Native Egyptians had borne the brunt of tax increases required to fund Marcus’s war in the north. As a result, more and more of them had turned to banditry, and eventually, out of desperation, they formed a rebel army, led by a charismatic young warrior-priest called Isidorus. The story goes that a handful of these men disguised themselves in women’s clothing and approached a Roman centurion, pretending that they were going to pay him a ransom of gold for their captured husbands. They ambushed him, however, and then captured and sacrificed another officer, reputedly swearing an oath over his
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