S8 Ep241: Professor Toby Wilkinson. The Ptolemies leveraged Egypt's grain and gold to build a prosperous economy. They constructed the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Museum, which attracted scholars like Archimedes. Zenodotus, the first head librarian, invented b

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 24 December 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Professor Toby Wilkinson. The Ptolemies leveraged Egypt's grain and gold to build a prosperous economy. They constructed the Lighthouse of Alexandria and the Museum, which attracted scholars like Archimedes. Zenodotus, the first head librarian, invented bibliography to organize the Library's massive collection of scrolls.
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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is CBS I on the World.
0:07.1	I'm John Bachelors.
0:08.6	A great privilege I am speaking with Professor Toby Wilkinson, his book, The Last
0:14.4	Dynasty, Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra.
0:19.4	Alexander's gone, Ptolemy's gone.
0:21.7	And the son,
0:22.9	Ptolemy the second, arrives.
0:24.9	And he doesn't outdo his
0:26.6	father. He honors his father.
0:28.6	He cares about scholarship. He cares
0:30.5	about finishing the building site to turn it
0:32.6	into the marvel of the world
0:34.7	at the time, Alexandria.
0:36.6	And he cares about the gods of the Egyptians,
0:39.2	the gods of the Greeks. All of that is important to him. And just to make a note here before
0:45.6	we build the library and finish the lighthouse, what drives all of this is an economy that
0:52.7	works.
0:55.0	And Ptolemy the second, and again, Ptolemy the third, understand that they need to maximize
1:02.0	their production of grain.
1:04.0	How did they do that, Professor?
1:06.0	Well, Egypt was already famous in the ancient world as a very fertile country with a great agricultural
1:13.1	potential. But what the Ptolemies do is enhance that by major new irrigation work. So they reclaim
	...

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