The first pogrom documented in history took place in Alexandria in the year 38 CE. The only document describing this event is an eyewitness account by the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. It is a problematic source because the concern of the author is largely theological and also because he fails to inform the reader about the causes of the violence. These causes must be sought in the combination of a growing tendency among Alexandrian intellectuals to depict Jews as criminal misanthropes, and the Jewish tendency to side with the Roman occupiers of Egypt.