There were certainly long term effects as the dynasties established by his generals following his demise lasted for centuries and spurred on the Hellenistic Era which was both a period of growth and advancement for Hellenism and lead to new and distinct cultures emerging in the Near East and North Africa. Over the next 3 centuries most of Alexander’s Empire found itself within the sphere of influence of one or another of the kingdoms named the successor states. Perhaps, most obviously demonstrating the widespread influence of Hellenism, was that Koine Greek became the most widely spoken language throughout the Mediterranean (particularly the eastern Mediterranean), Middle East and North Africa even after the Roman Empire reached its height and the spread of both Greek cultic practices and the conflation of deities such as Aphrodite with Near Eastern equivalents such as Ishtar or Astarte and the spread of Hellenised foreign deities such as the Egyptian goddess Isis and her consort Serapis whose worship lasted until the widespread adoption of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Following the death of Alexander in 323 BCE his empire saw itself partitioned and rivalries between competing factions known as the Diadochi saw the various empires carved out of Alexander’s conquests at war. Ptolemy I Lagides became the Satrap of Egypt following the death of Alexander, by 310 BCE Alexander the Great’s posthumous son Alexander IV had died and circa 304-5 BCE he became Pharaoh of Egypt as well as assuming the Greek title of Basileus as well as taking control of Cyrene (in modern day Libya), Cyprus, Syria and Judaea. The latter three would remain a point of contention between the Lagides and the Seleucids for centuries to come however, and Syria and Judaea (often referred to collectively as Coele-Syria) along with the island of Cyprus would change hands more than once during the course of the aptly named Syrian Wars. When it comes to Egypt, Michel Chaveau sums up the implication of Macedonian conquest quite satisfactorily when he states that
In the hands of a dynasty foreign to its traditions, its language, and its religion, Egypt was nevertheless to experience a period of economic prosperity, political power, and intense intellectual and artistic activity. For the first time in their history however, the Egyptian people were now confronted by a genuine social and cultural challenge: the settlement on their soil of a large number of immigrants, heirs to a different and highly advanced civilization who would try to impose their own way of life and modes of organization as the dominant model.
Ptolemaic Egypt for the most part fits the standard of a colony and its rulers, to varying degrees, treated Egypt as an estate more than a nation. Greek became the official language and all court documents were issued in it, but it seems that Demotic Egyptian remained the primary language for most of the population and there are a surprising amount of papyri dating to the Graeco-Roman period in Demotic script. The organization and administration of Egypt was largely unchanged by the Ptolemies and highly bureaucratic system of governance that remained the same for the simple reason that it was ideally suited to the geographic, economic and societal quirks of Egypt.
Society under the Ptolemies
Regional differences, mainly the distinction between Upper Egypt (the more rural southern region of the Nile Valley) and the more cosmopolitan Lower Egypt (the Northern Nile Delta region) which were further separated into smaller districts called Nomes, with each nome having its own capital were already a part of cultural landscape prior to Macedonian conquest.

For the most part, Greek and Macedonian settlers were concentrated in Lower Egypt. That is not to say that Upper Egypt did not have a significant Greek presence however, in fact the city of Ptolemais Hermiou was founded as the capital of the Thebaid region by Ptolemy I and was said to be comparable to the Egyptian city of Memphis in size. Ptolemais was similar to many other Greek poleis in so far as it had its own constitution and elected local officials and magistrates.

Alexandria, capital of all of this and home to perhaps 300,000, centre of commerce and culture, saw residents, merchants, and scholars from across the “civilised” world forced into close proximity and as a result it developed its own distinct and inarguably mixed character, seperate even from the other Greek colonies and port cities in Egypt which is why the term “Alexandria next to Egypt” and travelling between Alexandria to Egypt were used in Antiquity. The term Alexandrian is likewise applied to citizens of the city, cultural and intellectual products, and due to the notoriously hot-tempered disposition of its people, to several civil wars and large riots.

The situation in Egypt and in particular, Alexandria is often compared to a melting pot but this comparison is somewhat of an oversimplification and it ignores the many class distinctions and cultural differences between the three predominant ethnic groups, Greeks, Egyptians and Jews, with Greeks at the top of the social pyramid and Egyptians making up a disenfranchised majority and Jews occupying their own niche. Even with that there are some distinctions between Macedonian settlers and other Hellenes although this distinction became gradually less important with time as the citizens became unified by a common Hellenic identity in their new home, and this identity appears to have broadened even further to include some Egyptians as well but I will get to that later. A relatively large number of immigrants, students, merchants and mercenaries hailed from elsewhere in the Helladic world, Asia Minor, Western Europe, and even India adding to the religious and ethnic diversity of the city.
At first, the army was entirely comprised of Macedonian and Greek hoplites and supplemented by a large number of expensively retained and outfitted mercenaries but in the 2nd Century BCE Ptolemy IV was forced to find a large supplementary source of conscripts to withstand the invading forces of Antiochus III (a member of the rival Seleucid dynasty) in Coele-Syria, and by training and outfitting some 30,000 Egyptian hoplites to complement his army was able to soundly defeat his enemy at the Battle of Raphia in 217 BCE. However, arming and training a large force of Egyptians contributed to the secession of Upper Egypt upon his death in 205 BCE following the economic struggles and unrest in the wake of the war. While Egypt was torn apart by internal struggles, Antiochus III took the opportunity to invade and annex Coele-Syria in 200 BCE.

It would be inappropriate to mention the secession of Upper Egypt without providing proper context. Prior to Alexander the Great’s conquest Egypt had been a satrapy of Achaemenid Persia for 10 years but before that it had been conquered by Persia in 525 BCE and revolted and regained its independence in 404, an independence which lasted until 342. Alexander, who negotiated the Persian satrapy’s surrender and took pains to respect Egyptian tradition and was crowned Pharaoh in Memphis was viewed not as a conqueror but a liberator. However, when Alexander appointed Kleomenes of Naukratis as satrap who demanded arbitrarily heavy taxes from the very priests and upper class Egyptians which had supported Alexander as Pharaoh attitudes quickly soured. Under Ptolemy I and II Egypt was relatively stable and the healthy economy allowed for peaceful relations between the various groups, however the ineptitude of later successors, wars in Asia Minor and internal struggles over the right of succession would contribute to the dynasty’s decline around the close of the 3rd century BCE.

From 205 to 185 BCE Upper Egypt was in open rebellion against the Lagides and two Egyptians were proclaimed Pharaoh in these regions, Hurwennefer from 205-197 and his successor Ankhwennefer from 197-185 held more than 3/4 of Egypt until the insurrection was violently and firmly suppressed by Ptolemy V who had made peace with Antiochus III and married his daughter Cleopatra I (Not the famous Cleopatra, but her great-great-great-great grandmother) and was then able to focus on regaining his lost Egyptian holdings. The famous Rosetta Stone was a stele issued by the priesthood at Memphis circa 206 and it states that Ptolemy V offered forgiveness on debts and on certain taxes owed and lightening of other taxes, offered gifts of grain and gold to the temples and priesthoods, paid bonuses to the soldiers in his army, forgave prisoners, banned the practice of forcing free boatmen to serve in the Navy, allowed those who were involved in the rebellion to retain their property and return to their homes, and his defeat of rebels in the south of Egypt among other things.
Adding to the unrest that cropped up sporadically throughout the Ptolemaic Period was the bloody legacy of civil wars between rival factions within the royal family which often extended into riots and coups within Alexandria itself and ultimately contributed to Egypt’s decline in political power and status as a client-kingdom to Rome in the 1st Century BCE as monarchs reached out for support from Roman allies and as a result, Rome became increasingly involved in settling these disputes while a combination of military might, growing territories in the East and economic ties brought Egypt ever more into the sphere of Roman influence.
Culture
Documentary and epigraphic evidence has shown that following this rebellion, a significant segment of Hellenised Egyptians and Egyptianised Greeks appears to have emerged in the middle-class and class distinctions were increasingly dictated by cultural affiliation. This applied primarily to rural Greek families and urban Egyptian ones, and it appears that in the settlements outside of the poleis the law prohibiting Greek-Egyptian marriages was not applied, at least in practice. Some Greeks had Egyptian names and some Egyptians frequently used both Greek and Egyptian names in different contexts further complicating the already murky distinction between Greeks and Hellenised Egyptians in the papyrological record.

Notably, there were three distinct legal systems in Ptolemaic Egypt which were used in different contexts. Disputes and cases within Egyptian communities and concerning Egyptians fell under Egyptian law, Jewish law was applied within the Jewish community, and finally Greek law was applied within Greek poleis and in cases involving Greeks, this system allowed for a greater degree of self-governance within the different communities and prevented tensions which might arise due to forcing Greek law and customs onto the people. Contracts similarly fell under whatever law applied to the language the were written, Greek law for Greek writing, Egyptian law for Demotic Egyptian, and Jewish law for Aramaic and Hebrew although the language of contracts may not have been dictated by the background of the individuals as often as has been previously assumed, and Greeks and Egyptians had legal documents made in whatever language and legal sphere was most applicable for their purposes. For instance, temple oaths were often made in Demotic Egyptian, but legal testaments might be made in Greek or Egyptian depending on the preference of the individual and preserved archives show that documents from Egyptians were carried out in Greek and vice versa, and that the same individual and household might switch between both systems for personal or legal reasons.

With the settlement of large amounts of immigrants from Macedon and Greek city states such as Crete, Thrace, and Epirus, Egypt found itself home to a new mode of living. This also brought changes in lifestyle and family structure, as Greek women who most elsewhere in the Helladic world lived in relative seclusion, and were not involved in most affairs outside of the household began to travel between various cities in Egypt and adopted many of the freedoms that Egyptian women enjoyed. By the 1st Century BCE there is a wealth of papyrological and archival evidence that Hellenic women in Egypt owned property, ran businesses, created lawsuits or were sued, paid taxes, initiated divorces, and in many cases were expected to provide for the financial support of a household and this was a part of a larger change in the social status of women in Alexandria and other Greek settlements in Egypt. This is also reflected in the royal family, as women exercised power increasingly often as queen regents in the Ptolemaic dynasty including Cleopatra IV and Cleopatra VII who ruled with their sons, and Cleopatra I, Cleopatra II and Berenice IV ruled on their own without a co-regent.
There are drastic differences in the architecture and city planning in the Greek cities of Alexandria (which was built along a carefully planned grid layout), Ptolemais and to a lesser extent, the older Greek settlement of Naukratis which was founded as a trade city in the 6th Century BCE, but outside of these there were no other large Greek cities and the Greeks living outside of these belonged to villages and towns that were more limited in size and facilities, preventing the from attaining the self-dependence of city-states. Even in these there plenty of changes compared to Egyptian villages with the simple mud brick houses and stone temples giving way to tile-roofed villas made predominantly of limestone and coral stone, and in the houses of the wealthier denizens more expensive granite or marble, as well as the construction of gymnasiums which were a cornerstone of the community and more akin to university campuses than to the modern gymnasiums, and small port-cities like Berenice and Myos Hormos are an excellent example of this.

And changes in the product and cultivars to be found in Egypt, notably the cultivation of grapes and the prevalence of wine in place of the traditional Egyptian beer (more akin to thick, soupy modern day African beer than the kind you may be familiar with).

In addition to new cultic and spiritual traditions came the worship of new deities such as Zeus, Dionysius, and Apollo, as well as Hellenised Egyptian deities such as Isis, Hermanubis and Serapis a Hellenised anthropomorphic form of Osir-Apis who was a syncretic fusion of Osiris and Apis and had been worshipped in Rhakotis (the area that became Alexandria) and this new form, Serapis, held traits in common with Zeus and Hades. Temples, such as the Serapion and Temple of Isis on Pharos and numerous sanctuaries to various Greek cults including the popular cult of Dionysius also popped up throughout Egypt. One important feature of religion in Ptolemaic Egypt was the dynastic cult, first utilised to its full potential by Ptolemy II in his deification of his recently deceased sister-wife Arsinoe, and it remained an important tool of Ptolemaic rule. The association with Ammon-Zeus, Serapis, and Dionysius-Osiris was employed by several Ptolemies who instituted their own personal cults of worship to varying degrees of size and popularity and with wildly different rites involved from the conservative to the orgiastic.
One of the most sweeping uses of religious symbolism was on the part of Cleopatra VII who used an association with the tremendously popular Isis who was already conflated with Aphrodite, Astarte and Venus to gain popularity in the Near East and harness Isis’ popularity in Rome, as well as adopting epithets such as Neotera Thea (the youngest goddess) and mother of Horus to harken back to previous queens Ptolemaic or otherwise.

Alexandria found itself to be a haven not only of religious and philosophical thought, but a beacon of Hellenism and science in general with the construction of marvels like the Pharos Lighthouse (one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world) which used mirrors and fires to direct a spotlight 50 miles onto the open ocean, and automatic doors invented by Hero of Alexandria in the first century BCE which functioned through the employment of pneumatic pumps. And Archimedes, Euclid and Hero all studied at the famous Museion and the adjoining Great Library of Alexandria which housed Greek translations from Hebrew and Aramaic texts, Hindu writings and even some of the writings of Confucius and was said to have housed as many as 4-500,000 scrolls.

Although this facility experienced a massive decline in 145 BCE following the expulsion of most of the Museion’s scholars and students for defying the tyrannical Ptolemy VIII, it retained a tremendous importance and experienced some resurgence in the 1st Century BCE and the Roman Period under the patronage of several Roman Emperors.
Economy
One innovation during the Hellenistic period was the establishment of a regular currency in the form of coinage, whereas before wheat and bullion were used at a fixed and standardized rate against other goods and services, as well as weighted units of precious metals and “hacksilber” which is essentially a term for any assortment of broken silver objects, foreign coins and other pieces of, well, silver used as currency and commonly found in hoards. Foreign coins and a very limited amount of coins minted in Egypt were used during the reign of the last native Egyptian pharaoh Nectanebo II before Persia’s re-conquest, and following Alexander’s conquest the use of Macedonian currency by the satrapy was prevalent, but there was still never any standard universal coinage until the Ptolemaic period. The fixed rate of exchangeable goods made exchanging wheat and bullion for cash easy, although payments in kind continued to be the norm outside of heavily Hellenised regions of Lower Egypt, and in most day-to-day transactions Egyptians and Greeks alike. Potsherd receipts and other archaeological evidence shows that by the 2nd Century BCE cash was as common in Upper Egypt as it was the North. Complicating the matter of coinage, in Egypt, counter-intuitively, silver was more expensive than gold due to its rarity and it was for this reason that by the 2nd Century BCE tetradrachms were minted with 20% less silver than their foreign counterparts and more readily available gold and bronze coins were favoured. Foreign traders were required to exchange the currency they brought with them for foreign currency which was treated as having equivalent value despite being only 80% the weight of other coinages.

Unlike elsewhere in the Helladic world bronze coins were minted that could be used in large transactions instead of being reserved for use as change and “pocket money” although certain taxes were required to be paid in silver or a 10% charge was added. The currency of Ptolemaic Egypt is notoriously variable and it underwent sweeping changes in bullion and market value which was tied closely to the stability of the government at any given time. Following the internal strife in the reigns of Ptolemy IV the value of the bronze coin dropped to 50% that of silver, whereas before they had existed at a fixed equal rate and under Ptolemy V the bronze coins reached the actual value of their metal which was 1.65% that of silver. And in secessionist Upper Egypt a decimal system replaced the obol system (which means instead of fractions and multiples of 6, 10 was used) and this was adopted in Lower Egypt as well.
Coins also held a double meaning in the ancient world, as they were an effective and powerful source of propaganda and symbolized the power of the crown.

Taxes were the most important source of revenue for the government in Egypt and Pharaonic power was tied closely to it, everything from imports, exports, purchases, sales, income and property were taxed by the government and a highly developed system of census taking and land surveys was employed by the government for this purpose from long before the Macedonian conquest and the Ptolemies mostly co-opted this system and changed the language royal decrees were written in (notwithstanding the abuse of taxation and corvee labour under many Ptolemaic rulers who had little concern for the well-being of the majority of the countryside). This bureaucratic system has lead to a relatively high volume of such records surviving and they prove to be an invaluable asset to learn more about the distribution of land and wealth, family dynamics and the overall population demographics.

The status of Egypt as an economic superpower which I have previously alluded to, is part and parcel of Egypt’s political importance in the Graeco-Roman era. In addition to grain, wine, slaves, cotton, natron, flax, dyes and olive oil from Egypt, Nubia to the south was an abundant source of ivory, exotic animals, gold and slaves as well as prized Red Slip pottery, the then-wooded areas of North Africa and the Levant supplied timber as well as gems like turquoise, lapis lazuli and agate, ships run by Greek and Arabic captains brought spices, rare silks and dyes across the sea from far-off India and the Bactrian kingdoms, and yet more grain and olive oil from Syria, all of these destined for port cities along the Red Sea coast such as Berenice, Myos Hormos, and Canopus. For some of these goods this would be a mere pit-stop and they would be reloaded and shipped elsewhere, others would be taken to be manufactured into their finished product (or something closer to it) for instance frankincense made into incense, perfumes and dyes mixed into expensive scents or colours, and medicinal herbs and spices cut with cheaper substitutes. From these ports they were then usually sent to Alexandria, where they were taxed and then shipped to their next destination, and for this reason raw materials which were not taxed as high were often sent to Alexandria and then manufactured into the more expensive finished product to be sold at a profit elsewhere.
But it is important to keep in mind that most of the population felt very little benefit from the economic boon that was foreign trade which was mostly funneled to Alexandria and other highly urbanized areas. So, in ancient Egypt more money from trade in coastal cities =/= more money in the hands of valley farmers. In fact, one of the reasons for heavy taxation, particularly in early Ptolemaic Period was for investing in this trade which did prove to be a profitable one, but again not for everyone.

Despite the immense importance of trade and commerce to Egyptian economy, it still holds true that in Egypt, like most everywhere in Antiquity, around 80-90% of the population worked in the agricultural sector at any given time, to provide enough food for the other 10-20% doing pretty much everything else. What makes the agricultural value of Egypt so lucrative and allowed it to stand apart from other civilisations in early Antiquity was its most iconic geographical feature: the Nile river. Every year when the Nile would overflow and the area immediately around it would flood for 4 months, dragging up nutrient rich silt from the river bottom and then the waters would recede, leaving an ideal layer of black silt in which grain could be planted without the need to even plow the soil first and then harvested around 8 months after the inundation. This method of agriculture yielded an extremely high production value for little work input and is what allowed Egypt to develop so early and for its methods of agriculture to remain relatively unchanged for millennia with just a few innovations to farming equipment in later periods such as the use of iron farming tools in the Ptolemaic which further increased the already impressive output. Basically, less work to tire out the work force, less time spent that could be put to other uses, but much more food produced.

The huge production and exportation of grain from North Africa and Egypt in general has led it to be referred to as the “bread-basket of Rome”, and with good reason. Although Sicily, Italy and North Africa were the primary sources of grain in the Republican era, Egypt was an increasingly important trading partner for the Roman Republic and its most important export to Rome was wheat, given that grain shortages proved to be a reoccurring problem for the city’s immense size and population. Following its annexation by Augustus it became one of the primary sources of grain to the Empire. Other important exports included olive oil, wine and figs which were staple crops for any hungry empire and slaves were also in perpetually high demand. Commodities and luxury items such as gold jewelry, perfumes and incenses, medicinal products such as natron, cosmetics, high-quality textiles and fabrics, precious gemstones and Egyptian art were also highly valued in the Roman market and contributed to Egypt’s economic importance in the Roman Empire.
The reason that this is significant is that in many ways, life in Roman Egypt owed much to the legacy of Egypt under the Ptolemies. The vast trade network, the cultural affinity with the rest of the Hellenic Near East and Rome by extension, and the use of Greek as an official language changed the manner in which Egypt was integrated into the Roman Empire. It is not for historians to try to predict what the relationship between Dynastic Egypt and Late Republican Rome would have looked like but it is safe to say it would have been markedly different from the complicated situation that emerged in the 2nd and 1st Century BCE.
Sources and translations:
Michel Chaveau’s Egypt in the Age of Cleopatra, particularly Section 1 Ch. 1 “The Heritage of Alexander”, Section 4 “Economy and Society” and Section 8 “Two languages, Two Cultures, Three Writing Systems”

Jean Bingen’s Hellenistic Egypt

Peter Green’s Alexander to Actium

Joann Fletcher’s Cleopatra the Great, particularly Ch. 1 “The Spirit of Alexander: Europe and Egypt” Ch. 2 “In the Blood: The Ptolemies and their Cleopatras” and Ch. 12 “The Epilogue: The Aftermath”

Dorothy Crawford’s Kerkeosiris: An Egyptian Village in the Ptolemaic Period primarily on the administration and daily life in Upper Egypt during the Ptolemaic period.

Roger S. Bagnall’s Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: Sources and Approaches, Women’s Letters in Ancient Egypt: 300 BC – AD 800 co-authored with Rafiella Criboire, and A Demography of Roman Egypt coauthored with Bruce Frier.

Andrew Monson’s From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and Economic Change in Egypt and Agriculture and Taxation in Early Ptolemaic Egypt: Demotic Land Surveys and Accounts with the latter being available online at academia.edu if you are interested.

Paul Erdkamp’s The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study

Sitta Von Reden’s Money in Ptolemaic Egypt: From the Macedonian Conquest to the End of the 3rd Century BCE and Money and Prices in the Papyri, Ptolemaic Period which can also be found online.

Molly Swetnam-Burlands Egypt In Italy

E.A. Wallis Budge’s translation of the text on the Rosetta Stone stela

Greek or Egyptian? The Language Choice of in Ptolemaic Documents in Pathyris Egyptological Association of Queen Elisabeth

Steven M. Burstein’s The Reign of Cleopatra particularly Ch. 3 “Ptolemaic Egypt, How did it Work?” Ch. 4 “Cleopatra’s Egypt, A Multicultural Society” and Ch. 5 “Alexandria: City of Culture and Conflict”