Egypt under Greek Rule
Cleopatra VII
In 332 BC Alexander
the Great conquered Egypt with a Greek
army. At first the Egyptians thought he would make them independent
again, but he did not. Alexander made Egypt part of his own empire.
When Alexander died in 323 BC, his general Ptolemy (TA-low-mee) took
over Egypt as his own territory. He and his successors (all called Ptolemy)
ruled Egypt until the Roman Augustus
conquered it from the last Ptolemy and Queen Cleopatra in 30 BC. The
Ptolemies succeeded in reconquering much of Israel
and Syria. They brought Greek
culture and the Greek
language to Egypt, though ordinary people
continued to speak Egyptian and
worship Egyptian gods.
To find out more about Hellenistic Egypt, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Egypt After the Pharaohs: 332 BC-AD 642: from Alexander to the Arab Conquest, by Alan Bowman (1996). A standard among historians, and pretty readable.
Cleopatra, by Diane Stanley (reprinted 1997) . A biography of the last independent queen of Egypt, for kids.
Women in Hellenistic Egypt: From Alexander to Cleopatra, by Sarah Pomeroy (reprinted 1990). Pomeroy is an expert on the lives of women in antiquity.
The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, by Erich Gruen (reprinted 1986).
