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*PTOLEMAIC EGYPT*

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by Calliope09 (U14047094) on Wednesday, 24th June 2009

  Hello folks
  
  I am a sixth form student currently researching for an EPQ (Extended Project Qualification - a 5,000 word "mini-dissertation") on Ptolemaic Egypt. My working title is: "The Ptolemies - Opportunist Invaders or Educating Force?".
  
  Trouble is, it doesn't appear to be a hugely researched topic... :S
  
  Does anyone know of any useful sources (both primary and secondary)? I live in London and so have fairly easy access to the British Library, British Museum etc.
  
  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

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• Message 2

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  Posted by LairigGhru (U5452625) on Wednesday, 24th June 2009

  References given in Wikipedia are as follows:
  
  1. ^ Cleopatra: A Sourcebook (Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture) by Prudence J. Jones (Author) page14β€œThey were members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Macedonian Greeks, who ruled Egypt after the death of its conqueror, Alexander the Great.”
  2. ^ Women in Hellenistic Egypt By Sarah B. Pomeroy page 16 β€œwhile Ptolemaic Egypt was a monarchy with a Greek ruling class."
  3. ^ the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. β€œ,Cleopatra VII was born to Ptolemy XII Auletes (80–57 BCE, ruled 55–51 BCE) and Cleopatra, both parents being Macedonian Greeks.
  4. ^ Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt by Kathryn Bard page 488 β€œ Ptolemaic kings were still crowned at Memphis and the city was popularly regarded as the Egyptian rival to Alexandria, founded by the Macedonian Greeks.” Page 687” During the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt was governed by rulers of Greek descent…”
  5. ^ Ashrafian H. (2005) Familial proptosis and obesity in the Ptolemies. J. R. Soc. Med. 98(2):85-86
  
  Wikipedia also mentions 'Kleopatra Pharaoh' by Karen Essex.

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• Message 3

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Thursday, 25th June 2009

  Pffff... as-if historians and their illiteracy... who did dare mention about Macedonian Greeks? So we did have Spartan Greeks and Spartan non-Greeks, and Attic Greeks and non-Attic Greeks and so we had Macedonian Greeks and Macedonian non-Greeks? Are we... going crazing?
  
  Illiterate people blind of propaganda and naively faithfull to whatever false belief they force-feeding them... how will they be able to talk have their own judgement? If only they stuck to real life!!!
  
  On your question now, there was nothing opportunistic in Ptolemey. He was merely one of Alexander's... collegues - and not just anybody, one of the best. On Alexander's deathbed Ptolemey just like most other generals curved his own territory out of the Empire Alexander had conquered. Arguably he got one of the best parts, quite close to the Greek world, thus enjoying increased commerce. If you call this opportunist well then you have to use this word for every huge, then big and then even small political event that happened since the first humans decided to get down from the trees and built villaged till today's large hyper-state formations.
  
  Ptolemey (like his successors) was not any opportunist but then he did not undertake power as.... an educating force in the sense that he did not enter there having as a first target to educate the masses (Egyptians or Persians were not exactly uncultured!) but he took the leadership in order to... rule - can't be more obvious!!! It is nice to be a ruler afterall, that is what people search.
  
  However, there rulers and rulers... not everyone does the same when in power... Ptolemey was not your average illiterate Frank or Mongol suffering from inferiority complexes searching only gold, slaves and the joy of destruction of the works of others. Hence, since the beginning he had it clearly in his mind that sciences and arts would be favoured. The idea was to make his kingdom the reference point in these domains alongside with being the commercial epicenter of the hellenistic world that Alexander had created. These things go together. You can be rich but you cannot be the leader unless you are also a leader in sciences and arts. And Ptolemey just knew that, he did not arrive to that conclusion accidentaly.

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• Message 4

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  Posted by ElizaShaw2 (U14061379) on Tuesday, 7th July 2009

  I'd say you only have to remember the Library at Alexandria (Mouseion?) to come down on the side of 'educating force'.
  
  It would be interesting to speculate what would have happened to Egypt had Ptolemy not taken over post-Alexander.
  
  From what I know, I believe that the Ptolemies by and large left 'ancient Egypt' largely alone - the Nile-nation had been running for several thousand years alredy, and only needed therefore a 'light touch' monarchy so far as that was concerned. It was a 'don't fix if it ain't broke' situation. Providing the Nile flooded and flowed on schedule, everything went on working smoothly, and corn kept growing etc etc.
  
  The Ptolomies turned 'outward' from Alexandria which then became, courtesy of them, one of the major cities of the Hellenistic world. They encouraged immigration, not just from Greece, but Palestine, so there grew a notable Jewish colony of merchants (and scholars?).
  
  As rulers, the Ptolemies seem, overall, pretty astute. They simply slotted in by and large to an existing, highly stable set up (ie, one that had lasted several thousand years already), and didn't 'muck about' with the infrastructure.
  
  Crucially, they adapted to the Egyptian theocracy and pantheon, and took over the Pharonic religious role, though it would be interesting to speculate the function of the 'synthetic god' Serapis, who seems to have been a fusion of both ancient Pharonic deities with an injection of more 'rational' Greek deism.
  
  The Ptolemies have a reputation for political canniness (the original Ptolemy was canny enugh to bag Eygpt, the most stable part of the Eastern Med!) (and canny enough to bag Alexander's corpse, too!), and for 'survivability'.
  
  I believe (though stand ready to be corrected) that they largely stayed out of 'foreign entangleents' as much as possible, eg Carthage/Rome, though I seem to recall, being fellow-Africans, they were more drawn/drawn into to Carthage??)
  
  That reputation for canniness reached its apogee, perhaps, in Cleopatra VII, who, after all, was shrewd enough to realise that war with Rome was not winnable (unlike her sister Arsinoe) and that the shrewder policy was 'if you can't beat them, join them - or, better still, marry them and have their children!'
  
  Her mistake was (like everyone else!) to under-estimate Octavian. Though perhaps she had no choice - I like to think she was shrewd enough to have got his measure but couldn't get MA to see him as anything other than a puny runt until it was fatally too late.
  
  Overall, I would therefore regard the Ptolemies as a 'good thing' by and large for Eygpt (relatively speaking for the time!). Perhaps the biggest proof of that is that the modern world cares so little about them. Not much happened in Ptolemaic Egypt - it was a pretty boring place and didn't have 'interesting times' - and, like Switzerland, we know that is a sign of a comfortable life for its inhabitants.

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• Message 5

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  Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Tuesday, 7th July 2009

  Nick, it is appropriate for Katherine Bard to highlight Macedonian Greek in this context to distinguish between these foundations and Greek settlement patterns in the Nile Delta during the archaic and classical period.
  
  In any case it can be argued that Ptolemy I Sotor did suffer from a sense of inferiority when comparing Alexandria to the established Greek polities because the city had none of the cultural heritage that even the most insignificant polis could boast. It has been suggested that part of the motivation behind his establishment of the Museum and the symposium of scholars was to provide a means of gaining some form of cultural legitimacy amongst the Greek speaking world.

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• Message 6

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  Posted by ElizaShaw2 (U14061379) on Tuesday, 7th July 2009

  Calliope - I'm very impressed you're doing such a subject for A level. Is it within Classics, or History? Just curious!

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• Message 7

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  Posted by ElizaShaw2 (U14061379) on Tuesday, 7th July 2009

  "The Ptolemies - Opportunist Invaders or Educating Force
  
  ***
  
  Forgot to say - the answer is 'both'! They don't contradict each other.
  
  BTW, I wonder what happened to the Ptolemies. Cleopatra VII seems to have polished off her two brothers and Arsinoe (or did they just die anyway?) and one can assume that Octavian did for Caesarion, as he would have been far too politically dangerous, but what about her other two sons by MA? I have a feeeling they ended up with, of all people, Octavia - who seems to have been a bit like Katherine Parr, and ended up with all the royal children although none of them were hers! Cleopatra Selene, I believe, was married off to a North African client king, and maybe she had a happy life in the end. It would be nice to think so.

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• Message 8

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Wednesday, 8th July 2009

  Accurate answer Lolbeeble, thanx for the input. One has also to note that this trend did not appear just only in Ptolemaic Egypt but can be traced upwards to Alexander the I, the first really reknowned Macedonian king, who had become one of the major political figures in the Greek world for his role in the Persian wars. Alexander the I tried really to upgrade his kingdom's cultural level but it was really his grandson (I think he was grandson) Amyntas who had turned the "new capital" Pella into one of the most progresssive cities at least in mainland Greece, host to major artists and philosophers and that at a time that the kingdom was really on a precarious line between Dardanians in the north, Thessalians in the south and Chalcidicians in the east. It is quite withstanding to mention that Macedonians were of the first to have built stone theaters when Athenians were still with their wooden ones - it is a very unfortunate event that this kingdom was raised to the ground by Romans in comparison to the relative looting at other places so that we really have no idea of what they were really up to at the end of the 5th century.
  
  Some say that villagers in the City behave more City-people-like than City people themselves. Well it might have been partly true for Macedonians. At least they were doing something about their "rurality" contrarily to the likes of Aetolians, Akarnanians, (living next to the Delphi!) and Helians (living next to Olympia) - both living next to great cultural centers, yet failing to produce themselves great cultures.

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• Message 9

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  Posted by ElizaShaw2 (U14061379) on Wednesday, 8th July 2009

  Question for E Nik -
  
  May I take advantage of your presence here to ask a question regarding the recent news in the UK that the Codex Sinaticus bible is now online. The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ played an audio clip of someone reading from the Bible. It was clearly recognisable as Greek, but was New Testament Greek - can you tell me if that's still understandable by modern Greek speakers or if it's become like classical Greek, which I believe is no longer comprehensible without studying it first. Is Byzantine Greek still comprehensible to modern Greek speakers.
  
  Thank you for any light you can shed. Eliza.

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