This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Bachelors. A great privilege I am speaking with

Professor Toby Wilkinson, his book, The Last Dynasty, Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great

to Cleopatra. Alexander's gone, Ptolemy's gone, and the son, Ptolemy the second arrives.

And he doesn't outdo his father.

He honors his father.

He cares about scholarship.

He cares about finishing the building site to turn it into the marvel of the world at

the time, Alexandria.

And he cares about the gods of the Egyptians, the gods of the Greeks.

All of that is important to him. Just to make a note here

before we build the library and finish the lighthouse, what drives all of this is an economy

that works. And Ptolemy the second, and again, Ptolemy the third, understand that they need to maximize their production of grain.

How did they do that, Professor?

Well, Egypt was already famous in the ancient world as a very fertile country with a great agricultural potential.

But what the Ptolemy's do is enhance that by major new irrigation

work. So they reclaim a lot of land in the area of the Nile Valley called the Fayum around a great

lake. They install modern irrigation technology for the time in order to provide even more crops.

So grain is not just a commodity.

It's not just a way of feeding your population.

In the ancient world, grain is wealth.

Other countries which have less agricultural potential want Egyptian grains. So grain is wealth. Other countries which have, you know, less agricultural potential want Egyptian grain.

So grain is one of the means by which the Ptolemy's turn Egypt into a fabulously wealthy country.

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