Well this is an interesting question, I am not sure if there is any consensus on what a "typical" Ptolemaic village or inhabitant was but we can piece together surviving evidence to get an idea of what life was like for these earliest settlers. (Sorry it took me awhile to do this but I had a host of irl obligations).

The capital of the nome your character inhabits would later be named Arsinöe after the future queen but at the time your story is set its capital is Ptolemais Eurgetis or Krokodiliopolis a reference to the regional cult of Sobek the crocodile god of Egypt. The very existence of this zoomorphic god and its popular following in his new home would taste very strongly of the foreign and the strange but it would be accepted as part of the Egyptians' way of life, for his part he would continue to worship the Greek deities and heroes that were carried over from the Helladic regions like Herakles, Hermes and Apollo and perhaps, the crocodilian gods of the Fayuum. Although his religious life would center around more personal worship and shrines, there is a good chance he would be affiliated with one of the more established cults like that of Souchos or Sobek through his gymnasial connections (which I will get to later). Here would be a more structured spiritual experience with its own rituals, sanctuary and associates. Offerings, meetings, donations and sacrifices would all be a part of the cultic practices involved but it would be a social engagement as much as anything else and one that was connected to and helped define sociopolitical status of its members.

Although the regional culture was already ancient, the tracts of land your protagonist would have been given would be new in a sense: only after the widespread irrigation projects in the Fayuum was this flooded land made available for human use.

Where there had once been a great lake, Lake Moeris, created from the Nile's flooding, Macedonian engineers had created an expanse of what became perhaps the most fertile land in Egypt by using strategically located dams and dikes to divert the waters through canals which ran around the edges of the Fayuum and even as the water could be turned away it could also be redirected to irrigate the land making two harvests a year possible. Exactly how this feat was achieved with such a high level of success is unknown but then again, for an infantryman the exact details of the operation's efficiency would also be a bit of a mystery. The trade off for this fertile, seemingly ideal farmland was that the marshy conditions around the Fayuum led to difficulties adequately ensuring water supply to the landowners and the region being an ideal breeding ground for mosquito borne illness. Although his status and personal connections might help him to ensure that the correct amount of water was sent his way, there was little that could be done about the insect nuisance except the use of mosquito nets and plants that repelled them.

Many of the Greek settlements within the Fayuum were laid out upon a familiar grid pattern, with streets and blocks forming rectangles and squares. This was made possible by the fact that they were often in uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land and were built from the ground up by the Ptolemies, unlike older Egyptian areas in the Fayuum like Hawara which would be fairly accessible from a village near Krokodiliopolis, or Lahun. This urban layout would have centred around the gymnasium or the temple depending on the settlement and been very familiar to a Greek settler. His hypothetical home would be markedly larger than that of the average Egyptian and may even have had a small room for immersion bathing in addition to the usual sponge bathing that was practiced. More urban styles of construction like multi-storied building was curiously present in the rural Fayuum where the homes of the Graeco-Macedonian settlers were clearly inspired by Greek designs.

As you noted the area would be heavily Hellenised, the majority of its Greek settlers belonging to the cavalry but there was a sizeable proportion of infantrymen as well who held usually around 20-30 arouras of land (for reference, the average Egyptian family is estimated to have needed five for subsistence) but since your character is clearly doing quite well for himself in terms of familial connections and friends in high places we can safely assume his allotment would be at the higher end of this range. However around two thirds of the population of the Fayuum was Egyptian, and out of the non-Egyptians were many other ethnic groups including Persians and Arabs (who were excused from the salt tax like Greeks) as well as Jews and Syrians. Immigrant groups tended to clyster together so your cleruchic infantryman would in all likelihood live in a village with a high density of other men from his homeland. The majority of agricultural labourers would still end up being Egyptians from the Nile Delta region who brought their local practices with them and settled in villages which were often named after their old homes. Since the majority of the Greeks who settled the Fayuum were military men, your protagonist would have many of his unmarried comrades marry women who were from different Hellenic states than them but at this point in time marriages between Greeks and Egyptians were exceedingly rare.

Most Egyptians he would interact with would either be privileged elites from the priestly or scribal class who were often legally "Hellenes" or lower class Egyptian tenant farmers who worked the land they rented in exchange for a portion of the harvest. The first of these groups filled administrative functions like census taking, bureaucratic work and taxation while the latter group was generally cheap labour that allowed cleruchic land to be profitable. At this point the army was overwhelmingly Hellenic with the exception of the vast mercenary forces which were predominantly Near Eastern, and Egyptians had yet to integrate into the army of the Ptolemies which was still similar in composition to the armies fielded by Alexander and his lieutenants.

The background of your soldier would also play a huge role in his place Ptolemaic society. Being a cleruchic settler means that there is a good chance he was Macedonian or at least from the Balkan regions and was a veteran of Alexander's conquests. Many other Greeks might emigrate to the region in later years as mercenaries or simple settlers to eke out their own livelihood but at this point in time he is part of the privileged few, albeit not on the same level as cavalry or royal favourites. It is more unlikely that an infantryman would be friends with the strategos but possible, especially in a work of historical fiction. Since he is a friend of the strategos who would have been a close associate and general of Ptolemy he must be quite fortunate or quite connected but probably both which means that he was probably able to negotiate a choice allotment for his land and house, and the economic benefits that a quality plot of land afforded would help to support his leisurely lifestyle when on his estate. Olives, wine grapes, orchards and wheat are the most likely candidates for the kinds of crops we could expect to see on a quality plot of arable land in the Fayuum region, and the olive cultivation of the region was particularly well regarded in Egypt. However this early on the agricultural scene would not have had much time under Hellenistic rule and the fertility of Egypt would provide the promise of prosperity in the future rather than past experience in the newly reclaimed Fayuum lands.

His household would reflect his traditional way of life more than any other area of his life, because although in business and in warfare he would frequently interact with non-Greek individuals and situations within his household a more Helladic way of life could be maintained more than outside. Most Greek women in the countryside did not possess the same personal wealth and independence as their Alexandrian counterparts nor did they ever adopt all of the independence of their Egypt neighbours but this is especially true for the first generation of immigrants who tended to remain socially segregated not just from non-Greeks but even from Greeks who came from vastly different city-states. The wife of your officer would very likely continue to spend her days looking after the household and overseeing its functions. Since it is presumably a household of modestly wealthy means there would be a few female slaves to assist in domestic chores of cooking, cleaning, weaving, waterfetching and any other required tasks but probably no more than a couple. Either his wife, the slaves or a combination of them would assist in child-rearing, nursing and if your household had pets, like a dog or cats, in caring for those as well. Slaves, male and female, would also have been sexually available to their owner or whomever he permitted to use them in such a fashion and we know from papyrological records that slaves were often used in this manner. In addition, he would have access if he so chose to purchase a concubine, but he would not necessarily explore these options depending on himself. Hetaerae were also common in Ptolemaic Egypt and the ran the gamut from aristocratic mistresses, to lifestyles nearer to prostitutes, whether he ever visited or paid hetaerae depends on him, but it would certainly have been a part of the culture of his military comrades and friends.

In general, slaves made up a decent segment of the workforce that your character would coexist with, being used in agriculture, weaving, and domestic tasks. The traditional Greek labour divisions tended to be maintained by the earliest settlers even more so than in later periods so women tended to weave and bake while men worked fields and such. Most non-Greek slaves were from the Near East, with Syrians being especially common.

Continued