Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptian Civilization

Persian and Greek Influence on the Late Period of Egypt

The Persian invasions, satrapal rule, Alexander the Great's arrival, the founding of Alexandria, and the cultural blend that transformed late ancient Egypt.

Persian and Greek Influence on the Late Period of Egypt

The last centuries of native Egyptian civilization, the Late Period (664–332 BCE), were shaped in large part by two great powers from the east and the north: the Persian Achaemenid Empire and the Greek-speaking kingdoms of the Aegean. For the broader history of the era, see our guide to the Late Period of Egypt.

The story of Persian and Greek influence on the Late Period is a story of conquest, accommodation, and cultural fusion. The Egyptians resisted, adapted, and eventually, under the Ptolemies, created a new hybrid civilization that would last for nearly three hundred years.

Egypt and the Early Achaemenid Empire

The first Persian invasion of Egypt came in 525 BCE, when Cambyses II, the son of Cyrus the Great, led an army across the Sinai and defeated the pharaoh Psamtik III at the Battle of Pelusium. Cambyses was crowned pharaoh at Memphis and took the traditional royal titles, but his rule was a military occupation rather than a legitimate Egyptian kingship. The famous “instructions” of the high priest Ujahorresnet, who served both Cambyses and his successor Darius I, show the kind of negotiation that went on between the Egyptian priesthood and the Persian crown. Ujahorresnet helped Darius I reorganize the Egyptian medical and religious institutions, and in return he was given honors and high office.

The first Persian period ended in 404 BCE, when a series of Egyptian revolts, led by Amyrtaeus and others, finally forced the Persians to withdraw. The next sixty years saw a brief revival of native Egyptian rule, with the Twenty-Eighth, Twenty-Ninth, and Thirtieth Dynasties. The last great native pharaoh, Nectanebo II, built extensively at Philae and elsewhere before being defeated by a second Persian invasion in 343 BCE.

The Second Persian Period

The second Persian period (343–332 BCE) was even more brutal than the first. The Persian king Artaxerxes III reconquered Egypt savagely, looting the temples, removing the sacred books, and imposing heavy tribute. The Persian kings took the pharaonic title and tried to present themselves as legitimate Egyptian rulers, but the Egyptians never fully accepted them. Cambyses II was accused of murdering the sacred Apis bull, an act that was considered sacrilege. To explore the broader religious framework, see our guide to Egyptian mythology and beliefs.

The Persian Satrapy

The Persians organized Egypt as a satrapy, a province of the Achaemenid Empire governed by a satrap appointed by the Persian king. The satrap lived in Memphis or Sais, collected taxes, maintained the army, and administered justice. The high priests of the major temples, the local nomarchs, and the scribal bureaucracy continued to function as they had under the native pharaohs. The satrapy was, however, a heavier burden than native rule. The Persian kings taxed Egypt heavily to finance their wars in Greece, Anatolia, and elsewhere.

The Arrival of Alexander the Great

In 332 BCE, Alexander the Great invaded the Achaemenid Empire. The Persian satrap of Egypt, Mazaces, surrendered without a fight, and Alexander entered Egypt as a liberator. He was crowned pharaoh at Memphis, performed the traditional rituals at the temple of Ptah, and visited the oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis, where he was reportedly recognized as the son of Amun.

The Founding of Alexandria

Alexander’s most important act in Egypt was the founding of the city of Alexandria in 331 BCE. The site had been chosen by Homer in the Odyssey (the Egyptian coast at the western edge of the Delta), and Alexander’s architects laid out a grid plan for a new Greek city. Within a generation, Alexandria would become one of the great cities of the ancient world.

The most important building in the new city was the Library of Alexandria, traditionally attributed to Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 283–246 BCE). The Library was conceived as a universal library, and the Ptolemies acquired manuscripts from across the Mediterranean world. The Library, and the Mouseion (museum) attached to it, became the intellectual capital of the Greek-speaking world. The Library was damaged in the wars of the late Ptolemaic period and destroyed by the fourth century CE, an incalculable loss, since many of the great works of ancient Greek and Egyptian literature are known to us only because they were preserved in other libraries.

The other great monument of Alexandria was the Pharos of Alexandria, the great lighthouse built on the island of Pharos in front of the city. The Pharos was the third of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World to be built in Egypt, after the Great Pyramid and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (although the Hanging Gardens were probably in Mesopotamia). The Pharos stood for more than 1,500 years, until it was destroyed by an earthquake in the fourteenth century.

The Ptolemaic Dynasty: A New Civilization

After Alexander’s death in 323 BCE, his generals divided his empire. Egypt eventually fell to Ptolemy I Soter, who founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty. The Ptolemies ruled Egypt for nearly three hundred years, until the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BCE.

The result was a new civilization that was neither purely Egyptian nor purely Greek, but a hybrid of the two. The Ptolemies built Egyptian-style temples at Philae, Edfu, Dendera, and Kom Ombo, but they also built Greek-style cities. The Egyptian gods were worshipped in Ptolemaic Egypt, but the Greek gods were worshipped alongside them. The Egyptian language survived in the countryside and in the temples, but Greek was the language of government, of business, and of high culture.

The New Cultural Blend

The cultural blend of Ptolemaic Egypt was, in many ways, the most important legacy of Persian and Greek influence on the Late Period. Some of the most impressive monuments of ancient Egypt (the temple of Hathor at Dendera, the temple of Horus at Edfu, the temple of Isis at Philae) were built in the Ptolemaic period, in a style that mixed traditional Egyptian architecture with Greek and Roman elements. The Ptolemaic style was the last great flowering of native Egyptian art.

The religious traditions of Ptolemaic Egypt were also a blend. The cult of Isis, the Egyptian mother goddess, was a major state religion in the Ptolemaic period, and it would spread throughout the Mediterranean world in the centuries that followed. The cult of Serapis, a new god invented by the Ptolemies, who fused the Egyptian Osiris-Apis with the Greek Zeus-Hades, was also important. Serapis was worshipped from Egypt to Rome, and his cult was one of the last great pagan religions to be suppressed by the Christian Roman Empire.

The art of Ptolemaic Egypt was, in many ways, the most sophisticated of the ancient world. The famous “Fayum mummy portraits” (vivid, naturalistic paintings of individuals, attached to mummies) are some of the most striking portraits in the ancient world. They combine the Egyptian tradition of funerary portraiture with the Greek tradition of naturalistic painting, and they give a vivid sense of the multi-ethnic population of Ptolemaic Egypt.

The Final Collapse

The Ptolemaic Dynasty, despite its brilliance, was politically fragile. The last great Ptolemy, Cleopatra VII, tried to save her kingdom by allying with the Roman general Mark Antony. The alliance failed, and in 30 BCE, after the Battle of Actium, Egypt was absorbed into the Roman Empire. Cleopatra’s death, by her own hand, marked the end of the last dynasty of pharaohs and the end of ancient Egypt as an independent state. To learn more about Cleopatra and her world, see our guide to Cleopatra VII and the long-tail page on Cleopatra and Rome.

The Roman period saw the gradual decline of the Egyptian culture. The Egyptian language was replaced by Coptic, a form of the Egyptian language written with the Greek alphabet, and the traditional Egyptian gods were gradually replaced by Christianity. By the time the Arab conquest arrived in the seventh century CE, the old Egyptian gods had been displaced for centuries, and only the Coptic liturgy preserved the last echo of the pharaonic tongue. Of the many books I have read on this transition, Aidan Dodson’s Monarchs of the Nile is the most useful single survey in English, and the chapter on the Ptolemies is particularly good.