During the Ptolemaic Dynasty, ancient Greek civilization and ancient Egyptian civilization were widely blended, resulting in a new civilization with Egyptian civilization as the main body and Greek civilization characteristics. Politically, the traditional centralized monarchy in Egypt is the main body, supplemented by the democratic autonomy system of the Greek city-state; Economically, it is based on Egypt's traditional land public ownership and irrigated agriculture, led by Greece's open industry and commerce, while retaining Egypt's traditional state monopoly characteristics; In terms of culture, Greek culture, which has been greatly influenced by Egyptian culture for a long time, in turn has profoundly influenced Egyptian culture, and the two blend with each other and blend into one.
Like Alexander the Great, Ptolemy I Soter was a visionary emperor. In Egypt, he formulated and implemented a series of measures conducive to political, economic and cultural development. In order to consolidate his rule in Egypt, Ptolemy I Soter inherited the tradition of Egyptian pharaohs, implemented centralized monarchy, and at the same time wooed the most powerful and influential temple priest group among Egyptian slave owners. Egyptian priests declared Ptolemy I Soter the "savior" and the legal heir of the Egyptian Pharaoh, and held a worship ceremony for Ptolemy I Soter and the Queen as scheduled. Hai carved inscriptions and statues praising Ptolemy on the walls of the temple.
Ptolemy I Soter combines military power, administrative power, judicial power and financial power, and completely controls the main pillar army of state power in its own hands. Almost all the generals and soldiers were filled by Greeks, stationed all over Egypt, formed their own autonomous organizations, lived a Greek life and watched the Egyptian people.
In order to consolidate its rule in Egypt, Ptolemy I Soter encouraged Greek immigrants to move to Egypt, granted them certain autonomy privileges, and inherited the Greek-style life. At that time, there were three Greek municipalities-Claudius, Ptolemy and Alexandria. Clardy, located in the Nile Delta, is a Greek immigrant stronghold established during the period of Greek immigration, and has now developed into a Greek city with quite developed industry and commerce. Greeks live in cities, engage in industrial and commercial activities and enjoy the right to elect municipal officials and parliamentarians. The city Council has the right to make its own laws and coin its own coins. Ptolemy, located in Upper Egypt, is a newly-built large Greek city, where Greek immigrants engage in handicraft and commercial activities. Citizens elect their own mayors and judges, and have the right to make their own laws and amend the city's legal system. The largest municipality directly under the central government is the capital Alexandria, which is the political, economic and cultural center of the whole country, and later developed into the center of international trade and cultural exchange.
Economically, Ptolemy I Soter inherited the practice of Egyptian pharaohs, and the land in Egypt was still owned by Ptolemy's royal family, but it was actually divided into two categories: "King's field" and "Grant field". Wangtian is the land directly occupied and managed by the royal family and nobles, with the largest quantity, which is cultivated by Wangtian farmers. Wang Tian farmers are state-owned tenant farmers, who cultivate royal land in the form of contracts. They are strictly confined to the village and are not allowed to move freely. In fact, they are only half free. "Land donation" includes Tian Miao, Yoshida, Lutian and wasteland. Temple field is the land directly occupied and operated by monks, which is tax-free; Land grant is the land given by the king to ministers or temples, and it is also tax-free; Lutian is the land that the king gives officials as a salary, and it is also tax-free; Cultivated land is a small piece of land serving soldiers. Different from the first three kinds of land, it is subject to certain taxes and can be inherited and transferred, but it must be registered with the local government.
Ptolemy I Soter attaches great importance to the development of irrigated agriculture. He built a large-scale irrigation project, cultivated a large area of fertile land, promoted the great development of agricultural production and improved agricultural production technologies and tools. The planting area of wheat has greatly increased, accounting for about 80% of the planting area of cereal crops. In some areas, crops are harvested twice a year, and the output is greatly increased. The food is self-sufficient and can be exported in large quantities. Egypt is called "the barn of the Eastern Mediterranean".
Ptolemy I Soter inherited the Egyptian traditional system of monopoly of handicrafts and commerce by the state. Oil-pressing, wine-making, hemp yarn, salt, papyrus, spices, mining, metal manufacturing, cosmetics, dyes, potash and other industries with the largest profits are not allowed to operate privately, but monopolized by the royal family, and the products are uniformly priced by the state and sold by state agents. Ptolemy I Soter attaches great importance to the development of international trade and implements an open policy. The capital Alexandria became the largest international trade center at that time. Egypt's foreign trade extends to North Africa, East Africa, Syria, Asia Minor, Aegean Islands, Black Sea, Greece, Rome, West Asia, Central Asia, India, Southeast Asia and China. Businessmen from Greece, Rome, Persia and Arabia often stay in hotels in Alexandria, speak various languages and negotiate big business.
In Ptolemy's time, Greek culture and Egyptian culture flourished because of their blending. Ptolemy I Soter inherited the oriental tradition and put the organization and management of cultural undertakings under the state power, which made a big step forward. In 308 BC, he allocated a huge sum of money to build a large-scale scholarship garden, and recruited scholars from all over the world to conduct academic research and exchanges in the scholarship garden for free, making Alexandria the largest international cultural exchange center in the Greek world at that time. Boxueyuan includes libraries, research institutes and other parts. This library was the largest in the world at that time. By 1 century BC, the collection of books had reached 700,000 volumes (written in Greek), which included almost all works of ancient Greece and some oriental classics. The institute is divided into four departments: literature, mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Egyptian scholars gathered here to study Greece and Greek culture. Greek scholars and scientists have gathered here for a long time to study and study oriental culture. They learned from each other, not only inherited the excellent heritage of eastern and western cultures, but also created brilliant achievements, especially in natural sciences (mathematics, physics, astronomy, geography, etc.). ), a large number of outstanding scientists emerged and developed natural science to the peak of the ancient world.
Euclid, a famous mathematician, was the representative and founder of the Alexander School of Mathematics. He used the geometric achievements of predecessors for reference, collected the geometric achievements at that time, arranged and combined all kinds of geometric theorems, propositions and proofs logically to form a complete system, and expressed it in a clear and concise way, and compiled a famous book, Geometry Elements, with a total volume of 13, which has been passed down to this day. At the end of Ming Dynasty in China, Xu Guangqi and other scientists translated it into Chinese and published it. This is the first western scientific masterpiece translated by China, which greatly promoted the development of geometry in China.
Archimedes, the most famous physicist and mathematician, studied at Alexandria College from his youth and made amazing scientific achievements. His most representative mathematical works are about the circle of quantity and about sphere and cylinder. He discovered and affirmed the formulas for calculating the volume, surface area and perimeter of spheres, cylinders and more complex solids. In the process of deriving these formulas, he used the "exhaustive method", which laid the foundation of modern calculus. Archimedes' most outstanding contribution was in physics. He laid the foundation of mechanics and fluid mechanics. He discovered the principle of specific gravity, which was later named Archimedes principle, and demonstrated and developed the basic principles of mechanics, especially the lever principle. He has the courage to practice and invented many great machines according to these principles, such as levers, pulleys, screws and so on.
Astronomical achievements in Ptolemy era took a big step forward on the basis of ancient Egyptian and ancient Babylonian astronomy. Hipacas lived in the Alexander Institute for a long time and was an outstanding astronomer. Through careful observation, he determined the size, distance and movement of the sun, the earth and the moon with complex mathematical calculations, which laid the foundation of the sun-centered theory. Later, Copernicus's astronomical system was established on this basis. Another famous astronomer, Aristak, wrote the book The Size of the Moon and the Sun and Their Distance from the Earth, and also put forward the viewpoint of the sun center. He thinks that the sun is a star, and the earth and other planets revolve around the sun. He also correctly put forward the ideological principle that the sun must be bigger than the earth.
Eratosthenes, the librarian of Alexandria, is a famous geographer and naturalist. He was the first to use the word "geography" to replace the previous terms such as "geography", "Lu Zhi" and "Hai Zhi", and his representative work "An Introduction to Geography" was accompanied by a map of the world. According to the principle that the tides in the Indian Ocean are similar to those in the Atlantic Ocean, he put forward the theory that the two oceans are connected and the earth is round, and said that it is possible to sail from Spain to India along the same latitude. He calculated that the circumference of the earth is 252,000 stadt (about 39,690 kilometers), which is almost the same as the actual circumference of the earth of 40,000 kilometers.
The great development of science has brought great progress in technology. In Ptolemy era, Egypt's shipbuilding technology, weapons manufacturing technology, construction technology and production technology have been greatly improved. Giant warships with five, eight, thirty and forty oars replaced the old warships with three floors. Advanced machinery such as screw pump, long handle pump and triple pulley are all applications of advanced technology in production, and the invention of hydraulic mill is a great innovation in production technology. The most interesting technical application is the "automatic puppet theater" invented by Alexander engineer Herong. The whole performance process is automatic, such as the automatic appearance of puppets, the automatic performance of various actions, and even the fire used for performance is automatically lit and extinguished.
The prosperity of Alexandria, which was produced by the blending of ancient Egyptian civilization and ancient Greek civilization, did not last long and began to decline at the end of the 3rd century BC. The struggle among Ptolemy dynasty, Seleucia and Antioch kingdom was the direct cause of its decline. The corruption, cruel oppression and exploitation of Ptolemy rulers forced a large number of Egyptian farmers and slaves to flee, and a large-scale uprising made a large number of land barren and handicraft workshops closed down. These are the fundamental reasons for the decline of the dynasty.
The war between Ptolemy dynasty and the kingdom of Seleucia and Antioch was called the "Syrian War" in history because of the struggle for South Syria, which was rich in products and located on the important trade routes of Egypt and West Asia. From 276 BC to 200 BC, there were five large-scale battles. The first to fourth times ended in the victory of Ptolemy dynasty. However, in the fourth battle, the Ptolemy dynasty paid a huge price and exhausted the manpower, material resources and financial resources of the whole country. Since then, I have never been able to compete for hegemony. In 20 1 BC, the allied forces of Seleucu Kingdom and Antioch Kingdom took advantage of the internal turmoil of Ptolemy Dynasty to March into Egypt. The war ended in the defeat of Egypt. The Ptolemaic dynasty lost the Aegean islands, the coast of Asia Minor, Thrace, South Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia and other regions.
When Ptolemy IV was in power, the ruling class was extravagant, fighting for power and profit, and the court was constantly fighting. What they care about is not the development of agriculture, handicrafts, commerce and cultural science, but how to intensify the exploitation of the Egyptian people to meet their luxurious life. The farmers in Wangtian were overwhelmed and forced to flee in large numbers. The land is largely barren, and the national land tax has decreased by 50% in 50 years. The emerging commercial slave owners took advantage of the opportunity of a large number of peasants fleeing and uprising in Wang Tian, annexed a lot of land, greatly accelerated the process of land privatization, and large real estate owners began to appear and increase, further reducing the country's land tax.
In the middle and late Ptolemy dynasty, the failure of foreign wars exhausted the sources of prisoners of war and slaves, and the labor force was seriously insufficient. The situation of primitive slaves has been deteriorating, and they also fled in large numbers like farmers in Wangtian. In the 3rd century BC, due to the needs of foreign wars, the Ptolemaic dynasty began to hire Egyptians as soldiers, and the number of Egyptian soldiers gradually increased. Because Egyptian soldiers are often treated unfairly, they are often not properly arranged and have no life after retirement, and often participate in the struggle of farmers and slaves in Wangtian against Ptolemy rulers.
At this time, the contradictions within Ptolemy's court were also very sharp. Since the middle of the 2nd century BC, the struggle for the throne has intensified. Some nobles turned to the Romans for help, and the Roman army took the opportunity to invade Egypt. In 30 BC, the Roman army occupied Egypt, the last queen Cleopatra VII committed suicide, and the Ptolemaic dynasty perished.