Egypt, with the Nile, was hands down one of the richest areas in the world until recent history, due to the massively advantageous agricultural output potential thanks to the predictable nature of the great river. For many empires across history it was also a "key" province, most notably for the Romans, where the Nile provided crucial food supplies, tax revenue, and access to Indian trade routes which kept the empire afloat. It was so important that no senator could enter the province without the Princep's direct approval, there was even a huge scandal when the heir apparent Germanicus made a trip into Egypt when Tiberius was still emperor. Besides that, ancient Egypt was almost on China's level as a great cultural force, even assimilating conquerors due to the strength and inertia of their religious beliefs and customs. The Ptolemy's had a notoriously hard time in Hellenizing the Coptic peoples and Cleopatra was the first Greek monarch to learn the native language.

有着尼罗河的埃及,直到近代都一直是世界上最富饶的地区之一,这条大河的可预测性,让埃及拥有巨大的农业生产潜力。对于历史上的许多帝国来说,这个地区也是一个“关键”的省份,尤其是对罗马,尼罗河提供了至关重要的粮食供应、税收以及通往印度的贸易路线,使帝国得以维持。这个省份重要到,若没有皇帝的直接批准,任何元老院议员都不能进入这个省,在提比略还是皇帝时,继承人日耳曼尼库斯前往埃及都成为了巨大的丑闻。除此之外,古埃及几乎是与中国同水平的文化力量,由于其宗教信仰、习俗的力量和惯性,他们甚至把征服者同化了。众所周知,希腊人的托勒密王朝在将科普特人希腊化的过程中经历了一段艰难的时期。克利奥帕特拉【埃及艳后】是第一位学习当地语言的希腊君主。

My question is, why did a region that was so strong agriculturally, economically, and culturally never make a great world empire of its own? Egypt and Assyria were the two major states to survive the Bronze Age collapse, but only Assyria capitalized on the massive power vacuums created by the collapse of most of the civilized world and would eventually conquer Egypt as well. When the Assyrians fell, another power vacuum opened up, but once again Egypt failed to capitalized and was eventually conquered by the Achaemenids. Egypt then had another chance under the Ptolemaic dynasty, but the nature of the wars of the Diadochi was that any two powers never let the third become too powerful, so the Ptolemies never expanded far out of the Levant with spheres of influence in southern Greece.

我的问题是,为什么一个在农业、经济和文化上如此强大的地区,却从来没有建立起自己的世界帝国?埃及和亚述是青铜时代崩溃后幸存下来的两个主要国家,但只有亚述利用了大部分文明世界崩溃后出现的实力真空建立起了帝国,最终还征服了埃及。当亚述灭亡,又一次实力真空出现,然而埃及还是没能抓住机会,最终还被波斯的阿契美尼德王朝征服了。当时埃及在托勒密王朝的统治下有一次机会,但继业者战争有一个特点,争斗的两方绝不让第三方变得过于强大,因此托勒密王朝的势力范围无法在黎凡特以外的希腊南部扩张。

By the time Rome gobbled up Ptolemaic Egypt during the civil wars, Egypt had lost its shot at a large independent empire until the medi period under the Mamluks. What held Egypt back from leveraging its massive advantages into creating an empire to rival the Persians, Romans, and Assyrians?

当罗马在内战中吞并托勒密埃及时,埃及失去了成为独立大帝国的机会,直到中世纪马穆鲁克时期。埃及有着巨大的优势,然而是什么阻碍了埃及成为波斯、罗马和亚述这样的帝国?

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