TheMacedonian conquest

In the autumn of 332bceAlexander the Great invadedEgypt with his mixed army ofMacedonians andGreeks and found the Egyptians ready to throw off the oppressive control of the Persians. Alexander was welcomed by the Egyptians as a liberator and took thecountry without a battle. He journeyed toSiwa Oasis in theWestern Desert to visit the Oracle ofAmon, renowned in the Greek world; it disclosed the information that Alexander was the son of Amon. There may also have been a coronation at the Egyptian capital,Memphis, which, if it occurred, would have placed him firmly in the tradition of the kings (pharaohs). The same purpose may be seen in the later dissemination of theromanticmyth that gave him an Egyptian parentage by linking his mother, Olympias, with the last king,Nectanebo II.

Alexander left Egypt in the spring of 331bce, having divided the military command between Balacrus, son of Amyntas, and Peucestas, son of Makartatos. The earliest known Greek documentarypapyrus, found atṢaqqārah in 1973, reveals the sensitivity of the latter to Egyptian religious institutions in a notice that reads: “Order of Peucestas. No one is to pass. The chamber is that of a priest.” The civil administration was headed by an official with the Persian title ofsatrap, one Cleomenes ofNaukratis. When Alexander died in 323bce and his generals divided hisempire, the position of satrap was claimed byPtolemy, son of a Macedonian nobleman named Lagus. The senior generalPerdiccas, the holder of Alexander’s royal seal andprospective regent for Alexander’s posthumous son, might well have regretted his failure to take Egypt. He gathered an army and marched fromAsia Minor to wrest Egypt from Ptolemy in 321bce; but Ptolemy had Alexander’s corpse, Perdiccas’s army was not wholehearted in support, and the Nile crocodiles made a good meal from the flesh of the invaders.

ThePtolemaic dynasty

Until the day when he openly assumed an independent kingship asPtolemy I Soter, on November 7, 305bce, Ptolemy used only the title satrap of Egypt, but the great hieroglyphic Satrap stela, which he had inscribed in 311bce, indicates a degree of self-confidence thattranscends his viceregal role. It reads, “I, Ptolemy the satrap, I restore to Horus, the avenger of his father, the lord of Pe, and to Buto, the lady of Pe and Dep, the territory of Patanut, from this day forth for ever, with all its villages, all its towns, all its inhabitants, all its fields.” The inscription emphasizes Ptolemy’s own role in wresting the land from the Persians (though the epithet of Soter, meaning “Savior,” resulted not from his actions in Egypt but from thegratitude of the people of Rhodes for his having relieved them from a siege in 315bce) and links him with Khabbash, who in about 338bce had laid claim to the kingship during the last Persian occupation.

Egypt was ruled by Ptolemy’s descendants until the death ofCleopatra VII on August 12, 30bce. The kingdom was one of several that emerged in the aftermath of Alexander’s death and the struggles of his successors. It was the wealthiest, however, and for much of the next 300 years the most powerful politically and culturally, and it was the last to fall directly under Roman dominion. In many respects, the character of the Ptolemaic monarchy in Egypt set a style for otherHellenistic kingdoms; this style emerged from the Greeks’ and Macedonians’ awareness of the need to dominate Egypt, its resources, and its people and at the same time to turn the power of Egypt firmly toward thecontext of a Mediterranean world that was becoming steadily more Hellenized.

The Ptolemies (305–145bce)

The first 160 years of thePtolemaic dynasty are conventionally seen as its most prosperous era. Little is known of the foundations laid in the reign of Ptolemy I Soter (305–282bce), but the increasing amount of documentary, inscriptional, and archaeological evidence from the reign of his son and successor,Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285–246bce), shows that the kingdom’s administration and economy underwent a thorough reorganization. A remarkable demotic text of the year 258bce refers to orders for a complete census of the kingdom that was to record the sources of water; the position, quality, and irrigation potential of the land; the state of cultivation; the crops grown; and the extent of priestly and royal landholdings. There were importantagriculturalinnovations in this period. New crops were introduced, and massive irrigation works brought under cultivation a great deal of new land, especially inAl-Fayyūm, where many of the immigrant Greeks were settled.

The Macedonian-Greek character of the monarchy was vigorously preserved. There is no more emphatic sign of this than the growth and importance of the city ofAlexandria. It had been founded, on a date traditionally given as April 7, 331bce (but often cited as 332bce), by Alexander the Great on the site of the insignificant Egyptian village of Rakotis in the northwesternNile River delta, and it ranked as the most important city in the eastern Mediterranean until the foundation ofConstantinople in the 4th centuryce. The importance of the new Greek city was soon emphasized by contrast to its Egyptian surroundings when the royal capital was transferred, within a few years of Alexander’s death, from Memphis toAlexandria. The Ptolemaiccourtcultivated extravagant luxury in the Greek style in its magnificent and steadily expanding palace complex, which occupied as much as a third of the city by the early Roman period. Its grandeur was emphasized in the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by the foundation of a quadrennial festival, thePtolemaieia, which was intended to enjoy a status equal to that of theOlympic Games. The festival was marked by a procession of amazingly elaborate and ingeniously constructed floats, with scenarios illustrating Greek religious cults.

Ptolemy II gave thedynasty another distinctive feature when he married his full sister,Arsinoe II, one of the most powerful and remarkable women of the Hellenistic age. They became, in effect, co-rulers, and both took the epithet Philadelphus (“Brother-Loving” and “Sister-Loving”). The practice ofconsanguineous marriage was followed by most of their successors and imitated by ordinary Egyptians too, even though it had not been a standard practice in the pharaonic royal houses and had been unknown in the rest of the native Egyptian population. Arsinoe played a prominent role in the formation of royal policy. She was displayed on the coinage and was eventually worshiped, perhaps even before her death, in the distinctively Greek style of ruler cult that developed in this reign.

From the first phase of the wars of Alexander’s successors, the Ptolemies had harbored imperial ambitions. Ptolemy I won control ofCyprus andCyrene and quarreled with his neighbor over control ofPalestine. In the course of the 3rd century a powerful Ptolemaic empire developed, which for much of the period laid claim tosovereignty in theLevant, in many of the cities of the western and southern coast of Asia Minor, in some of the Aegean islands, and in a handful of towns in Thrace, as well as in Cyprus and Cyrene. Family connections and dynastic alliances, especially between the Ptolemies and the neighboringSeleucids, played an important role in these imperialistic ambitions. Such links were far from able to preserve harmony between the royal houses (between 274 and 200bce five wars were fought with the Seleucids over possession of territory inSyria and the Levant), but they did keep the ruling houses relatively compact, interconnected, and more true to their Macedonian-Greek origins.

When Ptolemy II Philadelphus died in 246bce, he left a prosperous kingdom to his successor,Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–221bce). Euergetes’ reign saw a very successful campaign against the Seleucids in Syria, occasioned by the murder of his sister,Berenice, who had been married to the Seleucid Antiochus II. To avenge Berenice, Euergetes marched into Syria, where he won a great victory. He gained popularity at home by recapturing statues of Egyptian gods originally taken by the Persians. The decreepromulgated atCanopus in the delta on March 7, 238bce, attests both this event and the many great benefactions conferred on Egyptian temples throughout the land. It was during Euergetes’ reign, for instance, that the rebuilding of the great Temple ofHorus atIdfū (Apollinopolis Magna) was begun.

Euergetes was succeeded by his sonPtolemy IV Philopator (221–205bce), whom the Greek historians portray as a weak and corrupt ruler, dominated by a powerfulcircle of Alexandrian Greek courtiers. The reign was notable for another serious conflict with the Seleucids, which ended in 217bce in a great Ptolemaic victory atRaphia in southern Palestine. The battle is notable for the fact that large numbers of native Egyptian soldiers fought alongside the Macedonian and Greekcontingents. Events surrounding the death of Philopator and the succession of the youthfulPtolemy V Epiphanes (205–180bce) are obscured by court intrigue. Before Epiphanes had completed his first decade of rule, serious difficulties arose. Native revolts in the south, which had been sporadic in the second half of the 3rd centurybce, became serious and weakened the hold of the monarch on a vital part of the kingdom. These revolts, which produced native claimants to the kingship, are generally attributed to the native Egyptians’ realization, after their contribution to the victory at Raphia, of their potential power. Trouble continued to break out for several more decades. By about 196bce a great portion of the Ptolemaic overseas empire had been permanently lost (though there may have been a brief revival in the Aegean islands in about 165–145bce). To shore up and advertise the strength of the ruling house at home and abroad, the administration adopted a series of grandiloquent honorific titles for its officers. To conciliate Egyptian feelings, a religious synod that met in 196bce to crown Epiphanes at Memphis (the first occasion on which a Ptolemy is certainly known to have been crowned at the traditional capital) decreed extensive privileges for the Egyptian temples, as recorded on theRosetta Stone.

The reign ofPtolemy VI Philometor (180–145bce), a man of pious andmagnanimous character, was marked by renewed conflict with the Seleucids after the death of his mother, Cleopatra I, in 176bce. In 170/169bceAntiochus IV of Syria invaded Egypt and established a protectorate; in 168bce he returned, accepted coronation at Memphis, and installed a Seleucid governor. But he had failed to reckon with the more powerful interests ofRome. In the summer of 168bce a Roman ambassador,Popillius Laenas, arrived at Antiochus’s headquarters nearPelusium in the delta and staged an awesome display of Roman power. He ordered Antiochus to withdraw from Egypt. Antiochus asked for time to consult his advisers. Laenas drew a circle around the king with his stick and told him to answer before he stepped out of the circle. Only one answer was possible, and by the end of July Antiochus had left Egypt. Philometor’s reign was further troubled by rivalry with his brother, laterPtolemy VIII Euergetes II Physcon. The solution, devised under Roman advice, was to remove Physcon to Cyrene, where he remained until Philometor died in 145bce. It is noteworthy that in 155bce Physcon took the step ofbequeathing the kingdom of Cyrene to the Romans in the event of his untimely death.

Dynastic strife and decline (145–30bce)

Physcon was able to rule in Egypt until 116bce with his sister Cleopatra II (except for a period in 130–124bce when she was in revolt) and her daughter Cleopatra III. His reign was marked by generous benefactions to the Egyptian temples, but he was detested as a tyrant by the Greeks, and the historical accounts of the reign emphasize his stormy relations with the Alexandrian populace.

During the last century of Ptolemaic rule, Egypt’s independence was exercised under Rome’s protection and at Rome’s discretion. For much of the period, Rome was content to support a dynasty that had no overseas possession except Cyprus after 96bce (the year in which Cyrene wasbequeathed to Rome by Ptolemy Apion) and no ambitions threatening Roman interests or security. After a series of brief and unstable reigns,Ptolemy XII Auletes acceded to the throne in 80bce. He maintained his hold for 30 years, despite the attractions that Egypt’s legendary wealth held for avaricious Roman politicians. In fact, Auletes had to flee Egypt in 58bce and was restored byPompey’s friend Gabinius in 55bce, no doubt after spending so much in bribes that he had to bring Rabirius Postumus, one of his Roman creditors, to Egypt with him to manage his financial affairs.

In 52bce, the year before his death, Auletes associated with himself on the throne his daughterCleopatra VII and his elder sonPtolemy XIII (who died in 47bce). The reign of Cleopatra was that of a vigorous and exceptionally able queen who was ambitious, among other things, to revive theprestige of the dynasty bycultivating influence with powerfulRoman commanders and using their capacity toaggrandize Roman clients and allies.Julius Caesar pursued Pompey to Egypt in 48bce. After learning of Pompey’s murder at the hands of Egyptian courtiers, Caesar stayed long enough to enjoy a sightseeing tour up the Nile in the queen’s company in the summer of 47bce. When he left for Rome, Cleopatra was pregnant with a child she claimed was Caesar’s. The child, a son, was namedCaesarion (“Little Caesar”). Cleopatra and Caesarion later followed Caesar back to Rome, but, after his assassination in 44bce, they returned hurriedly to Egypt, and she tried for a while to play a neutral role in the struggles between the Roman generals and their factions.

Her longliaison withMark Antony began when she visited him atTarsus in 41bce and he returned to Egypt with her. Between 36 and 30bce the famous romance between the Roman general and the eastern queen was exploited to great effect by Antony’s political rivalOctavian (the future emperorAugustus). By 34bce Caesarion was officially co-ruler with Cleopatra, but his rule clearly was an attempt to exploit the popularity of Caesar’s memory. In the autumn Cleopatra and Antony staged an extravagant display in which they made grandiosedispositions of territory in the east to their children, Alexander Helios, Ptolemy, and Cleopatra Selene. Cleopatra and Antony were portrayed to the Roman public as posing for artists in the guise of Dionysus andIsis or whiling away their evenings in rowdy anddecadent banquets that kept the citizens of Alexandria awake all night. But thispropaganda war was merely the prelude to armed conflict, and the issue was decided in September 31bce in a naval battle atActium in westernGreece. When the battle was at its height, Cleopatra and her squadron withdrew, and Antony eventually followed suit. They fled to Alexandria but could do little more than await the arrival of the victorious Octavian 10 months later. Alexandria was captured, and Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide—he by falling on his sword, she probably by the bite of an asp—in August of 30bce. It is reported that when Octavian reached the city, he visited and touched the preservedcorpse of Alexander the Great, causing a piece of the nose to fall off. He refused to gaze upon the remains of the Ptolemies, saying “I wished to see a king, not corpses.”