The Ptolemaic army and cultural interactions

Based on papers presented at a research symposium in Lyon in 2022, this volume includes 11 contributions in French, English and German, offering diverse approaches to the social and cultural history of the Ptolemaic army, from the early Lagid kings to Cleopatra VII. Some recent discoveries, both in papyrology and archaeology, as well as new research on surviving evidence in Greek and Demotic, have shed new light on military environmentsof the Ptolemaic Empire. These studies bring together a wide range of sources and approaches that add new perspectives on military control, the development of the judicial and administrative system, and the social and cultural relations between Greek-speaking immigrants and indigenous populations in the Ptolemaic armed forces, which remains the most visible and developing aspect of the Lagid Kingdom, a "laboratory of transformations" in the Hellenistic world.Various topics covered in this volume include the church's cavalry system (military records, horse training and competitions), the road and mining network of the eastern desert that provided a model of occupation very different from the Roman model, the social history of the church (marriage strategies and identification of soldiers in Demotic sources), the development of one of Hellenistic Egypt's largest, but not yet adequately studied, migratory communities, the Thracians, and the much-discussed question ofAbout the financial aspects of the army.