The final years of Greek rule in Egypt is often over-shadowed by Cleopatra VII, she of the carpets, the asp and the beaten gold poop. But there’s more to Ptolemaic Egypt than this.
A small vignette, recollected by Diodorus Siculus, illuminates the condition of Egypt in the middle decades of the first century BCE, a period on the poise of great change, as the millennia long traditions of the pharaohs were seemingly on the brink of destruction.
At the time when Ptolemy their king had not as yet been given by the Romans the appellation of “friend” and the people were exercising all zeal in courting the favour of the embassy from Italy which was then visiting Egypt and, in their fear, were intent upon giving no cause for complaint or war, when one of the Romans killed a cat and the multitude rushed in a crowd to his house, neither the officials sent by the king to beg the man off nor the fear of Rome which all the people felt were enough to save the man from punishment, even though his act had been an accident.
Three histories of Ptolemaic Egypt, published in the last few years, provide different interpretations of this intriguing story which represents a critical moment in Egypt’s history.
In The Fall of Egypt and the Rise of Rome (published by Yale in 2024), Guy de la Bédoyère focuses on the ups and downs of Egypt’s tempestuous relationship with Rome, a power which over the three hundred year history of the Ptolemaic dynasty, rose from obscurity to dominance.
In his telling, the Egyptians erupted in anger, partly as a result of snapping under the intense tension at trying to keep the Romans happy. He notes that Diodorus’ account does not actually say the Roman was killed, but acknowledges it was possible.
In this version, we see Egyptians almost accepting as fait accompli the end of their independence to Rome.
Certainly they had long to prepare for this.
De la Bédoyère traces their alliance from the period of the Second Punic War, when Rome became a regional power and developed new forces which were later directed against Egypt. Egypt tactically stayed out of this conflict. Her ruler’s eyes faced north and east towards Syria, Antonolia and Greece.
But over the second century, domestic weakness and rebellion led to the loss of international holdings and military prestige which went hand in hand with Rome’s growth.
Egypt was initially content to use this power to its own ends.
In 168 BCE, as the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV approached Alexandria at the head of a powerful army he was met with a Roman envoy, Caius Popilius Laenas, bearing the Roman Senate’s decree that Antiochus withdraw. Antiochus, trying to buy time, said he would need to speak to his advisor, so Popilius drew a circle around him and told him he had to give his response before he stepped out of the circle. Antiochus sensed the latent threat behind the drawings and the Ptolemies were saved.
By 101-100 BCE, the tides had turned and Rome was setting requirements for Egypt and other allies to not allow Cilician pirates to operate within Ptolemaic waters. De la Bédoyère rightfully implies this was a major loss of sovereignty, confirmed when Cyrene passed from Egyptian to Roman control, at the death of Ptolemy Apion in 96 BCE.
From around this period, Ptolemies seeking power in Egypt made sure they had Roman support first. The stage was set for Cleopatra.
But which Cleopatra? In his lurid but learned book on Ptolemaic queens, The Cleopatras (published by Wildfire in 2024), Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones focuses on the six Cleopatras who preceded the more famous one.
There are some strong personalities. The first Cleopatra may have murdered her husband to avoid a costly war with Syria.
The family dynamics are something to behold. For example, Cleopatra II married first her brother Ptolemy VI and then on his death, she married her next brother Ptolemy VIII. Ptolemy VIII in turn married Cleopatra II’s daughter, Cleopatra III (while his first wife was still alive). He fell out big time with Cleopatra II, murdering her son Ptolemy Memphites (sending her his dismembered remains in a lead box, which she opened at a banquet).
While Ptolemy XI married Berenice Cleopatra, his half-sister, cousin and step-mother, only to have her murdered weeks later. The Alexandrian mob pulled him from his palace and killed him.
This is stuff that would be too wild for TV, as the BBC found out to their chagrin in 1983 when their dramatisation of the dynastic wrangles confused viewers and critics alike. Even historically accurate costumes (nudity) did not help placate the public.
It also did not help that everyone seems to be called Ptolemy or Cleopatra.
The bloody intrigues of these years resulted in a weakened state, which ultimately allowed Rome to fill the vacuum and take political advantage of the situation.
Llewellyn-Jones leans into high camp. A gold coin depicting Cleopatra I is described in loving detail.
“She is a delicate young thing whose fine, narrow features work well in silhouette. Her nose is delicately retrousse and her lips are full and bud-like, whilst her chin is round as a ball; the over-large pupil of her eyes stares into the far distance with a slight upward curve”
His book creates a sense of the queens as politically adept (if not outright ruthless), able to use all the power in the arsenal – hard, soft and sexual – to achieve their aims.
This is valid historical interpretation and it doesn’t harm anyone that the book is morishly readable.
But at times, he goes a bit too far into the drama. In his version of Diodorus’ account of the cat killing, he writes how D. saw “a Roman visitor being murdered in the street … and had watched the agents of the crown inert standing by as the Roman was bludgeoned to death”.
Certainly this reading vividly highlights the sense of uncontrollable mob violence in the original source, but Diodorus never says that the Roman was beaten to death.
The final author of our triad, Toby Wilkinson, completes his popular history series of ancient Egypt with The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra (published by W.W. Norton in 2025).
His version of events is more ambiguous. Diodorus, he writes, reported seeing a Roman being torn apart by an angry mob for inadvertently killing a cat. The words torn apart have both a wooly figurative meaning (perhaps a group of concerned citizens with legitimate concerns etc.) and a literal meaning: centuries later, the mathematician Hypatia was brutally killed in such a way.
Certainly Alexandria has become synonymous with ancient historians for uncontrollable mob violence.
Wilkinson also focuses on the element of cat worship. “[T]o the Romans”, he writes “the Egyptians’ obsession with worshipping animals was downright bizarre, atavistic and ridiculous”. This is true, but the Romans were fascinated. Lucius Memmius, a Roman envoy, went on a visit to the Fayum’s sacred crocodiles in 112 BCE.
A strength of Wilkinson’s book is that he focuses on the last dynasty, from the perspective of the long history of Pharaonic Egypt.
During this period, vast numbers of Greek colonialists settled in Egypt. In some regions they formed communities, which were closeknit if not hermetically sealed off, and in other areas, they settled in Egyptian villages. Tensions arose, as we know from the evidence, but society changed over the 300 years of Greek rule.
Wilkinson shows that the Egyptian elite continued to serve the Ptolemies in high office. A member of the pharaonic family continued to rule over Sebennytos as governor, while another man who had fought against the Greeks on the Persian side, served as a local head priest.
By the start of the second century BCE, the dynamic had subtly changed and Egyptian priests and Ptolemies worked together to bolster each other’s powers. At least from the region of Ptolemy V, if not below, the Ptolemies went to Memphis to be crowned and returned regularly during their reigns.
The city of Alexandria had overtaken Memphis during this period in terms of political importance, but the priests in Memphis were able to use Ptolemaic patronage to overtake their traditional rivals in Thebes. The Ptolemies continued to dedicate buildings in the city.
So much about the elite, but what about the ordinary people? Wilkinson argues, for them ‘life was one long, bad dream”. In the desert, the few items belonging to miners, dice and votive objects, suggest a cramped life where the only escapes were gambling and praying.
Yet there were releases. Not least violence. One papyrus records an outburst between an Egyptian woman (Pasetenbast) and a self important Greek man (Herakleides):
Pasentenbast “emptied a chamber pot of urine over my clothes, so that I was completely drenched. When I angrily reproached her, she hurled abuse at me. When I responded in kind, Psenobastis with her own right hand pulled the fold of my cloak … tore it and ripped it off me, so that my chest was laid quite bare. She also spat in my face … When some of the bystanders reproached her for what she had done, she simply left me and went back into the house.”
Wilkinson, P. 218
Fair play.
Another intriguing piece of evidence of the more joyful sides of life comes from a funerary epitaph. A wife tells her husband to live, laugh and love:
“Oh my brother, my husband, friend and High Priest! Do not weary of drinking, eating, getting drunk and making love! Make merry! Follow your heart day and night! Do not let care enter your heart otherwise what use are your years upon earth? As for the west [the necropolis], it is a land of sleep: darkness weighs on that place where the dead dwell.”
Wilkinson, P. 348
Given the woman was dead by the time her epitaph was written, possibly the husband put suitable words into her mouth. We cannot know if this is how she felt. But it nevertheless provides a community in which the joys of life were revered and celebrated.
Each book takes a slightly different approach. Guy de la Bédoyère focuses on the impact of Rome on Ptolemaic Egypt’s foreign and domestic policies, Lloyd Jones the role of royal women and by extension the court and Greek elite, and Wilkinson, the importance of Egyptians and traditional practice.
Together they show the range of different interpretations available to scholars. You can read them successively without feeling a sense of repetition. Each book complements the other.
Ultimately, if you only have room for one book on Ptolemaic Egypt, then Llewellyn-Jones’ is the more immediately accessible, but to my mind Wilkinson provides a broader and deeper sense of the period.
Rhakotis 