Modern historians about Macedonia – Walter M. Ellis

 

I fear that I have not been wholly consistent in my use of the term “Macedonian.” For the record, let me state that I believe Macedonians, ancient and modern,are Greeks .

Ptolemy of Egypt,Walter M. Ellis, Routledge, 1994

In less than twelve years Alexander conquered the Persian  empire,a region that included the modern countries of Turkey,Syria,Lebanon,Israel,Egypt,Iraq,Iran,Afghanistan,Pakistan,and parts of former Soviet Turkestan and Uzbekistan.His empire also included a relatively united Greece,the work of his father,Philip II.

Ptolemy of Egypt,Walter M. Ellis, Routledge, 1994,page 1

Ptolemy was the creator of the longest lasting of the Hellenistic kingdoms. He created a state whose cultural importance was unparalleled until the coming of Rome. He encouraged the erection of the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, as well as creating a library which eventually contained the greatest collection of books until relatively recent times. Ptolemy's institution of higher learning, the Museum, gave birth to the greatest advancements in science before the seventeenth century of our own era.

In this work, the first biography of Ptolemy in any language, Professor Ellis charts Ptolemy's extraordinary achievements in and beyond Egypt in the context of the fragmentation of Alexander's enormous empire and the creation of the Hellenistic state.

 

From the publisher