Ptolemaic Egypt was a multicultural and multilingual society (Ray 1992; Thompson 2009) to which immigrants came from all over the Eastern Mediterranean (Mueller 2006). Many Jews settled there, since Palestine was part of the Ptolemaic empire for almost a century. The largest concentration was found in cosmopolitan Alexandria where the Jews became Hellenized, and some had a brilliant career in the Ptolemaic administration, like Dositheos, son of Drimylos, who became a priest of the Greek dynastic cult (Jordens 2008). Greeks and Egyptians were the two largest ethnic groups, already in direct contact from at least the Saite Dynasty (664-525), and they both left a deep mark on Ptolemaic Egypt. The Ptolemaic king was the living symbol of this double society: he was the subject of a Greek dynastic cult, but an Egyptian-style cult was introduced in the countryside; he was portrayed as a Greek-Macedonian king wearing a diadem on his coins, but as a Pharaoh on the walls of Egyptian temples. However, Ptolemaic Egypt was not turned into a double-faceted society at all levels. In public sectors, such as administration, the state chose from the start to apply one system to the entire population, though it did take into account long-standing traditions and privileged the Greek element in the population. On the other hand, in private sectors, like religious life and private law, the state was less dominant. The Egyptians continued to worship their own gods whilst temples were constructed for the Greek gods in the Greek cities. In the countryside the Greek
A
Figure 9.3a and 9.3b The two faces of the Ptolemaic Period are reflected in its bilingual documentation. The Egyptian Demotic sale contract is Brussels, Mus{;es Royaux E8252; the Greek sale contract is Brussels, Musees Royaux E8441. © Musees Royaux d’Art.
Olympian gods were frequently referred to, but these were, as a rule, just Greek names for the local Egyptian gods. Thus, Greeks worshipped Egyptian gods in a Greek guise (interpretatiograeca): at Thebes the Heraion was Mut’s temple; Apollo-nopolis Magna (Edfu) was the city of Horus/Apollo; and Panopolis (Achmim) was the city of Min/Pan. As to private law, the people continued their own traditions in their own language. A Greek could appeal to a Greek notary to draw up his will, whereas an Egyptian went to the Egyptian temple notary. Greek and Egyptian notarial offices existed alongside each other even in small towns like Pathyris (Pestman 1978). Different courts (dikasteria) judged the Greek immigrants whilst Egyptians were served by laokritai (literally ‘‘people’s judges’’) based in the temples, though they were all subordinate to royal justice in the person of the king or his representatives the chrematistai.
Whilst the two ethnic groups could at first be easily identified as Greek or Egyptian, the boundaries became blurred after a while, even at the highest levels. Greek royal portraits increasingly show Egyptian influence, while Egyptian-style royal portraiture adopted Greek features (Ashton 2001), and the Egyptian dynastic cult became popular even among Greeks living in the countryside. There were two main forces causing the ongoing melding of Egyptian and Greek culture: mixed marriages and social mobility. Greek male immigrants living in the countryside married Egyptian women (Meleze-Modrzejewski 1984), partly due to the shortage of Greek women (Thompson 2002). Thus the Greek military officer Dryton son of Pamphilos, a citizen of Ptolemais, married the much younger Apollonia alias Senmonthis, who descended from a Hellenized Egyptian family and lived in a small Upper-Egyptian town, but the marriage brought a Greek dimension into the family for only one generation (Lewis 1986; Vandorpe 2002). Through social mobility the Egyptian elite managed to penetrate the higher echelons of the army or administration. As a consequence natives who Hellenized to a certain degree took on either a Greek or Egyptian identity, depending on whether they were at work or at home (Clarysse 1985). In the second century bc it is no longer possible to identify a person as a Greek or an Egyptian on the basis of his name or ethnic. Many inhabitants assume a double name, usually a Greek and Egyptian one. As they could even receive a new ethnic as result of a promotion, ethnics no longer referred to origin but rather to status (La’da 1994; Vandorpe 2008). Thus, Dionysios, son of Kephalas, of Egyptian origin, was promoted from ‘‘Persian’’ to ‘‘Macedonian’’ soldier (Boswinkel-Pestman 1982). Even for the Ptolemaic courts it became impossible to make the ethnic distinction: from 118 BC onwards it was the language of the contracts and no longer the ethnicity of the parties that determined the type of court. Inevitably, Greek and Egyptian traditions affected each other. The position of the Greek woman, for instance, improved under the influence of Egyptian traditions, but Greek women would never become as independent as their Egyptian colleagues (Pomeroy 1990).
With the reign of Kleopatra VII a Roman dimension was added; for she was a queen with affinities to three cultures (Schuller 2006): she was of Macedonian descent; she was the first Ptolemaic dynast who could speak Egyptian (Plutarch Ant. 27); and through her children there was a physical fusion with the Romans, and her son by Caesar obtained a Roman name alongside his other names as Ptolemy Caesar Philopator.
World History
