3456–3731 AM · 305 BCE — 30 BCE · world history
The Ptolemies and Alexandria
One of Alexander's generals founds a dynasty, and his capital becomes the centre of learning.
On Alexander's death Egypt fell to Ptolemy, and his descendants ruled the country for nearly three centuries, speaking Greek and having themselves depicted as pharaohs on the temple walls. Under them Alexandria grew into the greatest city of the Mediterranean: the lighthouse on the island of Pharos, the Museum with stipends for scholars, the Library into which scrolls were gathered from all over the world. Euclid and Eratosthenes worked here. Here too lived the largest Jewish community of the diaspora, for whom the Torah was rendered into Greek—the translation known as the Septuagint.
Sources
Documents of the period
- Greek papyri of Ptolemaic Egypt — the decrees and the economy of the Ptolemies in the papyri
Scholarship
- archaeology of the Nile valley — Alexandria: the street plan, the Pharos, the necropoleis
Basis: documents and evidence.