The Ptolemaic Kingdom (or Empire) was one of the successor states to the Macedonian Empire created by the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BCE. When Alexander died in Babylon in 323, Ptolemy, as one of his most favoured generals and bodyguards, was appointed satrap (governor) of Egypt, Libya and parts of Arabia.
[1]
[2]
The next few decades after 323 were characterized by incessant warfare between those who wished to maintain the unity of the Macedonian Empire, nominally still intact,
[3]
and those who aspired to rule their own kingdoms independently.
[2]
Ptolemy was firmly on the separatist side, and in 305 BCE he successfully declared himself king of Egypt. In doing so, he became Ptolemy I Soter (’the saviour’)
[4]
, founder of a powerful dynasty (sometimes known as the Lagides, after his father Lagos)
[5]
that was to rule Egypt for almost three centuries.
Ptolemy I and his successors had expansionist ambitions, seeking to carve out more and more territory for their new kingdom, often at the expense of the other kingdoms that had splintered from Alexander’s empire, especially the Seleucid Kingdom of the Middle East.
[6]
At its greatest extent, the Ptolemaic Empire reached as far south as Lower Nubia (southern Egypt), west to Cyrenaica (modern-day Libya), east to Cyprus, Syria, Phoenicia and Asia Minor (Turkey), and north into the Aegean.
[7]
In the words of one researcher, Egypt became for the first time a true ’Mediterranean power’ under its new Macedonian rulers.
[6]
The peak of the Ptolemaic period is generally considered to correspond to the reigns of the first three Ptolemies in the 3rd century BCE.
[8]
We divide the kingdom into two polities: the first begins with Ptolemy I’s accession in 305 and ends with the Battle of Raphia in 217. In this battle, Ptolemy IV defeated the Seleucid king Antiochus III, who had invaded Ptolemaic-controlled lands in Palestine.
[9]
The late 3rd and early 2nd centuries saw conflict within the ruling family and revolts by the Egyptian population, representing an ’age of crisis’ between two periods of relative stability.
[10]
Our second polity runs from 217 up to the famous suicide of Cleopatra VII, the last ruler in the Ptolemaic line, and the Roman annexation of Egypt in 30 BCE.
[3]
[11]
Overall, the Ptolemies were a successful dynasty: in concert with their expansionist policies, they managed to transform Egypt ‒ and the new city of Alexandria in particular ‒ into the cultural and economic centre of the Hellenistic world.
[12]
Population and Political Organization
The Ptolemies were the longest-lived foreign dynasty ever to rule Egypt.
[13]
They presided over a ’double society’, portraying themselves as Graeco-Macedonian kings to the many resident Greeks and divine pharaohs to the ’native’ Egyptian population.
[14]
[15]
Greeks and Egyptians were subject to different judicial systems and Greeks tended to dominate the highest echelons of society.
[16]
[17]
Alexandria, built as an ideal Greek-style Hellenistic city with its magnificent library, stadium, theatre, gymnasium and lighthouse, was always set apart from the rest of the country.
[18]
[19]
Over time, however, and especially from 200 BCE onwards, the boundaries between ’Greek’ and ’Egyptian’ became blurred.
[20]
The chief aim of government was to draw as much revenue ‒ in money and in wheat ‒ as possible from the population, and for this reason the burden of taxation was heavy.
[21]
The Ptolemies left many Pharaonic Egyptian institutions intact, such as the temple hierarchy with its priests and scribes. However, they used state functionaries and tax farmers to divert more and more wealth from temples, agricultural estates, especially those of granted to soldiers (known as cleruchs), and ordinary peasant farmers to the royal coffers.
[22]
Egypt under the Ptolemies also became more outward-looking, extending commercial and political power into the Levant, the Black Sea and the shores of the Mediterranean as far west as Sicily.
[23]
The population of Egypt during the Ptolemaic period has been estimated at around 4 million people in the 3rd century BCE, of which between 5 and 10 percent were Greeks.
[24]
The total population of the entire Ptolemaic Empire may have reached 7 million.
[25]
[1]: (Hӧlbl 2001, 12, 14) Günther Hӧlbl. 2001. A History of the Ptolemaic Empire. London: Routledge.
[2]: (Lloyd 2000, 389) Alan B. Lloyd. 2000. ’The Ptolemaic Period (332-30 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 388-413. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[3]: (Lloyd 2010, xl) Alan B. Lloyd. 2010. ’Chronology’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, xxxii-xliii. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[4]: (Thompson 2005, 113) Dorothy J. Thompson. 2005. ’The Ptolemies and Egypt’, in A Companion to the Hellenistic World, edited by Andrew Erskine, 105-20. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
[5]: (Myśliwiec 2000, 179) Karol Myśliwiec. 2000. The Twilight of Ancient Egypt: First Millennium B.C.E., translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
[6]: (Vandorpe 2010, 169) Katelijn Vandorpe. 2010. ’The Ptolemaic Period’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 159-79. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[7]: (Vandorpe 2010, 169-71) Katelijn Vandorpe. 2010. ’The Ptolemaic Period’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 159-79. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[8]: (Chauveau 2000, 11) Michel Chauveau. 2000. Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra, translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
[9]: (Lloyd 2000, 394) Alan B. Lloyd. 2000. ’The Ptolemaic Period (332-30 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 388-413. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[10]: (Vandorpe 2010, 165-66) Katelijn Vandorpe. 2010. ’The Ptolemaic Period’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 159-79. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[11]: (Newman 2015) Frances Stickney Newman. 2015. ’Cleopatra VII’, in Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press. Accessed 22 February 2017.
[12]: (Vandorpe 2010, 173-75) Katelijn Vandorpe. 2010. ’The Ptolemaic Period’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 159-79. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[13]: (Vandorpe 2010, 159) Katelijn Vandorpe. 2010. ’The Ptolemaic Period’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 159-79. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[14]: (Chauveau 2000, 33, 37) Michel Chauveau. 2000. Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra, translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
[15]: (Vandorpe 2010, 171) Katelijn Vandorpe. 2010. ’The Ptolemaic Period’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 159-79. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[16]: (Manning 2003, 53, 131) J. G. Manning. 2003. Land and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Structure of Land Tenure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[17]: (Lloyd 2000, 409) Alan B. Lloyd. 2000. ’The Ptolemaic Period (332-30 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 388-413. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[18]: (Vandorpe 2010, 174) Katelijn Vandorpe. 2010. ’The Ptolemaic Period’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 159-79. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[19]: (Lloyd 2000, 400-01) Alan B. Lloyd. 2000. ’The Ptolemaic Period (332-30 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 388-413. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[20]: (Vandorpe 2010, 171-73) Katelijn Vandorpe. 2010. ’The Ptolemaic Period’, in A Companion to Ancient Egypt, Volume 1, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, 159-79. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
[21]: (Chauveau 2000, 78) Michel Chauveau. 2000. Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra, translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
[22]: (Lloyd 2000, 404-05) Alan B. Lloyd. 2000. ’The Ptolemaic Period (332-30 BC)’, in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw, 388-413. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[23]: (Thompson and Buraselis 2013, 2-4) Dorothy J. Thompson and Kostas Buraselis. ’Introduction’, in The Ptolemies, the Sea and the Nile: Studies in Waterborne Power, edited by Kostas Buraselis, Mary Stefanou and Dorothy J. Thompson, 1-18. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[24]: (Fischer-Bovet 2011, 135-37) Christelle Fischer-Bovet. 2011. ’Counting the Greeks in Egypt: Immigration in the First Century of Ptolemaic Rule’, in Demography in the Graeco-Roman World, edited by C. Holleran and A. Pudsey, 135-54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[25]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 149) Christelle Fischer-Bovet. 2014. Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
| none |
| Greek World |
| Ptolemaic Kingdom II |
| [3,500,000 to 4,000,000] km2 |
| continuation |
| Preceding: Macedonian Empire (gr_macedonian_emp) [continuity] | |
| Succeeding: Ptolemaic Kingdom II (eg_ptolemaic_k_2) [continuity] |
| unitary state |
| unknown |
| inferred present |
| inferred present |
| present |
| absent |
| unknown |
| present |
| unknown |
| unknown |
| absent |
| absent |
| Year Range | Ptolemaic Kingdom I (eg_ptolemaic_k_1) was in: |
|---|---|
| (305 BCE 300 BCE) | Upper Egypt |
| (300 BCE 218 BCE) | Upper Egypt Galilee |
| (218 BCE 199 BCE) | Galilee |
Alexandria. There was also a southern capital for the administration of Upper Egypt, including Red Sea trade, at Ptolemais.
Ptolemy declares himself "King" in 305 BC; Battle of Raphia 217 BCE
km squared.
The demotic Egyptian language, spoken and written, was very important during the beginning of the period, a continuation of scribal practice from the Persian period. Very little Greek administrative texts survive until the reign of Ptolemy II. The general assumption is that this does not reflect accidence of survival but a time lag to establish Greek within the bureaucratic system. It took, thus, roughly 75 to 50 years (counting from either Alexander’s conquest or from 320bc) before the Greek language becomes dominant.
The demotic Egyptian language, spoken and written, was very important during the beginning of the period, a continuation of scribal practice from the Persian period. Very little Greek administrative texts survive until the reign of Ptolemy II. The general assumption is that this does not reflect accidence of survival but a time lag to establish Greek within the bureaucratic system. It took, thus, roughly 75 to 50 years (counting from either Alexander’s conquest or from 320bc) before the Greek language becomes dominant.
EWA: 300 BCE: it is still Memphis approx. 100,000 (Jeffries); 140,000-80,000 as another estimate by Thompson (1988). [Need to update the code above]; Alexandria was only established at 310 BCE.Alexandria around 100 BCE was around 500,000.
Alexandria: 100,000: 300 BCE, [200,000-300,000]: 220 BCE; [300,000-500,000] 150-30 BCE
Alexandria. At height c280 BCE. 1,000,000 according to Preaux based on Diodorus claim of 300,000 free population. Stille says about 600,000.
[1]
300,000 and 250,000 in 200 BCE and 100 CE according to the Chase-Dunn spreadsheet.
[2]
Alexandria: "Diodorus - who flourished in the mid- and latter part of the first century B.C./early first century A.D. and who claimed to be relying on official information - estimated the free population of Alexandria was 300,000 (17.52.6). It is not clear if this number included women and children. Strabo, who lived at the end of the first century B.C./early first century A.D., would appear to suggest a figure of approximately 500,000-600,000."
[3]
Ptolemaic Egypt had three big cities. The largest one is Alexandria on which the data above applies. The numbers for both Memphis and Ptolemais is between 50-100K.
In 60 BCE Polybius said Alexandria was the most populous city in the world. His estimate was 300K "free population". Recent estimates put the population near 1 million people
[4]
and 300K in 200 BCE
[5]
. The figure of 300K does not include slaves.
[1]: (Modelski 2003, 169-170)
[2]: (Chase-Dunn spreadsheet)
[3]: (Cohen 2006, 358)
[4]: (Fraser 1972, 91)
[5]: (Chase-Dunn 2011, Chase-Dunn Spreadsheet)
EWA: 300 BCE: it is still Memphis approx. 100,000 (Jeffries); 140,000-80,000 as another estimate by Thompson (1988). [Need to update the code above]; Alexandria was only established at 310 BCE.Alexandria around 100 BCE was around 500,000.
Alexandria: 100,000: 300 BCE, [200,000-300,000]: 220 BCE; [300,000-500,000] 150-30 BCE
Alexandria. At height c280 BCE. 1,000,000 according to Preaux based on Diodorus claim of 300,000 free population. Stille says about 600,000.
[1]
300,000 and 250,000 in 200 BCE and 100 CE according to the Chase-Dunn spreadsheet.
[2]
Alexandria: "Diodorus - who flourished in the mid- and latter part of the first century B.C./early first century A.D. and who claimed to be relying on official information - estimated the free population of Alexandria was 300,000 (17.52.6). It is not clear if this number included women and children. Strabo, who lived at the end of the first century B.C./early first century A.D., would appear to suggest a figure of approximately 500,000-600,000."
[3]
Ptolemaic Egypt had three big cities. The largest one is Alexandria on which the data above applies. The numbers for both Memphis and Ptolemais is between 50-100K.
In 60 BCE Polybius said Alexandria was the most populous city in the world. His estimate was 300K "free population". Recent estimates put the population near 1 million people
[4]
and 300K in 200 BCE
[5]
. The figure of 300K does not include slaves.
[1]: (Modelski 2003, 169-170)
[2]: (Chase-Dunn spreadsheet)
[3]: (Cohen 2006, 358)
[4]: (Fraser 1972, 91)
[5]: (Chase-Dunn 2011, Chase-Dunn Spreadsheet)
1,000,000: 300 BCE
Maximum territorial size reached ca. 280 BC of 1 million km2 (60,000 miles2 or 155, 340 km2 excluding the deserts.
[1]
Maximum territorial size 1,000,000 km2 300 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (estimation in Victor Ehrenberg, The Greek state. 2d ed. London 1969:144)
[2]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication and his chapter in "Oxford Handbook of economies in the classical world")
7,000,000: 280-300 BCE 7,000,000 for the "total" Ptolemaic Empire. Unspecified date (presumably peak territory).
[1]
TC: figures below refer to Egypt specfically:
3,000,000-5,000,000 Egypt 100 BCE.
Fischer-Bovet book is out in 2014
Clarysse and Thompson
[2]
offer an estimate (for Egypt) of around 2.8 mln which is based upon census figures.
F. Hassan provides an estimate for Egypt which is also less than 3 mln. W. Scheidel prefers a number closer to 5 mln. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2011 gives 3.5 mln. ca. BCE 100.
[3]
C. Fischer-Bovet, "Counting the Greeks in Egypt. Immigration in the first century of Ptolemaic rule," in Demography in the Graeco-Roman World, ed. C. Holleran and A. Pudsey. Cambridge, 2011, pp. 135-54 reviews earlier estimations, and suggests a population in the Third century BC of 4 mln, with Greeks representing ca. 5% of the total.
Korotaev and Khaltourina’s estimated population dynamics of Egypt 300-1900 CE.
[4]
Korotaev and Khaltourina’s data (Egypt only)300 BCE: 3,000,000200 BCE: 4,000,000100 BCE: 2,500,0001 CE: 3,500,000
[1]: (Fischer-Bovet 2008, 149[1])
[2]: W. Clarysse and D. Thompson, Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt. Cambridge, 2006
[3]: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/180468/ancient-Egypt/22341/The-Ptolemaic-dynasty?anchor=ref936466
[4]: (Korotaev and Khaltourina 2006, 38)
Reference: Hassan.
The rough hierarchy is as follows:
1. Alexandria 300-400K
2. Memphis and Ptolemais 100K
3. nome captials (e.g. Thebes, Mendes, Krokodilopolis) 30-40K ref for Thebes: Vleeming. Hundred-gated Thebes. 1995.
4. towns 5-10K
5. villages 1-2K
6. hamlets/scattered settlements 0.1 to 0.2K.
EWA: ref. W. Clarysse. an article 1994
Memphis
D J Thompson has hectare data
Alexandria
New Archaeology may have hectare data
There were many different sizes/classes of temples and a multi-level prestige hierarchy. However, a prestige hierarchy does not represent hierarchical levels of authority within a religious organization. The code therefore might look like this "5 King, 4 High Priest of Ptah of Memphis, 3 regional chief priest, 2 Lector Priest, 1 Wab priest" but in fact these were only titles; the lower ranked priests were independent and did not take orders from those higher in rank. Since this code does not code prestige hierarchy only hierarchical levels of authority we code 1.
Certain priesthoods, e.g. the High Priest of Ptah at Memphis, exerted considerable political influence. Functioned as a virtual centralized priesthood in Egypt; several of the synodal meetings of priests from throughout Egypt met at Memphis, from which emanated the trilingual decrees, e.g. the Rosetta Stone. These priests were closely associated with the priests at Letopolis. See D. Thompson, Memphis under the Ptolemies. 2d. ed. Princeton, 2012.
The dynastic cult was founded by Ptolemy II. The annually selected priesthoods of the cult were based in Alexandria, and later also in the southern capital at Ptolemais. Within the dynastic cult there is not much of a hierarchy as there is not a command structure. The Egyptian cults are completely separated. Here each temple functions autonomously. There is a clear hierarchy within each temple.
Alexandria: "In the religious sphere, there is evidence - as Arrian observed (3.1.5) - for the worship of the Olympian and other Greek gods, as well as the "Egyptian" gods, especially Sarapis. Of the Olympian gods, the worship of Dionysos, Demeter, and Aphrodite in particular received royal support. There is also evidence for a founder cult of Alexander and a (dynastic) cult of Alexander and the Ptolemies. The priests of the latter were eponymous priests. In addition, we know of, among other things, cults of individual dynastic members, such as that of Ptolemy Soter (the Ptolemaieia), Berenike (a temple - the Berenikeion), Ptolemy Soter and Berenike (the "Theoi Soteres"), Arsinoe Philadelphos (the Arsinoeia), Ptolemy Philadelphos and Arsinoe (the "Theoi Adelphoi"), and the commemoration of Philadelphos’s birthday (the Basileia). Although evidence is sparse, it is clear that - as was usual in Greek festivals - competitions and processions were an important part of the various cults. The best attested is, of course, the great procession of Ptolemy Philadelphos."
[1]
At Ptolemais in the Thebaid "evidence for the worship of Zeus (OGIS 103), Dionysos (OGIS 51), and Isis (OGIS 52)."
[2]
[1]: (Cohen 2006, 358)
[2]: (Cohen 2006, 350)
Follow-up reference
EWA: The ref is Christelle Fischer-Bovet has the standard book (Army and society in Ptolemaic Egypt) which is just published. 2014. Cambridge University Press.
Infantry III BCE before the reforms of the II/I BCE
[1]
1. King
"The highest-ranking individuals [of the royal guard elite unit] were somatophylakes or ’bodyguards,’ who were also in charge of the upper-level military administration, perhaps like the seven or eight chiefs of the army of Alexander the Great."
[2]
2. Military strategoi?"Traditionally, the highest command in a Greek army belonged to one or more strategoi, ’generals,’ or to the king. The common view is that in Hellenistic armies, the strategos commanded four chiliarchies ... It is more difficult to define the position of the military strategoi in the Ptolemaic army, as they too appear at more than one level and no source specifies how many men they have under their command."
[3]
3. Chiliarchies 1024 men commanded by chillarchoi
[4]
4. Pentakosiarchos c.512 men
[4]
5. Syntagma c. 256 men commmanded by Syntagmatarches
[4]
6. Taxeis commanded by taxiarchoi c.128 men
[4]
7. hekatontarchiai c.50 men
[5]
8. "16 units of 50 men, that is 2 per hekatontarchia"
[4]
9. Individual soldier
It is very difficult to provide one set of data for this variable. First of all there is a crucial difference between the standing army and the cleruchs. The core of the standing army was formed by the cavalry, although there was also an important navy component. The cleruchs counted both cavalry and infantry. Do we need to code for all these components separately? Secondly, we need to take into account the Egyptians within the army. The Egyptians were at the same time separated from the Greeks as integrated within the same army. Thirdly, the Ptolemaic army was subjected to important changes over the course of the period. We therefore need time sensitive data. Joe will get back to us about these questions after having consulted with his former postgraduate student.
Cavalry- Hipparchies c.400-500 men commanded by hipparchoi
[6]
- Hipparchia divided into two ilai. Ile c.200-250 men headed by an ilarchoi
[6]
- Ile divided into two lochoi. Lochos c.100-125 men headed by epilochagos or lochagos
[6]
- Dekanikos c10-15 men?
[6]
- Individual soldier
Elite troops- Cavalry of the guard. Wore "composite cuirass, and probably a Boeotian helmet", and later a muscle cuirass perhaps made of bronze and a so-called Thracian helmet. Their offensive and defensive weapons were a long spear, a sword slung on a baldric and a round shield."
[2]
- Royal guard.- agema.
[1]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 134, 144)
[2]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 150)
[3]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 156)
[4]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 134)
[5]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 144)
[6]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 125)
1. King
_ Central government line _
2. Highest ranking financial official
3. dioikekes (financial official)
[1]
(but not highest ranking)
[2]
Central elite split over Ptolemais and Alexandria or Memphis
dioikekes had "an army of subordinates" (not listed) who presumably top 5 administrative levels?
[1]
4. eklogistes (accountant) or later idios logos (privy purse)
[1]
5. ... ? ...6. ... ? ...
_ Provincial line _
[3]
2. Governor of the Northbased at central government
2. Governor of the Southbased at central government. Ptolemais.
3. Strategoi district governorsin total 40 administration districts called oikononos
[2]
[1]
4. Royal land / Remitted land / land held by cleruchs / land held in gift / private land / city land
[4]
Lloyd (2000) lists these all at the same level.
4. Mayor of towns and mayors of villages. Komogrammtan epistates.
[2]
5. Sometimes (depending on region) the mayors of towns and of villages are part of the same administrative level; sometimes the mayors of villages report to mayors of towns and thus constitute two separate administrative levels.
5. Village elders and local priesthoods - epistoles in temples
[2]
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 404)
[2]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication)
[3]: (Falivene, M R. 2009. Geography and Administration in Egypt (332 BCE-642 CE) in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology. 521-540. Oxford University Press. Oxford.)
[4]: (Lloyd 2000, 404-405)
[5]: (Cohen 2006, 357)
[6]: (Cohen 2006, 356)
[7]: (Cohen 2006, 350)
"The standing army ... was made up of professional soldiers stationed in garrisons and cleruchic troops serving, in turn, presumably for only part of the year, in garrisons. All cleruchic troops were mobilized simultaneously only in case of war. In addition, the existence of a mixed group, the misthophoroi klerouchoi, shows that the system was flexible."
[1]
"professional or mercenary soldiers received cash (opsonion or misthos) and food, whereas cleruchs were granted plots of land (kleroi)."
[2]
[1]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 118-119)
[2]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 118)
Full-time priests who held not other functions were common in Ptolemaic Egypt. They were the ones who conducted the rituals. However, there were only a few of those priests for every temple.
Salaried officers, who were members of both the Greek and Egyptian elites, and mercenaries were prevalent in Ptolemaic Egypt. Their salaries reflected the rank they held. The higher officers (who were friends of the king) were professionals in the sense that they held no other functions. These higher officers were dispersed over the settlement towns and garrison towns. [1]
At least in theory a system of promotion existed as literary texts refer to it. See D. Crawford, "The Good Official of Ptolemaic Egypt," in H. Maehler and V. Strocka, Das ptolemäische Ägypten. Mainz, 1978:195-202.
present: 168-30 BCE inferred present = uncertain present
Professional advocates are certainly documented in the second century bc. Among the more noteworthy aspects of the technical details revealed in a famous Demotic archive are the proceedings of a trial held at Asyut in the middle of the second century bc is the complexity of the Ptolemaic legal system. That complexity was caused by two main factors. First, the bureaucratic system operated in two languages, Greek and Demotic. Greek, or at least officials with Greek names, dominated state administrative offices (e.g. the epistates, the stratêgoi) while Egyptians, and the Egyptian language, dominated local temple administration. It is all of this complexity that I think provides us with one of the most interesting historical facts coming from this archive. The judges asked Chratianch the plaintiff: "Is there a man who speaks for you?" A man appears, with a non-Egyptian name, to answer a few technical points on behalf of the plaintiff. He was not a guardian (or a kurios in the Greek sense) because he would have been identified as such. Rather he is simply called a man, but it is difficult not to conclude that he was in fact functioning as an advocate on behalf of the woman. On an unrelated petition on the verso of the text that records the trial and its outcome, Tuot son of Petihor was specifically mentioned as an advocate for the priests of Isis at Aswan. This same man may have been involved in the recorded trial, and indeed this archive may have been his. Much is uncertain. But if it is a Ptolemaic institution, a second question emerges. Was it merely the result of the complexities of the Ptolemaic system, or did it develop under Greek influence? Finally, it seems clear that such reports of trials and the use of advocates, better documented from the Roman period, have their origin in the Ptolemaic bureaucratic administration of trials (Joe will write a paragraph with more details).
[1]
Egyptian and Greek courts used different systems. In the Egyptian courts the judges were usually temple priests and were therefore not full time judges. In the Greek courts the local and regional(the strategos) officials performed this function.
dikastai, dikasteria
[2]
(itinerant judges?)
[1]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication)
[2]: (Cohen 2006, 350)
’Diagramma of Ptolemy II (270bc)’
Source: discussed most recently in JG Manning, The Last Pharaohs. Princeton, 2010.
Follow-up reference
Keenan, J G. Manning, J G. Yiftach-Firanko, U. 2014. Law and Legal Practice in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest. A Selection of Papyrological Sources in Translation, with Introductions and Commentary. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
[1]
We have to distinguish between three different court systems: a royal court, a Greek court and an Egyptian court. However, there are some changes to this set up over time in this period. None of these different court systems had specialized court buildings.
[1]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication)
Reference? Is pipe network that connects the drinking water to individual settlements known to exist?
Egypt was within the Greek cultural sphere which had historians at least since Herodotus and Thucydides in 5th century BCE.
Apollonius of Rhodes and Callimachus of Cyrene (both 3rd century BCE) in "creative writing."
[1]
There was a rich fictional writing, including many novels, many written in Greek (give examples). There was also a corpus of Egyptian literature. A famous example of these Egyptian stories is the cycle of stories about Setne (son of Rameses II).
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 400)
The postal system was only used for official business and possibly also by elite individuals for private affairs. (Joe will check).
Many cities were not fortified and lacked walls. Major temples were fortified structures. Do we have any examples of non-mortared walls?
Many cities were not fortified and lacked walls. Major temples were fortified structures. Do we have any examples of mortared walls?
There were garrison towns which were strategically located on high lying ground. Many cities were not fortified and lacked walls. Major temples were fortified structures.
Ditches and moats existed and were used at this time, e.g. in the Levant region. Were they used by the Ptolemies?
Ditches and moats existed and were used at this time, e.g. in the Levant region. Were they used by the Ptolemies?
Despite textual descriptions and iconographic depictions of sieged warfare in the first millennium BCE, there is little evidence for walls surrounding entire settlements; indeed, the norm seems to have been for walls to surround temple complexes, and for the rest of the settlement to remain exposed, though it is possible that the settlement’s inhabitants could expect to find reguge within the temple enclosure in the event of an attack. [1]
[1]: (Kemp 2004: 271-276) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/HD39CU6I.
Used on ships. "The militarization of naval warfare is also illustrated by the mounting of artillery aboard ship" [1] Catapaults Lycopolis (-196bc). Rosetta Stone. Catapults were used. Also studied in Alexandria: Philo; Belopoecca. [2]
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 398)
[2]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication)
"In western Asia, [the self bow] was replaced by the composite bow. In Egypt, the self-bow continued to be widely used, especially by Nubian troops." [1] Used to attack elephants and their drivers (bow type not specified). [2] Cretan archers [3]
[1]: (Morkot 2010: 50) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/AHFJE5Z2.
[2]: (Lloyd 2000, 395)
[3]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 135-138)
"In western Asia, [the self bow] was replaced by the composite bow. In Egypt, the self-bow continued to be widely used, especially by Nubian troops." [1] Used to attack elephants and their drivers (bow type not specified). [2] Cretan archers [3]
[1]: (Morkot 2010: 50) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/AHFJE5Z2.
[2]: (Lloyd 2000, 395)
[3]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 135-138)
Academic histories of warfare and weaponry in Egypt stop mentioning axes and maces once they reach the New Kingdom, suggesting they gradually fell out of fashion.
"At Gaza in 312 BC the Ptolemaic assault was delibered by a force of 3,000 cavalry armed with swords and the traditional Macedonian cavalry pike or xyston." [1] 3rd century cavalrymen equipped with small-curved saber (machaira sperantike) [2] hoplites of the phalanx carried a curved sword (machaira) [3]
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 394)
[2]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 128-131)
[3]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 135-138)
Pikes 5.5 meters long. [1] "At Gaza in 312 BC the Ptolemaic assault was delibered by a force of 3,000 cavalry armed with swords and the traditional Macedonian cavalry pike or xyston." [2] hoplites of the phalanx carried a sarissa pike [3]
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 393)
[2]: (Lloyd 2000, 394)
[3]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 135-138)
Academic histories of warfare and weaponry in Egypt stop mentioning axes and maces once they reach the New Kingdom, suggesting they gradually fell out of fashion.
African elephants (forest type) at Raphia (Ptolemy IV). [1] African forest Elephants. A few Indian elephants might have been used and bred in captivity. "Ptolemy II’s elephants came from southern Sudan, where he founded Ptolemais of the Huns in 270/69 BCE, and later from the Rd Sea area, where he founded other settlements (Philotera, Arsinoe and Berenice Troglodytica) Ptolemy III had to go further south along the Somalian coast, and the last hunts were organized toward the end of Ptolemy IV’s rule." [2] Follow-up reference: J G. Manning on Elephant hunting (i.e. supply of army). [3]
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 395)
[2]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 153)
[3]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication)
Camels were used probably by Arab (Haggar) troops. Joe will check whether there were Arab camel drivers.
According to one military historian by 600 BCE early Greeks and Romans had introduced the bronze cast bell muscle cuirass. [1] "the bronze plate-armor, the two handed shield and the Corinthian one-piece helmet were Greek innovations, and the Greeks were also experienced in melting and working iron." [2] Tempered steel was probably not in use. Bronze breastplates, helmets, greaves, and shields were commonly in use.
[1]: (Gabriel 2002, 21) Richard A Gabriel. 2002. The Great Armies of Antiquity. Praeger. Westport.
[2]: (Fischer-Bovet 2014, 135-138) Fischer-Bovet (2014) Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt. Cambridge University Press
"Ptolemy had approximately 140 warships" at th eBattle of Salamis (306 BCE). "Heavy ships" that carried marines who would directly embark an enemy ship. "These vessels were propelled mainly, if not completely, by multiple-rower sweeps and would never have had more than three banks of oars, and the ’rating’ must refer to the number of oarsmen in a unit of rowers. The largest ships are now known to have had a catamaran structure that would obviously increase the deck space available for marines, making such ships a particularly formidable proposition in a land-battle-at-sea. The militarization of naval warfare is also illustrated by the mounting of artillery aboard ship, a practice that obviously reflects the greatly enhanced importance of artillery for both siege warfare and field use in the army of Phillip II and Alexander" [1] The most commonly used ships were galleys and quiqueremes. (Joe will check this with John Hale ’The Age of Giants’). We need time sensitive data as there were improvements in naval technology. For example, the period also saw the use of improved sails (Joe will provide the reference) and new boarding techniques.
[1]: (Lloyd 2000, 397-398)