The end of Ancient Egypt explained for kids

In ancient Egypt’s history there's lots of different periods, it lasted 6000 years after all!

Over those 6000 years there's lots of different rulers and after the year 332 BCE the ruler was no longer Egyptian, it was taken over by a Greek! Here’s the story…

Its 332 BCE and Alexander the Great invaded Egypt, with an army made up of people from Greece and Macedonia. Soon after taking over control of Egypt though, he died! So control of Egypt went to his close friend, a Greek army general, Ptolemy Soter. 

From this point onwards, the pharaohs were all from the Ptolemy dynasty. (This means they all came from his family line.) The Ptolemys built the Great Library of Alexandria, which was a giant library that was massively important for storing and expanding knowledge, not just for Egypt, but for the world.

There's a long line of pharaohs named Ptolemy, we get as far as Ptolemy XII or 12 and in comes Cleopatra VII or 7. This is probably one of the most famous bits of ancient Egyptian history that you might have already heard of. 

There's years of peace in Egypt, but then lots of family members start fighting Cleopatra for her power, which weakens their rule. The Roman Empire was starting to grow and take over a lot of the nearby countries, but their leaders were fighting too. So, Cleopatra sided with who she thought would win, general Mark Anthony. But, Octavian defeated them at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. (You might remember Octavian from our Ancient Rome edition? Later on he’s called Emperor Augustus!)

One year later Octavian defeated the Egyptian army at Alexandria, so Egypt came under Roman rule. This means it was the end of Ptolemaic Egypt, but also the end of an independent Egypt, because it's no longer ruled by its own pharoah. For the next 600 years it was a very important province (that means part) of the Roman Empire, but day to day life didn't change much.

Ptolemaic Egypt was actually the wealthiest and most powerful of all the areas that Alexander the Great had conquered, and was the best example of Greek civilization!

Did you know that Alexander the Great called at least 50 places Alexandria, after himself. The one in Egypt was the most important though.

Written by Katie Arnold. Image Alexander the Great sourced from Wikimedia commons.