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This is the [[Wikipedia:Category|category]] of books, sourcebooks, accessories, novels, and boxed sets concerning the ''[[World of Greyhawk]]'' [[campaign setting]] for the ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' [[roleplaying game]].
{| class="infobox" border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 0 0 1em 1em; float: right; width: 250px; border-collapse: collapse;"
|+ <big>'''Ptolemaic Empire'''</big>
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| colspan="2" style="font-size: x-small; text-align: center; font-style: italic;" | [[Image:PtolemaicEmpire.png|300px]]<br>Ptolemaic Empire, in blue.
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! [[Language]]s
| [[Greek language|Greek]] ([[Greek alphabet]])[[Egyptian]]
|-
! [[Religions]]
| [[Ancient Greek religion]]<br>[[Egyptian religion]]
|-
! [[Capital]]
| [[Alexandria]]
|-
! [[Area]]
| [[Egypt]], [[Near East]].
|-
! [[List of extinct states|Existed]]
| 305 –30 BCE
|}
The '''Ptolemaic Kingdom''' in Egypt began following [[Alexander the Great]]'s conquest in 332 BC and ended with the death of [[Cleopatra VII]] and the [[Aegyptus (Roman province)|Roman conquest]] in 30 BC. It was founded when [[Ptolemy I Soter]] declared himself [[Pharaoh]] of [[Egypt]], creating a powerful [[Hellenistic civilization|Hellenistic]] state from southern [[Syria]] in the east to [[Cyrene, Libya|Cyrene]] to the west, and extending south to the frontier with [[Nubia]]. [[Alexandria]] became the capital city and a center of [[Hellenistic Greece|Greek]] culture and trade. To gain recognition by the native Egyptian populace, they named themselves as 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 of Egypt|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 Rome.
This is a subcategory of the general category for [[:Category:Dungeons & Dragons books|Dungeons & Dragons books]]. It contains materials either written specifically for Greyhawk, or written to be used in Greyhawk as well as other settings.
==Alexander the Great==
{{History of Egypt}}
In [[332 BC]] [[Alexander the Great]], King of [[Macedon]], conquered Egypt, with little resistance from the Persians. He was welcomed by the [[Egyptians]] as a deliverer. He visited [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]], and went on pilgrimage 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_of_Naucratis|Cleomenes]] as the ruling [[nomarch]] to control Egypt in his absence. Alexander never returned to Egypt.
Note that some overlap may occur.
==Ptolemaic contributions==
Greyhawk modules and adventures are found under the subcategory [[:Category:Greyhawk modules|Greyhawk modules]]
The Greeks now formed the new upper classes in [[Egypt]], replacing the old native aristocracy. In general the Ptolemies undertook changes that went far beyond any other measures that earlier foreign rulers had imposed. They used the religion and traditions to increase their own power and wealth. Although they established a prosperous kingdom, enhanced with fine buildings, the native population enjoyed few benefits, and there were frequent uprisings. These expressions of nationalism reached a peak in the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator (207–206 BCE) when rebels gained control over one district and ruled as a line of native "pharaohs." This was only curtailed nineteen years later when [[Ptolemy V Epiphanes]] succeeded in subduing them, but the underlying grievances continued and there were riots again later in the dynasty.
{{CategoryTOC}}
Family conflicts affected the later years of the dynasty when [[Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II]] fought his brother Ptolemy VI Philometor and briefly seized the throne. The struggle was continued by his sister and niece (who both became his wives) until they finally issued an Amnesty Decree in 118 BCE.
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons books]]
[[Category:Greyhawk|Books]]
==Ptolemaic Egypt==
[[Category:Greyhawk book covers|Book covers]]
[[Image:ac.ptolemy.jpg|thumb|left|Ptolemy I, King of Egypt]]
Following Alexander's death in [[Babylon]] in [[323 BC]], a [[Diadochi|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 I Soter|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 BC]], and consolidated his position in Egypt and the surrounding areas during the [[Diadochi#Wars of the Diadochi (322-301 BC)|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]] 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 of Egypt|Berenice III]] and [[Berenice IV of Egypt|Berenice IV]]. [[Cleopatra V of Egypt|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 of Egypt|Ptolemy XIV]], and [[Ptolemy XV of Egypt|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, 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, just as they had been in [[Macedon|Macedonia]]. The Egyptians were rarely admitted to the higher levels of Greek culture, in which most Egyptians were not in any case interested.
===Ptolemy I===
[[Image:PtolemaicCorinthianPilar.jpg|thumb|250px|[[Corinthian order|Corinthian]] pilar of the Ptolemaic period, Egypt.]]
The first part of Ptolemy I's reign was dominated by the [[Wars of the Diadochi]] between the various [[successor state]]s 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 [[Ancient Libya|Libya]], [[Coele-Syria]] (with [[Judea]]), and [[Cyprus]]. When [[Antigonus I Monophthalmus|Antigonus]], ruler of [[Syria]], tried to reunite Alexander's empire, Ptolemy joined the coalition against him. In [[312 BC]], allied with [[Seleucus I Nicator|Seleucus]], the ruler of [[Babylonia]], he defeated [[Demetrius I of Macedon|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, and when Antigonus was defeated and killed at [[Battle of Ipsus|Ipsus]] in [[301 BC]] Ptolemy secured Palestine in the resulting settlement. 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 I of Egypt|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 the 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.
===Ptolemy II===
[[Ptolemy II of Egypt|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 [[Syrian_Wars#First_Syrian_War_.28274-271_BC.29|First Syrian War]]) left Ptolemy the master of the eastern [[Mediterranean]], controlling the [[Aegean Sea|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 [[Syrian_Wars#Second_Syrian_War_.28260-253_BC.29|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===
[[Image:HermesPtolemy.jpg|thumb|170px|Statue of [[Ptolemy III]] in the guise of [[Hermes]] wearing the [[chlamys]] cloak. Ptolemaic Egypt.]]
[[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 [[Syrian_Wars#Third_Syrian_War_.28246-241_BC.29|Third Syrian War]] with the [[Seleucid dynasty|Seleucids]] of [[Syria]], when his sister, [[Berenice (Seleucid queen)|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 Macedonia 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===
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 [[Battle of Raphia|Raphia]] in [[217 BC]] secured the kingdom. A sign of the domestic weakness of his reign was rebellions by the native Egyptians. Philopator was devoted to orgiastic religions and to literature. He married his sister [[Arsinoe III of Egypt|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 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 Egypt to Syria. 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 Physcon|Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II]]) was installed as a puppet king. When Antiochus withdrew, the brothers agreed to reign jointly with their sister [[Cleopatra II of Egypt|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 (145 BC)|Battle of Antioch]].
===The later Ptolemies===
[[Image:ac.cleopatra.jpg|right|thumb|left|100px|[[Cleopatra VII of Egypt|Cleopatra VII]], last Queen of Egypt]]
[[Image:NileMosaicOfPalestrina.jpg|thumb|250px|A detail of the [[Nile mosaic of Palestrina]], showing Ptolemaic Egypt circa [[100 BCE]].]]
Philometor was succeeded by yet another infant, his son [[Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator]]. 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 of Egypt|Cleopatra III]] and her son [[Ptolemy IX Lathyros|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 mother. 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 of Egypt|Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos]], nicknamed Auletes, the flute-player. By now Rome was the arbiter of Egyptian affairs, and annexed both [[Ancient Libya|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 of Egypt|Cleopatra VII]].
===Cleopatra===
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.
Before glancing at Cleopatra's reign, let us first have a look at the keys to her rise and fall. The demise of the Ptolemies power coincided with the rise of the [[Roman Empire]]. Having little choice, and seeing city after the other falling into Rome's grip, the Ptolemies decided to ally with the Romans, a pact that lasted for two centuries. 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.
Hence the controversy over Cleopatra's real motives. Was she trying to save her throne, or did she have a more noble cause? Was she protecting her Dynasty, or was she preventing more interference from the Romans in Egypt?
As children, [[Cleopatra]] and her siblings wittnessed the defeat of their guardian, [[Pompey]], by [[Julius Caesar]] in a duel. Meanwhile, Cleopatra and her brother/husband Ptolemy XIII were duelling, albeit silently, over the 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 the most famous gift in history: an oriental carpet... with a 22 year old Cleopatra wrapped in. 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 and killed.
In the summer of 47 BC, having married her younger brother [[Ptolemy XIV]], Cleopatra and Caesar embarked for a two month on a trip along the Nile, aboard a legendary boat. Together, they visited [[Dendara]], where Cleoptara was being worshipped as [[Pharaoh]], an honor beyond Caesar's reach. They became lovers, and indeed, she bore him a son, [[Caesarion]]. In 45 BC, Cleopatra and Caesarion left Alexandria for Rome, where they stayed in a palace built by Caesar in their honor.
Caesar's acts were anything but overlooked by the Romans. In 44 BC, he was killed in a [[conspiracy]] by his [[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 angried 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 - [[Tarsus]], [[Cyrene]], [[Crete]], [[Cyprus]], and [[Palestine]] - one after the other to Cleopatra and her children.
It was the boiling point when [[Octavian]] declared war on Cleopatra, and off the coast of Greece in the Adriatic Sea they met in one of the most famous battles in history: [[Actium]]. The Egyptian defeat was often attributed to the early withdrawal of a coward Cleopatra from the battle scene, although this claim is now discredited by most historians.
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. Antony was asked to be taken to Cleopatra. He died in her arms and was burried as a King.
Ocatvian entered Alexandria in 30 BC. Cleopatra was captured and taken to him, and the [[Roman Emperor]] had no interest in any relation, reconciliation, or even negotiation with the Egyptian Queen. Realizing that her end is 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 an [[asp]] as her death instrument.
With the death of Cleopatra, a whole era in Egyptian history was closed. Alexandria remained capital of Egypt, but Egypt was now a Roman province. The age of Egyptian Monarchs gave way to the age of Roman Emperors, and Cleopatra's death gave way to the rise of Rome. The Ptolemies were of Macedonian descent, yet they ruled Egypt as Egyptians - as Pharaohs. And, indeed, Cleopatra was the last Pharaoh.
==Art During the Ptolemies==
[[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.
== Hellenistic culture in Egypt==
Greek culture had a long but minor presence in Egypt long before the Macedonian king 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 [[Mercenary|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 culture]] continued to thrive even after Rome annexed Egypt after the [[battle of Actium]] and did not decline until the [[Islamic conquests]].
==Cities==
During the period of Egypt under the Macedonian 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.
===Naucratis===
Of the three Greek cities Naucratis, 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 long and 60 feet 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.
===[[Alexandria]]===
Major Mediterranean port of Egypt, in ancient times and still today. Alexandria was founded in 331 BCE by [[Alexander the Grea]]t, one of the many Eastern cities that he established. Located 20 miles 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 BCE). 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 BCE. 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 BCE, 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 BCE), the inventor Ctesibius (ca. 270 BCE), and the polymath Eratosthenes (ca. 225 BCE).
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 BCE, and became the second city of the Roman Empire.
===Ptolemais===
The second Greek city founded after the conquest in Egypt was Ptolemais, 400 miles up the Nile, where there was a native village called Psoï, in the nome called after the ancient Egyptian city of Thinis. If Alexandriaperpetuated 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.
The names of citizens of Ptolemais are good Greek names. No doubt they too, like the "Alexandrines" and the people of Naucratis, avoided intermarriage with Egyptians. Psoï will, no doubt, have formed a native quarter at Ptolemais, just as Rakoti did at Alexandria, with a native population excluded from the citizen-body
==Demographics==
The Ptolemaic kingdom was diverse in the people who settled and made Egypt their home on this time. During this period, Greek and Macedonian troops under [[Ptolemy I Soter]] were given land grants and brought their families encouraging tens of thousands of Greek and Macedonians 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 Pharoahs, 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 even Galatian mercernaries were invited in.
===Greco-Macedonians===
Of the aliens who had come to settle upon Egypt, the ruling race, the Graeco-Macedonians, 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 B.C. (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 we find 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.5
The distinction between Greeks and [[Macedonians]], who together formed the privileged class, seems now to have been without practical importance. Men of Macedonian origin continued throughout Ptolemaic times to describe themselves officially as "Macedonian," but they were to all intents and purposes Greeks.6 Even before Alexander, so far as the Macedonians had had any literary education, it had been Greek education; their names were largely Greek, and their royal house claimed to be of Greek descent. And the Macedonians scattered over the Nearer East after Alexander, in close association with Greek colonists, probably soon forgot Macedonian, and came to talk the ordinary "common" Greek of the [[Hellenistic world]]. A large number of the papyri discovered in Egypt were written by people calling themselves Macedonians, but no one has ever found a papyrus in the Macedonian language. They felt like a representative of a higher civilization yet were curious over 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 to‑day. 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. We hear, at any rate, of one such village, Poïs, in the Memphite nome, two of whose inhabitants send 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 even unable apparently to subscribe it. [[Apollonius]] writes their names as Myrullas and Chalbas, the first probably, and the second certainly, Semitic. A century earlier we hear of 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.
===Jews of Egypt===
The largest foreign element after the Greek was the Jewish. At the time of the [[Christian era]] the Jews in Egypt had come to number about a million out of a total population of about seven and a half millions. We think of the Jews to‑day as pre-eminently financiers and traders. But in those days they had not yet any special reputation in that line. The Jews of Alexandria were, no doubt, like the Greeks of Alexandria, engaged in various kinds of trade and industry, but large numbers of the Jews in Egypt had been imported as soldiers. The [[Maccabean revolt]] and the wars of the Hasmonaean kings proved how formidable the Jews could be as fighters. The Elephantine Aramaic papyri have shown us Jewish soldiers of the Persian king established near the first cataract long before Alexander came to Egypt. Perhaps semi-paganized Jewish communities of this type had been absorbed, and ceased to exist as a separate people, before the end of the Persian period, but it seems likely that Ptolemy I found a Jewish element still existing in Egypt when he took over the obscure. Sir Flinders Petrie refers to a Jewish tomb, opposite Oxyrhyncus, discovered in 1922, with a long [[Aramaic]] inscription, belonging to the middle of the 5th century (The Jews in Egypt. In any case, when Palestine had been united to their kingdom by the Ptolemies, a fresh stream of immigration from Judaea to Egypt naturally followed. It was not only voluntary immigration. Regarding the Jews as good material for his army, Ptolemy I had transported masses of them to Egypt — 100,000, according to Pseudo-Aristeas, who says that he put 30,000 of them "in the garrisons" — settled them, we may perhaps understand, like the Greeks and Macedonians, on the land. Inscriptions and papyri give us traces of this Jewish population in the country towns of Egypt throughout the Ptolemaic period. The language of the Egyptian Jews was [[Greek]]; after a generation or two immigrants from Palestine forgot their Semitic speech. Their Hebrew scriptures they knew only in the Greek translation, which we column the Septuagint because, according to the legend, the translation had been made by the Seventy Translators under Ptolemy II. Since the Seventy Translators were held to have been themselves miraculously inspired, there was no need for the Egyptian Jews to concern themselves with the original Hebrew. As a matter of fact, the translation of the [[Old Testament]] was made, bit by bit, in Egypt during the last three centuries before the [[Christian era]]. According to the first form of the legend, it was not the Old Testament as a whole, but only the five books of the Law which were translated by the Seventy, and it is likely that a Greek version of the Law really was required by the Egyptian Jews as early as the reign of [[Ptolemy II]]. In the latter times of the dynasty it made an important difference to any one who ruled Egypt, or aspired to rule it, if he had the Jews on his side.
Whether the [[Jews]] at Alexandria were, or were not, included in the citizen-body of Alexandrines is, as has been said, a debated question.71 It seems really to resolve itself into a question of terms — what is meant by "citizenship" — the Jews plainly had certain peculiar privileges, on the strength of which they might claim to count as Alexandrine citizens, whilst they lacked other ordinary characteristics of citizenship, the absence of which might justify the Greek Alexandrines in denying them the name. As a community in Alexandria, they had a measure of self-government not conceded to any other community within a Greek [[city-state]]. Their chief in early Roman times (and perhaps in Ptolemaic times) had the title of [[genarches]] or [[ethnarches]]. In Roman times the government of the community was vested in a senate (gerusia), and this, too, may go back to the earlier period. The archontes seem to have been a committee of the senate. But the only title for the rulers of the community for which we have documentary evidence in the Ptolemaic period is that of Elders.
The Jewish quarter, Delta, adjoined the palace quarter on the north-east and reached down to the sea. In so far as it lay beyond the harbour, it might be spoken of by enemies of the Jews contemptuously, as an out‑of-the‑way wretched sort of place, whilst the Jews might retort that its sea-front and its proximity to the royal palace made it pleasant and honourable.75 It was not a ghetto, inasmuch as there was no compulsion upon the Jews to live in the Delta quarter; many, as a matter of fact, lived in other parts of the city. But the Delta quarter was mainly inhabited by Jews, who had gathered there by choice, as they do in certain districts of London the‑day.
There were naturally a number of synagogues in Alexandria for a community so large. The principal synagogue p114was in Roman times one of the most impressive in the Empire, a magnificent building in the style of a Greek basilica, described with pride in the Talmud, so large that the voice of the officiating minister could not reach the more distant part of the congregation, and a man had to be stationed half-way down the building with a flag, to signal the moments for saying Amen. But we have in Ptolemaic times the mention of synagogues at Alexandria — one built on behalf of the famous Cleopatra and Ptolemy Caesar "to the Great God who heareth," by a certain Alypus, a rich member, no doubt, of the Jewish community
==Roman Egypt==
{{main|Aegyptus (Roman province)}}
[[Image: Roman period mummies.jpg|thumb|240px|right|Roman Era Mummies {{3d_glasses}}]]
In [[30 BC]], following the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became part of the [[Roman Empire]] as the province [[Aegyptus (province)|Aegyptus]], governed by a prefect selected by the Emperor from the [[Equestrian (Roman)|Equestrian]] and not a governor from the Senatorial order, to prevent interference by the [[Roman Senate]]. The main Roman interest in Egypt was always the reliable delivery of grain to the city of [[Rome]]. To this end the Roman administration made no change to the Ptolemaic system of government, although Romans replaced Greeks in the highest offices. But Greeks continued to staff most of the administrative offices and Greek remained the language of government except at the highest levels. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not settle in Egypt in large numbers. Culture, education and civic life largely remained Greek throughout the Roman period. The Romans, like the Ptolemies, respected and protected Egyptian religion and customs, although the cult of the Roman state and of the Emperor was gradually introduced.
==Agriculture==
The early Ptolemies raised the quality of Egyptian agriculture by reclaiming cultivatable land through irrigation and introduced crops such as cotton and better wine-producing grapes. In addition, they increased the wealth of their population by increasing foreign trade, making more luxury goods available to more people. In return, Egypt enriched their lives as the new rulers absorbed their adopted culture. Egypt had enchanted the Ptolemies, as it had all its foreign rulers before them. Ptolemy and his descendants adopted Egyptian royal trappings and added Egypt's religion to their own, worshipping the gods of Eternity 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]].
== References and 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
== External links ==
*[http://www.unc.edu/awmc/downloads/aegyptusPtolSml.jpg Map of Ptolemaic Egypt]
[[Category:Ptolemaic Empire]]
[[Category:Ptolemaic dynasty]]
[[cs:Ptolemaiovský Egypt]]
[[es:Periodo Helenístico de Egipto]]
[[pt:Egipto ptolemaico]]
[[ru:Эллинистический Египет]]
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