Ptolemaic Kingdom
Encyclopedia
The Ptolemaic Kingdom in and around Egypt
began following Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BC and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest
in 30 BC. It was founded when Ptolemy I Soter
declared himself Pharaoh
of Egypt, creating a powerful Hellenistic
state stretching from southern Syria
to Cyrene
and south to Nubia
. Alexandria
became the capital city and a center of Greek
culture and trade. To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they named themselves the successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions by marrying their siblings, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life. Hellenistic culture thrived in Egypt until the Muslim conquest
. The Ptolemies had to fight native rebellions and were involved in foreign and civil wars that led to the decline of the kingdom and its annexation
by the Roman Empire
.
invaded the Achaemenid satrapy of Egypt. He was welcomed by the Egyptians
as a deliverer. He visited Memphis
, and traveled to the oracle of Amun
at the Oasis of Siwa. The oracle declared him to be the son of Amun. He conciliated the Egyptians by the respect which he showed for their religion, but he appointed Greeks to virtually all the senior posts in the country, and founded a new Greek city, Alexandria
, to be the new capital. The wealth of Egypt could now be harnessed for Alexander's conquest of the rest of the Persian Empire
. Early in 331 BC he was ready to depart, and led his forces away to Phoenicia
. He left Cleomenes
as the ruling nomarch
to control Egypt in his absence. Alexander never returned to Egypt.
in 323 BC, a succession crisis
erupted among his generals. Initially, Perdiccas
ruled the empire as regent for Alexander's half-brother Arrhidaeus, who became Philip III of Macedon
, and then as regent for both Philip III and Alexander's infant son Alexander IV of Macedon
, who had not been born at the time of his father's death. Perdiccas appointed Ptolemy
, one of Alexander's closest companions, to be satrap
of Egypt. Ptolemy ruled Egypt from 323 BC, nominally in the name of the joint kings Philip III and Alexander IV. However, as Alexander the Great's empire disintegrated, Ptolemy soon established himself as ruler in his own right. Ptolemy successfully defended Egypt against an invasion by Perdiccas in 321 BCE, and consolidated his position in Egypt and the surrounding areas during the Wars of the Diadochi (322 BC-301 BC). In 305 BC, Ptolemy took the title of King. As Ptolemy I Soter
("Saviour"), he founded the Ptolemaic dynasty
that was to rule Egypt for nearly 300 years.
All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name "Ptolemy", while princesses and queens preferred the names Cleopatra, Arsinoe and Berenice. Because the Ptolemaic kings adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters, many of the kings ruled jointly with their spouses, who were also of the royal house. This custom made Ptolemaic politics confusingly incestuous, and the later Ptolemies were increasingly feeble. The only Ptolemaic Queens to officially rule on their own were Berenice III
and Berenice IV
. Cleopatra V
did co-rule, but it was with another female, Berenice IV. Cleopatra VII officially co-ruled with Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator
, Ptolemy XIV
, and Ptolemy XV, but effectively, she ruled Egypt alone.
The early Ptolemies did not disturb the religion or the customs of the Egyptians
, and indeed built magnificent new temples for the Egyptian gods and soon adopted the outward display of the Pharaohs of old. During the reign of Ptolemies II and III thousands of Greek veterans were rewarded with grants of farm lands, and Greeks were planted in colonies and garrisons or settled themselves in the villages throughout the country. Upper Egypt
, farthest from the centre of government, was less immediately affected, even though Ptolemy I established the Greek colony of Ptolemais Hermiou
to be its capital. But within a century Greek
influence had spread through the country and intermarriage had produced a large Greco-Egyptian educated class. Nevertheless, the Greeks always remained a privileged minority in Ptolemaic Egypt. They lived under Greek law, received a Greek education, were tried in Greek courts, and were citizens of Greek cities.
The first part of Ptolemy I's reign was dominated by the Wars of the Diadochi
between the various successor states to the empire of Alexander. His first object was to hold his position in Egypt securely, and secondly to increase his domain. Within a few years he had gained control of Libya
, Coele-Syria
(including Judea
), and Cyprus
. When Antigonus
, ruler of Syria
, tried to reunite Alexander's empire, Ptolemy joined the coalition against him. In 312 BC, allied with Seleucus
, the ruler of Babylonia
, he defeated Demetrius
, the son of Antigonus, in the battle of Gaza
.
In 311 BC, a peace was concluded between the combatants, but in 309 BC war broke out again, and Ptolemy occupied Corinth
and other parts of Greece, although he lost Cyprus after a sea-battle in 306 BC. Antigonus then tried to invade Egypt but Ptolemy held the frontier against him. When the coalition was renewed against Antigonus in 302 BC, Ptolemy joined it, but neither he nor his army were present when Antigonus was defeated and killed at Ipsus
. He had instead taken the opportunity to secure Coele-Syria and Palestine, in breach of the agreement assigning it to Seleucus, thereby setting the scene for the future Syrian Wars
. Thereafter Ptolemy tried to stay out of land wars, but he retook Cyprus in 295 BC.
Feeling the kingdom was now secure, Ptolemy shared rule with his son Ptolemy II by Queen Berenice
in 285 BC. He then may have devoted his retirement to writing a history of the campaigns of Alexander, which is unfortunately lost but was a principal source for the later work of Arrian
. Ptolemy I died in 283 BC at the age of 84. He left a stable and well-governed kingdom to his son.
islands and the coastal districts of Cilicia
, Pamphylia
, Lycia
and Caria
. However, some of these territories were lost near the end of his reign as a result of the Second Syrian War.
Ptolemy's first wife, Arsinoe I, daughter of Lysimachus
, was the mother of his legitimate children. After her repudiation he followed Egyptian custom and married his sister, Arsinoë II, beginning a practice which, while pleasing to the Egyptian population, was to have serious consequences in later reigns. The material and literary splendour of the Alexandrian court was at its height under Ptolemy II. Callimachus
, keeper of the Library of Alexandria
, Theocritus
and a host of other poets, glorified the Ptolemaic family. Ptolemy himself was eager to increase the library and to patronise scientific research. He spent lavishly on making Alexandria the economic, artistic and intellectual capital of the Hellenistic Greek world. It is to the academies and libraries of Alexandria that we owe the preservation of so much Greek literary heritage.
Ptolemy III Euergetes
("the benefactor") succeeded his father in 246 BC. He abandoned his predecessors' policy of keeping out of the wars of the other Greek kingdoms, and plunged into the Third Syrian War with the Seleucids
of Syria
, when his sister, Queen Berenice
, and her son were murdered in a dynastic dispute. Ptolemy marched triumphantly into the heart of the Seleucid realm, as far as Babylonia
, while his fleets in the Aegean made fresh conquests as far north as Thrace
.
This victory marked the zenith of the Ptolemaic power. Seleucus II Callinicus
kept his throne, but Egyptian fleets controlled most of the coasts of Asia Minor
and Greece. After this triumph Ptolemy no longer engaged actively in war, although he supported the enemies of Macedon
in Greek politics. His domestic policy differed from his father's in that he patronised the native Egyptian religion more liberally: he has left larger traces among the Egyptian monuments. In this his reign marks the gradual "Egyptianisation" of the Ptolemies.
In 221 BC, Ptolemy III died and was succeeded by his son Ptolemy IV Philopator
, a weak and corrupt king under whom the decline of the Ptolemaic kingdom began. His reign was inaugurated by the murder of his mother, and he was always under the influence of favourites, male and female, who controlled the government. Nevertheless his ministers were able to make serious preparations to meet the attacks of Antiochus III the Great
on Coele-Syria, and the great Egyptian victory of Raphia
in 217 BC secured the kingdom. A sign of the domestic weakness of his reign was the rebellions by native Egyptians that took away over half the country for over 20 years. Philopator was devoted to orgiastic religions and to literature. He married his sister Arsinoë
, but was ruled by his mistress Agathoclea.
Ptolemy V Epiphanes
, son of Philopator and Arsinoë, was a child when he came to the throne, and a series of regents ran the kingdom. Antiochus III of The Seleucid Empire
and Philip V of Macedon
made a compact to seize the Ptolemaic possessions. Philip seized several islands and places in Caria
and Thrace
, while the battle of Panium
in 198 BC transferred Coele-Syria from Ptolemeic to Seleucid control. After this defeat Egypt formed an alliance with the rising power in the Mediterranean, Rome. Once he reached adulthood Epiphanes became a tyrant, before his early death in 180 BC. He was succeeded by his infant son Ptolemy VI Philometor
.
In 170 BC, Antiochus IV Epiphanes
invaded Egypt and deposed Philometor, and his younger brother (later Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II
) was installed as a puppet king. When Antiochus withdrew, the brothers agreed to reign jointly with their sister Cleopatra II
. They soon fell out, however, and quarrels between the two brothers allowed Rome to interfere and to steadily increase its influence in Egypt. Eventually Philometor regained the throne. In 145 BC he was killed in the Battle of Antioch
.
. But Euergetes soon returned, killed his young nephew, seized the throne and as Ptolemy VIII soon proved himself a cruel tyrant. On his death in 116 BC he left the kingdom to his wife Cleopatra III
and her son Ptolemy IX Philometor Soter II
. The young king was driven out by his mother in 107 BC, who reigned jointly with Euergetes's younger brother Ptolemy X Alexander I
. In 88 BC Ptolemy IX again returned to the throne, and retained it until his death in 80 BC. He was succeeded by Ptolemy XI Alexander II
, the son of Ptolemy X. He was lynched by the Alexandrian mob after murdering his stepmother, who was also his cousin, aunt and wife. These sordid dynastic quarrels left Egypt so weakened that the country became a de facto protectorate of Rome, which had by now absorbed most of the Greek world.
Ptolemy XI was succeeded by a son of Ptolemy IX, Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos, nicknamed Auletes, the flute-player. By now Rome was the arbiter of Egyptian affairs, and annexed both Libya
and Cyprus
. In 58 BC Auletes was driven out by the Alexandrian mob, but the Romans restored him to power three years later. He died in 51 BC, leaving the kingdom to his ten-year-old son, Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator
, who reigned jointly with his 17-year-old sister and wife, Cleopatra VII
.
When Cleopatra VII ascended the Egyptian throne, she was only seventeen. She reigned as Queen "Philopator" and Pharaoh
between 51 and 30 BC, and died at the age of 39.
The demise of the Ptolemies' power coincided with the rise of the Roman Empire
. Having little choice, and seeing one city after another falling to Macedon and the Seleucid Empire, the Ptolemies decided to ally with the Romans, a pact that lasted over 150 years. During the rule of the later Ptolemies, Rome gained more and more power over Egypt, and was even declared guardian of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII, had to pay tribute to the Romans to keep them away from his Kingdom. Upon his death, the fall of the Dynasty seemed even closer.
As children, Cleopatra and her siblings witnessed the defeat of their guardian, Pompey
, by Julius Caesar
through civil war
. Meanwhile, Cleopatra and her brother/husband Ptolemy XIII were both attempting to gain control of Egypt's throne.
In the middle of all this turmoil, Julius Caesar left Rome for Alexandria in 48 BC. During his stay in the Palace, he received 22 year old Cleopatra, allegedly wrapped in rug. She counted on Caesar's support to alienate Ptolemy XIII. With the arrival of Roman reinforcements, and after a few battles in Alexandria, Ptolemy XIII was defeated. He later drowned in the Nile, although the circumstances of his death are unclear.
In the summer of 47 BC, having married her younger brother Ptolemy XIV, Cleopatra and Caesar embarked for a two-month trip along the Nile. Together, they visited Dendara, where Cleopatra was being worshiped as Pharaoh
, an honor beyond Caesar's reach. They became lovers, and she bore him a son, Caesarion
, who was later proclaimed with many titles like king of kings
. In 45 BC, Cleopatra and Caesarion left Alexandria for Rome, where they stayed in a palace built by Caesar in their honor.
In 44 BC, Caesar was murdered in Rome by several Senators
. With his death, Rome split between supporters of Mark Antony
and Octavian. Cleopatra was watching in silence, and when Mark Antony seemed to prevail, she supported him and, shortly after, they too became lovers.
Mark Antony's alliance with Cleopatra angered Rome even more. The senators called her a sorceress, and accused her of all sorts of evil. The Romans became even more furious as Antony was giving away parts of their Empire - at the donations of Alexandria
ceremony in autumn 34 BCE - Tarsus
, Cyrene
, Crete
, Cyprus
, and Israel
- one after the other to Cleopatra and her children. Octavian was able to somehow gain possession of Mark Antony's will
, which expressed his desire to be buried in Alexandria, rather than taken to Rome in the event of his death.
It was the boiling point when Octavian declared war on the "Foreign Queen", and off the coast of Greece in the Adriatic Sea they met in at Actium
, where the forces of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
defeated the Navy of Cleopatra and Antony.
Octavian waited for a year before he claimed Egypt as a Roman province. He arrived in Alexandria and easily defeated Mark Antony outside the city, near present day Camp César. Following this defeat, and facing certain death at the hands of Octavian, Antony committed suicide by falling on his own sword.
Octavian entered Alexandria in 30 BC. Cleopatra was captured and taken to him, but Octavian had no interest in any relation, reconciliation, or even negotiation with the Egyptian Queen. Realizing that her end was close, she decided to put an end to her life. It is not known for sure how she killed herself, but many believe she used a poisonous snake
as her death instrument.
With the death of Cleopatra, the dynasty of Ptolemies came to an end. Alexandria remained capital of Egypt, but Egypt became a Roman province.
Hellenistic art is richly diverse in subject matter and in stylistic development. It was created during an age characterized by a strong sense of history. For the first time, there were museums and great libraries, such as those at Alexandria and Pergamon. Hellenistic artists copied and adapted earlier styles, and also made great innovations. Representations of Greek gods took on new forms. The popular image of a nude Aphrodite, for example, reflects the increased secularization of traditional religion. Also prominent in Hellenistic art are representations of Dionysos, the god of wine and legendary conqueror of the East, as well as those of Hermes, the god of commerce. In strikingly tender depictions, Eros, the Greek personification of love, is portrayed as a young child.
Greek culture had a long but minor presence in Egypt long before Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria. It began when Greek colonists, encouraged by the many Pharaohs, set up the trading post of Naucratis
, which became an important link between the Greek world and Egypt's grain. As Egypt came under foreign domination and decline, the Pharaohs depended on the Greeks as mercenaries and even advisors. When the Persians took over Egypt, Naucratis remained an important Greek port and the colonist population were used as mercenaries
by both the rebel Egyptian princes and the Persian kings, who later gave them land grants, spreading the Greek culture into the valley of the Nile. When Alexander the Great arrived, he established Alexandria on the site of the Persian fort of Rhakortis. Following Alexander's death, control passed into the hands of the Lagid (Ptolemaic) dynasty; they built Greek cities across their empire and gave land grants across Egypt to the veterans of their many military conflicts. Hellenistic civilization
continued to thrive even after Rome annexed Egypt after the battle of Actium
and did not decline until the Islamic conquests.
Ptolemaic Egypt, along with the other Hellenistic states outside of the Greek mainland after Alexander the Great, had its armies based on the Macedonian phalanx
and featured Macedonian
and native troops fighting side by side.
The Ptolemaic military was filled with diverse peoples from across their territories. At first most of the military was made up of a pool of Greek
settlers who, in exchange for military service, were given land grants. These made up the majority of the army.
With the many wars the Ptolemies were involved in, their pool of Greek troops dwindled and there was little Greek immigration from the mainland so they were kept in the royal bodyguard and as generals and officers. Native troops were looked down upon and distrusted due to their disloyalty and frequent tendency to aid local revolts. However, with the decline of royal power, they gained influence and became common in the military.
The Ptolemies used the great wealth of Egypt to their advantage by hiring vast amounts of mercenaries from across the known world. Black Ethiopians are also known to have served in the military along with the Galatians, Mysians and others. Jews were particularly imported as military settlers and made up as much as twenty percent of the military.
With their vast amount of territory spread along the Eastern Mediterranean such as Cyprus
, Crete
, the islands of the Aegean
and even Thrace
, the Ptolemies required a large navy to defend these far-flung strongholds from enemies like the Seleucids and Macedonians.
under the Ptolemaic
Dynasty, the construction of many Greek
settlements throughout their Empire to either Hellenize new conquered peoples or reinforce the area. In Egypt, there were only three main Greek cities which were Alexandria
, Naucratis
, and Ptolemais
.
, although its commercial importance was reduced with the founding of Alexandria, continued in a quiet way its life as a Greek city-state. During the interval between the death of Alexander and Ptolemy's assumption of the style of king, it even issued an autonomous coinage. And the number of Greek men of letters during the Ptolemaic and Roman period, who were citizens of Naucratis, proves that in the sphere of Hellenic culture Naucratis held to its traditions. Ptolemy II bestowed his care upon Naucratis. He built a large structure of limestone, about 330 feet (100.6 m) long and 60 feet (18.3 m) wide, to fill up the broken entrance to the great Temenos
; he strengthened the great block of chambers in the Temenos, and re-established them. At the time when Sir Flinders Petrie wrote the words just quoted the great Temenos was identified with p91the Hellenion. But Mr. Edgar has recently pointed out that the building connected with it was an Egyptian temple, not a Greek building. Naucratis, therefore, in spite of its general Hellenic character, had an Egyptian element. That the city flourished in Ptolemaic times "we may see by the quantity of imported amphorae, of which the handles stamped at Rhodes and elsewhere are found so abundantly. "The Zeno papyri show that it was the chief port of call on the inland voyage from Memphis to Alexandria, as well as a stopping-place on the land-route from Pelusium to the capital. It was attached, in the administrative system, to the Saïte nome.
was founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, one of the many Eastern Greek
cities that he established. Located 20 miles (32.2 km) west of the Nile's westernmost mouth, the city was immune to the silt deposits that persistently choked harbors along the river. Alexandria became the capital of the Hellenized Egypt of King Ptolemy (1) I (reigned 323—283 BC). Under the wealthy Ptolemy dynasty, the city soon surpassed Athens as the cultural center of the Greek world.
Laid out on a grid pattern, Alexandria occupied a stretch of land between the sea to the north and Lake Mareotis to the south; a man-made causeway, over three-quarters of a mile long, extended north to the sheltering island of Pharos
, thus forming a double harbor, east and west. On the east was the main harbor, called the Great Harbor; it faced the city's chief buildings, including the royal palace and the famous Library and Museum. At the Great Harbor's mouth, on an outcropping of Pharos, stood the lighthouse
, built ca. 280 BC. Now vanished, the lighthouse was reckoned as one of the Seven Wonders of the World for its unsurpassed height (perhaps 460 feet); it was a square, fenestrated tower, topped with a metal fire basket and a statue of Zeus the Savior.
The Library
, at that time the largest in the world, contained several hundred thousand volumes and housed and employed scholars and poets. A similar scholarly complex was the Museum (Mouseion, "hall of the Muses"). During Alexandria's brief literary golden period, ca. 280–240 BC, the Library subsidized three poets—Callimachus, Apollonius, and Theocritus—whose work now represents the best of Hellenistic literature. Among other thinkers associated with the Library or other Alexandrian patronage were the mathematician Euclid
(ca. 300 BC), the inventor Archimedes
(287 BC – c. 212 BC), and the polymath Eratosthenes
(ca. 225 BC).
Cosmopolitan and flourishing, Alexandria possessed a varied population of Greeks and Orientals, including a sizable minority of Jews, who had their own city quarter. Periodic conflicts occurred between Jews and ethnic Greeks
.
The city enjoyed a calm political history under the Ptolemies. It passed, with the rest of Egypt, into Roman hands in 30 BC, and became the second city of the Roman Empire.
, 400 miles (643.7 km) up the Nile
, where there was a native village called Psoï, in the nome called after the ancient Egyptian city of Thinis
. If Alexandria perpetuated the name and cult of the great Alexander, Ptolemais was to perpetuate the name and cult of the founder of the Ptolemaic time. Framed in by the barren hills of the Nile Valley and the Egyptian sky, here a Greek city arose, with its public buildings and temples and theatre, no doubt exhibiting the regular architectural forms associated with Greek culture, with a citizen-body Greek in blood, and the institutions of a Greek city. If there is some doubt whether Alexandria possessed a council and assembly, there is none in regard to Ptolemais. It was more possible for the kings to allow a measure of self-government to a people removed at that distance from the ordinary residence of the court. We have still, inscribed on stone, decrees passed in the assembly of the people of Ptolemais, couched in the regular forms of Greek political tradition: It seemed good to the boule and to the demos: Hermas son of Doreon, of the deme Megisteus, was the proposer: Whereas the prytaneis who were colleagues with Dionysius the son of Musaeus in the 8th year, etc.
were given land grants and brought their families encouraging tens of thousands of Greeks
to settle the country making themselves the new ruling class. Native Egyptians
continued having a role, yet a small one in the Ptolemaic government mostly in lower posts and outnumbered the foreigners. During the reign of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs, many Jews
were imported from neighboring Palestine by the hundred thousands for being renowned fighters and established an important presence there. Other foreign groups settled during this time and even Galatian
mercenaries were invited. Of the aliens who had come to settle in Egypt, the ruling race, Greeks, were the most important element. They were partly spread as allotment-holders over the country, forming social groups, in the country towns and villages, side by side with the native population, partly gathered in the three Greek cities — the old Naucratis, founded before 600 BC (in the interval of Egyptian independence after the expulsion of the Assyrians and before the coming of the Persians), and the two new cities, Alexandria by the sea, and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt. Alexander and his Seleucid successors were great as the founders of Greek cities all over their dominions; Greek culture was so much bound up with the life of the city-state that any king who wanted to present himself to the world as a genuine champion of Hellenism had to do something in this direction, but the king of Egypt, whilst he was as ambitious as any to shine as a Hellene, would find Greek cities, with their republican tradition and aspirations to independence, inconvenient elements in a country which lent itself, as no other did, to bureaucratic centralization. The Ptolemies therefore limited the number of Greek city-states in Egypt to those three – Alexandria, Ptolemais, Naucratis.
Outside Egypt, as we have seen, they had Greek cities under their dominion – the old Greek cities in the Cyrenaica, in Cyprus, on the coasts and islands of the Aegean – but in Egypt no more than the three. There were indeed country towns with names such as Ptolemais, Arsinoe, and Berenice, in which Greek communities existed with a certain social life; there were similar groups of Greeks in many of the old Egyptian towns, but they were not communities with the political forms of a city-state. Yet if they had no place of political assembly, they would have their gymnasium, the essential sign of Hellenism, serving something of the purpose of a university for the young men. Far up the Nile at Ombi was found in 136–135 B.C. a gymnasium of the local Greeks, which passes resolutions and corresponds with the king. And in 123 B.C., when there is trouble in Upper Egypt between the towns of Crocodilopolis and Hermonthis, the negotiators sent from Crocodilopolis are the young men attached to the gymnasium, who, according to the Greek tradition, eat bread and salt with the negotiators from the other town. All the Greek dialects of the Greek world gradually became assimilated in the Koine Greek dialect which was the common language of the Hellenistic world. Generally the Greeks of the Ptolemaic Egypt felt like a representative of a higher civilization yet were curious about the native culture of Egypt.
, decadrachm and pentakaidecadrachm. This was especially noteworthy as it would not be until the introduction of the Guldengroschen
in 1486 that coins of substantial size (particularly in silver) would be minted in significant quantities.
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
began following Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 BC and ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest
Aegyptus (Roman province)
The Roman province of Egypt was established in 30 BC after Octavian defeated his rival Mark Antony, deposed his lover Queen Cleopatra VII and annexed the Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt to the Roman Empire. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai Peninsula...
in 30 BC. It was founded when Ptolemy I Soter
Ptolemy I Soter
Ptolemy I Soter I , also known as Ptolemy Lagides, c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC, was a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great, who became ruler of Egypt and founder of both the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Dynasty...
declared himself Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
of Egypt, creating a powerful Hellenistic
Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...
state stretching from southern Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
to Cyrene
Cyrene, Libya
Cyrene was an ancient Greek colony and then a Roman city in present-day Shahhat, Libya, the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name Cyrenaica that it has retained to modern times.Cyrene lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar...
and south to Nubia
Nubia
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of small Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization...
. Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
became the capital city and a center of Greek
Hellenistic Greece
In the context of Ancient Greek art, architecture, and culture, Hellenistic Greece corresponds to the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek heartlands by Rome in 146 BC...
culture and trade. To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they named themselves the successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions by marrying their siblings, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life. Hellenistic culture thrived in Egypt until the Muslim conquest
Muslim conquest of Egypt
At the commencement of the Muslims conquest of Egypt, Egypt was part of the Byzantine Empire with its capital in Constantinople. However, it had been occupied just a decade before by the Persian Empire under Khosrau II...
. The Ptolemies had to fight native rebellions and were involved in foreign and civil wars that led to the decline of the kingdom and its annexation
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
by the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
.
Alexander the Great
In 332 BC, Alexander the Great, King of MacedonMacedon
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....
invaded the Achaemenid satrapy of Egypt. He was welcomed by the Egyptians
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
as a deliverer. He visited Memphis
Memphis, Egypt
Memphis was the ancient capital of Aneb-Hetch, the first nome of Lower Egypt. Its ruins are located near the town of Helwan, south of Cairo.According to legend related by Manetho, the city was founded by the pharaoh Menes around 3000 BC. Capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, it remained an...
, and traveled to the oracle of Amun
Amun
Amun, reconstructed Egyptian Yamānu , was a god in Egyptian mythology who in the form of Amun-Ra became the focus of the most complex system of theology in Ancient Egypt...
at the Oasis of Siwa. The oracle declared him to be the son of Amun. He conciliated the Egyptians by the respect which he showed for their religion, but he appointed Greeks to virtually all the senior posts in the country, and founded a new Greek city, Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, to be the new capital. The wealth of Egypt could now be harnessed for Alexander's conquest of the rest of the Persian Empire
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
. Early in 331 BC he was ready to depart, and led his forces away to Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
. He left Cleomenes
Cleomenes of Naucratis
Cleomenes , a Greek of Naucratis in Egypt, was appointed by Alexander III of Macedon as nomarch of the Arabian district of Egypt and receiver of the tributes from all the districts of Egypt and the neighbouring part of Africa...
as the ruling nomarch
Nomarch
Nomarchs were the semi-feudal rulers of Ancient Egyptian provinces. Serving as provincial governors, they each held authority over one of the 42 nomes into which the country was divided. Both nome and nomarch are terms derived from the Greek nomos, meaning a province or district...
to control Egypt in his absence. Alexander never returned to Egypt.
Establishment of the Ptolemaic Kingdom
Following Alexander's death in BabylonBabylon
Babylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
in 323 BC, a succession crisis
Diadochi
The Diadochi were the rival generals, family and friends of Alexander the Great who fought for the control of Alexander's empire after his death in 323 BC...
erupted among his generals. Initially, Perdiccas
Perdiccas
Perdiccas was one of Alexander the Great's generals. After Alexander's death in 323 BC he became regent of all Alexander's empire.Arrian tells us he was son of Orontes, a descendant of the independent princes of the Macedonian province of Orestis...
ruled the empire as regent for Alexander's half-brother Arrhidaeus, who became Philip III of Macedon
Philip III of Macedon
Philip III Arrhidaeus was the king of Macedonia from after June 11, 323 BC until his death. He was a son of King Philip II of Macedonia by Philinna of Larissa, allegedly a Thessalian dancer, and a half-brother of Alexander the Great...
, and then as regent for both Philip III and Alexander's infant son Alexander IV of Macedon
Alexander IV of Macedon
Alexander IV Aegus was the son of Alexander the Great and Princess Roxana of Bactria.-Birth:...
, who had not been born at the time of his father's death. Perdiccas appointed Ptolemy
Ptolemy I Soter
Ptolemy I Soter I , also known as Ptolemy Lagides, c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC, was a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great, who became ruler of Egypt and founder of both the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Dynasty...
, one of Alexander's closest companions, to be satrap
Satrap
Satrap was the name given to the governors of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as the Sassanid Empire and the Hellenistic empires....
of Egypt. Ptolemy ruled Egypt from 323 BC, nominally in the name of the joint kings Philip III and Alexander IV. However, as Alexander the Great's empire disintegrated, Ptolemy soon established himself as ruler in his own right. Ptolemy successfully defended Egypt against an invasion by Perdiccas in 321 BCE, and consolidated his position in Egypt and the surrounding areas during the Wars of the Diadochi (322 BC-301 BC). In 305 BC, Ptolemy took the title of King. As Ptolemy I Soter
Ptolemy I Soter
Ptolemy I Soter I , also known as Ptolemy Lagides, c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC, was a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great, who became ruler of Egypt and founder of both the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Dynasty...
("Saviour"), he founded the Ptolemaic dynasty
Ptolemaic dynasty
The Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC...
that was to rule Egypt for nearly 300 years.
All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name "Ptolemy", while princesses and queens preferred the names Cleopatra, Arsinoe and Berenice. Because the Ptolemaic kings adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters, many of the kings ruled jointly with their spouses, who were also of the royal house. This custom made Ptolemaic politics confusingly incestuous, and the later Ptolemies were increasingly feeble. The only Ptolemaic Queens to officially rule on their own were Berenice III
Berenice III of Egypt
Berenice III , sometimes called Cleopatra Berenice, ruled as queen of Egypt from 81 to 80 BC, and possibly from 101 to 88 BC jointly with her uncle/husband Ptolemy X Alexander I....
and Berenice IV
Berenice IV of Egypt
Berenice IV Epiphaneia born and died in Alexandria, Egypt. She was a Greek Princess of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Berenice was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes and probably Cleopatra V Tryphaena, sister of the famous Cleopatra VII , Arsinoe IV, Ptolemy XIII and Ptolemy XIV. Berenice loved...
. Cleopatra V
Cleopatra V of Egypt
Cleopatra V Tryphaena of Egypt was a Ptolemaic Queen of Egypt. She is the only surely attested wife of Ptolemy XII.-Descent and marriage:...
did co-rule, but it was with another female, Berenice IV. Cleopatra VII officially co-ruled with Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator was one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt.- Co-ruler of Egypt, inner turmoil :...
, Ptolemy XIV
Ptolemy XIV of Egypt
Ptolemy XIV , was a son of Ptolemy XII of Egypt and one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt. Following the death of his older brother Ptolemy XIII of Egypt on January 13, 47 BC, he was proclaimed Pharaoh and co-ruler by their older sister and remaining Pharaoh, Cleopatra VII of...
, and Ptolemy XV, but effectively, she ruled Egypt alone.
The early Ptolemies did not disturb the religion or the customs of the Egyptians
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
, and indeed built magnificent new temples for the Egyptian gods and soon adopted the outward display of the Pharaohs of old. During the reign of Ptolemies II and III thousands of Greek veterans were rewarded with grants of farm lands, and Greeks were planted in colonies and garrisons or settled themselves in the villages throughout the country. Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt...
, farthest from the centre of government, was less immediately affected, even though Ptolemy I established the Greek colony of Ptolemais Hermiou
Ptolemais Hermiou
Ptolemais Hermiou was a city in Greco-Roman Egypt, established on the west bank of the Nile by Ptolemy I Soter to be the capital of Upper Egypt. Today, the city of Al Manshah in the Sohag Governorate is located where the ancient city used to be....
to be its capital. But within a century Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
influence had spread through the country and intermarriage had produced a large Greco-Egyptian educated class. Nevertheless, the Greeks always remained a privileged minority in Ptolemaic Egypt. They lived under Greek law, received a Greek education, were tried in Greek courts, and were citizens of Greek cities.
Ptolemy I
Wars of the Diadochi
The Wars of the Diadochi were a series of conflicts fought between Alexander the Great's generals over the rule of his empire between 322 and 275 BC.-Background:...
between the various successor states to the empire of Alexander. His first object was to hold his position in Egypt securely, and secondly to increase his domain. Within a few years he had gained control of Libya
Ancient Libya
The Latin name Libya referred to the region west of the Nile Valley, generally corresponding to modern Northwest Africa. Climate changes affected the locations of the settlements....
, Coele-Syria
Coele-Syria
Coele-Syria , or Cœle-Syria or Celesyria, traditionally given the meaning 'hollow' Syria, was the region of southern Syria disputed between the Seleucid dynasty and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Rather than limiting the Greek term to the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon, it is often used to cover the entire area...
(including Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
), and Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
. When Antigonus
Antigonus I Monophthalmus
Antigonus I Monophthalmus , son of Philip from Elimeia, was a Macedonian nobleman, general, and satrap under Alexander the Great. During his early life he served under Philip II, and he was a major figure in the Wars of the Diadochi after Alexander's death, declaring himself king in 306 BC and...
, ruler of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, tried to reunite Alexander's empire, Ptolemy joined the coalition against him. In 312 BC, allied with Seleucus
Seleucus I Nicator
Seleucus I was a Macedonian officer of Alexander the Great and one of the Diadochi. In the Wars of the Diadochi that took place after Alexander's death, Seleucus established the Seleucid dynasty and the Seleucid Empire...
, the ruler of Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
, he defeated Demetrius
Demetrius I of Macedon
Demetrius I , called Poliorcetes , son of Antigonus I Monophthalmus and Stratonice, was a king of Macedon...
, the son of Antigonus, in the battle of Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
.
In 311 BC, a peace was concluded between the combatants, but in 309 BC war broke out again, and Ptolemy occupied Corinth
Corinth
Corinth is a city and former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Corinth, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit...
and other parts of Greece, although he lost Cyprus after a sea-battle in 306 BC. Antigonus then tried to invade Egypt but Ptolemy held the frontier against him. When the coalition was renewed against Antigonus in 302 BC, Ptolemy joined it, but neither he nor his army were present when Antigonus was defeated and killed at Ipsus
Battle of Ipsus
The Battle of Ipsus was fought between some of the Diadochi in 301 BC near the village of that name in Phrygia...
. He had instead taken the opportunity to secure Coele-Syria and Palestine, in breach of the agreement assigning it to Seleucus, thereby setting the scene for the future Syrian Wars
Syrian Wars
The Syrian Wars were a series of six wars between the Successor states of the Seleucid Empire and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC over the region then called Coele-Syria, one of the few avenues into Egypt...
. Thereafter Ptolemy tried to stay out of land wars, but he retook Cyprus in 295 BC.
Feeling the kingdom was now secure, Ptolemy shared rule with his son Ptolemy II by Queen Berenice
Berenice I of Egypt
Berenice I was a Greek Macedonian noblewoman and through her marriage to Ptolemy I Soter, became the first Queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt.-Family:...
in 285 BC. He then may have devoted his retirement to writing a history of the campaigns of Alexander, which is unfortunately lost but was a principal source for the later work of Arrian
Arrian
Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period...
. Ptolemy I died in 283 BC at the age of 84. He left a stable and well-governed kingdom to his son.
Ptolemy II
Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who succeeded his father as King of Egypt in 283 BC, was a peaceable and cultured king, and no great warrior. He did not need to be, because his father had left Egypt strong and prosperous. Three years of campaigning at the start of his reign (called the First Syrian War) left Ptolemy the master of the eastern Mediterranean, controlling the AegeanAegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
islands and the coastal districts of Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
, Pamphylia
Pamphylia
In ancient geography, Pamphylia was the region in the south of Asia Minor, between Lycia and Cilicia, extending from the Mediterranean to Mount Taurus . It was bounded on the north by Pisidia and was therefore a country of small extent, having a coast-line of only about 75 miles with a breadth of...
, Lycia
Lycia
Lycia Lycian: Trm̃mis; ) was a region in Anatolia in what are now the provinces of Antalya and Muğla on the southern coast of Turkey. It was a federation of ancient cities in the region and later a province of the Roman Empire...
and Caria
Caria
Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there...
. However, some of these territories were lost near the end of his reign as a result of the Second Syrian War.
Ptolemy's first wife, Arsinoe I, daughter of Lysimachus
Lysimachus
Lysimachus was a Macedonian officer and diadochus of Alexander the Great, who became a basileus in 306 BC, ruling Thrace, Asia Minor and Macedon.-Early Life & Career:...
, was the mother of his legitimate children. After her repudiation he followed Egyptian custom and married his sister, Arsinoë II, beginning a practice which, while pleasing to the Egyptian population, was to have serious consequences in later reigns. The material and literary splendour of the Alexandrian court was at its height under Ptolemy II. Callimachus
Callimachus
Callimachus was a native of the Greek colony of Cyrene, Libya. He was a noted poet, critic and scholar at the Library of Alexandria and enjoyed the patronage of the Egyptian–Greek Pharaohs Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Ptolemy III Euergetes...
, keeper of the Library of Alexandria
Library of Alexandria
The Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the...
, Theocritus
Theocritus
Theocritus , the creator of ancient Greek bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC.-Life:Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from his writings. We must, however, handle these with some caution, since some of the poems commonly attributed to him have little claim to...
and a host of other poets, glorified the Ptolemaic family. Ptolemy himself was eager to increase the library and to patronise scientific research. He spent lavishly on making Alexandria the economic, artistic and intellectual capital of the Hellenistic Greek world. It is to the academies and libraries of Alexandria that we owe the preservation of so much Greek literary heritage.
Ptolemy III
Ptolemy III Euergetes
-Family:Euergetes was the eldest son of Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his first wife, Arsinoe I, and came to power in 246 BC upon the death of his father.He married Berenice of Cyrene in the year corresponding to 244/243 BC; and their children were:...
("the benefactor") succeeded his father in 246 BC. He abandoned his predecessors' policy of keeping out of the wars of the other Greek kingdoms, and plunged into the Third Syrian War with the Seleucids
Seleucid dynasty
The Seleucid dynasty or the Seleucidae was a Greek Macedonian royal family, founded by Seleucus I Nicator , which ruled the Seleucid Kingdom centered in the Near East and regions of the Asian part of the earlier Achaemenid Persian Empire during the Hellenistic period.-History:Seleucus was an...
of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, when his sister, Queen Berenice
Berenice (Seleucid queen)
Berenice, also called Berenice Syra, was the daughter of Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his first wife Arsinoe I of Egypt.In 261 BC she married the Seleucid monarch Antiochus II Theos, who, following an agreement with Ptolemy , had divorced his wife Laodice I and transferred the succession to...
, and her son were murdered in a dynastic dispute. Ptolemy marched triumphantly into the heart of the Seleucid realm, as far as Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
, while his fleets in the Aegean made fresh conquests as far north as Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
.
This victory marked the zenith of the Ptolemaic power. Seleucus II Callinicus
Seleucus II Callinicus
Seleucus II Callinicus or Pogon , was a ruler of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, who reigned from 246 to 225 BC...
kept his throne, but Egyptian fleets controlled most of the coasts of Asia Minor
Asia Minor
Asia Minor is a geographical location at the westernmost protrusion of Asia, also called Anatolia, and corresponds to the western two thirds of the Asian part of Turkey...
and Greece. After this triumph Ptolemy no longer engaged actively in war, although he supported the enemies of Macedon
Macedon
Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom, centered in the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, the region of Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south....
in Greek politics. His domestic policy differed from his father's in that he patronised the native Egyptian religion more liberally: he has left larger traces among the Egyptian monuments. In this his reign marks the gradual "Egyptianisation" of the Ptolemies.
The decline of the Ptolemies
Ptolemy IV Philopator
Ptolemy IV Philopator , son of Ptolemy III and Berenice II of Egypt was the fourth Pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt...
, a weak and corrupt king under whom the decline of the Ptolemaic kingdom began. His reign was inaugurated by the murder of his mother, and he was always under the influence of favourites, male and female, who controlled the government. Nevertheless his ministers were able to make serious preparations to meet the attacks of Antiochus III the Great
Antiochus III the Great
Antiochus III the Great Seleucid Greek king who became the 6th ruler of the Seleucid Empire as a youth of about eighteen in 223 BC. Antiochus was an ambitious ruler who ruled over Greater Syria and western Asia towards the end of the 3rd century BC...
on Coele-Syria, and the great Egyptian victory of Raphia
Battle of Raphia
The Battle of Raphia, also known as the Battle of Gaza, was a battle fought on 22 June 217 BC near modern Rafah between the forces of Ptolemy IV Philopator, king of Egypt and Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid kingdom during the Syrian Wars...
in 217 BC secured the kingdom. A sign of the domestic weakness of his reign was the rebellions by native Egyptians that took away over half the country for over 20 years. Philopator was devoted to orgiastic religions and to literature. He married his sister Arsinoë
Arsinoe III of Egypt
Arsinoe III was Queen of Egypt . She was a daughter of Ptolemy III and Berenice II.Between late October and early November 220 BC she was married to her brother, Ptolemy IV. She took active part in the government of the country, at least in the measure that it was tolerated by the all-powerful...
, but was ruled by his mistress Agathoclea.
Ptolemy V Epiphanes
Ptolemy V Epiphanes
Ptolemy V Epiphanes , son of Ptolemy IV Philopator and Arsinoe III of Egypt, was the fifth ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty. He became ruler at the age of five, and under a series of regents the kingdom was paralyzed.-Regency infighting:Ptolemy Epiphanes was only a small boy when his father, Ptolemy...
, son of Philopator and Arsinoë, was a child when he came to the throne, and a series of regents ran the kingdom. Antiochus III of The Seleucid Empire
Seleucid Empire
The Seleucid Empire was a Greek-Macedonian state that was created out of the eastern conquests of Alexander the Great. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, today's Turkmenistan, Pamir and parts of Pakistan.The Seleucid Empire was a major centre...
and Philip V of Macedon
Philip V of Macedon
Philip V was King of Macedon from 221 BC to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by an unsuccessful struggle with the emerging power of Rome. Philip was attractive and charismatic as a young man...
made a compact to seize the Ptolemaic possessions. Philip seized several islands and places in Caria
Caria
Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there...
and Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, while the battle of Panium
Battle of Panium
The Battle of Panium was fought in 200 BC between Seleucid and Ptolemaic forces as part of the Syrian Wars. The Seleucids were led by Antiochus III the Great, while the Ptolemaic army was led by Scopas of Aetolia. The Seleucids won the battle...
in 198 BC transferred Coele-Syria from Ptolemeic to Seleucid control. After this defeat Egypt formed an alliance with the rising power in the Mediterranean, Rome. Once he reached adulthood Epiphanes became a tyrant, before his early death in 180 BC. He was succeeded by his infant son Ptolemy VI Philometor
Ptolemy VI Philometor
Ptolemy VI Philometor was a king of Egypt from the Ptolemaic period. He reigned from 180 to 145 BC....
.
In 170 BC, Antiochus IV Epiphanes
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
Antiochus IV Epiphanes ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. He was a son of King Antiochus III the Great. His original name was Mithridates; he assumed the name Antiochus after he ascended the throne....
invaded Egypt and deposed Philometor, and his younger brother (later Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II
Ptolemy VIII Physcon
Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II , nicknamed , Phúskōn, Physcon for his obesity, was a king of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. His complicated career started in 170 BC, when Antiochus IV Epiphanes invaded Egypt, captured his brother Ptolemy VI Philometor and let him continue as a puppet monarch...
) was installed as a puppet king. When Antiochus withdrew, the brothers agreed to reign jointly with their sister Cleopatra II
Cleopatra II of Egypt
Cleopatra II was a queen of Ptolemaic Egypt.-Family:Cleopatra II was the daughter of Ptolemy V and likely Cleopatra I. She was the sister of Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II Tryphon. She would eventually marry both of her brothers.Her first marriage was with her brother Ptolemy VI in ca....
. They soon fell out, however, and quarrels between the two brothers allowed Rome to interfere and to steadily increase its influence in Egypt. Eventually Philometor regained the throne. In 145 BC he was killed in the Battle of Antioch
Battle of Antioch (145 BC)
The Battle of Antioch in 145 BC saw the defeat and overthrow of Seleucid king Alexander Balas by Ptolemy VI Philometor of Egypt, but the Egyptian pharaoh died in the battle. This battle is also known as the Battle of the Oenoparus.- History :...
.
The later Ptolemies
Philometor was succeeded by yet another infant, his son Ptolemy VII Neos PhilopatorPtolemy VII Neos Philopator
Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator was an Egyptian king of the Ptolemaic period. His reign is controversial, and it is possible that he did not reign at all, but was only granted royal dignity posthumously.Even his identity is unclear...
. But Euergetes soon returned, killed his young nephew, seized the throne and as Ptolemy VIII soon proved himself a cruel tyrant. On his death in 116 BC he left the kingdom to his wife Cleopatra III
Cleopatra III of Egypt
Cleopatra III was a queen of Egypt 142–101 BC.Cleopatra III was also known as Cleopatra Euergetis while associated with her husband Ptolemy VIII or her son Ptolemy X. She is attested as Cleopatra Philometor Soteira while associated with her eldest son Ptolemy IX...
and her son Ptolemy IX Philometor Soter II
Ptolemy IX Lathyros
Ptolemy IX Soter II or Lathyros was king of Egypt three times, from 116 BC to 110 BC, 109 BC to 107 BC and 88 BC to 81 BC, with intervening periods ruled by his brother, Ptolemy X Alexander....
. The young king was driven out by his mother in 107 BC, who reigned jointly with Euergetes's younger brother Ptolemy X Alexander I
Ptolemy X Alexander I
Ptolemy X Alexander I was King of Egypt from 110 BC to 109 BC and 107 BC till 88 BC.He was the son of Ptolemy VIII Physcon and Cleopatra III. In 110 BC he became King with his mother as co-regent, after his mother had deposed his brother Ptolemy IX Lathyros. However, in 109 BC he was deposed by...
. In 88 BC Ptolemy IX again returned to the throne, and retained it until his death in 80 BC. He was succeeded by Ptolemy XI Alexander II
Ptolemy XI Alexander II
Ptolemy XI Alexander II was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty who ruled Egypt for a few days in 80 BC.Ptolemy XI was born to Ptolemy X Alexander I and either Cleopatra Selene or Berenice III. His uncle Ptolemy IX Lathryos died in 81 BC or 80 BC, leaving no...
, the son of Ptolemy X. He was lynched by the Alexandrian mob after murdering his stepmother, who was also his cousin, aunt and wife. These sordid dynastic quarrels left Egypt so weakened that the country became a de facto protectorate of Rome, which had by now absorbed most of the Greek world.
Ptolemy XI was succeeded by a son of Ptolemy IX, Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos, nicknamed Auletes, the flute-player. By now Rome was the arbiter of Egyptian affairs, and annexed both Libya
Ancient Libya
The Latin name Libya referred to the region west of the Nile Valley, generally corresponding to modern Northwest Africa. Climate changes affected the locations of the settlements....
and Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
. In 58 BC Auletes was driven out by the Alexandrian mob, but the Romans restored him to power three years later. He died in 51 BC, leaving the kingdom to his ten-year-old son, Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator was one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt.- Co-ruler of Egypt, inner turmoil :...
, who reigned jointly with his 17-year-old sister and wife, Cleopatra VII
Cleopatra VII of Egypt
Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.She was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greek origin that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great's death during the Hellenistic period...
.
Cleopatra
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
between 51 and 30 BC, and died at the age of 39.
The demise of the Ptolemies' power coincided with the rise of the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
. Having little choice, and seeing one city after another falling to Macedon and the Seleucid Empire, the Ptolemies decided to ally with the Romans, a pact that lasted over 150 years. During the rule of the later Ptolemies, Rome gained more and more power over Egypt, and was even declared guardian of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy XII, had to pay tribute to the Romans to keep them away from his Kingdom. Upon his death, the fall of the Dynasty seemed even closer.
As children, Cleopatra and her siblings witnessed the defeat of their guardian, Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
, by Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
through civil war
Caesar's civil war
The Great Roman Civil War , also known as Caesar's Civil War, was one of the last politico-military conflicts in the Roman Republic before the establishment of the Roman Empire...
. Meanwhile, Cleopatra and her brother/husband Ptolemy XIII were both attempting to gain control of Egypt's throne.
In the middle of all this turmoil, Julius Caesar left Rome for Alexandria in 48 BC. During his stay in the Palace, he received 22 year old Cleopatra, allegedly wrapped in rug. She counted on Caesar's support to alienate Ptolemy XIII. With the arrival of Roman reinforcements, and after a few battles in Alexandria, Ptolemy XIII was defeated. He later drowned in the Nile, although the circumstances of his death are unclear.
In the summer of 47 BC, having married her younger brother Ptolemy XIV, Cleopatra and Caesar embarked for a two-month trip along the Nile. Together, they visited Dendara, where Cleopatra was being worshiped as Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
, an honor beyond Caesar's reach. They became lovers, and she bore him a son, Caesarion
Caesarion
Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar , better known by the nicknames Caesarion and Ptolemy Caesar , was the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, who reigned jointly with his mother Cleopatra VII of Egypt, from September 2, 44 BC...
, who was later proclaimed with many titles like king of kings
King of Kings
King of Kings is a title that has been used by several monarchies and empires throughout history. The title originates in the Ancient Near East. It is broadly the equivalent of the later title Emperor....
. In 45 BC, Cleopatra and Caesarion left Alexandria for Rome, where they stayed in a palace built by Caesar in their honor.
In 44 BC, Caesar was murdered in Rome by several Senators
Senators
The term Senators can refer to:*The members of a senate*The Ottawa Senators, a National Hockey League ice hockey team based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada...
. With his death, Rome split between supporters of Mark Antony
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother's cousin Julius Caesar...
and Octavian. Cleopatra was watching in silence, and when Mark Antony seemed to prevail, she supported him and, shortly after, they too became lovers.
Mark Antony's alliance with Cleopatra angered Rome even more. The senators called her a sorceress, and accused her of all sorts of evil. The Romans became even more furious as Antony was giving away parts of their Empire - at the donations of Alexandria
Donations of Alexandria
The Donations of Alexandria were a religio-political statement by Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony in which they distributed lands held by Rome and Parthia amongst Cleopatra's children, and granted them many titles, especially for Caesarion, son of Julius Caesar...
ceremony in autumn 34 BCE - Tarsus
Tarsus (city)
Tarsus is a historic city in south-central Turkey, 20 km inland from the Mediterranean Sea. It is part of the Adana-Mersin Metropolitan Area, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Turkey with a population of 2.75 million...
, Cyrene
Cyrene, Libya
Cyrene was an ancient Greek colony and then a Roman city in present-day Shahhat, Libya, the oldest and most important of the five Greek cities in the region. It gave eastern Libya the classical name Cyrenaica that it has retained to modern times.Cyrene lies in a lush valley in the Jebel Akhdar...
, Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
- one after the other to Cleopatra and her children. Octavian was able to somehow gain possession of Mark Antony's will
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
, which expressed his desire to be buried in Alexandria, rather than taken to Rome in the event of his death.
It was the boiling point when Octavian declared war on the "Foreign Queen", and off the coast of Greece in the Adriatic Sea they met in at Actium
Actium
Actium was the ancient name of a promontory of western Greece in northwestern Acarnania, at the mouth of the Sinus Ambracius opposite Nicopolis, built by Augustus on the north side of the strait....
, where the forces of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a Roman statesman and general. He was a close friend, son-in-law, lieutenant and defense minister to Octavian, the future Emperor Caesar Augustus...
defeated the Navy of Cleopatra and Antony.
Octavian waited for a year before he claimed Egypt as a Roman province. He arrived in Alexandria and easily defeated Mark Antony outside the city, near present day Camp César. Following this defeat, and facing certain death at the hands of Octavian, Antony committed suicide by falling on his own sword.
Octavian entered Alexandria in 30 BC. Cleopatra was captured and taken to him, but Octavian had no interest in any relation, reconciliation, or even negotiation with the Egyptian Queen. Realizing that her end was close, she decided to put an end to her life. It is not known for sure how she killed herself, but many believe she used a poisonous snake
Asp (reptile)
Asp is the modern Anglicisation of the word aspis, which in antiquity referred to any one of several venomous snake species found in the Nile region. It is believed that the aspis referred to in Egyptian mythology is the modern Egyptian cobra....
as her death instrument.
With the death of Cleopatra, the dynasty of Ptolemies came to an end. Alexandria remained capital of Egypt, but Egypt became a Roman province.
Art during the Ptolemies
Greek culture had a long but minor presence in Egypt long before Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria. It began when Greek colonists, encouraged by the many Pharaohs, set up the trading post of Naucratis
Naucratis
Naucratis or Naukratis, , loosely translated as " power over ships" , was a city of Ancient Egypt, on the Canopic branch of the Nile river, 45 mi SE of the open sea and the later capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, Alexandria...
, which became an important link between the Greek world and Egypt's grain. As Egypt came under foreign domination and decline, the Pharaohs depended on the Greeks as mercenaries and even advisors. When the Persians took over Egypt, Naucratis remained an important Greek port and the colonist population were used as mercenaries
Mercenary
A mercenary, is a person who takes part in an armed conflict based on the promise of material compensation rather than having a direct interest in, or a legal obligation to, the conflict itself. A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he...
by both the rebel Egyptian princes and the Persian kings, who later gave them land grants, spreading the Greek culture into the valley of the Nile. When Alexander the Great arrived, he established Alexandria on the site of the Persian fort of Rhakortis. Following Alexander's death, control passed into the hands of the Lagid (Ptolemaic) dynasty; they built Greek cities across their empire and gave land grants across Egypt to the veterans of their many military conflicts. Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization
Hellenistic civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE...
continued to thrive even after Rome annexed Egypt after the battle of Actium
Battle of Actium
The Battle of Actium was the decisive confrontation of the Final War of the Roman Republic. It was fought between the forces of Octavian and the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC, on the Ionian Sea near the city of Actium, at the Roman...
and did not decline until the Islamic conquests.
Ptolemaic military
Macedonian phalanx
The Macedonian phalanx is an infantry formation developed by Philip II and used by his son Alexander the Great to conquer the Persian Empire and other armies...
and featured Macedonian
Ancient Macedonians
The Macedonians originated from inhabitants of the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, in the alluvial plain around the rivers Haliacmon and lower Axios...
and native troops fighting side by side.
The Ptolemaic military was filled with diverse peoples from across their territories. At first most of the military was made up of a pool of Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
settlers who, in exchange for military service, were given land grants. These made up the majority of the army.
With the many wars the Ptolemies were involved in, their pool of Greek troops dwindled and there was little Greek immigration from the mainland so they were kept in the royal bodyguard and as generals and officers. Native troops were looked down upon and distrusted due to their disloyalty and frequent tendency to aid local revolts. However, with the decline of royal power, they gained influence and became common in the military.
The Ptolemies used the great wealth of Egypt to their advantage by hiring vast amounts of mercenaries from across the known world. Black Ethiopians are also known to have served in the military along with the Galatians, Mysians and others. Jews were particularly imported as military settlers and made up as much as twenty percent of the military.
With their vast amount of territory spread along the Eastern Mediterranean such as Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
, Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
, the islands of the Aegean
Aegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
and even Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...
, the Ptolemies required a large navy to defend these far-flung strongholds from enemies like the Seleucids and Macedonians.
Cities
During the period of EgyptEgypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
under the Ptolemaic
Ptolemaic dynasty
The Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC...
Dynasty, the construction of many Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
settlements throughout their Empire to either Hellenize new conquered peoples or reinforce the area. In Egypt, there were only three main Greek cities which were Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Naucratis
Naucratis
Naucratis or Naukratis, , loosely translated as " power over ships" , was a city of Ancient Egypt, on the Canopic branch of the Nile river, 45 mi SE of the open sea and the later capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, Alexandria...
, and Ptolemais
Ptolemais
Ptolemais, an Ancient Greek place name and feminine personal name, may refer to:Places*Acre, Israel, once named Antiochia Ptolemais after Ptolemy I Soter*Crocodilopolis, an Egyptian city renamed Ptolemais Euergetis by Ptolemy III Euergetes...
.
Naucratis
Of the three Greek cities, NaucratisNaucratis
Naucratis or Naukratis, , loosely translated as " power over ships" , was a city of Ancient Egypt, on the Canopic branch of the Nile river, 45 mi SE of the open sea and the later capital of Ptolemaic Egypt, Alexandria...
, although its commercial importance was reduced with the founding of Alexandria, continued in a quiet way its life as a Greek city-state. During the interval between the death of Alexander and Ptolemy's assumption of the style of king, it even issued an autonomous coinage. And the number of Greek men of letters during the Ptolemaic and Roman period, who were citizens of Naucratis, proves that in the sphere of Hellenic culture Naucratis held to its traditions. Ptolemy II bestowed his care upon Naucratis. He built a large structure of limestone, about 330 feet (100.6 m) long and 60 feet (18.3 m) wide, to fill up the broken entrance to the great Temenos
Temenos
Temenos is a piece of land cut off and assigned as an official domain, especially to kings and chiefs, or a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct: The Pythian race-course is called a temenos, the sacred valley of the Nile is the ...
; he strengthened the great block of chambers in the Temenos, and re-established them. At the time when Sir Flinders Petrie wrote the words just quoted the great Temenos was identified with p91the Hellenion. But Mr. Edgar has recently pointed out that the building connected with it was an Egyptian temple, not a Greek building. Naucratis, therefore, in spite of its general Hellenic character, had an Egyptian element. That the city flourished in Ptolemaic times "we may see by the quantity of imported amphorae, of which the handles stamped at Rhodes and elsewhere are found so abundantly. "The Zeno papyri show that it was the chief port of call on the inland voyage from Memphis to Alexandria, as well as a stopping-place on the land-route from Pelusium to the capital. It was attached, in the administrative system, to the Saïte nome.
Alexandria
A major Mediterranean port of Egypt, in ancient times and still today, AlexandriaAlexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
was founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, one of the many Eastern Greek
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
cities that he established. Located 20 miles (32.2 km) west of the Nile's westernmost mouth, the city was immune to the silt deposits that persistently choked harbors along the river. Alexandria became the capital of the Hellenized Egypt of King Ptolemy (1) I (reigned 323—283 BC). Under the wealthy Ptolemy dynasty, the city soon surpassed Athens as the cultural center of the Greek world.
Laid out on a grid pattern, Alexandria occupied a stretch of land between the sea to the north and Lake Mareotis to the south; a man-made causeway, over three-quarters of a mile long, extended north to the sheltering island of Pharos
Pharos
Pharos may refer to:Lighthouses:* The Pharos of Alexandria, a tower built on the island of Pharos that became one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World* The Pharos, either of two Roman lighthouses built at Dubris...
, thus forming a double harbor, east and west. On the east was the main harbor, called the Great Harbor; it faced the city's chief buildings, including the royal palace and the famous Library and Museum. At the Great Harbor's mouth, on an outcropping of Pharos, stood the lighthouse
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses or, in older times, from a fire, and used as an aid to navigation for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways....
, built ca. 280 BC. Now vanished, the lighthouse was reckoned as one of the Seven Wonders of the World for its unsurpassed height (perhaps 460 feet); it was a square, fenestrated tower, topped with a metal fire basket and a statue of Zeus the Savior.
The Library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
, at that time the largest in the world, contained several hundred thousand volumes and housed and employed scholars and poets. A similar scholarly complex was the Museum (Mouseion, "hall of the Muses"). During Alexandria's brief literary golden period, ca. 280–240 BC, the Library subsidized three poets—Callimachus, Apollonius, and Theocritus—whose work now represents the best of Hellenistic literature. Among other thinkers associated with the Library or other Alexandrian patronage were the mathematician Euclid
Euclid
Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...
(ca. 300 BC), the inventor Archimedes
Archimedes
Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Among his advances in physics are the foundations of hydrostatics, statics and an...
(287 BC – c. 212 BC), and the polymath Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene was a Greek mathematician, poet, athlete, geographer, astronomer, and music theorist.He was the first person to use the word "geography" and invented the discipline of geography as we understand it...
(ca. 225 BC).
Cosmopolitan and flourishing, Alexandria possessed a varied population of Greeks and Orientals, including a sizable minority of Jews, who had their own city quarter. Periodic conflicts occurred between Jews and ethnic Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
.
The city enjoyed a calm political history under the Ptolemies. It passed, with the rest of Egypt, into Roman hands in 30 BC, and became the second city of the Roman Empire.
Ptolemais
The second Greek city founded after the conquest in Egypt was PtolemaisPtolemais
Ptolemais, an Ancient Greek place name and feminine personal name, may refer to:Places*Acre, Israel, once named Antiochia Ptolemais after Ptolemy I Soter*Crocodilopolis, an Egyptian city renamed Ptolemais Euergetis by Ptolemy III Euergetes...
, 400 miles (643.7 km) up the Nile
Nile
The Nile is a major north-flowing river in North Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world. It is long. It runs through the ten countries of Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Egypt.The Nile has two major...
, where there was a native village called Psoï, in the nome called after the ancient Egyptian city of Thinis
Thinis
Thinis or This was the capital city of the first dynasties of ancient Egypt. Thinis is, as yet, undiscovered but well attested to by ancient writers, including the classical historian Manetho, who cites it as the centre of the Thinite Confederacy, a tribal confederation whose leader, Menes ,...
. If Alexandria perpetuated the name and cult of the great Alexander, Ptolemais was to perpetuate the name and cult of the founder of the Ptolemaic time. Framed in by the barren hills of the Nile Valley and the Egyptian sky, here a Greek city arose, with its public buildings and temples and theatre, no doubt exhibiting the regular architectural forms associated with Greek culture, with a citizen-body Greek in blood, and the institutions of a Greek city. If there is some doubt whether Alexandria possessed a council and assembly, there is none in regard to Ptolemais. It was more possible for the kings to allow a measure of self-government to a people removed at that distance from the ordinary residence of the court. We have still, inscribed on stone, decrees passed in the assembly of the people of Ptolemais, couched in the regular forms of Greek political tradition: It seemed good to the boule and to the demos: Hermas son of Doreon, of the deme Megisteus, was the proposer: Whereas the prytaneis who were colleagues with Dionysius the son of Musaeus in the 8th year, etc.
Demographics
The Ptolemaic kingdom was diverse in the people who settled and made Egypt their home on this time. During this period, Greek troops under Ptolemy I SoterPtolemy I Soter
Ptolemy I Soter I , also known as Ptolemy Lagides, c. 367 BC – c. 283 BC, was a Macedonian general under Alexander the Great, who became ruler of Egypt and founder of both the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Ptolemaic Dynasty...
were given land grants and brought their families encouraging tens of thousands of Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
to settle the country making themselves the new ruling class. Native Egyptians
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
continued having a role, yet a small one in the Ptolemaic government mostly in lower posts and outnumbered the foreigners. During the reign of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs, many Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
were imported from neighboring Palestine by the hundred thousands for being renowned fighters and established an important presence there. Other foreign groups settled during this time and even Galatian
Galatian
Galatian may refer to:*of or relating to Galatia or its people*Galatian language...
mercenaries were invited. Of the aliens who had come to settle in Egypt, the ruling race, Greeks, were the most important element. They were partly spread as allotment-holders over the country, forming social groups, in the country towns and villages, side by side with the native population, partly gathered in the three Greek cities — the old Naucratis, founded before 600 BC (in the interval of Egyptian independence after the expulsion of the Assyrians and before the coming of the Persians), and the two new cities, Alexandria by the sea, and Ptolemais in Upper Egypt. Alexander and his Seleucid successors were great as the founders of Greek cities all over their dominions; Greek culture was so much bound up with the life of the city-state that any king who wanted to present himself to the world as a genuine champion of Hellenism had to do something in this direction, but the king of Egypt, whilst he was as ambitious as any to shine as a Hellene, would find Greek cities, with their republican tradition and aspirations to independence, inconvenient elements in a country which lent itself, as no other did, to bureaucratic centralization. The Ptolemies therefore limited the number of Greek city-states in Egypt to those three – Alexandria, Ptolemais, Naucratis.
Outside Egypt, as we have seen, they had Greek cities under their dominion – the old Greek cities in the Cyrenaica, in Cyprus, on the coasts and islands of the Aegean – but in Egypt no more than the three. There were indeed country towns with names such as Ptolemais, Arsinoe, and Berenice, in which Greek communities existed with a certain social life; there were similar groups of Greeks in many of the old Egyptian towns, but they were not communities with the political forms of a city-state. Yet if they had no place of political assembly, they would have their gymnasium, the essential sign of Hellenism, serving something of the purpose of a university for the young men. Far up the Nile at Ombi was found in 136–135 B.C. a gymnasium of the local Greeks, which passes resolutions and corresponds with the king. And in 123 B.C., when there is trouble in Upper Egypt between the towns of Crocodilopolis and Hermonthis, the negotiators sent from Crocodilopolis are the young men attached to the gymnasium, who, according to the Greek tradition, eat bread and salt with the negotiators from the other town. All the Greek dialects of the Greek world gradually became assimilated in the Koine Greek dialect which was the common language of the Hellenistic world. Generally the Greeks of the Ptolemaic Egypt felt like a representative of a higher civilization yet were curious about the native culture of Egypt.
Arabs during the Ptolemies
Arab nomads of the eastern desert penetrated in small bodies into the cultivated land of the Nile, as they do today. The Greeks called all the land on the eastern side of the Nile "Arabia", and villages were really to be found here and there with a population of Arabs who had exchanged the life of tent-dwellers for that of settled agriculturists. Apollonius tells of one such village, Poïs, in the Memphite nome, two of whose inhabitants send a letter on September 20, 152 B.C. The letter is in Greek; it had to be written for the two Arabs by the young Macedonian Apollonius, the Arabs being unable apparently to write. Apollonius writes their names as Myrullas and Chalbas, the first probably, and the second certainly, Semitic. A century earlier Arabs farther west, in the Fayûm, organized under a leader of their own, and working mainly as herdsmen on the dorea of Apollonius the dioiketes; but these Arabs bear Greek and Egyptian names.Ptolemaic Coinage
Ptolemaic Egypt was noted for its extensive series of coinage in gold, silver and bronze. It was especially noted for its issues of large coins in all three metals, most notably gold pentadrachm and octadrachm, and silver tetradrachmTetradrachm
The tetradrachm was an Ancient Greek silver coin equivalent to four drachmae. It was in wide circulation from 510 to 38 BC.-History:Many surviving tetradrachms were minted by the polis of Athens from around the middle of the 5th century BC onwards; the popular coin was widely used in transactions...
, decadrachm and pentakaidecadrachm. This was especially noteworthy as it would not be until the introduction of the Guldengroschen
Guldengroschen
The Guldengroschen was a large silver coin originally minted in Tirol in 1486.The Guldengroschen's name comes from the fact that it has an equivalent denomination value in silver relative to that of the goldgulden...
in 1486 that coins of substantial size (particularly in silver) would be minted in significant quantities.
See also
- Hellenistic periodHellenistic periodThe Hellenistic period or Hellenistic era describes the time which followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was so named by the historian J. G. Droysen. During this time, Greek cultural influence and power was at its zenith in Europe and Asia...
- Hellenistic civilisation
- Ptolemaic dynastyPtolemaic dynastyThe Ptolemaic dynasty, was a Macedonian Greek royal family which ruled the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt during the Hellenistic period. Their rule lasted for 275 years, from 305 BC to 30 BC...
- History of EgyptHistory of EgyptEgyptian history can be roughly divided into the following periods:*Prehistoric Egypt*Ancient Egypt**Early Dynastic Period of Egypt: 31st to 27th centuries BC**Old Kingdom of Egypt: 27th to 22nd centuries BC...
- Library of AlexandriaLibrary of AlexandriaThe Royal Library of Alexandria, or Ancient Library of Alexandria, in Alexandria, Egypt, was the largest and most significant great library of the ancient world. It flourished under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty and functioned as a major center of scholarship from its construction in the...
Further reading
- Bingen, Jean. Hellenistic Egypt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007 (hardcover, ISBN 0748615784; paperback, ISBN 0748615792). Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007 (hardcover, ISBN 0520251415; paperback, ISBN 0520251423).
- Bowman, Alan Keir. 1996. Egypt After the Pharaohs: 332 BC–AD 642; From Alexander to the Arab Conquest. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press
- Chauveau, Michel. 2000. Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra: History and Society under the Ptolemies. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
- Ellis, Simon P. 1992. Graeco-Roman Egypt. Shire Egyptology 17, ser. ed. Barbara G. Adams. Aylesbury: Shire Publications, ltd.
- Hölbl, Günther. 2001. A History of the Ptolemaic Empire. Translated by Tina Saavedra. London: Routledge Ltd.
- Lloyd, Alan Brian. 2000. "The Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BC)". In The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 395–421
