Apartheid

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the Greeks and Macedonians...and never entirely died out. 115
The ‘low-level acculturation’ refers to the extremely rare, yet, towards the end of the
Ptolemaic period, slowly increasing rate of Greek-Egyptian marriages and other contacts,
which took place almost entirely on the lowest income levels, a fact to which we shall return.
In Ptolemaic, and even more so in Roman Egypt, however, interethnic marriage was banned
by the authorities in certain cities or regions. Indeed, the first example of an interethnic
marriage of which we know is in 256 BCE, i.e. not until after 76 years of Macedonian rule. 116
In general, ‘apartheid’ – if used in the wide sense, proposed above – is no exaggeration when
applied to Egypt under Macedonian-Greek rule.
Ptolemaic Egypt...remained throughout its history a land of two
cultures which did coexist but, for the most part, did not coalesce or
blend. . . . We discern the manifestations of the two discrete cultures
in every aspect of their coexistence. 117
The budding Roman Empire took over Egypt as Cleopatra VII, the last ruling Ptolemy,
committed suicide in her royal palace in Alexandria in 30 BCE. The Romans had for long
been envious of the excellent harvests in Egypt and they, too, would economically exploit the
Egyptians more than they did any other of the many people they conquered. 118 They left the
social structure of Ptolemaic Egypt intact, with the exception of political power and additional
‘repressive provisions...amounting to a veritable ancient apartheid’, according to Naphtali
Lewis, one of the main authorities on the subject. 119 The Greeks remained an upper class with
all their previous (especially economic, but also cultural, social, linguistic, etc.) privileges
except for the possibility of ruling, which now passed directly to the hands of the emperor in
Rome and the bureaucracy of the (Roman) governor and his (Roman) occupying army. If
apartheid is no exaggeration when applied to Ptolemaic Egypt, it is in some respects even an
understatement when applied to the early Roman period.
As the Romans introduced Roman citizenship for Egyptians in the third century CE,
however, discrimination on an ethnicist basis appears to have been relaxed. Yet, in reality, it
was a mainly cosmetic change. Ethnic class was formally substituted by economic class, but
on the whole the poor remained Egyptian and vice versa. Later, the Roman Empire split in
two: the West Roman and the Byzantine Empires.
Byzantine Egypt lasted from 330 CE until the Muslim Arab conquest in 642. It was
ruled by the emperors of East Rome (Constantinople), who continued Roman policies in
Egypt, but strengthened the domination by people of Greek ethnicity, with Greek culture and
language again becoming the sole culture of the oppressors. In this sense, it was a throwback
to Ptolemaic practices. Yet, people of Greek descent had continuously dominated the
privileged European class in terms of sheer numbers, just like the people of Dutch descent
dominated the European population in South Africa. The non-independent status of Egypt
115
Green 1990: 313; see also Blomqvist: På promenad i Alexandria med Gorgo och Praxinoa, 1997: 63.
116 3
Walbank 1992: 117; Bowman 1996 (1986): 125. See footnote 470 for what was probably a very rare
exception, possibly the only exception to the rule, namely an interethnic high society wedding, as it were,
towards the end of Greek rule.
117
Lewis, N.: Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt: Case Studies in the Social History of the Hellenic World, 1986: 154f,
cf. Green 1990: 5.
118
Lewis, N. 1983: 33. It could be perhaps be added that at least the Romans did not wipe out Egyptian culture
like they did Carthage. Nevertheless, the Egyptian religion, language, philosophy, literature, the knowledge of
Egyptian scripts, and more were all gone at the end of the Roman era.
119
Lewis, N. 1983: 34. See also Koch 1993: 589, Walbank: Response, 1993: 121, and Cartledge: Introduction,
1997: 5, for seven more recent characterizations of Graeco-Roman Egypt, or aspects of it, as apartheid
phenomena. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to access all of the sources cited in the four mentioned
works. It is also unfortunate that Cartledge himself does not explicitly reveal his own opinion as to whether they
are accurate or useful descriptions, although he appears favorable towards them.