Roman Conquest Of Egypt
The Roman conquest Of Egypt: When Rome took over Egypt in 30 BCE, it took over a place with a society that was already 3,000 years old and very complex, much older than Rome itself. However, the land was already taken. The Ptolemies, a family of Greek kings who ruled Egypt from the Greek city of Alexandria, had been in charge since Alexander the Great took power in 332 BCE.
There were diplomatic ties between Rome and these Hellenistic powers as early as 273 BCE. More close links were made in the first century BCE, when Julius Caesar and Mark Antony got involved in Egyptian politics directly through their relationships with Cleopatra VII.
Augustus, the first Roman ruler, took over Egypt in 30 BCE after his civil war with Antony and Cleopatra. He said, “Aegyptum imperio populi Romani adieci,” which means “I added Egypt to the power of the Roman people.”
Rome took over a country that already had a lot of culture built into it. 300 years of Greek rule had not destroyed the Egyptians’ habits, customs, language, or way of life.
It put on top of them a class of Greek merchants and officials. Egypt consistently existed as a dual state from the time of the Ptolemies through the Roman Empire. The Egyptians, who lived in villages and other rural places, made up the largest part.
For them, life didn’t change much under Greek or Roman rule. Egyptian architecture, language, and faith all kept up with their old ways of life. People thought of Roman rulers as new pharaohs, and statues of them were found in temples dressed like Egyptian royalty.
Many parts of Greek culture, like building, philosophy, city planning, and language, came from cities, especially Alexandria. Rome changed the way it was run to meet the needs of this complicated, multilingual, and international land.
Augustus’ policy kept the Ptolemies’ administrative system, which had been in place for almost 300 years, with only minor changes. It also produced a new way of running the government. Adding Roman traits like a census every fourteen years, a new poll tax called laographia, and a prefect (praefectus Aegypti) to replace the king were some of the things he did.
The Greek towns and people who lived there kept many of their rights, like not having to pay taxes and having local city councils. In Greek communities, those with the best Greek education and upbringing continue to choose local leaders. This made sure that there was a cultural, not a racial, order that put the Greeks ahead of the native Egyptians.
Egypt’s bond with the rest of the Roman world was also one of a kind. Roman senators and even famous horse riders were not allowed to go to Egypt because it provided a lot of the grain that Rome ate.
Because the governor rode horses himself, the rich prize of the province was kept out of the hands of senators who could become rival rulers. Egypt was very important to keeping Rome stable, so the emperors paid a lot of attention to it. For example, Hadrian visited Egypt for a long time in 130 CE and founded Antinoopolis, which was the only new city in Roman Egypt. It combined Roman political and economic advantages with Greek cultural institutions.
Septimius Severus made more trips there in 199–201, and his son Caracalla did so in 215. These weren’t tours to see sights; they were inspection trips that showed imperial care and an attempt to keep an eye on how the province was run. The problems in the province led to such a close review by the imperial government. Bringing together people from different countries was not always peaceful or successful.
Egypt, especially Alexandria, had a lot of civil, political, and military problems from the first century to the third century because of these interactions between Egyptian, Greek, Jewish, and then Christian groups.
During the reigns of Caligula and Claudius, from 38–41 CE, there was the first wave of violence under Roman rule. The Alexandrine Greeks were angry that the Jewish King Agrippa I had come to Alexandria, so they rioted against the Jews and drove them into a quarter of the city, destroying homes and shops and killing anyone they caught on the streets.
The praefectus agreed with the Greeks and told them that the Jews were foreigners. He then arrested and killed many of the Jewish council of elders. Greeks and Jews both sent envoys to emperor Claudius, who told them to keep the peace, not interfere with each other’s holidays or celebrations, and for the Jews not to bring in more troops from Syria or Egypt outside of Alexandria.
When the Jews threatened to burn down the arena in 66, there were more fights. He called in the army, and 50,000 people were killed. The praefectus was a Jew from Alexandria.
In 115–117, there was a Jewish revolt that spread across Egypt, Cyrene (Libya), and Cyprus. This was the last major act of violence. Even though it was more of an attack on the Greeks than on Roman power, Roman troops were sent to defend themselves.
The reaction from Trajan the emperor and the praefectus was clear: the Jews of Alexandria were wiped out. Greek culture, on the other hand, remained popular in Egypt well into the third century. For example, a papyrus from the 260s from Hermopolis records how a town clerk welcomed a Roman citizen returning from a mission to Rome by quoting a line from Euripides’ Ion.
Most historians agree that the reign of Diocletian (284–305) marked the end of “Roman Egypt” and the start of Byzantine time in Egypt. A lot of what we know about this time period comes from religious writers whose main focus is on doctrine.
Still, evidence from Alexandria shows that a lot changed during the reigns of the Byzantine rulers. One was a change in how the Roman government collected taxes. In Egypt, the Greeks and other favored groups lost their advantages when the new tax system, which wasn’t based on the poll tax, was put in place.
Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans all paid new property fees. It had a terrible effect on Alexandria. By the fourth century, Greek organizations were no longer in existence, and when Greeks and Egyptians began to mix, their cultural isolation came to an end.
Cities that used to be known as Greek villages are now known as places where Christian bishops live. Up until 642, Egypt was a Byzantine region before the Arabs took control of it.
Also Read: Ancient Egypt: A Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt
