A large portion of the Greek population of Alexandria had been ruined, because an end had been put to the public distributions of grain, and poverty had invaded the fertile land of Egypt. Joannes the Almsgiver, who was patriarch and imperial prefect in the reign of Heraclius, did everything in his power to alleviate this misery. He established hospitals, and devoted the revenues of his see to charity; but he was an enemy to heresy, and consequently he was hardly looked on as a friend by the native population. National feelings, religious opinions, and local interests, had always nourished, in the minds of the native Egyptians, a deep-rooted hatred of the Roman administration and of the Greek church; and this feeling of hostility only became more concentrated after the union of the offices of prefect and patriarch by Justinian. A complete line of separation existed between the Greek colony of Alexandria and the native population, who, during the decline of the Greeks and Jews of Alexandria, intruded themselves into political business, and gained some degree of official importance. The cause of the emperor was now connected with the commercial interests of the Greek and Melchite parties, but these ruling classes were regarded by the agricultural population of the rest of the province as interlopers on their sacred Jacobite soil. Joannes the Almsgiver, though a Greek patriarch and an imperial prefect, was not perfectly free from the charge of heresy, nor, perhaps, of employing the revenues under his control with more attention to charity than to public utility. The exigencies of Heraclius were so great that he sent his cousin the patrician Nicetas to Egypt, in order to seize the immense wealth which the patriarch Joannes was said to possess. In the following year the Persians invaded the province; and the patrician and patriarch, unable to defend even the city of Alexandria, fled to Cyprus, while the enemy was allowed to subdue the valley of the Nile to the borders of Libya and Ethiopia, without meeting any opposition from the imperial forces, and apparently with the good wishes of the Egyptians. The plunder obtained from public property and slaves was immense; and as the power of the Greeks was annihilated, the native Egyptians availed themselves of the opportunity to acquire a dominant influence in the administration of their country.