Egypt The Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt, esta

In an effort to legitimize his reign in the eyes of his Greek subjects, Ptolemy deified his predecessor Alexander and instituted an official cult for his worship. After Ptolemy's death, he and his wife Berenice were conferred with divine status. Their descendants were deified during their lifetimes.

To legitimize his reign among the native Egyptians, the Ptolemies represented themselves as a new dynasty of Pharaohs. To further curry favor with the Egyptians, the early Ptolemies maintained the traditional priesthood, the only segment of the Egyptian elite that survived under the new regime. The intellectual, religious class exerted a powerful influence over the Egyptian masses--the native temples became centers of Egyptian nationalism and it was the priesthood that was expected to preserve national pride.

The Ptolemies also built additional Egyptian temples and presented

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ral interaction occurred among the two peoples, neither side was interested in converting the other to its way of life. Greeks were noted for their inquisitive minds and their eagerness to learn novel concepts. Thus their forays into Egyptian culture, aside from their fascination with ancient Egyptian religion, were the result of cultural experimentation: "In summary, there is little evidence that there ever existed a 'Graeco-Egyptian' culture." Newman agrees that Hellenism had minimal impact on the Egyptian masses. Although upwardly mobile Egyptians assimilated into Greek culture, the number of hellenized natives was relatively few. Intermarriages between hellenized males and Egyptian women occurred with some frequency, but generally the Greeks distanced themselves from the native population. The resistance of Egypt to Greek influence is evidenced by the Egyptian literary tradition. Numerous works were written in demotic: "Thus the preservation of the native traditions of kingship found verbal expression in a very lively demotic literary tradition which was probably pervasive, outside Alexandria, and necessarily focused its attention on the Egyptian religious establishment." The most popular genre, the romantic t
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