Summary

After the death of Alexander, king of Macedon, his generals fought to control most of the Persian empire he had conquered. Ptolemy, son of Lagos, secured Egypt as governor (satrap) of the Argead kings and then as the king from 305/4 bce, expanding his kingdom to include territories around the eastern Mediterranean from Cyrenaica to Asia Minor. The dynasty of the Ptolemies, ruling from its new capital Alexandria for about three centuries, was the longest-lasting both in Egyptian history and among the contemporary Hellenistic states. The last queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, and her ally, Mark Antony, were defeated at Actium by Octavian, who annexed Egypt after Cleopatra’s suicide and created the Roman province of Egypt in 30 bce. The main literary sources are Polybius and Diodorus of Sicily, who provide only partial accounts of Ptolemaic history, and Justin’s Epitome of Pompeius Trogus. Flavius Josephus offers a Judean perspective. Greek and Demotic Egyptian papyri preserved in the dry Egyptian sand form most of the evidence, which ranges from land registers and accounts to petitions and letters. Together with Greek and Egyptian inscriptions, coins, and archaeological material, these papyri make Egypt one of the best-documented regions of the period.