Ptolemaic Egypt

what happens in the decades following the death of Alexander

• “War of the successors”
  - his generals fighting for power

• 3 main kingdoms emerge
  - Antigonids (mainland Greece)
  - Ptolemies
  - Seleucids (Persian Empire)

Life blood of Egypt

Nile
- important to have a string figure who could control the whole river
- via the flooding that allows people to farm bc of irrigation
- Floods in the summer
- strange to the Greeks

Fayyum

• Large area of claimed land by the Ptolemys
  - desert → habitable land
  - irrigation

Papyrus

• ancient equivalent of paper
  - best preserved in Egypt
  - more personal documents
  - insight into Egyptian’s lives

• Provides more evidence than other places in the ancient world
  - most based on narrative and public inscriptions

Ptolemy

• General in ALexanders army
  - went across the empire with him

• Wrote a memoir of his time with Alex
  - used by later historians

• Became Satrap of Egypt
  - replacing Cleomenes (put there by Alexander) → who was unpopular (reported to have hunted sacred crocodiles)
  - Ptolemy had his executed
  - ruling on behalf of little Alexander

Early coins

• Mints coins of Alexander
  - giving him an elephant hat (alluding to the conquest of India?)
  - showing his connection to Alexander much in the same way Alex did with Herakles

Establishing himself as a ruler

Satrap Stele 311 BCE:
- Alex IV still alive

• Acknowledged the existence of Alex IV

• Sees Ptolemy as a benefactor
  - restorer of gods and temples in both northern and southern Egypt → P trying to win them over
  - contrast to exploitative Cleomenes

• Praises military success
  - bringing wealth back to Egypt
  - contrast Persians

• Represented as a successful ruler

305 BCE

• Ptolemy becomes king

Last few years of Ptolemy I rule

• co-rules with his son Ptolemy II

• Creates a sense of dynasty

Succession

• rather complicated in the Hellenistic dynasty’s
  - intermarriage between and within different kingdoms and

Women

• more prominent than in other dynasties

• Appear on royal coins both with and without their husbands
  - Berenice II

Alexandria origins

Established by Alexander the Great
- didn’t spend long there
- Most development likely comes from Ptolemy
- connect himself to Alexander (legitimise rule)

Protected from Seleucid invasion

What has underwater archaeology revealed about art and architecture

• very Greek styles
  - cultural fusion as there is also Egyptian stuff found

Representations of Ptolemy I

• Caters to different audiences

• Pharonic look for Egypitians
  - also communicated to the Greeks that he is the ruler of Egypt

Canopus Decree

• priestly decree

• Tri-lingual
  - including Greek

• How the priests view the king

• expectation of the king to ALL his subjects

• Talking about problems with Nile flooding
  - crisis → no farming

Maintaining and celebrating Macedonianness

• Still taking part in the festival at Olympia

• Eordean decent → place in Macedon where Ptolemy is from

^ from poem written under Ptolemy II