Could there have been an easier conquest? In 332 BC, Alexander the Great entered Egypt without a struggle. At the walls of the capital, Memphis, he received the keys to the royal treasury from the hands of the Persian garrison commander. Aware of their military inferiority, the Achaemenids, rulers of the Nile Valley for two centuries, opted for a peaceful surrender. As for the Egyptians, “they saw the Persians as greedy and despotic beings and had long hated them,” according to the Roman historian Quintus Curtius in the 1st century.
Was Alexander the Great a Liberator for the Egyptians?
This is what Greek and Roman authors have always claimed. According to Diodorus of Sicily (90–20 BC), a decade before the arrival of the Macedonians, the Persian king Artaxerxes III (425–338 BC) had destroyed Egyptian temples, extorted priests, and slaughtered an “Apis,” the sacred bull. Breaking with this sacrilege, Alexander made numerous symbolic gestures toward local deities and the priestly class. At the Siwah oasis, on the edge of Libya, an oracle proclaimed him “son of Amun.” This coronation was no coincidence: Amun, a major deity of the Nile Valley, had long been associated with Zeus in the Greek world. An Egyptian god Hellenized: what better symbol for unification?
Before departing to continue his campaign into the heart of the Persian Empire, Alexander set up a custom-tailored government for Egypt. He assigned military command to Greco-Macedonians but entrusted civil governance to three locals: Cleomenes of Naucratis, a Greek born in Egypt, in charge of taxes; Doloapsis, a Persian in charge of half the territory; and Petisis, an Egyptian, in charge of the other half.
During his stay in the Nile Valley, from autumn 332 to spring 331 BC, the new ruler was crowned pharaoh, founded the city of Alexandria, and laid the foundations for power in Egypt. His successors would follow suit, adapting to the customs of this ancient civilization. The rest is well-known: in 323 BC, the invincible Macedonian died in Babylon, probably from malaria.
For Nearly Three Hundred Years, Fifteen Ptolemies Ruled
Ptolemy (368–283 BC), a close general of the deceased, became the governor of Egypt. His first notable move? In 322 BC, he hijacked Alexander’s sarcophagus en route to Macedonia. The greatest conqueror of all time was thus buried on the land of the pharaohs. Seven years later, Ptolemy proclaimed himself ruler of Egypt, donning the royal diadem in line with Macedonian tradition. The son of Lagos, who would give his name to the Lagid dynasty, founded the most prosperous and enduring of all Hellenistic kingdoms. For nearly three hundred years, fifteen Ptolemies and an equal number of powerful queens followed. All of them, without exception, were of Macedonian descent.
How did these “foreigners” manage to rule a land with a history spanning twenty-five centuries? By embodying dual roles, answers Bernard Legras in L’Egypte grecque et romaine (Armand Colin, 2004). The Ptolemies were monarchs with two faces: Greek kings representing law and order to their Greek subjects, but also pharaohs, guardians of the world’s balance to their Egyptian subjects. In their persons, they united “two conceptions of monarchy that never fully merged.”
On coins, the portrait of the Greek king adorned with a diadem appeared. On temple walls, the pharaoh was depicted wearing a double crown. Notably, the Lagids adopted the ancient pharaonic tradition of brother-sister marriages. Yet, Bernard Legras continues, while their political-religious identity was dual, their cultural identity was strictly Hellenistic. At court, only Greek, mixed with a Macedonian dialect, was spoken. Of all the Ptolemies, only Cleopatra VII (69–30 BC), known for her linguistic abilities, also spoke Egyptian.
Ptolemy I Founded a Strong and Prosperous Kingdom
Upon gaining power at the beginning of the 3rd century BC, the first Ptolemy pursued an ambitious foreign policy. He successively seized Cyrenaica (modern Libya), southern Syria, and the island of Cyprus. In the Aegean Sea, the founder of the Lagid dynasty captured several trading posts in Asia Minor, turned the Cyclades into protectorates, and formed an alliance with Rhodes.
The goal of this expansion? To protect Egypt through external holdings and secure control of the seas. By 301 BC, the Egyptian navy became the leading naval power in the Mediterranean world. Even after losing some of its strength, it retained significant forces: at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, Cleopatra VII could still field 200 ships against the Roman fleet of Octavian.
This maritime dominance made the Lagid kingdom a hub of international trade. Egypt, the breadbasket of the ancient world, exported vast amounts of grain to Europe. In return, the country imported olive oil and wine from the Mediterranean and Aegean basins, as well as luxury goods (spices, incense, and perfumes) from the ports of East Africa, Arabia, and India.
Of all the Hellenistic kingdoms, the Ptolemaic one was considered the most developed—at least, in the early days of their rule. However, Egyptian thalassocracy experienced significant fluctuations throughout its history. It reached its peak in the mid-3rd century BC, under Ptolemy III (282?–222 BC), but soon after began a decline, nearing disintegration by the early 2nd century. Its main threat? The neighboring Seleucid dynasty, masters of Syria, whose territory stretched from Anatolia to Mesopotamia.
In the span of a century, from 274 to 168 BC, no fewer than six wars were fought between the two rival powers, with southern Syria as the prize. Annexed by Egypt in 301 BC, this fiercely contested territory fell under Seleucid control in 195 BC. Despite this setback, the Lagid kingdom held strong for another 150 years. The secret of its longevity? A well-organized army, primarily made up of “cleruchs” (citizen-soldiers), who were granted land in exchange for military service. This system had the triple benefit of settling Greek or Macedonian colonists in Egyptian lands, increasing cultivated areas, and avoiding the need to pay wages.
It wasn’t until 217 BC, during the fourth war against the Seleucids, that Egyptians were finally incorporated into the army, which had been reserved for Greeks since Alexander the Great. This “revolution” was hardly one at all, as the land parcels granted to native soldiers were far smaller than those given to Greeks. Until the very end, military command remained in the hands of the Hellenes.
The Power of the Ptolemaic Dynasty Also Relied on the Efficiency of Its Administration
The conquered territory was subdivided into provinces, then districts, and finally villages. The purpose of this hierarchical organization? To collect taxes. While the Ptolemies retained most of the structures inherited from earlier periods, they imported the Greek monetary system and the concept of farming out taxes: taxes, collected in kind, were converted into actual currency for the royal treasury.
The heaviest taxation fell on agricultural produce, with nearly half of the harvest flowing into the state coffers. An aggravating factor was that this heavy taxation was accompanied by “ethnic” discrimination, as the cleruchs (Greek military settlers) were exempt from much of the land tax.
Greeks and Egyptians Remained Faithful to Their Religious Practices
While the Ptolemies were highly interventionist in their fiscal policies, they were far more accommodating when it came to religion. Their respect for Egyptian religious practices was particularly visible in their architectural projects. The most famous example is the Temple of Horus, built at Edfu between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC, which remains one of the best-preserved sanctuaries in Egypt. Like Alexander the Great before him, Ptolemy I quickly sought the support of the priests. His first move was to return religious objects stolen by the previous Persian rulers.
Following his illustrious predecessor, a great promoter of the syncretic cult of Amon-Zeus, the first Ptolemy aligned himself with the god Sarapis, worshipped by Greeks as a bearded Zeus and by Egyptians as the bull-god Apis. However, one should not misunderstand this as a widespread Hellenization of local deities. Overall, Greeks and Egyptians largely remained devoted to their respective religious practices, coexisting without interfering with one another.
A Similar Diversity Prevailed in the Legal Realm
While taxation, a major concern of the monarchy, fell under royal law, private law remained the domain of the subjects. Three autonomous legal systems were established: one for the Greek-speaking population, another for Egyptians, and a third for inter-community disputes. This legal plurality ensured judicial equality. As for the Jews of Egypt, they could choose between Torah law and common Greek law. In this multicultural society, legal identities did not align with religious or ethnic identities.
In Ptolemaic times, anyone who spoke Greek, whether an immigrant or a descendant of Greek-speaking immigrants on their paternal side, was considered Greek. This broad definition included not only Macedonians but also Thracians from the Balkans, Cyrenaicans, Jews, Arabs, and Persians. What was their proportion? About one million out of a total population of four million.
However, the three centuries of Ptolemaic rule did not result in widespread integration. Greco-Egyptian marriages, mainly recorded among the cleruchs, seem to have been a minority occurrence. Although the country had two official languages, Greek and Egyptian, individual bilingualism remained limited. Such linguistic skills were almost always practical in nature, as Bernard Legras notes. Just as some Greek scholars may have studied the language of the conquered people to learn about medicine, history, or astronomy—key areas of Egyptian culture—the local elite may have learned Greek to gain access to the circles of power. But in most cases, cultural identities coexisted without interacting.
Egypt Eventually Fell Into Rome’s Hands in 30 BC
It was this unique legacy, both Greek and Egyptian, that fell into Rome’s hands in 30 BC. A century earlier, the rising Roman power had already intervened dramatically in the Ptolemaic kingdom. In 168 BC, as Seleucid troops marched on Alexandria, a Roman envoy sent by the Senate ordered them to turn back. Without this providential intervention, the Ptolemaic monarchy would have been absorbed by its powerful neighbor. From then on, it entered Rome’s sphere of influence. Weakened by dynastic rivalries, it became an easy target.
In 110 BC, no fewer than three Ptolemies were vying for control of the territory: one ruled Egypt, the second ruled Cyprus, and the third ruled Cyrenaica. In 96 BC, this region of Libya was bequeathed to Rome. Less than ten years later, in 88 BC, Egypt was also willed to the Roman Senate. For strictly political reasons, the Ptolemaic kingdom avoided outright annexation and became a vassal state. However, Cyprus could not be saved: the jewel of the Ptolemaic maritime empire became a Roman province in 58 BC.
The rest is as much history as legend: Cleopatra VII came to power with Julius Caesar’s support in 48 BC. Seven years later, Egypt’s last queen met Mark Antony. The new “Dionysus” and the new “Isis-Aphrodite,” as they were called, sought to restore the grandeur of the Ptolemies. A conflict with Octavian became inevitable, and he emerged victorious. On August 1, 30 BC, the new ruler of Rome entered Egypt through Pelusium, near the border of Palestine. Three centuries earlier, this was the same place where Alexander had first set foot on the land of the pharaohs.
