Crusader Kings: Prisoners of War.

Chapter 324 Dilemma
As relatively complete polytheisms, Egypt and Greece actually have a tendency to develop into monotheism. However, it is generally believed in modern times that the core of the two is quite different, and the basic belief patterns are also different. The Greeks have also tried hard, and even achieved some results.

After ruling Egypt, the Greek immigrants to Egypt created a god called "Serapis", who was a combination of the bull Apis, the god of the underworld and the god of fertility Osiris. At the same time, they innovatively blended a lot of Greek elements into it. We can see elements of Hades, the god of the underworld, Zeus, the king of gods, Dionysus, the god of wine and other gods in it. It is a complete patchwork monster. It looks like an Egyptian god, but in fact its core is completely Greek. Therefore, the Greeks' efforts to unify the mythology system failed as expected. The belief in Serapis was limited to immigrant cities such as Alexandria. In essence, it was still a god believed in by the Greeks, and not many Egyptians bought into it.

The reason why we say he achieved some results is that the Romans actually believed in him a little bit. They even discovered the Temple of Serapis in Britain, which is quite amazing.

In the middle and late period of Ptolemy's reign, due to economic decadence and severe exploitation, the Egyptians became increasingly dissatisfied with the Greek immigrants, and even had pamphlets and slogans like "The One-Eyed Stone Man".

"The wearers of the belts (i.e. the Greeks) will destroy themselves... When all the sins are over, when the foreigners in Egypt have vanished like leaves in the autumn, this will become a reality. Because of the disrespect committed by the wearers of the belts, their city (Alexandria) will be abandoned... The Egyptian statues that were transported to Alexandria will return to Egypt, and the coastal cities will become drying grounds for fishermen..."

Faced with such a sharp conflict, the Ptolemaic royal family did some reflection. While appeasing the civilians, they would increase their contributions to the temple during years of disaster, allowing the temple to control the civilians through the priests and calm their emotions.

The priests were well aware of this act of returning a favor. King Ptolemy, like the orthodox pharaohs, was placed on the altar by them and regarded as a god on earth, the son of Amon. Perhaps it was thanks to these priests and temples that the rule of Ptolemaic Egypt did not collapse.

Our ancestors managed to maintain the country through this means, but now how to deal with these powerful priests has become a major problem.

Theoretically, Egyptian pharaohs were the only ones qualified to act as both gods and humans. Their role and responsibility was to maintain the world's Maat. This was a very important core concept after the Egyptian mythology system was formed, and its status should be similar to that of Brahman and Karma in Hinduism.

In short, this is an abstract concept of order, fairness, and justice, and the Pharaoh is the specific person who maintains this abstract concept. However, with the development of time and the decline of royal power, the sacrificial power concentrated in one person by the Pharaoh was again distributed to temples and priests in various places. After countless centuries, it came to the era when the Ptolemaic royal family was in power. Although the priests of the temple respected the Egyptian king (Pharaoh) as the son of God, the priest power had been taken by them, and the king was not the only one in power. Then an abstract situation emerged.

The flag on the city wall was changed, and Egypt changed its rulers, but this did not affect the temples. On the contrary, the new rulers had not yet established a firm foothold, and in order to appease the temples, they would share huge profits with the priest group. Over time, the priests became stronger and stronger, and the new rulers did not dare to touch these people for fear of detonating the bomb.

Cleopatra was a very crazy person to some extent. She could clearly recognize the potential risks of the problem, but she still chose to do this without hesitation, without even making sufficient preparations. After a brief plan with Orville, Cleopatra began to take back the land given to the temple bit by bit.

Of course, she would not confiscate all of it. She only asked for a reduction in the land held by the temples, and gave the land to the local poor - the land was nationalized. However, she promised not to collect taxes on this land within 5 years, and after 10 years, she would collect taxes at a lower level (% to %), which was much lower than the taxes levied by recent Ptolemy kings and also lower than the tax standards of the temples.

Considering that she is not yet twenty years old, her rule should last for a long time. If she keeps her word, this guarantee is worthwhile. This has shaken many local people. People in backward areas are generally superstitious, but superstition does not mean stupidity. They also know that the priests above are being domineering and there are many poor people being persecuted by these people. They are just afraid of their power and dare not act. Now that the Pharaoh is willing to support them, they will naturally accept it and help the Pharaoh to deal with some of the temples that oppress them.

This is only a minority of cases. It is obvious that only talking will have little effect. Not to mention that although some temples have occupied national land belonging to the pharaoh, the civilians protected by them can still live a decent life. At least they know how to cherish their reputation. In addition, the "Greek Pharaohs" have always been exploiting the people in an inhumane manner in recent years. The temples are their spiritual sustenance. Even if they are promised small profits, the locals will still tend to favor the temple forces.

Cleopatra was cautious and did not issue a national decree as the pharaoh. She just tried to test the waters under the pretext of building water conservancy facilities. The result was not very satisfactory. The local temple was also experienced and might have had conflicts with people like Ptolemy I. How could they not see through Cleopatra's idea? The attempt to reclaim the land was strongly resisted, and there were even several small-scale riots, forcing Orville to send troops to suppress them.

This gave Cleopatra a headache, but she did not lose heart and still insisted on doing it. On the one hand, she negotiated with the local temple to accumulate experience, and on the other hand, she began to prepare for large-scale sacrifices to Isis and other gods. She was really going to follow the route of Isis-Aphrodite that Orwell mentioned, but she didn't know what the effect would be.

This will definitely take time. It will take at least 20 to 30 years to produce results. Orville can't afford to wait for 20 to 30 years, so he is thinking about taking some drastic measures.

At this time, he thought of Jeanne d'Acre who was far away in Britain. As for how to deal with the polytheistic temples in Egypt, Christianity might be able to help. After all, this was the process of historical evolution.

About a year before Orville traveled through time, the Apostle Mark, the author of the Gospel of Mark, was said to have just been executed in Alexandria. After him, many important Christian figures were active, and quite a few of them are still alive.

For example, Matthew and Luke are both authors of Gospels. They will write their own works in the next few years or in the next few years. It can be said that Christianity is now in its infancy.

PS. Honestly speaking, Ancient Egypt is completely beyond the author's knowledge, and I should have studied it carefully. However, the author is really busy recently and has to take an exam, so I took a few glances at it before the exam. If there are any mistakes, please point them out.

The author will change

(End of this chapter)