Egypt's Dynasties: Graeco-Roman Period of Egypt

Graeco-Roman Period of Egypt

Greco-Roman Culture & Politics

In the schools of art, philosophy and rhetoric, the foundations of education were transmitted throughout the lands of Greek and Roman rule. Within its educated class, spanning all of the "Greco-Roman" era, the testimony of literary borrowings and influences is overwhelming proof of a mantle of mutual knowledge. For example, several hundred papyrus volumes found in a Roman villa at Herculaneum are in Greek. From the lives of Cicero and Julius Caesar, it is known that Romans frequented the schools in Greece. The installation both in Greek and Latin of Augustus' monumental eulogy, the Res Gestae, is a proof of official recognition for the dual vehicles of the common culture. The familiarity of figures from Roman legend and history in the "Parallel Lives" composed by Plutarch is one example of the extent to which "universal history" was then synonymous with the accomplishments of famous Latins and Hellenes. Most educated Romans were likely bilingual in Greek and Latin.

Rome became the superpower of its age in the political and legal spheres, and by its military might, the enormous Roman state created an enduring amalgam of disparate peoples and bestowed relative peace and prosperity on those.

Caesar plundered and enslaved without apology. However, he also invited many Gallic leaders to join him in Rome as members of the Roman Senate. The requirements of manpower in arms meant that citizenship was extended to non-Romans who served in Roman legions. By 211 AD, with Caracalla's edict known as the Constitutio Antoniniana, the general populace came into possession of citizenship. As a result, even after the city of Rome fell, the people of what remained of the empire (referred to by many historians as the Byzantine Empire) continued to call themselves Romans ("Romaioi" in the Greek language which eventually became the empire's official language).

The imperial Roman state was a vast social experiment in hybridization. Imperial Rome is identified with the cultural legacy of its forebears; it sustained that tradition without innovation, until Constantine broke away from the attenuated religion of the Greco-Roman past and transformed Rome's cultural matrix by embracing Christianity, which was the faith of a persecuted minority. The life of Constantine is arguably a better terminus of the Greco-Roman age than any other; it may equally be considered as the herald of the Middle Ages.

When the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great entered Egypt, he was welcomed as the son of the god Amun and he was immediately accepted as the new king of the country. He founded a new city on the shores of the Mediterranean, the first of many cities to bear the name of Alexandria. He also set about restoring all the damage done by the second Persian occupation.

Upon his death and the death of his two Macedonian successors Phillipos Arrhidaeos and Alexander IV, his empire was divided between his generals. Egypt was taken by Ptolemy, son of Lagos, who had been appointed to satrap of the country by Alexander himself. During the wars that resulted from this division, he was also able to conquer Syria-Palestine.

He and his successors would not only continue Alexander's policy of restoration in Egypt, they also supported the building of new temples throughout the country. On the island of Philae, Ptolemy II Philopator started with the rebuilding of the 26th Dynasty temple of Isis; his successor Ptolemy III Euergetes I started with the building of a new temple dedicated to Horus and decorated the propylon of the temple of Khonsu at Karnak. Their successors would continue to enlarge these temples next to building new ones such as the temple of Hathor at Dendara and the temple of Khnum and Neith in Esna. This way they ensured the support of the Egyptian clergy and the Egyptian people.

During the reign of Ptolemy V, there was some upheaval when an Egyptian Dynasty tried to seize power.

The dynastic rivalry of the later Ptolemies finally resulted in an intervention of the Romans to put Ptolemy XII Euergetes II back into power. From then on, the Romans began to play an important part in Egyptian history. They again intervened, this time in favour of Ptolemy XII's daughter Cleopatra, a couple of years later. Although Cleopatra was a capable and a politically gifted ruler, she would become involved in the power struggle of the Romans Octavianus (Augustus) and Antonius and unfortunately, she chose the wrong side. When her and Antonius' fleets were destroyed at the battle of Actium and she committed suicide, Egypt became a Roman province.

The Roman emperors too, continued the policy of building temples in Egypt, thus ensuring the loyalty of the Egyptian clergy and a stable flow of grain out of the greatest granary of the world. The beginning of the Roman Period is one of the most prosperous in Egypt: new cities were built and the land was considered of great importance to the world.

As part of the Roman Empire, Egypt was also more open to the world than before. Although it had admitted its share of foreigners in the past, it had always clung to its own culture and to its own ideas. Since the conquest by Alexander the Great, however, it became more and more a Hellenistic state, with a Hellenistic culture, and as a Roman province, it was also more open to the ideology that would finally strike the mortal blow to the millennia old Ancient Egyptian civilisation: Christianity.

During the first centuries A.D., Egypt was very slowly being converted to this new religion. Soon, the old temples would be closed and converted into monasteries or churches. The images of old gods and kings, meant to preserve the creation, were considered as demonic by the christians and were destroyed. The papyri that were kept in the temples' libraries were proved an interesting fuel to help the burning down of the temples.

When the Roman Empire was divided into two parts and Egypt became a part of the Byzantine Empire, most of its population had converted to Christianity. The only temple with an ancient cult was the temple of Isis on the island of Philae. Although this last Egyptian temple had coexisted peacefully with the new Christian cult, rumours were spread in the beginning of the 6th century A.D. that this maginificent temple served to worship the devil through human sacrifice. Its closing by force of arms in 535/537 A.D. meant the definite end of the Ancient Egyptian civilisation.

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