Did Alexander try to abolish Egyptian gods as well?

by Froysty

We know he burned copies of Zoroastrian religious texts, and that his impact in Persia severely affected that religion, but did he attempt the same thing in Egypt? If so, was it successful in impacting the Egyptian religion as it did the Zoroastrians’?

cleopatra_philopater

/u/EnclavedMicrostate already pointed out the inaccuracy with claiming that Alexander destroyed Zoroastrian religious texts, but I can also answer from the Egyptian side of it.

One of Alexander the Great's first actions in Egypt (after conquering it and assuming the title of Pharaoh) was implementing his religious agenda. That is, the first thing he did was pay homage to Egypt's gods, like any good, newly appointed Pharaoh. He travelled to Heliopolis and made sacrifices to the sun god Ra, before going to Memphis and making offerings to the gods there, like Ptah and the Apis Bull.

In ancient Egypt, the Pharaoh was the intermediary between the gods and men, as well as a divine figure on their own right. The Pharaoh can be seen as king, high-priest, son of the chief god and incarnation of that god all in one. This was why the Pharaoh's presence at key festivals and sacrifices was so important. The legitimacy of the Pharaoh was rooted in Egyptian religion. Alexander understood the political importance of religion in politics, and may well have taken personal satisfaction in that regard.

By respecting Egypt's gods, he also distinguished himself from the previous Persian rulers who generally neglected the temples. During Alexander's reign, temples and monuments were renovated and restored at the crown's expense. At least one new temple, the temple of Amun and Horus in the Bahariya Oasis, was built during his reign.

Next, he visited an Egyptian oracle, before even breaking ground at his new capital, Alexandria. The story of Alexander going out of his way to visit the Oracle of Amun at Siwa has been discussed by historians for millennia. Why would a conqueror take a detour into the desert to visit an oasis oracle?

Well for starters, Alexander believed that he was the son of the Egyptian god Amun (who the Greeks equated with Zeus). And who better to visit for confirmation of his paternity then the Oracle of Amun? After his prophetic dreams had been confirmed at Siwa, he was ready to assume the role of divine king. Oracles from Greek cities in Asia Minor confirmed Alexander's status as a demi-god, but this really just the icing on the cake.

Amun was often portrayed as a ram or with the features of a ram, because he protected and led like the leader of a flock. This is why coins depicting Alexander gave him the ram-like Horns of Ammon. It drove home his relationship with his newly found father. We can only guess how his actual father Philip II would have felt about this if he had been alive.

Another reason to visit Siwa, was that the Oracle there only gave answers to the king. By asking questions of Amun and receiving answers (through the Oracle), Alexander helped to establish the fact that he was the legitimate Pharaoh.

By the time he visited the Oracle at Siwa in 331 BC, Alexander's imperial designs had grown more coherent. He later adopted many habits of dress and court etiquette from the Persian kings, as well as their ideas about kingship. However, Egypt was the perfect place to begin step into a new role, as its religious/political ideology was not only compatible with Alexander's dreams, but was revered as ancient even by the Greeks.

After Alexander died in 323 BC, his successors the Ptolemies followed his example. To quote Gunther Hölbl, Alexander and his successors tried to "gain acceptance as the central figure of Egyptian religion." This had an immensely successful impact in the long run. Alexander's brief rule of Egypt was reasonably successful (although his choice in viceroys left a lot to be desired). However, the lasting impact that this had on Ptolemaic ideology can not be overstated. Alexander made the template of ruling as both a divine Macedonian king and an Egyptian Pharaoh, the Ptolemies simply refined it.

In a short span of time, Hellenistic Egypt began to develop syncretic cults, like the cult of the god Serapis, which were meant to unite Greeks and Egyptians. The Greek habit of equating foreign deities with Greek gods also went a long way towards blurring the lines between Greek and Egyptian religion in cities like Alexandria.

It was not just the Greeks living in Egypt that adopted Egyptian gods readily, but the Greeks in Greece as well. Egyptian gods and practices had already started to seep into the religious landscape of the Mediterranean centuries before, but after Alexander's conquest of Egypt really set things off. Many Egyptian cults piggybacked off of the increased connectivity and movement which existed in the Hellenistic and Roman age. By briefly uniting much of the known world into one empire (before it broke up into smaller empires), he started a chain reaction of cultural exchange.

Traders, sailors, diplomats, Greek soldiers and later Roman legionaries brought Egyptian gods quite literally everywhere they went. And they went far. Looking at it this way, Alexander is partly to blame for why there was a temple for the Egyptian goddess Isis in Roman London.

EnclavedMicrostate

We do not in fact know that Alexander destroyed Zoroastrian religious texts, as Zoroastrians did not codify their oral traditions in textual form until the 4th century AD under Sassanid rule. See these answers by /u/Trevor_Culley:

As for Alexander and Egyptian religion and political customs, /u/cleopatra_philopater notes in the following answers that Alexander made an effort to legitimise himself using Egyptian imagery: