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Authors: Justin Pollard
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the Asian satrapies, the descendants of Seleucus (who had been one of the assassins of Perdiccas) would govern this part of the former Persian Empire; while in Egypt, Ptolemy intended to found his own dynasty.
Ptolemy had set the tone for the new order in Egypt and, fired by the same drive that had taken him and his master to the Indian subcontinent, set about subduing the city-states of North Africa.
By 321 BC the wealthy but isolated city of Cyrene, lying between Egypt and Tunisia, had fallen to him. As one of Alexander’s conquests it was a state Ptolemy rightfully felt was his for the taking, having only recently come under the rule of a Spartan adventurer in the chaos following Alexander’s death. But in retaking the city he showed himself to have learned from his master’s diplomatic mistakes. He did not replace tyrant Spartan rule with a dictatorship of his own but with a liberal constitution. Under the “Ptolemaic constitution” the state was to be ruled by ten thousand privileged citizens arranged into two councils and a popular court, in a plan not dissimilar to that proposed by Hippodamus. He did not go so far as to let the Cyrenians think they could rule themselves alone, of course, appointing himself as their guardian in perpetuity.
In an age which celebrated outright conquest, this defensive imperialism was not only novel, it was successful and sustainable. Ptolemy pushed on farther west beyond Cyrene to take control of the profitable trans-Saharan trade routes bringing gold, ivory, and slaves from Central and West Africa. To the east and north he seized Palestine and parts of Syria, as well as Cyprus and the Aegean islands of the Cyclades. This gave him control of lucrative trade routes but, more important, created a buffer zone where he could contest disputes with his Persian and Macedonian rivals, leaving the Egyptian heartland stable and free from warfare for generations to come. Ptolemy had been the only successor to Alexander not to want to inherit that whole empire. He did not want new territories, just enough friendly or subject states around him to protect the core of his plan—Egypt. He had taken a dependent satrapy and forged it into an independent nation. The physical structure for the Ptolemaic age was now in place; it simply needed to be brought to life.
CHAPTER THREE
EGYPT REBORN
Egypt has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.
Herodotus, The Histories
D uring Ptolemy’s lifetime, the body of Alexander was not the only god resting in Memphis. Apis, the bull god of the city, was, at least to the native Egyptians, easily as important as the mummified remains of the conqueror of the world, and the representation of this deity was a living bull kept in its own temple and treated with the respect due to the earthly manifestation of a god.
It was a peculiarly Egyptian idea. The Apis bull had been a powerful symbol in Egypt since the very first dynasties well over two thousand years earlier. Originally it had represented the power and will of the pharaoh himself, later being thought to represent the god Ptah, whose center of worship was at Memphis. By Ptolemy’s day, however, the animal had come to represent the incarnation of Osiris, the lord of the dead, who was usually depicted in human form, wrapped and mummified for burial. According to Plutarch, the bull was then the living aspect of this dead god or, as he put it, “the beautiful image of the soul of Osiris” (Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, chapter 20, in Moralia ).
To Egyptians the presence of this living creature was a manifestation of a god on earth, more holy than the sacred cows that walk unmolested through the streets of Indian cities. When the bull died, the whole of Egypt went into seventy days of mourning and fasting, during which time the carcass of the huge animal was mummified and prepared for a lavish funeral. The body was then
Ptolemy had set the tone for the new order in Egypt and, fired by the same drive that had taken him and his master to the Indian subcontinent, set about subduing the city-states of North Africa.
By 321 BC the wealthy but isolated city of Cyrene, lying between Egypt and Tunisia, had fallen to him. As one of Alexander’s conquests it was a state Ptolemy rightfully felt was his for the taking, having only recently come under the rule of a Spartan adventurer in the chaos following Alexander’s death. But in retaking the city he showed himself to have learned from his master’s diplomatic mistakes. He did not replace tyrant Spartan rule with a dictatorship of his own but with a liberal constitution. Under the “Ptolemaic constitution” the state was to be ruled by ten thousand privileged citizens arranged into two councils and a popular court, in a plan not dissimilar to that proposed by Hippodamus. He did not go so far as to let the Cyrenians think they could rule themselves alone, of course, appointing himself as their guardian in perpetuity.
In an age which celebrated outright conquest, this defensive imperialism was not only novel, it was successful and sustainable. Ptolemy pushed on farther west beyond Cyrene to take control of the profitable trans-Saharan trade routes bringing gold, ivory, and slaves from Central and West Africa. To the east and north he seized Palestine and parts of Syria, as well as Cyprus and the Aegean islands of the Cyclades. This gave him control of lucrative trade routes but, more important, created a buffer zone where he could contest disputes with his Persian and Macedonian rivals, leaving the Egyptian heartland stable and free from warfare for generations to come. Ptolemy had been the only successor to Alexander not to want to inherit that whole empire. He did not want new territories, just enough friendly or subject states around him to protect the core of his plan—Egypt. He had taken a dependent satrapy and forged it into an independent nation. The physical structure for the Ptolemaic age was now in place; it simply needed to be brought to life.
CHAPTER THREE
EGYPT REBORN
Egypt has more wonders in it than any other country in the world and provides more works that defy description than any other place.
Herodotus, The Histories
D uring Ptolemy’s lifetime, the body of Alexander was not the only god resting in Memphis. Apis, the bull god of the city, was, at least to the native Egyptians, easily as important as the mummified remains of the conqueror of the world, and the representation of this deity was a living bull kept in its own temple and treated with the respect due to the earthly manifestation of a god.
It was a peculiarly Egyptian idea. The Apis bull had been a powerful symbol in Egypt since the very first dynasties well over two thousand years earlier. Originally it had represented the power and will of the pharaoh himself, later being thought to represent the god Ptah, whose center of worship was at Memphis. By Ptolemy’s day, however, the animal had come to represent the incarnation of Osiris, the lord of the dead, who was usually depicted in human form, wrapped and mummified for burial. According to Plutarch, the bull was then the living aspect of this dead god or, as he put it, “the beautiful image of the soul of Osiris” (Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, chapter 20, in Moralia ).
To Egyptians the presence of this living creature was a manifestation of a god on earth, more holy than the sacred cows that walk unmolested through the streets of Indian cities. When the bull died, the whole of Egypt went into seventy days of mourning and fasting, during which time the carcass of the huge animal was mummified and prepared for a lavish funeral. The body was then
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