Egypt was governed b}' a Persian satrap till Persia itself was conquered by Alexander the Great, B.C. 332. When Alexander's army occupied Memphis, the numerous Greeks who had settled in Lower Egypt found themselves the ruling class. Egypt became at once a Greek kingdom, and Alexander showed his wisdom in the regulations by which he guarded the prejudices and religion of the Egj-ptians, who were henceforth to bo treated as inferiors, and forbidden to carry arms. He founded Alexandria as the Greek capital. On his death, his lieutenant Ptolemy made himself king of Egj'pt, being the first of a race of monarchs who governed for 300 j'ears, and made it the second chief kingdom in the world, till it sunk un- der its own luxuries and vices and the rising power of Pome. The Ptolemies founded a large public li- brarj' and a museum of learned men. See Alexan- dria.
After the time of the exile the Egj-ptian Ptolemies were for a long while (from B.C. 301 to about 180) masters of Palestine, and during this period Egypt be- came as of old a place of refuge to the Jews, to whom many favoi's and privileges were conceded. This shel- ter seems not to have been for ages withdrawn (Jlatt. ii, 13). Yet it cannot be said that the Jews were held in esteem by the Egyptians (Philo, c. Aj,ioii, ii, p. 521). Indeed, it was from an Egj'ptian, Manetho (B.C. 300), that the most defamatorj' misrepresentations of Jewish historj' were given to the world ; and, in tlie days of Augustus, Cha;remon took special pains to make the Jewish people appear despicable (Josephus, Ajiion, i, 32 ; comp. Creuzer, Com. Herod, i, 270). See Ptolemy,
In the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, Onias, whose father, the third high-priest of that name, had been murdered, fled into Egvpt, and rose into high favor with the king and Cleopatra his queen. The high- priesthood of the Temple of Jerusalem, which belonged of right to his familj% having passed from it to the famih' of the jMaccabees, by the nomination of Jona- than to this office (B.C. 153), Onias used his inliuence with the court to procure the establishment of a tem- ple and ritual in Egypt which should detach the Jews who lived there from their connection with the Tem- ple at Jerusalem. The king complied with the re- quest. To reconcile the Egyptian Jews to a second temple, Onias alleged Isa. xix, 18, 19. He chose for the purpose a ruined temjile of Bubastis, at Leontopo- lis, in the Heliopolitan nome, one hundred and fifty stadia from Memphis, which place he converted into a sort of miniature Jerusalem (.losephus, War., i, 1), erect- ing an altar in imitation of that in the Temple, and
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constituting himself hiij;li-pTiest. The king granted a tract of hind around the temple for the maintenance of the worship, and it remained in existence till de- stroyed by Vespasian (Josephus, Ant. xiii, 3; xx, 9; War, vii, 11). The district in which this temple stood appears to have been, after Alexandria, the chief seat of the Jews in Egypt, and which, from the name of its founder, was called 'Oj'i'oc x^ipa (Josephus, Ant. xiv, 8; Helon's Pilrjrim. p. 3-J8). See Onias, City of.
Under these Alexandrian kings the native Egyp- tians still continued building their grand and massive temples, nearly in the style of those built b}' the kings of Thebes and Sais. The temples in the island of Phila?,, in the Great Oasis, at Latopolis, at Ombos, at Dendera, and at Thebes, prove that the Ptolemies had not -whoUj' crushed the zeal and energy of the Egyp- tians. An Egyptian phalanx had been formed, armed and disciplined like the Greeks. These soldiers re- belled unsuccessfullj'^ against Epiphanes, and then Thebes rebelled against Soter II, but was so crushed that it never again held rank among cities. But while the Alexandrians were keeping down the Eg^^p- tians, they were themselves sinking under the Ro- mans. Epiphanes asked for Roman help ; his two sons appealed to the senate to settle their quarrels and guard the kingdom from Syrian invasion. Alexander II was placed on the throne b}' the Romans, and Au- letes went to Rome to ask for help against his subjects. Lastly, the beautiful Cleopatra, the disgrace of her country and the firebrand of the republic, maintained her power by surrendering her person, first to Julius Caasar, and then to Mark Anton}-. On the defeat of 5[ark Antony by Augustus, B.C. 30, Egypt became a province of Rome, and was governed by the emperors with jealous suspicion. It was still a Greek state, and Alexandria was the chief seat of Greek learning and science. Its library, which had been burned Viv Caesar's soldiers, had been replaced by that from Pcr- gamus. The Egyptians yet continued building tem- ples and covering them with hieroglyphics as of old ; but on the spread of Christianity the old superstitions lost their sway, the animals were no longer worship- ped, and we find few hieroglyphical inscriptions after the reign of Commodus. On the division of the Ro- mon empire, A.D. ."S7, Egypt fell to the lot of Con- stantinople. See Smith's Diet, of Class. Geogr. s. v. -.lEgyptus.
Ever since its first occupancy by the Romans Egypt has ceased to be an independent state, and its liistory is incorporated with that of its different conquerors and possessors. In A.D. G18 it fell under the power of the Persians, but in G-tO it Avas transferred to the Saracens by the victorious Amru, general of the caliph Omar, nnder w'hose successors it continued till aliout 1171, when the Turcomans expelled the caliphs ; these again were in their turn expelled in 1250 hy the Mam- elukes. The latter raised to the throne one of their own chiefs with the title of sultan, and this new dy- nasty reigned over Egypt till 1517, when the Mame- lukes were totally defeated, and the last of their sultans ])Ut to death by the Turkish sultan Selim. This prince established the government of Egypt in twenty-four bej's, whose authoritj' he subjected to a council of regencj", supported by an immense standing army. The conqueror did not, however, entirely suppress the ^lameluke government, wlio continued to be ''the ])ow- er behind the tlirone"' until tiieir massacre in ])^1], •which made the jiacha virtually independent of the Sublime Porte. Great and rapid changes have taken place in this interesting country within the last fifty years. The campaign of the Erench army in 1800, undertaken with a view to subdue Egypt, and so se- cure to the French an important share of the East In- dia trade, tliough it resulted unsuccessfully,, was at- tended with important consequences to the interests of science and learning. Mohammed Ali, tlie late viceroy, though a perfect despot, did much to elevate