Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt

Date: 323 b.c.e.-639 c.e.

Locale: Valley of the Nile River, including, at times, coastal regions and islands of the eastern Mediterranean

Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt

“Ptolemaic” (tah-leh-MAY-ihk) refers to the dynasty ruling Egypt from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 b.c.e. until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 b.c.e. The succession of kings and queens, spanning almost three hundred years, were all descendants of Ptolemy I, a Macedonian general of high rank. The kings went by the name Ptolemy and most of the queens by the name Cleopatra. Although Roman numerals are used to distinguish among them, members of the dynasty used Greek epithets such as Soter (“savior”), Euergetes (“benefactor”), or Epiphanes (“made manifest”) for this purpose and also to denote how they wanted to be perceived.

The transition to Roman authority resulted in little immediate interruption in ordinary affairs in Egypt, although the Romans introduced fundamental changes during their three hundred years of rule. As an imperial province, the exports of agricultural products from Egypt were especially vital to the economy of the empire. Both the Ptolemaic and Roman periods were Hellenistic, and the dominant force in Egypt in the Byzantine period was the Church and its patriarchs.

History

When Alexander the Great led his army from Macedonia and Greece into Egypt in 332 b.c.e., no one could have anticipated the lasting impact such an unopposed “invasion” would have. It was not until a decade later, when Alexander died in Babylon, that it started to become clear how complete the change would be. Because no one was ready to succeed Alexander either as commander of the army or king on the throne, a struggle began to resolve the complex issue, lasting more than four decades. Ptolemy Soter partly preempted the struggle by gaining possession of the great leader’s corpse and securing control over Egypt. He immediately began building a tomb in the new city of Alexandria for Alexander’s body. Acting at first like a successor to the Persian satrap, he did not use the title king. Nevertheless, he was clearly ready to defend his position of supreme ruler, as in 321 b.c.e. when one of Alexander’s generals unsuccessfully attacked. By 305 b.c.e., Ptolemy Soter was officially king of Egypt, and subsequent events in his reign were dated from that year.

Building on the foundation of his father, Ptolemy Philadelphus along with his son Ptolemy Euergetes achieved remarkable success in transforming Egypt into a world power. Their combined rule of sixty years (285-221 b.c.e.) is the best documented and the most important period of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. They maximized Egypt’s natural resources and manpower and carefully managed agricultural enterprises, yet they left in place as much native control as possible. As a result, the Ptolemaic kingdom was prospering and the Ptolemies were gaining dominion over other regions around the Mediterranean, including Palestine and Cyrenaica, coastal areas of Asia Minor, as well as Cyprus and most of the Aegean islands.

Although this all happened within one hundred years of when Ptolemy I first entered Egypt, the next one hundred years would see the undoing of much of what had been accomplished. Natives revolted against the government. An army that had been largely staffed by Greek and Macedonian soldiers became increasingly and dangerously dependent on native draftees. Territories outside Egypt were lost to more powerful kingdoms.

In 168 b.c.e., a Seleucid army invaded Egypt, and the Seleucids were poised to take absolute control when the Romans appeared on the scene. The Romans had come to protect the balance of power, as well as their own interests, and demanded that the Seleucids withdraw. It was a sign of things to come, when Rome would become increasingly involved in the affairs of the Ptolemaic kingdom.

During the first century b.c.e., Egypt was a client-kingdom of Rome. That meant that the Ptolemaic kings and queens were free to rule, as long as nothing was done to threaten the interests of the growing Roman Republic. The dynasty ended with Queen Cleopatra VII, a remarkable woman and ruler. She aligned herself and her kingdom first with Julius Caesar and after his death with Marc Antony. When she and Antony were defeated in a naval battle by Octavian (later Augustus), it was time for the future emperor to annex Egypt as a Roman province.

Roman Egypt was very important to the empire for the huge shipments of grain arriving in the port of Rome. Egypt also provided other agricultural products, papyrus, and quarried stone. In addition, the merchants of Egypt offered many rarities to the wealthy Romans.

It was common for Roman emperors to make imperial visits to Egypt. Vespasian, Caracalla, and Hadrian, for example, toured the land and sought the allegiance of the masses but with only partial success. Early in the second century, a revolt of Jews who were living in Egypt led to fierce fighting throughout the land and the near annihilation of the prominent Jewish community.

In the mid-third century, the control of Egypt was temporarily lost to foreign kings descended from the Persians. However, the emperor Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus) defeated them and reclaimed Egypt as a Roman province. Late in the third century, internal revolts forced the emperor Diocletian to besiege the city of Alexandria for eight months before he could regain control. Diocletian was responsible for the infamous Great Persecution of Christians, later known among Christians as the era of martyrs.

Soon after Diocletian’s rule, the emperor Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus issued the Edict of Toleration, which marked the end of persecution of Christians. Based in part on other policies of liberalization toward Egypt, the antipathy toward Rome quickly changed to friendship. Under the emperor Constantine the Great, Christianity became an increasingly powerful force, and within fifty years, Egypt was largely Christian.

The point at which Egypt entered the Byzantine era is not clear, but it definitely occurred by early in the fourth century. Egypt was increasingly aligned with Constantinople, both economically and religiously. The Christian patriarchs of Alexandria, who in this period were the most powerful individuals in Egypt, played important roles in the history of eastern Christianity, especially in interaction with the patriarchs of Constantinople. Unfortunately, two problems resulted. The struggle of the patriarchs to maintain their influence within Egypt and in the Mediterranean world led to political intrigue more than religious influence. An increasing lack of trust between Alexandria and the rest of Egypt undermined the stability of the region. Bitter struggles between patriarchs and rioting masses became common. In addition, tribes to the south of Egypt were threatening southern cities. These conditions persisted into the sixth century.

By the seventh century, Egypt was vulnerable to attack from foreign armies and to unrest from native discontents. In 632 c.e., Muḥammad proclaimed a holy Islamic war against Byzantium. In 639, an Arab army marched into Alexandria without resistance, largely because the Byzantine forces had fled. Though some areas of Egypt remained under Christian influence, the Islamic presence was there to stay.

Settlements and social structures

Were it not for the Nile River, Egypt would be little more than uninhabitable desert. Even with the Nile, the inhabitable part is limited to three relatively small areas: the narrow strip of land on either side of the Nile, the delta of the Nile, and the Fayum, a depression watered by the Nile. Therefore, the only settlements in Egypt were near these sources of water.

The most important city in Egypt in the Hellenistic period was also one of the newest. When Alexander entered Egypt late in the fourth century b.c.e., he founded a city that was “outside” Egypt. It would soon become the leading city of Egypt and, at times, of the whole Mediterranean area. That was especially true intellectually. The Ptolemies spared no effort to encourage the development of the highest levels of learning, providing almost unlimited funds to attract scholars to move from Athens and elsewhere to Alexandria. The result was a library with an unrivaled collection of scrolls and a museum where numerous advances were made in mathematics, science, technology, and Homeric scholarship. Later, Alexandria was home to some of the leading fathers of the early Church.

Egypt, Alexandria in particular, drew thousands of immigrants: merchants, fortune seekers, soldiers for the army, craftsmen, educators, and scholars. Those who emigrated to Egypt from more than two hundred cities around the Mediterranean were favored over the natives in the social hierarchy. One of the largest ethnic groups that took up residence in Egypt was the Jews. Reportedly, two of the five quarters in Alexandria in the first century c.e. were populated by Jews.

Languages and writing materials

The presence of foreign rulers and the numerous immigrants in Egypt created a language barrier. Since the lingua franca of the Mediterranean world was Greek, the problem was primarily that of Egyptians who did not know Greek. Unless they were content to stay out of touch with their changing world, they needed to learn Greek. How many actually did is hard to judge, but it did not displace the use of Egyptian. Hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic (different scripts of essentially the same language) are all attested in this period. A trilingual inscription from 196 b.c.e. known as the Rosetta stone—with the same text in hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek— was key to deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The daily writing materials during this millennium of history in Egypt are an unusual source of information about the people and their culture. Preserved in the dry sands on the fringes of the Nile valley, papyri were used for every form of writing imaginable, from official documents to personal notes. They provide a wealth of information about the day-to-day lives of the people.

Government and law

Ptolemaic and Roman officials sought to micromanage all aspects of Egypt that could affect the economy, including agriculture, industry, banking, trade, currency, and shipping. This required close cooperation between native workers and foreign officials. Though not always successful, when it was, the economy prospered and money flowed freely. However, because of high taxes, the government was the primary beneficiary. In order to generate as much revenue as possible, the government auctioned off to independent tax farmers the right to collect taxes in different areas. Using thorough censuses and land surveys as well as numerous agents, taxes were assessed on almost everything, including people, livestock, and crops.

Local affairs during the Roman period were not handled by salaried officials as in the Ptolemaic period but by landowners, supposedly as volunteers. These public servants increasingly had responsibility for such things as supervising agriculture, maintaining dikes, and collecting taxes. These liturgies bordered on being obligatory.

For legal problems, the natives were permitted to keep a separate system of courts and judges. This allowed them a measure of their own identity, but because the foreigners were tried in a different court, it often meant favored status for nonnatives.

Religion and ritual

Traditional Egyptian cults were largely left alone by the Ptolemies and Romans. A number of new religions also arose. One of these religions, the cult of Sarapis, was a syncretism of Greek and Egyptian religious elements and provided a patron deity for the Ptolemaic Dynasty. In addition to its religious side, the cult had political overtones, leading to the Ptolemies being recognized as descendants of the gods and supporting the imperial cult.

Current views

The Hellenistic period is so named because of the spread of Greek culture and ideas throughout the Mediterranean world. That phenomenon has been subject to exaggeration, but current scholarship is seeking a balance on the extent of hellenization, as well as the how and the why. Whatever the answers, the multicultural environment in Egypt raises questions of ethnicity. The tendency was for those from the Greek world to be given special privileges, and the natives to be treated as second-class. That led to efforts by Egyptians toward upward mobility, through intermarriage and mastery of the Greek language. Some Egyptians succeeded in acquiring dual identities. However, the real question facing scholars is how the different ethnicities coexisted in the same towns and villages.

Bibliography

Bagnall, R. S. Egypt in Late Antiquity. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Bowman, A. K. Egypt After the Pharaohs, 332 b.c.-a.d. 642: From Alexander to the Arab Conquest. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Hölbl, Günther. History of the Ptolemaic Empire. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Lewis, N. Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt: Case Studies in the Social History of the Hellenistic World. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1986.

Lewis, N. Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1983.

Rostovzeff, M. The Social and Economic History of the Hellenistic World. 3 vols. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1941.

Thompson, D. J. Memphis Under the Ptolemies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988.