The nineteen chapters of this book cover a wide variety of topics concerned with the Macedonian monarchy of the Ptolemies, which ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great until the Roman empire, and which rested on military control based on a Greek and Macedonian military force settled on the land. The first five chapters examine ways in which Ptolemy I, Ptolemy III, and Cleopatra VII sought political legitimacy and support in this multicultural society. The next section looks at the Greek experience in Egypt, as settlers on the land, as members of specific ethnic groups, and as creators of an urb ... More

The nineteen chapters of this book cover a wide variety of topics concerned with the Macedonian monarchy of the Ptolemies, which ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great until the Roman empire, and which rested on military control based on a Greek and Macedonian military force settled on the land. The first five chapters examine ways in which Ptolemy I, Ptolemy III, and Cleopatra VII sought political legitimacy and support in this multicultural society. The next section looks at the Greek experience in Egypt, as settlers on the land, as members of specific ethnic groups, and as creators of an urban milieu in which they could feel at home. The third part treats the complex economic life of Ptolemaic Egypt, with its tension between the king's need for revenue and the Greeks' desire to enrich themselves in their new home and in particular to acquire some of Egypt's rich grainland, not only to work as soldiers or bureaucrats. The resulting interactions between Greeks and Egyptians occupy the final section. Throughout the case-studies that make up this book, the author stresses the internal stresses and fractures of this colonial society, with multiple groups of actors having conflicting interests but needing to cooperate for any of them to succeed.