| Denis,
Although this has not a lot to do with the lighthouse, but the discussion has
been veering away from the lighthouse a bit anyway. Was Alexandria some sort of
semi-independant state, controlled by Greeks? (who did not allow native
Egyptians citizen status). Or did the native Egyptians lose their citizen status
throughout Egypt during the Ptolemaic era?
If the former is true, then it would seem very generous of the Ptolemy dynasty
to endow Alexandria with the library and the lighthouse.
If the latter is true, it seems a little strange that the Ptolemy's would adopt
so much of the Egyptian culture (implicitly rejecting to a certain extent
helenism), but at the same time considering the Egyptians themselves as not
even worthy of citizenship.
Was this split society more or less healed by the Roman administration, which
tended to promote citizenship of wealthy and influential natives in the
provinces, or did it filter down to the present day - I have heard that the
copts are considered to be descendants of the early egyptians.
Neil.
PS I am very glad that Joe, through you, has been able to add to his valuable
contributions in this notesfile.
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| Re .11: Neil, I'm afraid it's much more complicated than the either/or
two-side possibilities that you outlined here.
The Ptolemies were the Macedonian Greek heirs to Alexander, who
conquered Egypt and was recognised as its pharaoh and as son of
Zeus-Amon, despite the fact that he remained culturally Greek and that
his empire was way, way larger than just Egypt.
Alexandria was a Greek city, founded by Alexander, where only the
Greeks had citizenship rights (although it had an important Jewish
population from the origin).
Alexandria was the Ptolemies' capital and usual residence. Their
palace was beside the harbour.
The Ptolemaic empire at its beginning was much larger than just
Egypt: Cyprus, Lybia, part of the Greek Aegean islands and part of
Palestine were originally included in it, although it slowly shrunk
till only Egypt was left in Julius Caesar's time.
There was a lot of Greek colonies (cities that were founded or
refounded as Greek) all throughout Egypt, where native Egyptians had no
citizenship rights.
The two populations were following different ways of life, were
kept as separated as possible (the Greeks trying as much as they could
to keep their Hellenic habits, ways, language, religion, civilisation,
you name it,... drowned as they were in the middle of the Egyptian
population) and were subject to different laws. The Egyptians were
still subject to the old Egyptian law, followed the old Egyptian
religion, whose temples and clergy was still in place, and obeyed to
the pharaoh, who also happened to be the Hellenistic king (Macedonian
style) of the Greek population. The Greeks were subject to the Greek
law that did not apply to the autochtone population.
Nevertheless, during the nearly three centuries of Ptolemaic rule,
evolution took place and a (small) bit of assimilation took place
between the two groups.
It would take hours to discuss this subject. I can only recommend
you to read Rostovtsev's Socio-Economical History of the Hellenistic
World (composed long after, and much bigger than his Socio-Economical
History of the Roman World). It does not only include the Ptolemaic
empire, but also Macedonia, Greece and the Seleucid empire, and is one
of the fundamental books on the subject.
As for your question about the Roman rule in Egypt, I'll just
mention a few facts:
- Long before Caesar, Egypt had gone nearly bankrupt and was
financially in the hands of Roman "banking" adventurers (pirates or
looters would probably be better words, at least closer to the
truth).
- Starting with Augustus, Egypt was an imperial province, not a
senatorial one, directly administered by the emperor and his own men
rather than by governors named by the senate.
- Egypt was considered as one of the most important provinces of the
empire, as it provided (along with Africa -i.e. present day Tunisia-,
only Egypt produced much more) the "annona". The annona was the wheat
used for the free (or nearly free) distributions of food to the
population of Rome ("panem et circenses": bread and games; Egypt
provided most of the bread). These distributions, which lasted as
long as the empire and continued in Byzantium as long as Byzantium
kept control of Egypt, were the only mean that the emperors had to
prevent a general uprising of the famished population in their
capital. Egypt was indeed to be exploited to the utmost of its
resources to feed the innumerable empty bellies in Rome and
Byzantium and keep them satisfied.
- As a consequence, the Egyptian population largely welcomed the Arab
conquest which finally got them free from the Roman-Byzantine
occupation (the Arabs were in no position to milk the country as much
as their predecessors, plus in Muslim time the rulers of the country
more often than not inhabited it instead of residing in a far away
city). Alexandria lost much of its importance at this period, as the
Muslim capital of the country became Cairo.
About the Copts, they're as much the descendants of the ancient
Egyptians as most of the rest of the population. They are those who
chose to remain Christians rather than becoming Muslims. Only, they are
not Orthodox Christians, but Monophysites (also called sometimes
Jacobites, an heresy about the double or single nature of Christ, not
to be confused with the British Jacobites supporters of the Stuarts).
;^) Even before the Arab conquest, most of the Egyptian Christians had
turned Monophysites, mostly to differentiate themselves from the hated
Greek Orthodox foreign (Byzantine) rulers of the country. What is true
is that their religious language, Coptic, is the evolution of the
ancient Egyptian language. It's mainly through his hypothesis that
Coptic (a language he knew as well as Greek) was derived from ancient
Egyptian that Champollion succeeded in deciphering the hieroglyphic
script with the help of the Rosetta stone. Coptic is now all but dead,
its only use being in the old religious books of the Copts, who have
long been all Arabian speakers.
I don't think that you can trace any specific part of the present
population of Egypt to the Greek colonists of the Ptolemaic period,
they've been either eliminated or assimilated.
Denis.
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