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Reigning for 275 years, the Ptolemaic was the longest and last dynasty of ancient Egypt from 305 BC until its incorporation into the Roman Republic in 30 BC. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] Ptolemy , a general and one of the somatophylakes (bodyguard companions) of Alexander the Great , was appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexander's death in 323 BC.
[3] [4] As Ptolemy I Soter ("Saviour"), he founded the Ptolemaic dynasty that was to rule Egypt for nearly 300 years. All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy, while princesses and female rulers preferred the names Cleopatra, Arsinoë and Berenice. The Ptolemies also adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters, with ...
The first 30 divisions come from the 3rd century BC Egyptian priest Manetho, whose Aegyptaiaca, was probably written for a Greek-speaking Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt but survives only in fragments and summaries. The names of the last two, the short-lived Persian-ruled 31st Dynasty and the longer-lasting Ptolemaic Dynasty, are later coinings.
The history of Egypt has been long and wealthy, due to the flow of the Nile River with its fertile banks and delta, as well as the accomplishments of Egypt's native inhabitants and outside influence. Much of Egypt's ancient history was unknown until Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered with the discovery and deciphering of the Rosetta Stone .
Surviving king lists are either comprehensive but have significant gaps in their text (for example, the Turin King List), or are textually complete but fail to provide a complete list of rulers (for example, the Abydos King List and the Palermo Stone), even for a short period of Egyptian history. [3]
The second Hellenistic dynasty, the Ptolemies, ruled Egypt from 305 BCE until Egypt became a province of Rome in 30 BCE (whenever two dates overlap, that means there was a co-regency). The most famous member of this dynasty was Cleopatra VII, in modern times known simply as Cleopatra , who was successively the consort of Julius Caesar and ...
The date used as the end of the ancient era is arbitrary. The transition period from Classical Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages is known as Late Antiquity.Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the transitional centuries from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world: generally from the end of the Roman Empire's ...
Large migrations of Greeks to Egypt ceased by the 2nd century BC, so the Greek minority in Ptolemaic Egypt remained demographically small. [381] Although Egyptian priests were often wealthy landowners who rivaled the wealth of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, the Ptolemaic monarchs technically owned all Egyptian lands as part of their estate. [382]