Alexander the Great, A name throughout nearly all world history books, conquered the biggest empire of its time and its land borders were wider and longer the world had ever seen.  As interesting as Alexanders conquest were, I will focus more specifically on what happened to his empire after his death.

When Alexander died in Babylon on June 13, 323 BCE, the governors of each territory attempted to bring his remains to each of their kingdoms to be buried. The clearest example of this was Ptolemy I, Governor of Egypt, who hijacked the procession carrying Alexander back to Macedon and brought it to Egypt in order to legitimize his power. In order to secure Egypt from the other successor kingdoms, Ptolemy built up his military manpower by raising armies and consolidating power inside of Egypt.

To make the Egyptian populace more accepting of Ptolemy’s rule he had resumed the practice of marrying only members inside of the immediate ruling family and, had given himself the title of Pharaoh. These measures not only made the Egyptian people like him, but they viewed him as a deity.  Ptolemy’s descendants would go on to be the rulers of Egypt for centuries, the last being the notorious Cleopatra who is often mistaken to be of African origin when she is actually of Greek descent.

Ptolemaic Egypt was very prosperous and wealthy with numerous resources such as gold, wood, clay, medicine, education, grain, cattle, iron and much more. These abundances of resources were exported all across the ancient world, from Iberia in the West, to Armenia in the East Armenia in the East.  However, because of these resources, foreign states always had their eyes fixed towards conquering Egypt to seize its immense wealth and resources.

To combat this and keep its borders, secure the Ptolemaic dynasty made sure that its military was more than capable of defending itself from external threats. They did this by having multiple standing armies, investing in new weapons and ballista’s, fortifying and expanding certain defenses, and regularly training troops so they would be as experienced as possible.

Unfortunately, this Dynasty would collapse with constant wars, and most importantly infighting between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy V, for the throne and an increasingly larger Roman empire who was eager to interfere and aid Cleopatra. The last nail in the coffin for an Independent Ptolemaic dynasty was when Mark Antony and Cleopatra both killed themselves in Alexandria after losing a critical naval battle at Actium near Greece at the hands of Marcus Agrippa and Octavian, Caesar’s heir.  Thereafter, Egypt was absorbed into the Roman empire until its collapse centuries later.

Written by Carlyton Matthews