Ptolemy

When Alexander the Great entered the Persian province of Egypt in 332 BC, he was welcomed with open arms; Greeks had aided Egyptian rebellions in the past and Alexander was respectful of Egyptian religion. Alexander almost immediately left Egypt, never to return, but before he did, he made two essential contributions to its history. First, he presented himself to the Egyptians as a traditional Pharaoh, rather than as a new conqueror, a strategy which proved highly effective in generating support for the new Macedonian regime. Secondly, he founded the city of Alexandria (known as "by Egypt" to distinguish him from the other cities he founded of the same name), which would be the capital of Egypt and the major trading and cultural hub of the Eastern Mediterranean for the next thousand years.

Alexander died in 323 BC, without a clear heir, ushering in the Hellenistic Period (323 - 30 BC) and his most powerful generals soon divided his newly-forged Empire among themselves, while retaining his unborn son as nominal ruler. Ptolemaios (known in English as Ptolemy) received Egypt, and rapidly moved towards total autonomy. The Macedonian Regent Perdikkas, invaded Egypt to reverse this trend, but was unable to cross the Nile and was killed. Without him, the Empire completely dissolved and the Four Wars of the Diadochi followed, funded by the wealth of the conquered Persians. When the money finally ran out in 301, Alexander's empire was permanently divided into three kingdoms: Macedon in Europe, the Seleukid Dynasty in Asia and the Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt; all claiming supremacy, but unable to achieve it. The Ptolemies would continue to war with the other kingdoms, particularly the Seleukids for the rest of their history. Domestically, the Ptolemies established a dual society, with an elite of Greeks serving as soldiers, landlords and living in the cities and holding estates, while the native Egyptians continued as peasants and retained their role as elite of the native religion. The Kings, always named Ptolemaios, ruled as absolute autocrats, claiming divinity. In order to demonstrate their divinity, prevent domination by in-laws, designate legitimate heirs and/or conform with Egyptian matriarchal ideas of succession, they almost exclusively practised incestual marriage. For a time this successfully prevented dissension in the Kingdom and allowed Egypt to assume a dominant position in the Hellenistic world.

This lasted for about a century, before they began to come off the worst in the endemic wars with the Seleukids, who took Syria in 241, Palestine in 211, remaining Syrian exclaves in 195, and invaded Egypt itself in 170. The Ptolemies were only saved from the Seleukids due to the intercession of the rising power of Rome, which actively worked against the Seleukids. Internally, the kingdom, centred on the king, ground to a halt when the king proved inadequate, like the decadent Ptolemaios IV or the infant Ptolemaios V, dominated by his advisors.

Worse was to come for Egypt, though. From the 180s, the brothers Ptolemaios VI and Ptolemaios VIII competed with each other for their sister's hand in marriage (and with it the throne). Intrigue, murder of nephews and sons, outright civil war, and appeals to the Seleukids and Romans to intervene followed. The contest was finally resolved in the 140s, only for a new conflict to arise in the 110s between Ptolemaios IX and Ptolemaios X, spurred on by their mother-aunt, which was resolved in the former's favour only in the 80s.  Some of this intrigue was exported to the Seleukid realm, in the form of rival Ptolemaic princesses, who supported rival factions in that kingdom, precipitating its complete collapse. The Ptolemies were unable to capitalise on this, however, for they were increasingly under the Roman thumb. Ptolemaios X had willed Egypt to the Romans, who henceforth demanded great obsequence, dividing Egypt and seizing Cyrene.

By this time the Ptolemies had come to view only children of an incestual marriage as legitimate kings, but they were now so hopelessly inbred that such children were rarely viable; making the position of Ptolemaios XII, who had a non-royal mother, particularly shaky. He came into conflict with his own sister-wife, Kleopatra VI and his daughter-niece Berenike IV, who kicked him out in 69; when he returned in 55, it was only with even more help from the Romans. After his death, his son, Ptolemaios XIII developed a similar conflict with his own sister-wife.

That wife, Kleopatra VIII, quickly emerged victorious, and this time the Romans were unable to intervene, for they were occupied with the Great Roman Civil War. When one of the combatants, Julius Caesar arrived in Egypt, Kleopatra seduced him; when he emerged victorious, in 45 BC, the Egyptian position was stronger than it had been in a very long time. He was assassinated soon after, however, and Rome once again was embroiled in civil war, the Final War of the Roman Republic. She tried the same trick again, seducing Marcus Antonius, and supporting his war effort. But at the decisive moment, the Battle of Actium (31 BC), she lost her nerve, abandoned him, and he was defeated. The victor, the new Roman Emperor, Augustus, annexed Egypt to the Roman Empire as his personal province. It would not rule itself again for nine hundred years.

Sources

Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica written c. 50 BC, covering 480 BC to 145 BC (Loeb Translation from Greek available here: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/home.html)

Eusebius of Caesaria, The Chronicon, written, covering mythic times to AD 325 (Translation from Armenian available here: http://rbedrosian.com/euseb.html).

St Jerome, The Chronicle, written c. AD 380, covering mythic times to AD 379 (Translation from Latin available here: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/index.htm#JeromeChronicle).

Hölbl, Günther. A History of the Ptolemaic Empire (Tina Saavedra, trans.). London: Routledge, 2001.

Ogden, Daniel. Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death: The Hellenistic Dynasties. Swansea, Wales: The Classical Press of Wales, 1999.