Great Revolt of the Thebaid
Upper Egypt revolted from Ptolemaic rule around 206 BC and was governed by its own pharaohs for twenty years. The occasion was Raphia. Ptolemy IV had faced Antiochus III in 217 BC with an army too small to win, and had armed and trained some 20,000 native Egyptians as a phalanx alongside the Greek and Macedonian settlers who normally did the fighting. They won the battle. Polybius records the conclusion the Egyptians drew — that they were now capable of defending themselves, and looked for a leader. The revolt broke out in the Thebaid, the far south around Thebes, and its leaders took pharaonic titles: Horwennefer from 205, and Ankhwennefer after him. Demotic and Greek documents record them dating by their own regnal years, which is the mark of a functioning state rather than a rebellion. Its causes ran deeper than one battle. Ptolemaic Egypt was a Greek-speaking administration extracting grain and taxes from an Egyptian countryside, and the temples of the south were the institutional centre of a priesthood that had lost standing and revenue. Kushite support from Nubia sustained it. The Ptolemies took twenty years to recover the region, and the price was concessions to the priesthood — of which the Rosetta Stone of 196 BC, a decree of Ptolemy V granting temple privileges and tax remissions, is the surviving example. Ankhwennefer was captured in 186 BC and pardoned, on the priests' advice. Revolts continued intermittently until Rome annexed Egypt in 30 BC. The stone that made Egyptian legible again was therefore a concession extracted by a rebellion.
- Year: 206 BCE
- Category: Political
