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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]].
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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.
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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==
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