In order to protect its eastern gateway, the Isthmus of Suez, it was essential that the Ptolemies should control Palestine.  Southern Palestine also commanded the great commercial highway that led southward and eastward to Arabia and Babylonia.  Alexandria’s ancient rivals, Tyre and Sidon, also lay on the borders of Palestine, and it was essential that they be under the control of Egypt, if Alexandria was to remain the mistress of the eastern Mediterranean.  Furthermore, Palestine and the Lebanons (known to Josephus as Coele-Syria, that is, Hollow Syria), alone of the countries adjacent to Egypt, possessed the timber required for the building of Alexandria’s navies and merchant-men.  Hence Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, and his successors spared no effort to maintain their control over the lands lying along the eastern Mediterranean.

In the division of the empire which followed the death of Alexander three rivals struggled in turn for this coveted territory:  Ptolemy, in the south; Antigonus, who soon became master of Asia Minor and northern Syria; and Seleucus, to whom fell the Tigris-Euphrates Valley and the more distant eastern provinces.  In the decisive battle of Ipsus in 301 B.C. the overshadowing power of Antigonus was broken and the control of southwestern Asia was divided between Seleucus and Ptolemy.  By the treaty that was made after the battle, Coele-Syria was given to Ptolemy; but Seleucus and his descendants, who were known as the Seleucids or the Seleucidae, soon attempted to wrest it from Egypt, and during the following century frequently, with varying success, renewed the attempt.  In 295 and again in 219 they were for a brief period masters of Palestine, but during most of this period it was held by the Ptolemies.

V. Fortunes of the Jews of Palestine.  Josephus’s figure of a ship in a storm, smitten by the waves on either side, well describes the lot of the Jews of Palestine during the Greek period.  They were in turn victimized and courted by the rival kings of Egypt and Syria.  The Jews, on the whole, favored the rule of the Ptolemies, who had made many concessions to their kinsmen in Egypt.  The presence of many Jews in Egypt also made this relation more natural.  As a rule the Ptolemies during the intervals of peace left the Jews of Palestine largely to themselves, as long as they paid the heavy tribute that was exacted.  It was, however, one of the most corrupt periods in human history.  The Ptolemaic court was rich, profligate, and constantly degenerating.  The popular story of Joseph the tax-collector (which Josephus recounts at length), while largely fanciful, vividly reflects the conditions and spirit of the age.  Joseph, who evidently belonged to one of the leading families of Jerusalem, by his energy and effrontery secured the valuable right of farming the taxes of Palestine.  By the iniquitous methods then in vogue, he succeeded in amassing a great fortune.  The splendid ruins of Arak el-Emir on the heights of southern Gilead, east of the Jordan, represent the huge castle and town built by his son Hyrcanus and testify to the wealth of this Jewish adventurer.  The stories that Josephus relates regarding Joseph indicate that the materialism and sensuality which were regnant in Alexandria had penetrated even into the province of Judea.