Empires: Cleopatra and the Romans Part One

A lot of my thinking about empires and the study of the personalities behind them always seems to return to Alexander the Great and the empire he forged during his very short time on earth. He seems to me to be a kind of archetype, when I think about the men who would build empires in later times. Many of the later Roman emperors tried to emulate him. To start this new series I do not want to begin with him, although I do want to talk about him later, but I do want to start with a group of people, one of whom ruled a nation aas a direct result of Alexander the Great's conquests. This person was Cleopatra who was the most powerful woman in the first century before Christ. The Ptolemaic dynasty that she had been born into traced it's history back to Alexander. After Alexander's death in 323 B.C., his empire was divided between his loyal generals. Ptolemy I Soter was a childhood friend of Alexander, a great general and also a writer who helped record the life of Alexander as well as his own. Thus the Ptolemaic dynasty he began in Egypt was not Egyptian, but Macedonian. In the 50 years after Alexander's death, Macedon and the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires were the most succesful. The three were rival empires and vied for Greece, Syria and Palestine. However, it wasn't in the art of war that their competition reached its peak. These empires tried to outshine each other in the cultural and artistic realms. There was fierce competition to have the more ostentatious palaces and libraries. The Ptolemies had no peer in luxurious living and conspicuous consumption. Alexander founded the city of Alexandria in Egypt in 323 B.C. and this was also where the unparalleled Library of Alexandria was.

The Ptolemaic dynasty established in Egypt brought considerable stability. Not only did the city of Alexandria grow, but other regions in Egypt as well. The Ptolemies did base the structure of their rule on the previous 30 centuries of Pharahonic governance. This was a large bureaucracy that had to be run at both the small and large levels as a great deal of government and bureaucratic work was totally involved with what the annual flooding of the Nile would bring. The Ptolemies were very smart in the way they governed Egypt and did not take down succesful, pre-existing structures, but only made slight changes when they were called for. It was a very inflexible and hieratic dynasty thay placed Cleopatra and her brothers at the top. They were viewed in the same way as their pharaonic forebears.

The Macedonian Greek heritage of the Ptolemies made Egypt a very important part of the Hellenistic world. Egypt was the richest and longest lasting of Alexander the Great's decision to divide his empire between his loyal generals. When Egypt fell to Rome, Egypt was considered to be too precious to be governed by the Roman Senate. Egypt to a large degree became Rome's bread basket and was made an imperial province. Augustus kept his watchful eye on Egypt and entrusted his new possession to only equestrian leadership. The equestrians were a distinct order of Knights between the Senate and the plebs. The people picked by the Emperor to run Egypt had only him to answer to and not the Senate.

The rule of Ptolemaic Egypt was a family run affair. In Ptolemaic Egypt brothers married their sisters. This could have been inspired by the ancient Egyptian mythology of Isis and Osiris. This practice gave the Ptolemaic princesses authority that few ancient women had. The brothers were always named Ptolemy and the sisters were named Cleopatra, Arsinoes and Berenices. Royal titles emphasized family relations. Philometor and Philopator meant mother and father loving respectively. Philadelphus meant brother and sister loving. The ruling father always named his son as his successor and also married their choice to their sister. The incestuous way this was carried out ensured predictability during times of succcession. But it didn't always guarantee loyalty between family members, as we will see in Cleopatra's case. The image is a mosaic of Alexander the Great. I hope to have the next part to the story here very soon-perhaps tomorrow if time permits. Peace and be well to anyone stopping by!