The Historians' History of the World 04

Ptolemy, besides being an excellent general, was evidently a man of rather wide culture and varied attainments. His capacities have been sometimes accounted for by the suggestion that he was probably in fact the half-brother of Alexander the Great, as his mother had been a concubine of Philip; though his royal paternity, if indeed a fact, was never officially recognised. Be that as it may, Ptolemy was a man of great ability as a ruler, and his general culture is evidenced by the fact that he wrote a history of the life and campaigns of Alexander, which work, as we have already seen, was one of the two chief sources from which the history of Arrian was compiled.

The first Ptolemy founded, and his successors enlarged and extended, the famous Alexandrian library, which came to be by far the most important collection of books that had probably been gathered together anywhere in the world up to that time, comprising, it is said, no fewer than half a million manuscripts. In connection with the library was an institution which was virtually a college, where the most distinguished scholars of the day studied and taught. The language and the entire official life thus transplanted into Old Egypt were of course Grecian. All official connection with the mother country was soon utterly broken; the kingdom of the Ptolemies, as a political factor, was a thing quite apart; but in the broader sense the new Egyptian power was essentially Greek. Alexandria, the new Athens, became the centre of Greek life, thought, and influence; it was there, rather than to Athens itself, that the youth flocked from the provinces to drink at that fount of Grecian culture which still maintained its influence in the world for generations after the original Hellas had been shattered in power and shorn of all political significance.

But the time came when the Egyptian empire also was to come in conflict with the Romans. The tragic romance of Cleopatra, the last daughter of the Ptolemies, is known to every one, though curiously enough the patent fact is often overlooked that this “daughter of the Nile” was in no proper sense an Egyptian, but to the last drop of her blood a Macedonian Greek, bearing the name even of one of the wives of the father of Alexander the Great. It was this Egyptian empire of the Ptolemies, then, which served as the direct channel of transit of the old Grecian culture to Rome, somewhat as Persia had been the channel of transit of Egyptian and Babylonian culture to Greece. It was a curious and interesting revival through which Egypt, which for some centuries had ceased to play an important part in the great game of the nations, came to be again the centre of culture of the entire world, even though this time it bore an exotic and not an indigenous culture.

But though this empire of the Ptolemies had thus a vastly greater importance than the other portions of Alexander’s dismembered empire, we shall treat its history somewhat briefly here, since we must necessarily return to some phases of it more in detail in pursuing the history of that Roman power by which the kingdom of the Ptolemies was finally overthrown.a

The Kingdom of the Ptolemies: the Thirty-third Egyptian Dynastyd

Years

Began

B.C.

Lagus or Soter reigned

38

323

Philadelphus

38

285

Euergetes

25

247

Philopator

17

222

Epiphanes

24

204

Philometor

35

181

Physcon or Euergetes II

29

146

Soter II or Lathyrus

10

117

Alexander I (Soter deposed)

18

107

Soter II restored

7

89

Berenice

6 months

81

Alexander II

6 months

80

Neus Dionysus or Auletes

14

80

Ptolemy the Elder

4

51

Ptolemy the Younger

3

48

Cleopatra

14

44

Egypt a Roman province

30

When Egypt was given to Ptolemy by the council of generals, Cleomenes was at the same time and by the same power made second in command, and he governed Egypt for one year before Ptolemy’s arrival, that being in name the first year of the reign of Philip Arrhidæus, or, according to the chronologer’s mode of dating, the first year after Alexander’s death. The first act of Ptolemy was to put Cleomenes to death.

[321-316 B.C.]

Perdiccas, in the death of Cleomenes and the seizure of the body of Alexander, had seen quite enough proof that Ptolemy, though too wise to take the name of king, had in reality grasped the power; and he now led the Macedonian army against Egypt, to enforce obedience and to punish the rebellious lieutenant.

Perdiccas attempted to cross the Nile at the deep fords below Memphis. Part of his army passed the first ford, though the water was up to the men’s breasts. But they could not pass the second ford in the face of Ptolemy’s army. After this check, whole bodies of men, headed by their generals, left their ranks; and among them Pithon, a general who had held the same rank under Alexander as Perdiccas himself, and who would no longer put up with his haughty commands. Upon this the disorder spread through the whole army, and Perdiccas soon fell by the hand of one of his own soldiers.