The Egypt of the Hebrews and Herodotos

by A. H. Sayce

Then came the long funeral procession bearing the corpse of Alexander from Babylon to the tomb that was to be erected for him in his new city of Alexandria. More than a year passed while it wound its way slowly from city to city, till at last it arrived at Memphis. Here the body of the great conqueror rested awhile until the gorgeous sepulchre was made ready in which it was finally to repose.

It was plain that Ptolemy was aiming at independent power. Perdikkas, the regent, accordingly [pg 139] attacked him, carrying in his train the young princes, Philip Arridæus, and Alexander Ægos, the infant son of Alexander. But the invading army was routed below Memphis, Perdikkas was slain, and the young princes fell into the hands of the conqueror. From this time forward, Ptolemy, though nominally a subject, acted as if he were a king.

Nikanôr was sent into Syria to annex it to Egypt. Jerusalem alone resisted the invaders, but it was assaulted on the Sabbath when the defenders withdrew from the walls, and all further opposition was at end. Palestine and Cœle-Syria were again united with the kingdom on the Nile.

The union, however, did not last long. In b.c. 315 Philip Arridæus was murdered, and Alexander was proclaimed successor to his empty dignity. The year following, Antigonus, the rival of Ptolemy in Asia Minor, made ready to invade Egypt. But Ptolemy had already conquered Kyrênê and Cyprus, and was master of the sea. Syria and Palestine, however, submitted to Antigonus, and though Ptolemy gained a decisive victory over his enemies at Gaza, he did not think it prudent to pursue it. He contented himself, therefore, with razing the fortifications of Acre and Jaffa, of Samaria and Gaza.

In b.c. 312 the generals of Alexander, who still called themselves the lieutenants of his son, came to a [pg 140] general agreement, each keeping that portion of the empire which he had made his own. The agreement was almost immediately followed by the murder of Alexander Ægos. Cleopatra, the sister of the great Alexander, and his niece Thessalonika alone remained of the royal family, and Cleopatra, on her way to Egypt to marry Ptolemy, was assassinated by Antigonus (in b.c. 308), and Alexander's niece soon afterwards shared the same fate. The family of “the son of Ammon,” the annihilator of the Persian Empire, was extinct.

Two years later, in b.c. 306, an end was put to the farce so long played by the generals of Alexander, and each of them assumed the title of king. Ptolemy took that of “king of Egypt.” To this the Greeks afterwards added the name of Sôtêr, “Saviour,” when his supplies of corn had saved the Rhodians from destruction during their heroic defence of their city against the multitudinous war-ships of Antigonus.

Throughout his rule, Ptolemy never forgot the needs and interests of the kingdom over which he ruled. Alexandria was completed, with its unrivalled harbours, its stately public buildings, its broad quays and its spacious streets. From first to last it remained the Greek capital of Egypt. It was Greek in its origin, Greek in its architecture, Greek in its population; Greek also in its character, its manners, [pg 141] and its faith. Cut off from the rest of Egypt by the Mareotic Lake, and enjoying a European climate, it was from its foundation what it is to-day, a city of Europe rather than of Egypt. From it, as from an impregnable watch-tower, the Ptolemies directed the fortunes of their kingdom: it was not only the key to Egypt, it was also a bridle upon it. The wealth of the world passed through its streets and harbours; the religions and philosophies of East and West met within its halls. Ptolemy had founded in it a university, a prototype of Oxford and Cambridge in modern England, of the Azhar in modern Cairo. In the Museum, as it was called, a vast library was gathered together, and its well-endowed chairs were filled with learned professors from all parts of the Greek world, who wrote books and delivered lectures and dined together at the royal charge.

But the Greeks were not the only inhabitants of the new city. The Jews also settled there in large numbers on the eastern side of the town, attracted by the offers of Ptolemy and the belief that the rising centre of trade would be better worth inhabiting than the wasted fields of Palestine. All the rights of Greek citizenship were granted to them, and they were placed on a footing almost of equality with Ptolemy's own countrymen.

The native Egyptians were far worse treated. [pg 142] They had become “the hewers of wood and carriers of water” for their new Greek masters. It was they who furnished the government with its revenue, but in return they possessed no rights, no privileges. When land was wanted for the veterans of the Macedonian army, as, for example, in the Fayyûm, it was taken from them without compensation. Taxes, ever heavier and heavier, were laid upon them; and every attempt at remonstrance or murmuring was visited with immediate punishment. The Egyptian had no rights unless he could be registered a citizen of Alexandria, and this it was next to impossible for him to be.

It is true that the Egyptians were told all this was done in order that their own laws and customs might not be interfered with. While the Greeks and Jews were governed by Greek law, the Egyptians were governed by the old law of the land. But it was forgotten that the laws were administered by Greeks, and that the higher officials were also Greeks, who, as against an Egyptian, possessed arbitrary power. It was only amongst themselves, as between Egyptian and Egyptian, that the natives of the country enjoyed any benefit from the laws under which they lived; wherever the government and the Greeks were concerned, they were like outcasts, who could be punished, but not tried.