Past & Present 229, November 2015, p.

345
(Oxford Journals @ http://past.oxfordjournals.org)
Social unrest and ethnic coexistence in Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucid Empire
Christelle Fischer-Bovet, University of Southern California
Abstract: This article aims to demonstrate that the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms
were multi-ethnic empires successful at integrating socially and ethnically diverse
populations at least as successful as the Roman empire after them whereas scholars
have stressed the degradation of their power throughout the second and first century BC.
Drawing on theoretical research about ethnic interaction and cooperation, this study
proposes to explain the absence of pure ethnic conflicts by the integration of the local
elite above all at the lower administrative and military level and in the army within
the new foreign ruling groups. Mechanisms that facilitate the balancing of ethnic and
socio-economic solidarities made this possible. In order to assess this interpretative
framework, the study explores the nature of unrest in the eastern Mediterranean under
Alexander the Great and his successors. After an overview of main groups that actively
relaxed their ethnic solidarities and among whom mediators were found, state policies
which enabled collaboration across ethnic lines are examined in relation to the
administration, the army and the settlement of immigrants.