Greek control of Egypt began in 332 BC, when Alexander the Great of Macedon otherthrew the Persian rulers and established Alexandria as the capital of Greek governed Egypt. Alexander showed great respect for the local customs and cultures. He even visited the Oracle of Amun (in present-day Siwa), where he was (conveniently) proclaimed the heir of Amun-Re. While introducing some aspects of Greek (or Hellenistic) culture, Alexander allowed the native Egyptians to continue many of their own administrative functions and for many years, military and civilian administrations were kept separate.
In 331 BC, Alexander departed Egypt for the East, leaving Cleomenes in charge of the kingdom in his absence. Upon Alexander’s death in Babylon in 323, Egypt was rocked by a succession crisis, which pitted many of Alexander’s former colleagues against one another. Eventually one of his top generals and childhood friends, Ptolemy ascended the throne as Pharaoh and ushered in 300 years of Ptolemaic rule.
Ptolemaic Egypt was a culturally and intellectually lively place. Under the guidance of his teacher, Demetrius Phalereus (who was in turn a former pupil of Aristotle), Ptolemy built the Museum and Library of Alexandria and invited scholars from all around the world to come and join the intellectual community of the city. Many great thinkers were nurtured during this time, among them: Euclid, the famous mathematician, Eratosthenes, the mathematician and geographer who used measurements of the angle of the sun at two different places in Egypt to estimate the circumference of the Earth to be 39,690 kilometers (an error of less than 1%), and in later years, the Roman Ptolemy, an astronomer and geographer who grew up within Greek culture and whose maps of the period are renown for their accuracy and completeness.
It was at the Great Library of Alexandria that the Jewish Old Testament was translated into Greek for the first time: the Septuagint. According to Jewish tradition, Ptolemy II called upon 72 Jewish scholars and placed them in separate chambers with the task of writing out the Torah in Greek. The 72 separate accounts were said to have been virtually identical. The translation of the Old Testament into Greek allowed it's stories to be spread throughout the Mediterranean World and may have had a major influence on the rise of Christianity a few centuries later. But Judaism was not the only emerging religion that influenced the culture of the great city of Alexandria. The Buddhist King of India, Ashoka the Great also sent Buddhist missionaries to the court of Ptolemy II and Buddhist graves have been unearthed from Alexandria in this period. It has even been suggested that certain Ptolemaic Greek philosophers may have been influenced by Buddhism at this time and that they in turn influenced the early development of Christianity.
On the whole, the early Ptolemaic rulers enjoyed a good relationship with the local population. They built temples to the Egyptian Gods and integrated their own dynasties into the Pharaonic tradition. During the reign of Ptolemy II and III, many Greek veterans and merchants began to settle in Lower Egypt. Greek citizens still enjoyed the benefits of Greek law and Greek education. Within a century, Greek culture had spread through the country and inter-marriage had created an Egyptian and Greek educated elite.
Ptolemaic Egypt however, was not without its weaknesses. Its rulers were extremely incestuous, often marrying their brothers and sisters as to control political power. It is said that Cleopatra had only six different great grandparents (out of a possible sixteen). This inbreeding no doubt contributed to the decline of the family. Later rulers abused their power and extended their authority, especially over Upper Egypt, which had been fairly insulated from Greek influence up until this point. Towards the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt, conflicts within the family emerged and public uprisings threatened the peace of the kingdom. By the time the Romans had began to assert their power in the Mediterranean, Ptolemaic Egypt’s end was nigh. The famous story of Anthony and Cleopatra concludes the Ptolemaic story. In 30 BC, the Roman army sacked Alexandria and Cleopatra committed suicide. This was to be the end of Greek rule in Egypt, although many aspects of Greek or Hellenistic culture continued under Roman rule.
