Roman Egypt (-30 to +642), also known as Aegyptus, was Egypt under the Roman Empire, from the death of Cleopatra to the beginning of Arab rule. Since the 1800s, some call the period from 330 or 395 to 642 Byzantine Egypt.
Because of its dry weather, Egypt is the best known part of the empire. We even have 300 pages of a government census!
- When: the years -30 to +642.
- Where: Egypt.
- Population: 4 million (11% slaves).
- Major cities: Alexandria.
- Languages: Latin (government), Greek (upper and middle class), Coptic (working-class). Coptic is a later stage of Ancient Egyptian.
- Religions: pagan (a mix of Egyptian, Greek and Roman), later Christian. Religious exports: Serapis, Isis, Christian monasticism.
- Currency: Alexandrian silver tetradrachm (about 13g of silver) till the 200s, later the Roman denarius.
- Economy: breadbasket of the empire till the 200s, later the breadbasket of Constantinople. Trade with India.
- Military: two to three Roman legions. Used to put down uprisings and defend against the Blemmyes in the south.
- Famous sons and daughters: Philo, Ptolemy, Origen, Plotinus, Aemilian, Arius, St Antony of Egypt, St Athanasius, St Catherine of Alexandria, St Cyril of Alexandria, Hypatia.
In the -200s, in the days of Hannibal, Rome and Egypt were allies. But over time, Rome grew stronger as Egypt grew weaker, with Rome gaining more and more control over Egyptian affairs.
In -30, after the defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra at Actium (-31), Rome took over Egypt outright.
At first there was little change. Egypt kept its own laws and its own money. Roman law only applied to Roman citizens, of which there were few. Temples and priests were left alone so long as they added an emperor cult. And so on.
The Romans did, however, set up an ethnic pecking order:
- Romans held high goverment office,
- Greeks made up much of the the upper and middle class, and
- Copts (Coptic-speaking Egyptians) did all the heavy lifting.
To be “Greek” both of your grandfathers had to have gone to a Greek school (gymnasium).
Under Roman rule, money and private property became more important.
In the 200s came the big changes:
- Roman citizenship – and therefore Roman law – became universal.
- The rise of large Greek landowners, leading to Coptic serfdom.
- The rise of Christianity among Copts.
In the 300s, mummification and Egyptian hieroglyphics died out.
Christianity became such a Coptic thing that “hellena” (Greek) meant pagan. Egypt was one of the main centres of Christian thought, giving us monks and monasteries and the New Testament as we know it. It even had its own popes – and still does. After the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Constantinople tried to force its own Christanity on Egypt using torture and execution. It backfired. Over a thousand years later, 10% of Egyptians are still Coptic Christians.
Trade with India: Egypt traded glass, wine, wheat, cloth, gold, fine pottery and singing boys for pearls, pepper, medicines, spices, silks, frankincense and myrrh. Egypt, with ports on both the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, became the natural centre for trade with India. India in turn traded with China and points east.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- Roman Empire / Byzantine Empire
- Cleopatra
- famous sons and daughters:
- Alexandria
- Oxyrhynchus – the second biggest city
- Nag-Hammadi Library
- Ancient Egypt
- languages
542
Reading this made me think of the modern forms and meanings of some words like:
tetradrachm to drachma (Greek currency before the Euro)
denarius to dinar (Iraqi currency)
The thought of a trade in “singing boys” saddened me. It’s a good bet that few, if any, “singing boys” ever made it back home again.
The demise of mummification and Egyptian hieroglyphics reminds me that everything in human affairs has a beginning, middle and end——–except human nature itself, which is unchanging.
I hope someday, the ideology of White Supremacy will also fall into the dustbin of history, along with mummification, hieroglyphics, foot binding and genital mutilation of females or males.
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Excellent use of space.
Please keep this kind of information coming.
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“Christianity became such a Coptic thing that “hellena” (Greek) meant pagan.”
I never knew that. Very interesting. White people — and maybe Americans in general — don’t realize how non-white of a religion Christianity was, not just at the very beginning but for the next few hundred years of early Christendom.
“After the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Constantinople tried to force its own Christanity on Egypt using torture and execution.”
My neighbors down the street are originally from Egypt and are Coptic Christians. They attend the Greek Orthodox church in town because it is the closest thing to their own form of worship. Reading the above put in perspective for me just what that means. I knew that the Greek Orthodox and the Coptic churches weren’t exactly the same in belief and rite, but I didn’t know there was a history of religious violence and persecution.
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@abagond
Informative post. I’m curious, though, do the Fayum mummy portraits portray only Copts, or were there Greek and Roman ones as well?
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Ancient Egypt (Kmt/Kemet) definitely influenced people and cultures (in the “known world”) by influence.
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@ Benjamin
Most of the people in the portraits would have considered themselves Greek, even though they are being mummified! The portraits were expensive: only about 1% to 2% of mummies had one. So you pretty much needed to be from the Greek-educated class to afford one. But when you look at their teeth, they were more Egyptian than European by race.
When Alexander conquered Egypt, his soldiers mainly married Egyptian women. Also, they saw Egyptian religion as a form of their own: Horus was Apollo, Thoth was Hermes, and so on. So Egypt became something of a melting pot.
I notice many commenters imagine Ptolemaic Egypt was a racist, settler colonial state, like the US or South Africa. But Greeks, unlike White Americans, looked up to Egypt as an ancient civilization and did not think in terms of race.
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@abagond
Thanks for your response. I have looked into more Fayum portraits and the people look very diverse, I would agree that clearly Egypt at this time was a melting pot for sure. Also, it is clear that the Greeks weren’t racist like the US or South Africa.
And yeah, it is clear that the Greeks didn’t think in terms of race. If they did, then having both your grandfathers go to a Greek school wouldn’t have made you into a Greek. And they probably wouldn’t have mixed as much as they did with the peoples they conquered and traded with.
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I’m interested to see a post on how Egyptian Coptic Christianity arose, and how it differed to the Roman version.
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