Timokles had forsaken the gods of his own family, the gods his own dead father had adored, Egypt's gods.

The lad would not even worship the gods of Rome.

Timokles had become one of the Christians, and had, in consequence, been falsely accused of having, during a former inundation, cut one of the dykes near the Nile.

This offense, in the days of Roman rule, was punishable by condemnation to labor in the mines, or by branding and transportation to an oasis of the desert.
Timokles, innocent of the crime charged upon him,--having been at home in Alexandria during the time when he was accused of having been abroad on the evil errand,--was dragged away to exile, for was he not a Christian?
Living or dead, the desert held him.

The Roman emperor, Septimius Severus, who ruled Egypt, had lately issued an edict that no one should become a Christian.