When I was 16 years old, I joined the Faculty of Arts in the Archaeology Department of the University of Alexandria. I then asked Fawzi Al-Fakhari, professor of archaeology at Alexandria University, where the tomb of the ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra was located. He said that he believed that she was likely buried in a tomb near her palace.
I have often wondered about this since and where the tomb might be located. I then graduated from the university and joined Egypt’s Antiquities Department. I began to be interested in Egyptology and forgot the Graeco-Roman Period and Cleopatra, but from time to time I like to revisit it.
BEFORE THE PTOLEMIES: By the end of the ancient Egyptian 26th Dynasty, the Persian influence in Egypt had increased and the kings of Persia had begun to conquer neighbouring lands, including Egypt.
The Persian king Cambyses defeated the Egyptians at Pelusium in Sinai, and in order to legitimise his reign in Egypt, he took the title of Pharaoh, even if, like most of the Persian kings, he did not respect the ancient Egyptian religion.
The Persians were harsh rulers, and the Egyptians suffered many insults and indignities from them. For example, Artaxerxes III Ochus, who drove the Pharaoh Nectanebo II to Nubia and became king of Egypt in 434 BCE, slaughtered the sacred Apis bull and ate it during a festival. As a result, these kings’ Egyptian subjects disliked them and rebelled against them often.
Persian rule in Egypt ended when Alexander the Great entered Pelusium in November 332 BCE. He went to Memphis, the oldest capital of Egypt and the centre of the worship of Ptah and the sacred Apis bull. He began to mingle with the Egyptians and make offerings to their gods. He journeyed to the Delta and founded the new city of Alexandria, appointing Dinocrat the Rhodian as engineer and Cleominos from Naukratis as supervisor of the construction.
Alexandria was laid out on a plan like a chessboard with two main axes. One long axis lay in the middle of the far eastern part of the town, known as the “door of the sun” and located in the area known today as Bab Shark. The other main axis was in the far west, known as the “door of the moon” and today being the customs area.
Ancient Alexandria had five small districts each named with a letter of the Greek alphabet. Alpha was the royal area that included the palaces, temples, museums, libraries, and gardens. The second was Beta, the area of the Greek aristocrats. Gamma was the area for regular Greek citizens, and Delta was for foreigners like Syrians, Jews, and Persians. Epsilon was for Egyptian citizens.
After the death of Alexander, the struggle for control of his empire began, and Ptolemy gained control of Egypt. He moved the Egyptian capital from Memphis to Alexandria, and the Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled the country from 304 to 30 BCE. During their three-century rule, Egypt saw much expansion and temple construction.
Alexandria is now an important archaeological site containing the remains of the famous Library, the tomb of Alexander the Great, Roman cemeteries and the Roman theatre at Kom Al-Dikka, and the Temple of Abu Qir. The most important site is the famous Lighthouse, however, which was one of the Wonders of the Ancient World.
Located in the southeastern part of Pharos Island, the Lighthouse was begun by Ptolemy I and finished in the reign of Ptolemy II. Made of limestone, granite, and marble, the fourth level of the building was topped with a dome and a bronze statue of the god of the sea Poseidon.
PTOLEMY I: We do not know much about Ptolemy’s origins, except that he was raised in the court of king Phillip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, and that he was a good friend of Alexander’s from the beginning.
From his depiction on coins, we can see he had a very wide forehead, deep-set eyes, and a strong chin. His features show power and decisiveness. Ptolemy I was a genius in warfare and performed well with Alexander in Europe before entering Persia. We know that in 331 BCE he captured the area known as the Persian Doors, leading 3,000 soldiers against an opposing army of 30,000. Because of this great victory, he was promoted to the group of seven generals who made up Alexander’s personal guards and high council.
Alexander also gave him more important missions so he could demonstrate his bravery. The sudden death of Alexander caused a crisis among his generals, and the high commander of Asia and leader of the army, Perdiccas, divided the empire among the surviving generals. Ptolemy agreed to be the leader of Egypt, distancing himself from the struggle of the others and making Egypt into an independent country.
The generals disagreed about where Alexander the Great should be buried. Perdiccas though to bury him in Macedonia. While on the way there, Ptolemy was able to take Alexander’s sarcophagus through Syria to Egypt, which shows how he was able to defy Perdiccas. He also killed the head of the treasury in Egypt that Perdiccas had appointed to assist him and attacked Libya and took control of parts of it.
But the most important thing he did was to remove himself and Egypt from the control of Perdiccas.
THE PTOLEMIES IN EGYPT: The Ptolemaic Period was an important one for foreign and internal relations in Egypt, in regard to society, the role of the administration, the economy, and cultural activities.
Foreign relations had one purpose, which was to secure the country’s borders from foreign attack. For Ptolemy to do this, he came up against the other generals who had inherited the empire of Alexander.
There were many people in the army and the administration at the time from Macedon and Greece. There was also a lot of immigration from other countries by people looking for work, and Jews, Syrians, Phoenicians, and Libyans lived side by side with Egyptians, although we do not know in what exact numbers.
The Ptolemies wanted to control the Greek groups and not allow them to establish independent cities in the Greek style in Egypt. Rather, they wanted them to become part of the already established Egyptian cities, and the importance of this system was that it preserved the Greek people and kept them from mixing with the Egyptians.
But this concept was opposite to the vision of Alexander the Great, who had focused on bringing the groups together. Citizenship remained a difficult issue, with the Greeks only giving citizenship to the most important community members. The Jews constituted the largest foreign group in Egypt, and they had their own associations. The Egyptians lived under the Pharaoh and then the Ptolemaic rulers, when they were only allowed to hold lower-level positions in the administration.
More important positions were granted only to Greeks, but this situation changed as the Ptolemaic rulers grew weaker. They began to depend on Egyptians for the army during the reign of Ptolemy IV. After the victory at the Battle of Raphia, the ancient Egyptians gained more power and showed the Ptolemies that they were equal to the Greeks, asking for more rights in the army, the court, and the administration. When the Egyptians gained more power, they also began to revolt against the Ptolemies.
During the Ptolemaic Period, Greek was the language of the ruling elites in Egypt, but the Egyptians still spoke ancient Egyptian. The Pharaonic administration of Egypt was different from their own, so the Ptolemies began to develop the administration according to the needs of the time.
At first, they placed the centre of the administration in Alexandria, with the Greeks in charge. The most famous was Dimitrius Apollonius, and the most important position in the central government was the vizier of the treasury. He was the right arm of the king and held great power everywhere in the country. All other officials reported to him. There was also one set of laws for the Egyptians, another for the Greeks and foreigners, and a third for Greek cities within Egypt, like Naukratis. Each set of laws had different courts and judges.
The economy was divided into agriculture, trade, and factory production. The country’s agricultural land was divided up between the king, the temples, and nomes, or land grants, given to officials or the military. There was also a division between personal land and the land of the cities. The land of the king made up the majority of the agricultural land, which was then rented out to farmers. Because of the great amount of land belonging to the temples, the Ptolemies began to take the temple lands to decrease the power of the priests. The government began to grant land to officials instead of giving them salaries, which saved money for the royal treasury.
There is less information about industry and trade at this time, but we do know that there were factories for oil, salt, and textiles. The most important industry was making papyri, which was also made for export. We do not know if all the trade was controlled by the government, or if there was a degree of free trade.
Cultural life in the Ptolemaic Period was important, especially in Alexandria, which became the cultural capital of the known world at the time. Scientists and books were brought to Alexandria from all over the world, and its Library contained books in Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew, Phoenician, and other languages. This made Alexandria a centre of literature as well as science.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 31 March, 2022 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
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