Book Review: Hellenistic Egypt - Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture

Bryn Mawr Classics (Review by John Bauschatz, The University of Arizona)

Jean Bingen, Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture. Edited with an Introduction by Roger S. Bagnall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.

In Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture, a collection of previously published short essays by Jean Bingen (hereafter B), translated and edited by Roger Bagnall, a broad cross section of the work of one of the foremost twentieth-century papyrologists and historians of Hellenistic Egypt is for the first time made accessible to an English-speaking audience. The book highlights B's role as a catalyst for change and revision in the study of Hellenistic Egypt throughout a long and distinguished career, and takes as its focus a number of case studies on subjects as diverse as Thracian immigrants to Egypt and Roman traditions about Cleopatra, loosely grouped into four thematic sections. Though much of the material presented here is now a few decades old, the synthesis is welcome and illuminating and provides the reader with a clear picture of Hellenistic Egypt as a unique bicultural society. In this book, ancient historians, classicists, papyrologists, Egyptologists and students of the Hellenistic world will find ample food for thought as well as impetus for careful reconsideration of their own views on Ptolemaic Egypt.

See the above page more the complete review. Articles included in the volume are listed at the end of the page.