Egypt, ancient Government and conditions under the Ptolemies

The changes brought to Egypt by the Ptolemies were momentous; the land’s resources were harnessed with unparalleled efficiency with the result that Egypt became the wealthiest of the Hellenistic kingdoms. Land under cultivation was increased, new crops were introduced (especially important was the introduction of naked tetraploid wheat, Triticum durum, to replace the traditional husked emmer, Triticum dicoccum). The population, estimated at perhaps three to four million in the late Dynastic period, may have more than doubled by the early Roman period to a level not reached again until the late 19th century. Some of the increase was due to immigration; particularly during the 2nd and 3rd centuries many settlers were attracted from cities in Anatolia (Asia Minor) and the Greek islands, and large numbers of Jews came from Palestine. The flow may have decreased later in the Ptolemaic period, and it is often suggested, on slender evidence, that there was a serious decline in prosperity in the 1st century bc. If so, there may have been some reversal of this trend under Cleopatra VII.