12.1 Africa: 300 to 201 b.c.

Africa

Back to Africa: 400 to 301 B.C.

Northeast africa

One thousand miles south of the Mediterranean (in what is now the Republic of Sudan) the Kingdom of Meroe flourished through this period. At first the culture was Egyptian but later it developed a unique African character with its main industry being iron working. It also had gold. This society was a successor to Kush, simply with a new capital at Meroe. Still farther south was the Semitic Habashat Kingdom, established by migrating Yemenites, with a capital at Axum. The local Cushites soon began to accept the language and customs of these Semites and the country began to prosper, exporting ivory, tortoise shell, rhinoceros horn and finally gold, through the Red Sea. (Ref. 83 )

The real story of this corner of Africa, however, remained in Egypt. In spite of the Greek conquest of the previous century most of Egypt remained Egyptian and there was a return to Egyptian political ideas. Ptolemy II (Philadelphus), reigning from 309 to 246 B.C. took the title of Pharaoh, the God-King, although personally he was a modest man, intelligent and creative. Under him there was continued expansion along the Phoenician and Asia Minor coasts. Ptolemy III (283 - 221) followed. An interesting aspect of Ptolemaic Egypt is its extensive experiment in state socialism. Although royal ownership of the land had long been a custom, the king now supervised all economic activity. The government decided which fields were to be planted and with what, where crops were to be sold and for how much. It regulated transportation, processing, manufacturing, trade and banking, sold abandoned babies and taxed everything. From about 275 to 215 B.C. this system made the Ptolemies the richest Hellenistic rulers. This wealth was lavished on the city of Alexandria which became the greatest trade center in the world and acted as a fusion center for people of many religions, including a great number of Jews. The Alexandria Museum was actually a university, engaged in research and records and a certain amount of teaching. During its active phase it helped to produce Euclid, Eratosthenes, Apollinus, Hipparchus, Hero and Archimedes.

At this time the center of Greek medicine also shifted to Alexandria, with Herophilus, anatomist, and Erasistratus, regarded by some as the founder of physiology. He distinguished between motor and sensory nerves, gave names to the heart valves and studied arteries, veins and lymphatic ducts. Actually a number of different sects of medicine such as Dogmatism, Empiricism, Methodism, Pneumatism and Eclecticism developed or radiated out from Alexandria. One of the Dogmatists, Herophilos, was responsible for a number of human anatomical descriptions including various parts of the brain, the intestinal tract, lymphatics, liver, genital organs, eye and the vascular system. The Museum functioned at a high level for only a century, however, and after Ptolemy II it was swallowed up by the Egyptian priestcraft. Attic-Greek was the language of education and administration. (Ref. 47 , 125 , 15 , 224 )