Tonight, the family who built the city we live in. The last of them died thirty years ago.
The Hellenistic World · Part 1 · Alexander’s heirs · B2
The Ptolemies: Greek Pharaohs
Part 1 of The Hellenistic World: for three hundred years, from Alexander’s death to Cleopatra’s, a family of Macedonian generals ruled Egypt from Alexandria. To the Greeks they were kings; on the temple walls they were pharaohs; to the Egyptian farmers they were the men who collected the taxes. Comparative correlatives (the richer they became, the more they quarrelled) and verbs that change meaning (remember to / remember -ing), with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
SOPHIA
DEMETRIA
My grandmother remembers seeing Cleopatra.
MARCOS
And my grandfather remembers the Roman soldiers who came after her.
PHILO
And my family remembers that the Ptolemies were good to the Jews, most of the time. It depends which Ptolemy you ask about.
SOPHIA
It always depends which Ptolemy. There were fifteen of them, and several Cleopatras.
Read: the family of the Lagids
Before you read
Egypt, 323–30 BCE
When Alexander died in 323 BCE, his general Ptolemy, son of Lagos, took Egypt. In 305 BCE he called himself king. His descendants, the Ptolemies (or Lagids), ruled Egypt for almost three hundred years, until Cleopatra VII died in 30 BCE and Egypt became a Roman province. Every male king was called Ptolemy, and many queens were called Arsinoe, Berenice or Cleopatra.
The Ptolemies made Alexandria the largest and richest city of the Greek world, with the Pharos, the Museum and the Library. Egypt was the richest kingdom of the age, thanks to its grain, collected as tax and sold across the Mediterranean, and to a huge system of royal officials who wrote everything down on papyrus.
They ruled two peoples in two ways. To the Greeks and Macedonians, who held the best positions, they were Hellenistic kings. To the Egyptians, they were pharaohs: they paid for temples, took part in Egyptian rituals and were shown on temple walls in Egyptian dress, offering to the Egyptian gods. Most of them never learned Egyptian.
One family, two crowns, three hundred years.
PHILO
Read the story. How did Ptolemy I get Alexander’s body? Why did the Ptolemies marry their sisters? What does the Rosetta decree tell us?
SOPHIA
Then answer Section A.
The story
Retold for this lesson from Greek writers, Egyptian decrees and the papyri.
Alexander’s generals had planned to bury him in Macedonia. In 321 BCE, as the great funeral carriage was crossing Syria, Ptolemy met it with an army and took it to Egypt instead. The body of Alexander, first at Memphis and then in a tomb in the centre of Alexandria, was a treasure greater than gold: whoever kept it looked like Alexander’s true heir. Ptolemy also brought scholars to his new city, and with Demetrius of Phalerum he founded the Museum and the Library. He promoted a new god, Serapis, built from the Egyptian Osiris-Apis of Memphis but shown as a bearded Greek, so that Greeks and Egyptians could worship together.
His son, Ptolemy II, married his own full sister, Arsinoe II, as the pharaohs of old Egypt had sometimes done and the Greeks thought shocking. Several later Ptolemies did the same. The family kept the power inside the family, and the more they kept it there, the more they fought each other: brothers against sisters, mothers against sons. Ptolemy IV is said to have had his mother killed, and Ptolemy VIII to have murdered his own son. The Greek writers who tell these stories did not like the Ptolemies, but they did not invent all of them.
There were gentler moments. When Ptolemy III went to war, his queen, Berenice II, cut off a lock of her famous hair and dedicated it in a temple for his safe return. The lock disappeared. The court astronomer Conon announced that the gods had placed it among the stars, and showed the king a faint group of stars, still called Berenice’s Hair. The poet Callimachus wrote a poem about it.
But the farmers of the south paid for all of it. In 217 BCE, at the battle of Raphia, Ptolemy IV armed Egyptian soldiers for the first time, and won. Soon afterwards, Upper Egypt rebelled, and for twenty years two Egyptian pharaohs ruled at Thebes. In 196 BCE, during the revolt, the priests met at Memphis and issued a decree in honour of the boy king Ptolemy V, praising him, and listing the taxes he had cancelled and the gifts he had given to the temples. It was carved on stone in three scripts: hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek. Things to come: a copy will be found in 1799 near the town of Rosetta, and it will help scholars to read hieroglyphs again.
The richer …, the more …
MARCOS
The richer the Ptolemies became, the more they quarrelled. The more taxes they collected, the angrier the farmers became. The longer the revolt lasted, the more the king gave to the priests.
SOPHIA
the + comparative …, the + comparative … shows that two things change together. Both halves need the. Short form: the sooner, the better.
Remember, stop, forget: -ing or to?
DEMETRIA
Ptolemy remembered to bring the scholars (he did not forget). The old man remembers seeing Cleopatra (a memory). The army stopped to rest in Syria (in order to rest). The farmers stopped paying taxes (no more paying). Don’t forget to seal the decree.
SOPHIA
remember / forget + to: a duty, before you do it. remember + -ing: a memory of the past. stop + to: stop in order to do something; stop + -ing: no longer do it.
Words of the kingdom
PHILO
The king issued a decree. The priests honoured him. The farmers rebelled. The officials collected the taxes and recorded them on papyrus. A dynasty is a family of rulers.
SOPHIA
Words: dynasty, heir, decree, revolt, rebel, tax, official, bureaucracy, papyrus, trilingual.
Sophia’s evidence check
| Claim | Label | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Ptolemy I took Alexander’s body to Egypt. | Consensus | Many ancient writers agree; where the tomb is now is unknown. |
| Several Ptolemies married their full sisters. | Consensus | Inscriptions, coins and writers. |
| Serapis was created by Ptolemy I. | Debated | He was based on an older Egyptian god; the Ptolemies promoted him. |
| The Rosetta decree was issued during a revolt. | Consensus | The date and the revolt are both known. |
| Egyptians were second-class subjects. | Debated | Greeks had privileges, but some Egyptians, especially priests, rose high. |
| Cleopatra VII was the only Ptolemy who spoke Egyptian. | Debated | Plutarch says so; we cannot check it. |
Sophia’s comparison: two pictures of the same king
SOPHIA
Walk into the temple of Horus at Edfu, which the Ptolemies built, and you will see a Ptolemy in the double crown, offering to Horus, with his name in a royal cartouche. He could not read a word of it. Then walk into the Museum and you will see the same king as a Macedonian, among Greek poets.
DEMETRIA
So which one was the real Ptolemy?
SOPHIA
Both, and neither. To the priests, he was the pharaoh who kept the world in order. To the Greeks, he was the patron of learning. To the farmers of Thebes, he was a foreign king who took their grain.
PHILO
And to my people he was a protector, mostly. The Jews served in his army and his offices, and two of Cleopatra III’s generals were Jews. It is a strange thing to be loyal to a king who looks completely different from every side.
Sophia’s summary
| Words and forms | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| the + comparative, the + comparative | two things changing together | The richer they became, the more they quarrelled. |
| remember / forget + to | a duty, before doing it | Don’t forget to seal the decree. |
| remember + -ing | a memory | She remembers seeing Cleopatra. |
| stop + to | stop in order to do | The army stopped to rest. |
| stop + -ing | no longer do | The farmers stopped paying taxes. |
| dynasty, decree, revolt, trilingual | the Ptolemies | The decree was trilingual. |
Practice
Read the story for Section A, then do the rest. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · The story
Read the story and choose the best answer.
1. How did Ptolemy I get Alexander’s body?
2. Who was Serapis?
3. What did Ptolemy II do that shocked the Greeks?
4. What happened to Berenice’s lock of hair?
5. What happened after the battle of Raphia?
6. In how many scripts was the Rosetta decree written?
B · Grammar and vocabulary
Write the missing word or words.
7. The richer they became, the they quarrelled.
8. longer the revolt lasted, the more he gave.
9. She remembers Cleopatra. (see, a memory)
10. Don’t forget seal the decree.
11. The farmers stopped taxes. (pay, no longer)
12. The army stopped rest in Syria. (in order to)
C · Right or wrong?
Is the sentence correct English?
13. “Richer they became, more they quarrelled.”
14. “She remembers seeing Cleopatra as a child.”
15. “Remember sealing the decree before you post it.”
16. “The farmers stopped paying taxes.”
Talk and write
Discussion and writing
Two crowns. In pairs, describe a leader (real or invented) who must look different to two different groups. What does each group see?
Discuss. 1. Why did the Ptolemies want Alexander’s body so much? 2. Why might a king call himself pharaoh in one place and Macedonian king in another? 3. What does the Rosetta decree tell us about the revolt?
Write (130–160 words). Three hundred years of Ptolemies. Tell the story of the dynasty from Alexander’s body to Cleopatra. Use comparative correlatives and at least two verbs that change meaning with -ing or to.