The Ptolemaic kings, as foreign conquerors of Egypt, wanted to have some mechanism in which both the Greek newcomers and the local Egyptians might find some common ground within the religious sphere and unite the country despite their divergent backgrounds and cultural viewpoints. Out of this was conceived the cult of the god Serapis with its accompanying Serapeum in the Greek city of Alexandria. This was to be a parallel Serapeum to the older Serapeum of Saqqara located near Memphis, the main administrative city of Egypt before the construction of Alexandria. The dilemma was that the Serapeum at Saqqara was a cult of Osiris-Apis: the Apis bull. For the Egyptians, this cult, symbolizing the importance of the divine king, was just that, a mainly local cult of another deity. It had some significance with its connection with traditional Egyptian approaches to religious/cultural practices, but was it the same deity that the Greeks worshipped in Alexandria? Or was the Alexandrian version an anthropomorphic version suitable only to the Greek minions in the capital? We must remember that the Greeks did have this abhorrence to worshipping animals (Stambaugh 1972; Merkelbach 1995).
The next dilemma played itself out in the process of Hellenization. Egypt was one of the main testing grounds for the unbridled spread of Greek culture to the eastern Mediterranean sphere. Alexander’s bold move to be accepted as a god by the oracle at Siwa and his coronation as Pharaoh, following traditional Pharaonic practices (Holbl 2001: 6), was more than simply a move for political legitimacy. It was the opening salvo in a cultural struggle that would go on for a millennium. Egypt developed into a land of Greeks and non-Greeks, rather than a land of Egyptians and Greeks. The moniker, ‘‘a Greek in Egypt,’’ underscored the potential division. Were the Greeks truly natives of the land they lived in? What of the native Egyptian population? What were their roles? Were they active participants in the development of the state, or were they simply ‘‘subjects’’ with all of the connotations which that term implied?
One way Hellenization expressed itself was in language. Greek was imposed as a language of power. Everyone understood that concept. For the average Egyptian, his/her native tongue had the potential for justifiable discrimination. People learned the languages that they needed to survive, and Greek became as vital as Egyptian. Functional bilingualism would have been the term which best described what happened to Egypt, both in the countryside and in the urban areas (Clarysse, 1998, 1-13). Power was reflected in language as well. Egyptian as a spoken and written language was still available and would continue for another 1000 years, but when and where one used Demotic Egyptian versus Greek addressed serious issues related to power and how it was expressed. Could one control an Egyptian population using Greek? Could one interact with the ruling classes in Alexandria knowing only Egyptian? The Greek rulers would co-opt the traditional priesthood where wealth and power had lain for many centuries (Manning 2003: 238f.). This had additional aspects related to language as the priesthood controlled the traditional scripts (Hieroglyphic and Hieratic), necessary parts of the manner in which many Egyptians worshipped their local deities. What would happen to the traditional religious practices would be interwoven with the need and justification for a new language and the preservation of an old (Thompson 1994b). Demotic as a script would not disappear, rather it was channeled into specific avenues. Contracts remained one area, and we have a burgeoning of surviving Demotic texts from this period. An enormous number of Demotic ostraca, serving as tax receipts, letters, and oaths, all expand in use with the influx of Hellenization. Is this a reaction to the new rulers or is this a case of manipulation by the rulers of an unresisting public? Over time it is clear that Greek was the administrative language. Yes, a second system of courts was established in which documents written in Demotic could be used, but, if the case involved both Greek and Demotic items, the Greek court system prevailed. It is a telling thing that for Kleopatra VII, the one Ptolemaic ruler who supposedly actually learned Egyptian (Plutarch Anthony 27.4), we have only one item which has been shown to have been written in her own hand, and it is written in Greek (Jones 2006, 202f.). The question begs to be asked: was Kleopatra’s supposed multilingualism real, or was it a manipulation by contemporary authors for other political purposes? I would argue that all the Ptolemaic rulers were functionally bilingual, at least, given the numbers of non-Greek subjects they ruled, but, as the Ptolemaic Period progressed, the tendency would certainly have been to be less functionally bilingual as more of the Egyptian population acquiesced in the demands of Hellenization. We do know that Demotic contracts were required to be registered (for a fee, of course) in a Greek government agency. This involved the removal of that task from the Egyptian temples (an issue I will deal with more below). Maybe Kleopatra’s crime was that she attempted a short-sighted reversion to traditional practices (i. e., speaking Egyptian), and this reversion interfered with a developing Hellenistic cultural framework. If so, Kleopatra was doomed to failure, regardless of her military tactics.
Another aspect of the dilemma of the times was that of money. Egypt was a culture that seemed to ignore the rest of the Near East when it came to using coined money for economic affairs. Egypt was functionally a barter system (Bleiberg 1995: 1373ff.). Clear values were known for all goods and services, and these had been developed over time. Yes, inflation and market forces were understood, but, as an agricultural economy from day one, Egypt’s reliance upon external market forces only remained a vital force when it attempted to involve itself with the rest of the Near East. Granted they had been doing such activities for several millennia, but this waxed and waned as political and economic forces waxed and waned. The conquests, first by the Nubians, then the Assyrians, and then the Persians, made it clear that, regardless of what they may want, the Egyptians had to interact with others, and often this interaction came at a cost. We have a few surviving Pharaonic minted coins from the later dynasties (28-30), but essentially the Greeks came in and imposed a system. Again the dilemma: how do you rule effectively and invoke massive change? Coinage was introduced, but how and when the requirement for payment in coin for taxes, etc., was enforced is uncertain. Over time it was certain that normal payments for specialty taxes, the Ptolemaic versions of multiple capitation taxes, were required in coin. The extensive payments for rents on agricultural land were normally done in kind (percentage of crop) as limited specie was always a Ptolemaic concern. In addition, the sale of grain by the state and its agents was a major foreign specie generator, and, thus, the state always had a need for in-kind produce (Thompson 1999b).
Subject to the above comments, the next aspect of the dilemma of Egypt in Ptolemaic times was administration. For the Greek rulers it is not the question of who could be in it. Obviously from a theoretical perspective, only Greeks could be in it (or those prepared to become Greek). To run an effective government power elites had to be addressed. When Alexander left to conquer the rest of the Persian Empire, he left both Greeks and Egyptians in control of Egypt. When Ptolemy Soter finally came back to take over the regime, he inherited an existing structure where local elites had been and continued to be a significant aspect of the administration of the country. In Persian times Darius I had instructed the scribes, priests, and soldiers of Egypt to define for him the existing power structures in Egypt. When these hpw, ‘‘customs,’’ had been documented, he proceeded to rule Egypt effectively for many years (or so say the Greek historians). With the advent of Ptolemaic rule, the same efficient system appears to have been implemented.
The issue of native military involvement is mostly a non-issue. What remained of a native military force would have been subsumed into the mercenary system so efficiently used by the Persians for centuries. The Ptolemies continued this structure, and the military was dominated mostly by Greeks, but with members from many other cultural groups from around the eastern Mediterranean. The scribal classes would represent those who were literate in Egyptian and performed the day to day management of the entire system. The priesthood had been for millennia the lynchpin of Egyptian society. They had defined and maintained Egypt as a culture through maintenance of tradition but were themselves often in control of many aspects of Egyptian life, culture, power, and the holding of property. For the Ptolemies the scribes ran the administration, and they remained at their tasks. They were the day-to-day functionaries. They held property, but they administered rather than formulated policy. For the most part the priesthood continued in the role of leaders of Egyptian society. While the major political offices were defined as Greek, the local elites, led by the priests of the local cults, maintained their positions in Egyptian society. The priesthood may have had no specific love for the new Greek rulers, but initially they were better off as the earlier Ptolemies did not levy extra taxes on the temples as did the Nectanebos of the Thirtieth Dynasty. What stress the priesthood did have was the reduction in their control of significant temple estates. Land held by temples for generations now passed into state control. The state leased them, and bit by bit all control held by the priesthood as estate managers passed away. This gradual shift in power left the priesthood with a lessening amount of political and economic power, but it did not shut them out of the system. The significant change was the status of free Egyptians who had been the dependants of temple estates. Now they became wards of the state only to the extent that they performed leasehold duties on the land. For many this changed little in their day-to-day subsistence existence. For others it meant a different approach to how they dealt with society and to whom they reported vis-a-vis personal and religious connections. The god/priesthood was technically not their go-between, or did he still maintain that role? (Manning 2003, passim.)
The Ptolemies understood the importance of the priesthood in maintaining order within the Egyptian system. The state completely subsidized the priesthood. Temples could in certain circumstances take advantage of the state monopolies that were established, and temples adjusted their income strategies. We see at this time the rapid expansion of animal cults: ibis, fish, crocodiles, baboons, cats, dogs, geese, etc. The presentation of these animals (or rather the mummified remains thereof) became commonplace aspects of religious practice and statements of personal piety. The priesthood did not invent these practices, but they elaborated on existing structures to reflect the economic and religious needs for the present (Johnson, 1986, 1987).
The dilemma for the priesthood, then, became one of whom did they represent? Were they guardians of Egyptian culture, i. e., religious practices? Or were they symbols of a new, foreign, perhaps oppressive, political regime camped out in Alexandria? There is no simple answer to that question as we see them acting in both roles. On the one hand they maintained cultic practices, but we see a marked difference in temple decoration. We often find Pharaoh not as a specific individual, but as Horus. Cartouches of Pharaoh were often left blank. Did this mean the temples did not recognize a foreign king? Absolutely not. Rather, it was a practice found going back at least to the Saite period (see Hibis temple as an example), and the blank cartouches probably represented the theoretical idea of the king as Horus, or better, Horus as the king. The individual was religiously not as important as the knowledge that there was a legitimate king, and the specific name within the temple context was not as relevant as it was to some New Kingdom kings (Spieser, 2002).
The civil disturbances at the end of the third century bc and later placed the priesthood in a difficult position. The revolts against the Ptolemies for the most part were economic in basis. Revolts at Edfu saw the temple marked as a symbol of state interference and that helps explain the large amount of time it took to complete that structure, even long after the revolts were settled. The king did use the priesthood for political reasons. After calling a synod ofEgyptian priests, royal decrees were issued to increase the benefits of priests as well as to expand the priesthood from four to five phyles. Such actions were clear efforts at coopting the priesthood to support the central regime. Not all such actions were implemented. The issuance of the addition of a leap year was needed as part of practical calendrical reform and was promulgated as part of the Canopus Decree but sadly was never really implemented until the Roman Period. Sometimes cultural practices overrode a different culture’s reality (Clagget 1989, 47).
Another dilemma for the priesthood remained in the mortuary cults. A normative role within Egyptian society from the earliest dynasties was the part played by priests in private mortuary cults. In the Ptolemaic Period this continued as the existence of private mortuary cults became better documented than in earlier periods. The private mortuary cults clearly were seen as religious businesses. Income was generated, and the income was treated like any other business where shares in the income were purchased, leased, bartered, or used as collateral for loans. But did these practices simply reflect an impoverishment of a priesthood and a lessening of their role in Egyptian culture? Or was it simply one more means by which the priesthood tried to remain as a preeminent leader in Egyptian culture (Johnson 1986).
The acquisition of new land for the state was a primary focus for the Ptolemaic regime. Land was needed for the Greek immigrants, and land resources were needed for payment to Ptolemy’s troops. The king faced a serious dilemma since most of the agricultural land was already occupied by native Egyptians, and their claims to the land were long documented. Allotting land from temples in Upper and Middle Egypt was not practical if the troops were called up for quick deployment in the many wars the Ptolemaic kings carried out, or planned to carry out. The solution was the exploitation of the Fayum. Through relatively simple, but large-scale irrigation projects, enormous tracts of rich land became almost overnight available for the kings. This they distributed as reserved payment to the Greek troops. Ownership of this cleruchic land was given to troops who benefited from permanent ownership of large tracts of farmland (Verhoogt 1998a). The state benefited from having a permanent base of manpower to staff the army. Large estates were established and an experiment in Graeco-Egyptian amalgamation took place. Soldiers were off to war, but their estates provided a safe haven for their families. Numerous Egyptians moved into the Fayum as tenant farmers and many intermarried with the soldiers or their families. Numerous towns developed, but we do not have the formal Greek polis status given as seen with other sites. Cultural lines were much blurred in the Fayum as opposed to the polis. In some ways the Fayum became an alphabetic soup of cultural groups, clearly dominated by Greeks, but beginning to reflect the diverse populations found in both Memphis and Alexandria (Clarysse and Thompson 2006: 123ff.).
Was the Fayum a success for the Ptolemaic dynasty? Of the many programs attempted by the Ptolemies, this one was in general a total success. Large amounts of land were brought into production. Taxes were collected. Estates were provided for former mercenary troops who became fast supporters of the state. Large amounts of excess labor from around Egypt were put to profitable work. Cultural exchange occurred. Like Deir el-Medina from New Kingdom times, the state provided a unique experience for a limited segment of their supporters, and the documentation of that experiment continues to be explored and interpreted. The dilemma for the state was that over time the land, once considered by the state as quid pro quo for military service, started to be treated as personal private property and a disconnect began. Did that mean the experiment failed? Hardly, but it did mean that even the Greeks had to adapt to changing times and economic demands (Manning 2003: 178-81).
A final aspect of the dilemma of the Ptolemaic regime was the advent of the ‘‘Associations.’’ These associations were of a religious nature and are evidenced as far back as the Saite period (Monson 2005). They were mutual beneficial organizations often formed by groups of men who sought stability in what may have been an unstable society. These men gathered together and provided common funds for the maintenance of widows and children of the deceased members as well as providing funerary services. On the one hand, these associations were commonsensical. They provided a benefit where one was needed. They were an adaptation of
Existing customs. That they proliferated (if I may use that term) during the Ptolemaic Period suggests that there was a need for communal support no longer provided by the state in the guise of the Pharaoh and the priests of the temples. Did the state become uncaring for its citizens? Or was something else to blame for this institution rearing its head (Muhs, 2001)?
World History
