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| {{History of Egypt}} | |||
| The conquests of ] brought '''Egypt within the orbit of the Greek world''' for almost 900 years. After 300 years of rule by the Macedonian Ptolemies, Egypt was incorporated into the ] in ], and was ruled first from ] and then from ] until the Persian and Arab conquests in ] and ] respectively. | |||
| ==Alexander the Great== | |||
| {{Egyptian Dynasty list}} | |||
| In ] ], King of ], conquered Egypt, with little resistance from the Persians. He was welcomed by the Egyptians as a deliverer. He visited ], and went on pilgrimage to the oracle of ] at the ]. The oracle declared him to be the son of Amun. He conciliated the Egyptians by the respect which he showed for their religion, but he appointed Greeks to virtually all the senior posts in the country, and founded a new Greek city, ], to be the new capital. The wealth of Egypt could now be harnessed for Alexander's conquest of the rest of the ]. Early in ] he was ready to depart, and led his forces away to Phoenicia. He left ] as the ruling ] to control Egypt in his absence. Alexander never returned to Egypt. | |||
| ==Ptolemaic Egypt== | |||
| ] | |||
| Following Alexander's death in ] in ], a ] erupted among his generals. Initially, ] ruled the empire as regent for Alexander's half-brother Arrhidaeus, who became ], and then as regent for both Philip III and Alexander's infant son ], who had not been born at the time of his father's death. Perdiccas appointed ], one of Alexander's closest companions, to be ] of Egypt. Ptolemy ruled Egypt from ], nominally in the name of the joint kings Philip III and Alexander IV. However, as Alexander the Great's empire disintegrated, Ptolemy soon established himself as ruler in his own right. Ptolemy successfully defended Egypt against an invasion by Perdiccas in ], and consolidated his position in Egypt and the surrounding areas during the ] (]-]). In ], Ptolemy took the title of King. As ] ("Saviour"), he founded the ] that was to rule Egypt for nearly 300 years. | |||
| All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name "Ptolemy", while princesses and queens preferred the names ] and ]. Because the Ptolemaic kings adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters, many of the kings ruled jointly with their spouses, who were also of the royal house. This custom made Ptolemaic politics confusingly incestuous, and the later Ptolemies were increasingly feeble. The only Ptolemaic Queens to officially rule on their own were ] and ]. ] did co-rule, but it was with another female, Berenice IV. ] officially co-ruled with ], ], and ], but effectively, she ruled Egypt alone. | |||
| The early Ptolemies did not disturb the religion or the customs of the Egyptians, and indeed built magnificent new temples for the Egyptian gods and soon adopted the outward display of the Pharaohs of old. During the reign of Ptolemies II and III thousands of Macedonian and Greek veterans were rewarded with grants of farm lands, and Greeks were planted in colonies and garrisons or settled themselves in the villages throughout the country. Upper Egypt, farthest from the centre of government, was less immediately affected, though Ptolemy I established the Greek colony of ] to be its capital, but within a century Greek influence had spread through the country and intermarriage had produced a large Greco-Egyptian educated class. Nevertheless, the Greeks always remained a privileged minority in Ptolemaic Egypt. They lived under Greek law, received a Greek education, were tried in Greek courts, and were citizens of Greek cities, just as they had been in Greece. The Egyptians were rarely admitted to the higher levels of Greek culture, in which most Egyptians were not in any case interested. | |||
| ===Ptolemy I=== | |||
| The first part of Ptolemy I's reign was dominated by the ] between the various ]s to the empire of Alexander. His first object was to hold his position in Egypt securely, and secondly to increase his domain. Within a few years he had gained control of ], ] (with ]), and ]. When ], ruler of ], tried to reunite Alexander's empire, Ptolemy joined the coalition against him. In ], allied with ], the ruler of ], he defeated ], the son of Antigonus, in the battle of ]. | |||
| In ] a peace was concluded between the combatants, but in ] war broke out again, and Ptolemy occupied ] and other parts of Greece, although he lost Cyprus after a sea-battle in ]. Antigonus then tried to invade Egypt but Ptolemy held the frontier against him. When the coalition was renewed against Antigonus in ], Ptolemy joined it, and when Antigonus was defeated and killed at ] in ] Ptolemy secured Palestine in the resulting settlement. Thereafter Ptolemy tried to stay out of land wars, but he retook Cyprus in ]. | |||
| Feeling the kingdom was now secure, Ptolemy abdicated in ] in favour of one of his younger sons by Queen ]. He devoted his retirement to writing a history of the campaigns of Alexander, which is unfortunately lost but was the principal source for the later work of ]. Ptolemy I died in ] at the age of 84. He left a stable and well-governed kingdom to his son. | |||
| ===Ptolemy II=== | |||
| ], who succeeded his father as King of Egypt in ], was a peaceable and cultured king, and no great warrior. He did not need to be, because his father had left Egypt strong and prosperous. Three years of campaigning at the start of his reign left Ptolemy the master of the eastern ], controlling the ] islands and the coastal districts of ], ], ] and ]. | |||
| Ptolemy's first wife, ], daughter of ], was the mother of his legitimate children. After her repudiation he followed Egypytian custom and married his sister, ], beginning a practice which, while pleasing to the Egyptian population, was to have serious consequences in later reigns. The material and literary splendour of the Alexandrian court was at its height under Ptolemy II. ], keeper of the ], ] and a host of other poets, glorified the Ptolemaic family. Ptolemy himself was eager to increase the library and to patronise scientific research. He spent lavishly on making Alexandria the economic, artistic and intellectual capital of the Greek world. It is to the academies and libraries of Alexandria that we owe the preservation of so much of the literary heritage of Ancient Greece. | |||
| ===Ptolemy III=== | |||
| ] ("the benefactor") succeeded his father in ]. He abandoned his predecessors' policy of keeping out of the wars of the other Greek kingdoms, and plunged into a war with the ] of ], when his sister, Queen Berenice, and her son were murdered in a dynastic dispute. Ptolemy marched triumphantly into the heart of the Seleucid realm, as far at any rate as ], while his fleets in the Aegean made fresh conquests as far north as ]. | |||
| This victory marked the zenith of the Ptolemaic power. ] kept his throne, but Egyptian fleets controlled most of the coasts of ] and Greece. After this triumph Ptolemy no longer engaged actively in war, although he supported the enemies of Macedon in Greek politics. His domestic policy differed from his father's in that he patronised the native Egyptian religion more liberally: he has left larger traces at any rate among the Egyptian monuments. In this his reign marks the gradual "Egyptianisation" of the Ptolemies. | |||
| ===The decline of the Ptolemies=== | |||
| In ] Ptolemy III died and was succeeded by his son ], a weak and corrupt king under whom the decline of the Ptolemaic kingdom began. His reign was inaugurated by the murder of his mother, and he was always under the influence of favourites, male and female, who controlled the government. Nevertheless his ministers were able to make serious preparations to meet the attacks of ] on Coele-Syria, and the great Egyptian victory of ] in ] secured the kingdom. A sign of the domestic weakness of his reign was rebellions by the native Egyptians. Philopator was devoted to orgiastic religions and to literature. He married his sister ], but was ruled by his mistress Agathoclea. | |||
| ], son of Philopator and Arsinoë, was a child when he came to the throne, and a series of regents ran the kingdom. Antiochus III and ] made a compact to seize the Ptolemaic possessions. Philip seized several islands and places in ] and ], while the ] in ] transferred Coele-Syria from Egypt to Syria. After this defeat Egypt formed an alliance with the rising power in the ], ]. Once he reached adulthood Epiphanes became a tyrant, before his early death in ]. He was succeeded by his infant son ]. | |||
| In ] ] invaded Egypt and deposed Philometor, and his younger brother (later ]) was installed as a puppet king. When Antiochus withdrew, the brothers agreed to reign jointly with their sister ]. They soon fell out, however, and quarrels between the two brothers allowed Rome to interfere and to steadily increase its influence in Egypt. Eventually Philometor regained the throne. In ] he was killed in the ]. | |||
| ===The later Ptolemies=== | |||
| Philometor was succeeded by yet another infant, his son ]. But Euergetes soon returned, killed his young nephew, seized the throne and as Ptolemy VIII soon proved himself a cruel tyrant. On his death in ] he left the kingdom to his wife ] and her son ]. The young king was driven out by his mother in ], who reigned jointly with Euergetes's younger brother ]. In ] Ptolemy IX again returned to the throne, and retained it until his death in ]. He was succeeded by ], the son of Ptolemy X. He was lynched by the Alexandria mob after murdering his mother. These sordid dynastic quarrels left Egypt so weakened that the country became a ''de facto'' protectorate of Rome, which had by now absorbed most of the Greek world. | |||
| ] | |||
| Ptolemy XI was succeeded by a son of Ptolemy IX, ], nicknamed Auletes, the flute-player. By now Rome was the arbiter of Egyptian affairs, and annexed both ] and ]. In ] Auletes was driven out by the Alexandrian mob, but the Romans restored him to power three years later. He died in ], leaving the kingdom to his ten-year-old son, ], who reigned jointly with his 17-year-old sister and wife, ]. | |||
| During Cleopatra's reign Egyptian history merged with the general history of the Roman world, owing to the murder of ] in Egypt in ] and the appearance in the country of ] in ]. In the wars of that period the young king perished and his younger brother, ], was nominally king with Cleopatra till ], when she had him murdered. From then till her death in ], Cleopatra's nominal co-ruler was her infant son by Caesar, ], known as ]. Cleopatra then made her last, and ultimately fatal, alliance with ], and when he was defeated by ], she killed herself. | |||
| ==Roman Egypt== | |||
| In ], following the death of Cleopatra, Egypt became part of the ] as the province ], governed by a prefect selected by the Emperor from the ] and not a governor from the Senatorial order, to prevent interference by the ]. The main Roman interest in Egypt was always the reliable delivery of grain to the city of ]. To this end the Roman administration made no change to the Ptolemaic system of government, although Romans replaced Greeks in the highest offices. But Greeks continued to staff most of the administrative offices and Greek remained the language of government except at the highest levels. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not settle in Egypt in large numbers. Culture, education and civic life largely remained Greek throughout the Roman period. The Romans, like the Ptolemies, respected and protected Egyptian religion and customs, although the cult of the Roman state and of the Emperor was gradually introduced. | |||
| ] | |||
| In his lifetime ] made extensive travels to among others ] and ]. | |||
| ===Roman rule in Egypt=== | ===Roman rule in Egypt=== | ||
Revision as of 13:13, 8 June 2006
Roman rule in Egypt
The first prefect of Egypt, Gaius Cornelius Gallus, brought Upper Egypt under Roman control by force of arms, established a protectorate over the southern frontier district, which had been abandoned by the later Ptolemies. The second prefect, Aelius Gallus, made an unsuccessful expedition to conquer Arabia: the Red Sea coast of Egypt was not brought under Roman control until the reign of Claudius. The third prefect, Gaius Petronius, cleared the neglected canals for irrigation, stimulating a revival of agriculture.
From the reign of Nero onwards, Egypt enjoyed an era of prosperity which lasted a century. Much trouble was caused by religious conflicts between the Greeks and the Jews, particularly in Alexandria, which after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 become the world centre of Jewish religion and culture. Under Trajan a Jewish revolt occurred, resulting in the suppression of the Jews of Alexandria and the loss of all their privileges, although they soon returned. Hadrian, who twice visited Egypt, founded Antinoöpolis in memory of his drowned lover Antinous. From his reign onwards buildings in the Greco-Roman style were erected throughout the country.
Under Marcus Aurelius, however, oppressive taxation led to a revolt (139) of the native Egyptians, which was suppressed only after several years of fighting. This Bucolic War caused great damage to the economy and marked the beginning of Egypt's economic decline. Avidius Cassius, who led the Roman forces in the war, declared himself Emperor, and was acknowledged by the armies of Syria and Egypt. On the approach of Marcus Aurelius, however, he was deposed and killed, and the clemency of the emperor restored peace. A similar revolt broke out in 193, when Pescennius Niger was proclaimed emperor on the death of Pertinax. The Emperor Septimius Severus gave a constitution to Alexandria and the provincial capitals in 202.
The most revolutionary event in the history of Roman Egypt was the introduction of Christianity in the 2nd century. It was at first vigorously persecuted by the Roman authorities, who feared religious discord more than anything else in a country where religion had always been paramount. But it soon gained adherents among the Jews of Alexandria. From them it rapidly passed to the Greeks, and then to the native Egyptians, who found its promise of personal salvation and its teachings of paradise in the afterlife appealing. The ancient religion of Egypt put up surprisingly little resistance to the spread of Christianity. Possibly its long history of collaboration with the Greek and Roman rulers of Egypt had robbed it of its authority.
3D red cyan glasses are recommended to view this image correctly.Caracalla (211-217) granted Roman citizenship to all Egyptians, in common with the other provincials, but this was mainly to extort more taxes, which grew increasingly onerous as the needs of the Emperors for more revenue grew more desperate. There was a series of revolts, both military and civilian, through the 3rd century. Under Decius, in 250, the Christians again suffered from persecution, but their religion continued to spread. In 272 Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, briefly conquered Egypt, but lost it when Aurelian crushed her rebellion against Rome. Two generals based in Egypt, Probus and Domitius Domitianus, led successful revolts and made themselves Emperor. Diocletian captured Alexandria from Domitius in 296 and reorganised the whole province. His edict of 303 against the Christians began a new era of persecution. But this was the last serious attempt to stem the steady growth of Christianity in Egypt.
Christian Egypt
- For the survival into modern times of Christianity in Egypt, see Coptic Christianity.
Egyptian Christians believe that the Patriarchate of Alexandria was founded by Mark the Evangelist around 33, but little is known about how Christianity entered Egypt. The historian Helmut Koester has suggested, with some evidence, that originally the Christians in Egypt were predominantly influenced by gnosticism until the efforts of Demetrius of Alexandria gradually brought the beliefs of the majority into harmony with the rest of Christianity. While the collective embarrassment over their heretical origins would explain the lack of details for the first centuries of Christianity in Egypt, there are too many gaps in the history of Roman times to claim that our ignorance in this situation is a special case.
Nevertheless, by 200 it is clear that Alexandria was one of the great Christian centres. The Christian apologists Clement of Alexandria and Origen both lived part or all of their lives in that city, where they wrote, taught, and debated.
With the Edict of Milan in 312, Constantine I ended the persecution of Christians, and in 324 he made Christianity the religion of the Empire. Over the course of the 4th century, paganism gradually lost its following, as the poet Palladius bitterly noted. It lingered underground for many decades: the final edict against paganism was issued in 390, but graffiti at Philae in Upper Egypt proves worship of Isis persisted at its temples into the 5th century. Many Egyptian Jews also became Christians, but many others refused to do so, leaving them as the only sizeable religious minority in a Christian country.
No sooner had the Egyptian Church achieved freedom and supremacy, however, than it became subject to schism and prolonged conflict which at times descended into civil war. Alexandria became the centre of the first great split in the Christian world, between the Arians, named for the Alexandrian priest Arius, and orthodoxy, represented by Athanasius, who became Archbishop of Alexandria in 326 after the First Council of Nicaea rejected Arius's views. The Arian controversy caused years of riots and rebellions throughout most of the fourth century. In the course of one of these, the great temple of Serapis, the stronghold of paganism, was destroyed. Athanasius was alternately expelled from Alexandria and reinstated as its Archbishop between five and seven times.
It was never easy to impose religious orthodoxy on Egypt, a country with an ancient tradition of religious speculation. Not only did Arianism flourish there, but other heresies, such as Gnosticism and Manichaeism, either native or imported, found many followers. Another religious development in Egypt was the monasticism of the Desert Fathers, who renounced the material world in order to live a life of poverty in devotion to the Church. Egyptian Christians took up monasticism with such enthusiasm that the Emperor Valens had to restrict the number of men who could become monks. Egypt exported monasticism to the rest of the Christian world. Another development of this period was the mutation of the Ancient Egyptian language into Coptic, which became the liturgical language of Egyptian Christianity and remains so to this day.
Byzantine Egypt
The reign of Constantine also saw the founding of Constantinople as a new capital for the Roman Empire, and in the course of the 4th century the Empire was divided in two, with Egypt finding itself in the Eastern Empire with its capital at Constantinople. This meant that within a few years Latin, never well established in Egypt, disappeared, and Greek reasserted itself as the language of government. During the 5th and 6th centuries the Eastern Roman Empire gradually became the Byzantine Empire, a Christian, Greek-speaking state that had little in common with the old Empire of Rome, which disappeared in the face of the barbarian invasions in the 5th century. Another consequence of the triumph of Christianity was the final demise of the pagan culture: with the disappearance of the old Egyptian priesthood, no-one could read the hieroglyphics of Pharaonic Egypt, and its temples were converted to churches or abandoned to the desert.
The Eastern Empire became increasingly "oriental" in style as its links with the old Græco-Roman world faded. The Greek system of local government by citizens had now entirely disappeared. Offices, with new Byzantine names, were almost hereditary in the wealthy land-owning families. Alexandria, the second city of the Empire, continued to be a centre of religious controversy and violence. Cyril, the patriarch of Alexandria, convinced the city's governor to expel the Jews from the city in 415 with the aid of the mob, in response to the Jews' nighttime massacre of many Christians. The murder of the philosopher Hypatia marked the final end of classical Hellenic culture in Egypt. Another schism in the Church produced a prolonged civil war and alienated Egypt from the Empire.
The new religious controversy was over the nature of the Trinity. The majority of the Christian world supported the orthodox view that God is three persons in one (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and that Jesus was therefore of the same nature as God. But Egypt was a stronghold of Monophysitism: the belief that God has only one nature, that of God the Father, and that Jesus (God the Son) and the Holy Spirit are of a different nature: they are from God but not of God. This may seem an arcane distinction, but in an intensely religious age it was enough to divide an empire. The Monophysite controversy arose after the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and continued until the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which ruled in favour of the orthodox position. Many of the monophysites claimed that they were misunderstood, that there was really no difference between their position and the orthodox position, and that the Council of Chalcedon ruled against them because of political motivations. But Egypt and Syria remained hotbeds of Monophysite sentiment, and organised resistance to the orthodox view was not suppressed until the 570s.
The reign of Justinian (482–565) saw the Empire recapture Rome and much of Italy from the barbarians, but these successes left the Empire's eastern flank exposed.
Persian and Arab Conquests
The Persian occupation of Egypt, beginning in 619 or 618, was one of the triumphs in the last Sassanid war against Byzantium. Khosrow II Parvêz had begun this war in retaliation for the assassination of Emperor Maurice (582-602) and had achieved a series of early successes, culminating in the conquests of Jerusalem (614) and Alexandria (619). A Byzantine counteroffensive launched by Emperor Heraclius in spring 622 shifted the advantage, however, and the war was brought to an end by the fall of Khosrow on 25 February 628 (Frye, pp. 167-70). The Egyptians had no love of the Emperor in Constantinople and put up little resistance. Khosrow's son and successor, Kavadh II Šêrôe (Šêrôy), who reigned until September, concluded a peace treaty returning territories conquered by the Sassanids to the Eastern Roman Empire.
The Persian occupation allowed Monophysitism to resurface in Egypt, and when imperial rule was restored by Emperor Heraclius in 629, the Monophysites were persecuted and their patriarch expelled. Egypt was thus in a state of both religious and political alienation from the Empire when a new invader appeared.
An army of 4,000 Arabs led by Amr ibn al-As, was sent by the Caliph Umar, successor to the Prophet Muhammad, to spread his new faith, Islam, to the west. The Arabs crossed into Egypt from Palestine in December 639, and advanced rapidly into the Nile Delta. The Imperial garrisons retreated into the walled towns, where they successfully held out for a year or more. But the Arabs sent for reinforcements, and in April 641 they captured Alexandria, thus completing the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Most of the Egyptian Christians welcomed their new rulers: the accession of a new regime meant for them the end of the persecutions by the Byzantine state church. Thus ended 973 years of Græco-Roman rule over Egypt.
See also
External links
References
- Bowman, Alan Keir. 1996. Egypt After the Pharaohs: 332 BC–AD 642; From Alexander to the Arab Conquest. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press
- Chauveau, Michel. 2000. Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra: History and Society under the Ptolemies. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
- Ellis, Simon P. 1992. Graeco-Roman Egypt. Shire Egyptology 17, ser. ed. Barbara G. Adams. Aylesbury: Shire Publications, ltd.
- Hölbl, Günther. 2001. A History of the Ptolemaic Empire. Translated by Tina Saavedra. London: Routledge Ltd.
- Lloyd, Alan Brian. 2000. "The Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BC)". In The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 395–421
- Peacock, David. 2000. "The Roman Period (30 BC–AD 311)". In The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. 422–445
