 20) gives the following evidence: “These Jews are already gotten into all cities, and it is hard to find a place in the habitable earth that has not admitted this tribe of men, and is not possessed by it.”[64] The most important centre from every point of view, not only of the Egyptian, but of the whole Dispersion, was Alexandria. As we have seen, the nucleus of a Jewish population had existed in Egypt for centuries before the time of Alexander. When Alexandria was founded Jewish settlers were at once attracted to it because equal privileges with all other citizens were accorded them; reference is made to this in later times in an edict of Tiberius in which it is said: “Since I am assured that the Jews of Alexandria, called _Alexandrians_, have been joint inhabitants in the earliest times with the Alexandrians, and have obtained from their kings equal privileges with them, as is evident from the public records that are in their possession, and the edicts themselves; and that after Alexandria had been subjected to our empire by Augustus, their rights and privileges have been preserved by those presidents who have at divers times been sent thither; and that no dispute had been raised about those rights and privileges.... I will, therefore, that the nation of the Jews be not deprived of their rights and privileges ... but that those rights and privileges which they formerly enjoyed be preserved to them....”[65] In another place Josephus tells us that the Jews of Alexandria had set apart for them “a particular place, that they might live without being polluted [by the Gentiles], and were thereby not so much intermixed with foreigners as before”; this was done by the successors of Alexander.[66] On the other hand, Philo says that the Jews lived in all parts of the city in his day[67]; the