AHC: Egyptian Resurgence

With a POD no earlier than the Pyrrhic War, how can Egypt recover and maintain its position as the leading power in the eastern Mediterranean for centuries?
 
Recover from what? Egypt is in a sort of cosmopolitan golden age around the time of the Pyrrhic war and remains a center of art, learning, and culture for the next few centuries.

How much better can things get? In terms of political power, you'd need to weaken the Syrians and allow the Ptolemies to gain hegemony over the Mediterranean, which is certainly possible might best be done by butterflying the Seleucid dynasty (before your PoD) or having it succumb to a lot of regional rebellions (quite possible, just have more Satraps go the way of Baktria).

However you'll also need to avert the rise of Rome somehow, and with a PoD after the Pyrrhic war you're harder pressed to do that without a series of major divergences additional to whatever one broke down the Seleucids. Still, perfectly doable I expect, and you'll end up with a pre-eminent Lagid thalassocracy that could, with some reforms, probably last a few centuries. Of course you might want to find a way to get them to tone down the inbreeding as well, before that destroys them.
 
Recover from what? Egypt is in a sort of cosmopolitan golden age around the time of the Pyrrhic war and remains a center of art, learning, and culture for the next few centuries.

How much better can things get? In terms of political power, you'd need to weaken the Syrians and allow the Ptolemies to gain hegemony over the Mediterranean, which is certainly possible might best be done by butterflying the Seleucid dynasty (before your PoD) or having it succumb to a lot of regional rebellions (quite possible, just have more Satraps go the way of Baktria).

However you'll also need to avert the rise of Rome somehow, and with a PoD after the Pyrrhic war you're harder pressed to do that without a series of major divergences additional to whatever one broke down the Seleucids. Still, perfectly doable I expect, and you'll end up with a pre-eminent Lagid thalassocracy that could, with some reforms, probably last a few centuries. Of course you might want to find a way to get them to tone down the inbreeding as well, before that destroys them.

I think he means a Native Egyptian State.
 
Oh. In that case the Egyptians probably don't have the logistics to revolt and don't have any meaningful reason to revolt until post Raphia (or a similar hypothetical catastrophe that forces the Ptolemies to arm Egyptian troops), and even during the Great Revolt evidence from Ptolemaic bureaucratic correspondence indicates that Ptolemaic control of the Nile at least as far as modern Aswan was never in doubt.

The causes of the Great Revolt seem to be economic - devalued silver coinage and high taxation. Testimony hints at robberies and the destruction of temples by the rebels (not just on Ptolemaic victory proclamations either) which seems at least to me to rule out any proto-nationalistic sentiments. On the flip side, there's a compelling case to be made for the proto-nationalistic argument as well.

Furthermore, the main reason for Egypt's economic woes were stress placed on them by the Seleucid Empire. So if you see an Egyptian rebellion (one which is unlikely to be successful given the strength of the Ptolemaic army and the fact that they'd sooner make a humiliating peace with their Hellenic rivals than lose their state to rebellion) it's likely to be one that takes place during a period of external weakness, and one that will be hard-fought to accumulate even modest gains.

Best case scenario, post-Raphia the native Egyptians rebel and after several decades of fighting manage to wrest a kingdom from the Greeks. You'll also need to avert the rise of Rome and ensure the near east stays divided between various states for a sufficiently long time that the Egyptians can recover from what was undoubtedly a very bloody and traumatic war which alienated the (large) Hellenic population. Even then you're relying on a lot of luck to get it to happen. Despite the relatively large number of timelines on this site that eventually have a native Egyptian state appearing in Hellenic times, it seems pretty unlikely to me.
 
The easiest POD would be a sea change in how the Ptolemies go about marriage and administration. Perhaps you need an ambitious and forward thinking pharaoh. Maybe have an Egyptian rebellion scare the shit out of the Ptolemaic royal family. The successor takes an unorthodox approach-he marries an Egyptian, learns the language, and enacts reforms that lower the burden on Egyptian natives and move to integrate them as equals to the Greeks in status. That would face a lot of resistance, would have to be gradual, and would need a very weak seleucid empire to have even the smallest chance of working. But in the end, youv have a prosperous and stable native/Greek run state.
 
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