Hi there, you're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast.

Episode 61, Ptolemaic Egypt, Greeks in an Egyptian land. In episodes 58 and 59, I spent a significant amount of time covering the internal workings of

Hellenistic Egypt from a political and economic perspective. We are capable of doing this thanks to the large amount of

surviving evidence from the region. Well-preserved papyrus fragments and pot shards allow us to

reconstruct the mechanisms and processes of the Ptolemaic state. But within many of these archives

and records, we find an astonishing number of personal documents that originate from all walks of

life, men and women, soldiers

and priests, Greeks, and Egyptians. We have a grand mosaic of snapshots that will enable us to

view the experiences of those who lived and died under Ptolemaic rule. No contemporary society

yields such a rich body of diverse and detailed evidence outside of the traditional written

narratives.

And so I wanted to dedicate two episodes to discussing the inhabitants of Ptolemaic Egypt.

In this episode, I'm going to try and paint a picture of the Greek experience in Egypt,

as tens of thousands of immigrants sought a better life as strangers in an ancient land they now

called home. Prior to the arrival of Alexander and the foundation of the Ptolemaic dynasty,

Egypt had played host to Greek immigrants for several centuries, who were attracted

either by commercial enterprises or the chance to serve as mercenaries in the Pharaoh's army.

A few Hellenic communities were established, the most famous of these being

the city of Naucratus in the Eastern Isle Delta, and they would be given a considerable amount

of self-governance by the Egyptian state. But the turbulent period immediately following Alexander's

death sparked a wave of immigration that saw tens of thousands of individuals from across

the Greek-speaking world packed their bags and

...