Like many Egyptologists, the Ptolemies make me somewhat uncomfortable. It’s a cliché to say that the Ptolemaic interval (323-30 BC) has been considered too Egyptian for many classicists and too Greek for a lot of Egyptologists. A lot has been written in regards to the interval from each views, however a superb high quality synthesis has confirmed elusive.
Many research have, understandably, centered on the glamorous ultimate star of the Ptolemaic stage, Queen Cleopatra VII (50-30 BC). However given the comparative dominance of Egypt, Greece and Rome in research of the traditional world, it’s shocking that the entire Ptolemaic interval has not been topic to extra well-liked curiosity. Just like the proverbial bus, you wait ages for one and two present up directly.
Toby Wilkinson educated as an Egyptologist and is understood for his well-liked remedies of a spread of Pharaonic topics. Right here he turns his consideration to the final dynasty, proving particularly adept at connecting the Ptolemies with Egypt’s historical traditions. Whereas a newer convert to Egyptological pursuits, Romanist Man de la Bédoyère covers the identical timespan with related aplomb. He frames his narrative with the gradual look of Rome on the horizon.
Each make in depth use of official texts – typically the identical ones – however examine and distinction them with a variety of latest documentary accounts (which have survived in profusion) and the phrases of (often later and biased) classical authors. This synthesis of sources builds a dynamic image of the interval, one thing typically lacking for a lot of the remainder of the traditional world and Egypt specifically.
Though most individuals know in regards to the ignominious finish of the Ptolemies, the ambition of the dynasty’s institution is breathtaking. Ptolemy I (367-283 BC) emerges in each books as a particularly compelling character, even in comparison with his childhood pal and predecessor Alexander of Macedon. Having had the audacity to primarily kidnap Alexander’s physique in Syria whereas nonetheless solely satrap (‘governor’) of Egypt, Ptolemy was accountable for creating Alexandria into the magnificent hub it grew to become, whereas additionally sustaining army sense and pursuing a formidable quantity of studying. It’s most likely not an excessive amount of of a spoiler to say that his successors weren’t almost so adept on the enterprise of presidency.
Due to the character of the posthumous division of Alexander’s territorial possessions, the household of Ptolemy I used to be related to a number of royal homes within the jap Mediterranean. This included the Seleucid empire of western Asia. A lot wrangling occurred over management of Cyrenaica (on the Libyan coast), elements of Syria and Cyprus. Retaining observe of names is somewhat complicated – which Antiochus hated which Ptolemy is commonly tough to totally fathom. Each books carry useful household timber and timelines.
The internecine and incestuous household relationships among the many Ptolemies and their relations make for powerful or titillating studying, relying in your perspective. In the event you can sustain with them, the intrigues, alliances, co-regencies and revolts present an virtually unparalleled perception into historical palace life. Maybe most informatively, one can nuance the obvious private energy of particular person
royal figures with the importance of court docket officers – the scheming Sosibius within the court docket of Ptolemy IV, for instance – and one is left questioning simply how atypical the intrigues of the Ptolemaic court docket have been, given the dearth of equally detailed documentation for earlier Pharaonic dynasties.
Amid all of the documented squabbling and bloodshed, it’s notable simply how necessary a place royal ladies held. Regardless of the deal with Cleopatra VII it’s clear her foremothers have been politically lively and extremely regarded, sharing the prescribed divinity of their male co-regents and seen as ‘Feminine Pharaoh’ and ‘Feminine Horus’ – designations that eluded even essentially the most highly effective regnant queens of the Pharaonic period. How ingrained within the Egyptian ‘character’ this prominence of feminine energy was is tough to say, however it could even have been a results of Macedonian concepts about elite ladies’s roles. Nevertheless the scenario took place, it actually confirmed later Roman assessments of the oriental decadence of Egypt underneath the Ptolemies.
As de la Bédoyère makes clear, the Roman encounter with Egypt predated by properly over a century the assembly of Cleopatra and Julius Caesar in 48 BC. It’s rightly emphasised that Rome appeared somewhat instantly as a superpower after the Punic Wars – and that had the Ptolemies and their neighbouring royal homes not been combating amongst one another then they may have been, in confederation, a critical rival to Rome. It could shock some readers that the connection was, for a time, a two-way road: Rome begged Egypt for grain whereas Egypt needed to later request Roman assist in giving sanctuary to, and assuring the succession of, the Ptolemaic throne. The dying of Cleopatra, regardless of the melodrama, was a important second for Egypt, though the realities of a triumph of West over East aren’t easy; each authors emphasise the legacy of the Ptolemaic interval on Egypt underneath Roman rule – and the irony that Octavian, as Emperor Augustus, indulged within the very self-aggrandisement he claimed to despise when he mocked Egyptian customs.
Regardless of the disaffection of some students and the broader public, the Ptolemies loom massive within the preserved traces of ‘historical Egypt’ accessible to vacationers. A few of the best-preserved temples – Dendera, Edfu, Esna, Kom Ombo, Philae – are largely of Ptolemaic design. In contrast to earlier Pharaonic works, which have been added to over millennia, these have been the manifestation of a single plan – albeit one which may (as at Edfu) have taken properly over a century to understand. Relationships between the Greek-speaking court docket and the indigenous Egyptian temple are properly documented in official pronouncements – essentially the most well-known being the Memphis Decree of 196 BC, higher referred to as the textual content on the Rosetta Stone. Heavy on such textual sources, and within the absence of a lot of the structure of historical Alexandria, de la Bédoyère makes the insightful level that as a result of we lack the mortal stays of the Ptolemies – though Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III have been apparently cremated, the expectation have to be that the majority have been mummified – this deprives commentators of an added aspect to reconstruct historic occasions. If the survival of earlier New Kingdom royal our bodies is something to go by, such a supply of proof would supply however an unhelpful distraction.
Based mostly on this wealth of latest documentation, each authors carry to life a way of the considerations of bizarre individuals in Egypt in Ptolemaic occasions. This may appear somewhat miserable, because the sources clarify the systematic exploitation of Egypt by the Ptolemaic administration: rapacious taxation on virtually the whole lot that might be taxed. The agricultural yield – or the potential for it – was one purpose, as Wilkinson observes, that the Ptolemies’ Hellenistic rivals seemed on Egypt so covetously. Wilkinson and de la Bédoyère each convey an actual sense of the uneasy relationship between the Macedonian elite and the Egyptian inhabitants. Of the documentation that has survived from an space just like the Faiyum, of those who protect written complaints most are from Egyptians in opposition to Greeks.
Each books are framed – as a lot by publishers’ steering as by their authors’ beliefs – by a way of finality. But for many bizarre Egyptians, as for many historical topics of contested land, the Roman conquest would have had little impression on their day by day lives. ‘Historic Egypt’ by no means actually ‘fell’ – it merely tailored to its circumstances. Undoubtedly, although, the personalities, politics and priorities of the Ptolemaic interval made for distinctive circumstances. Exploring them is a wild experience however one properly price taking, even for these – like me – who haven’t felt snug selecting up a ebook like both of those earlier than.
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The Final Dynasty: Historic Egypt from Alexander the Nice to Cleopatra
Toby Wilkinson
Bloomsbury, 384pp, £25
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The Fall of Egypt and the Rise of Rome: A Historical past of the Ptolemies
Man de la Bédoyère
Yale College Press, 384pp, £25
Purchase from bookshop.org (affiliate hyperlink)
Campbell Value is Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum and Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society.
