ABSTRACT
Ptolemaic Egypt was more of a Mediterranean, and less of an African, power than the old Pharaonic Egypt, which sometimes extended its power far into the Sudan. The Ptolemies never cared to make conquests up the Nile much beyond the First Cataract. The victory of the allies at Ipsus brought a new controversial question into the political field, the Ccele-Syrian Question, destined to be with people through all the subsequent history of Ptolemaic Egypt. When Ptolemy chose Egypt as the basis of his position in the world after Alexander, Egypt gave him many things. It gave him an easily defended territory. The armies which could be formed from Macedonians domiciled in Egypt were not by themselves adequate. They had to be supplemented by Greek and Balkan mercenaries. For the Greeks of Egypt, Alexander the Great a god from the beginning. The kings and queens of the house of Ptolemy soon came to be gods and goddesses as well.
