Buy this book on Amazon: A Short History of the World
Alexander had not nominated an heir or successor, and although one person claimed the empire he left, it was rapidly sliced up by his key generals. The outcome was a number of separate kingdoms that more often than not waged war upon each other. Of the two largest to remain, one was the Seleucid Kingdom, founded by one of Alexander’s generals, Seleucus, which included most of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and Persia. The other was the Ptolemaic Kingdom, founded by his general Ptolemy, which consisted of Egypt. With the exception of much of Persia, most of these lands and successor kingdoms were later swallowed by the Roman Republic.
In Egypt, Ptolemy established the last dynasty that would rule the country with the title of Pharaoh. For the following two and a half centuries the Ptolemaic dynasty of the Greeks would successfully rule Egypt, mingling Greek traditions with the legacy of the Pharaohs. Ptolemy and his descendants adopted Egyptian royal trappings and added Egypt's religion to their own, worshipping the gods and building temples in their honour, some even going to the extent of being mummified after death. Of all Alexander’s successor kingdoms, Egypt was to last the longest, and was only finally added to the Roman Empire in 30 BC following the suicide of Cleopatra – the last Ptolemaic queen.
One of the many legacies of Alexander’s reign, born of a desire to dominate Egypt, was the city of Alexandria, which was founded on the northern coast of the country in the 4th century BC. With Athens declining and Rome not yet developed, Alexandria occupied the key junction between the western and eastern worlds. It became one of the greatest cities in antiquity, the busiest port in the world, and a cultural melting pot of Greek, Roman and Egyptian thought and trade.18 The city would not be eclipsed in its importance within Egypt until Cairo was established in the 10th century.