ii

Français
Now, one may ask what made the first Ptolemies succeed in controlling Egypt, their achieving progress inside it and extending control and their empire outside it? The answer to this question no doubt is related to two main reasons.

The first of these two reasons that the Ptolemies after stabilizing their kingdom and grip over Egypt, discovered that they do not have a single population but instead have two different populations that are not closely tied with respect to origins, religion or culture. These two peoples are the occupying Hellenic people and the helpless Egyptian people. Right from the beginning, each of those two peoples looked at the other in their own way. The Hellenic population looked at the Egyptian population from the angle of the ruling class to those being ruled or in other words the look of an occupier to those under his control; wanting to take all their physical and financial resources to increase their own wealth and live an idle well-fare life on their own expenses. On the other hand, the Egyptian population, which had only recently lost its freedom, looked at those occupiers a look full of hatred and envy. This becomes even more clear to us when we know that the Egyptian population from their early days had taken utmost care to keep their customs and traditions and have remained like that till the arrival of Islam to Egypt.

i

Français
The last stage we have reached in the past volume of Ancient Egypt is the great happenings, great reform, exciting political developments and the new social systems which had taken place at the time of Ptolemy II whose age is indeed considered an age of welfare and success both inside and outside the Egyptian state in accordance to the hopes of his family and himself and also in accordance with the hopes of the occupying Hellenic population.

Indeed, in the days of this ruler, Egypt has apparently reached a level in agriculture, commerce and industry which it had never reached before in the days of its greatest pharaohs in all its ancient history. Egypt's occupation expanded in Asia, the Ega Sea and the Nubian lands to reach further than the greatest of pharaohs dreamt of. There is no wonder in this, for all conditions were ready for Ptolemy II to reach what he has reached of power, wealth and control upon ascending the throne of Egypt. His father Ptolemy I has left him a stable and great empire both inside and outside Egypt. It is apparent that he followed in the footsteps of his father and went a long way in accordance with his plan in financial and scientific progress which made his age an example for welfare and worldwide control which he enjoyed among neighboring Hellenic kingdoms, which surrounded him at that time in history of the modernised world which was founded by Alexander the Great.