Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of Amr ibn al-As, took place between 639 and 642 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. [1] It ended the seven-century-long Roman period in Egypt that had begun in 30 BC and, more broadly, the Greco-Roman period that had lasted about a millennium.
Egypt was conquered by Roman forces in 30 BC and became a province of the new Roman Empire upon its formation in 27 BC. Egypt came to serve as a major producer of grain for the empire and had a highly developed urban economy. It was by far the wealthiest Roman province outside of Italy. [2]
Earlier in the first and early second centuries, these nomadic groups were probably kept under control by the Kushites under the Meroitic kingdom, and they hardly put any threats to Roman Egypt. It was also possible that the Romans maintained a peaceful relationship with them. [6] Roman authors ascribed an uncivilized nature to the Blemmyes.
The Roman conquest of Egypt put it on a collision course with the Sudanic powers of the southern regions. In 25 BC, Kushites under their ruler Teriteqas, invaded Egypt with some 30,000 troops. Kushite forces were mostly infantry and their armament consisted of bows about 4 cubits long, shields of rawhide, clubs, hatchets, pikes and swords. [31]
The two did however raise their own legions separately. Following the end of the war, Octavian brought peace to the Roman state that had been plagued by a century of civil wars, marking the beginning of the Pax Romana, a period of relative internal peace and stability.
Under Cleopatra VII, who sought to restore Ptolemaic power, Egypt became entangled in a Roman civil war, which ultimately led to its conquest by Rome as the last independent Hellenistic state. Roman Egypt became one of Rome's richest provinces and a center of Greek culture.
The population of Alexandria was heavily influenced by both the cultural and religious views of their Roman rulers; nevertheless, the rural population spoke Coptic, rather than Greek, which was more common in the coastal cities. [4] Egypt at the time had just recently been conquered by the Sasanian Empire and retaken by treaty.
The Battle of Alexandria was fought on July 1 to July 30, 30 BC between the forces of Octavian and Mark Antony during the last war of the Roman Republic.In the Battle of Actium, Antony had lost the majority of his fleet and had been forced to abandon the majority of his army in Greece, where without supplies they eventually surrendered.