Ptolemaic egypt

Ptolemaic Kingdom
Πτολεμαϊκὴ βασιλεία
Ptolemaïkḕ Basileía

305 BC–30 BC
Ptolemaic dynasty, in blue.
Capital Alexandria
Languages Greek, Egyptian, Berber
Religion Ancient Greek religion,
Ancient Egyptian religion
Government Monarchy
 -  305–283 BC Ptolemy I Soter (first)
 -  51–30 BC Cleopatra (last)
 -  Established 305 BC
 -  Disestablished 30 BC
Currency Greek Drachma
Today part of  Cyprus

The Ptolemaic Kingdom (/ˌtɒləˈm.ɪk/; Greek: Πτολεμαϊκὴ βασιλεία, Ptolemaïkḕ Basileía)[1] was a Hellenistic kingdom in Egypt. It was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty that Ptolemy I Soter founded after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC—which ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC.

The Ptolemaic Kingdom was founded in 305 BC by Ptolemy I Soter, who declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt and created a powerful Hellenistic dynasty that ruled an area 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. 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 Rome. Hellenistic culture continued to thrive in Egypt throughout the Roman and Byzantine periods until the Muslim conquest.


The era of Ptolemaic reign in Egypt is one of the most well documented time periods of the Hellenistic Era; a wealth of papyri written by Greeks and Egyptians of the time have been discovered in Egypt.[2]


In 332 BC, Alexander the Great, King of Macedon invaded the Achaemenid satrapy of Egypt.[3] 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 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.


History of Egypt
a series
Prehistoric Egypt pre–3100 BC
Ancient Egypt
Early Dynastic Period 3100–2686 BC
Old Kingdom 2686–2181 BC
1st Intermediate Period 2181–2055 BC
Middle Kingdom 2055–1650 BC
2nd Intermediate Period 1650–1550 BC
New Kingdom 1550–1069 BC
3rd Intermediate Period 1069–664 BC
Late Period 664–332 BC
Classical Antiquity
Achaemenid Egypt 525–332 BC
Ptolemaic Egypt 332–30 BC
Roman & Byzantine Egypt 30 BC–641 AD
Sassanid Egypt 621–629
Middle Ages
Arab Egypt 641–969
Fatimid Egypt 969–1171
Ayyubid Egypt 1171–1250
Mamluk Egypt 1250–1517
Early Modern
Ottoman Egypt 1517–1867
French occupation 1798–1801
Egypt under Muhammad Ali 1805–1882
Khedivate of Egypt 1867–1914
Modern Egypt
British occupation 1882–1953
Sultanate of Egypt 1914–1922
Kingdom of Egypt 1922–1953
Republic 1953–present
Egypt Egypt portal



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.

Ptolemy I




Ptolemy II

Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who succeeded his father as King of Egypt in 283 BC,[6] 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 Aegean 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 that, while pleasing to the Egyptian population, had serious consequences in later reigns.[7] 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

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.

The decline of the Ptolemies


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.

The later Ptolemies




When Cleopatra VII ascended the Egyptian throne, she was only eighteen. 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 a 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 at the Battle of the Nile. He later drowned in the river, 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 venomous 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.

Roman rule



Ptolemy I, perhaps with advice from Demetrius of Phalerum, founded the Museum and Library of Alexandria[8] The Museum was a research centre supported by the king. It was located in the royal sector of the city. The scholars were housed in the same sector and funded by the Ptolemaic rulers.[9] They had access to the Library. The chief librarian served also as the crown prince's tutor.[10] For the first hundred and fifty years of its existence this library and research centre drew the top Greek scholars.[11] This was a key academic, literary and scientific centre.[12]


Further information: Hellenistic art

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 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.

Social situation




Most of what is known about the music of the Ptolemaic Kingdom is from a few scattered literary references. Athenaeus noted the great musicianship of the Alexandrians, recording a performance by a 600-voice choir accompanied by 300 harpers during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus and the extraordinary effect one performer on the trigonon had in Rome. Strabo described the licentious use of the aulos. The hydraulis was invented by Ctesibius of Alexandria (fl. c. 270 BCE).[13]




Main article: Ptolemaic Army




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.


While ruling Egypt, the Ptolemaic Dynasty built many Greek settlements throughout their Empire, either Hellenize new conquered peoples or reinforce the area. Egypt had only three main Greek cities—Alexandria, Naucratis, and Ptolemais.




Main article: Alexandria

A major Mediterranean port of Egypt, in ancient times and still today, Alexandria was founded in 331 BC by Alexander the Great, one of the many Eastern Macedonian cities that he established. Located 20 miles (32 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.


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).[14]

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.



Main article: Ptolemais Hermiou



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 Soter 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.


Outside Egypt, they had Greek cities under their dominion—including 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 Greek dialects of the Greek world gradually became assimilated in the Koine Greek dialect that was the common language of the Hellenistic world. Generally the Greeks of the Ptolemaic Egypt felt like representatives of a higher civilization yet were curious about the native culture of Egypt.

Arabs under 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 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.


Arabs in Ptolemaic kingdom had provided camel convoys to the armies of some Ptolemaic leaders during their invasions, but they did not have allegiance towards any of the kingdoms of Egypt or Syria, and also managed to raid and attack both sides of the conflict between Ptolemaic Kingdom and its enemies.[16][17]

Jews under the Ptolemies

The Jews who lived in Egypt had originally immigrated from Israel. The Jews absorbed Greek, the dominant language of Egypt at the time, while heavily mixing it with Hebrew.[18] It was during this period that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, appeared. Jewish legend has it that the Septuagint was written by Seventy Jewish Translators under royal compulsion during Ptolemy II's reign.[19] However, the translation of the Old Testament was more probably written over time in Egypt during the last three centuries before the Christian era.


The early Ptolemies increased cultivatable land through irrigation and introduced crops such as cotton and better wine-producing grapes. They also increased the availability of luxury goods through foreign trade. They enriched themselves and absorbed Egyptian culture. Ptolemy and his descendants adopted Egyptian royal trappings and added Egypt's religion to their own, worshiping Egyptian gods and building temples to them, and even being mummified and buried in sarcophagi covered with hieroglyphs.

In his lifetime Strabo made extensive travels to among others Egypt and Ethiopia.

Ptolemaic rulers

Main article: List of Ptolemaic rulers

The Ptolemaic dynasty, (Ancient Greek: Πτολεμαῖοι, sometimes also known as the Lagids or Lagides, Ancient Greek: Λαγίδαι, from the name of Ptolemy I's father, Lagus) were the Macedonian Greek[20][21][22][23][24] descendants of Ptolemy I Soter, one of the six somatophylakes (bodyguards) who served as Alexander the Great's generals and deputies and was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC. In 305 BC, he declared himself King Ptolemy I, later known as "Soter" (saviour). The Egyptians soon accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of independent Egypt. Ptolemy's family ruled Egypt until the Roman conquest of 30 BC.

All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy. Ptolemaic queens, some of whom were the sisters of their husbands, were usually called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or Berenice. The most famous member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her apparent suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.


Dates in brackets represent the regnal dates of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. They frequently ruled jointly with their wives, who were often also their sisters. Several queens exercised regal authority, but the most famous and successful was Cleopatra VII (51 BC-30 BC), with her two brothers and her son as successive nominal co-rulers. Several systems exist for numbering the later rulers; the one used here is the one most widely used by modern scholars. Dates are years of reign.

Simplified Ptolemaic family tree

Many of the relationships shown in this tree are controversial. The issues are fully discussed in the external links.

Other members of the Ptolemaic dynasty

Medical analysis

Contemporaries describe a number of the Ptolemaic dynasty as extremely obese, whilst sculptures and coins reveal prominent eyes and swollen necks. Familial Graves' disease could explain the swollen necks and eye prominence (exophthalmos), although this is unlikely to occur in the presence of morbid obesity.

In view of the familial nature of these findings, members of this dynasty likely suffered from a multi-organ fibrotic condition such as Erdheim–Chester disease or a familial multifocal fibrosclerosis where thyroiditis, obesity and ocular proptosis may have all occurred concurrently.[25]

See also

Ancient Greece portal


Further reading

  • Peters, F.E. 1970. The Harvest of Hellenism. New York: Simon & Schuster

External links

  • Map of Ptolemaic Egypt

ca:Període hel·lenístic d'Egipte cs:Ptolemaiovský Egypt es:Período helenístico de Egipto no:Ptolemeiske kongedømme pt:Egipto ptolemaico ru:Эллинистический Египет uk:Елліністичний Єгипет vi:Ai Cập thuộc Hy Lạp
