The development of science in the modern world is often held to depend on such institutions as
universities peer-reviewed journals and democracy. How then did new science emerge in the
pre-modern culture of the Hellenistic Egyptian monarchy? Berrey argues that the court society
formed around the Ptolemaic pharaohs Ptolemy III and IV (reigned successively 246-205 4 BCE)
provided an audience for cross-disciplinary learned knowledge as physicians mathematicians
and mechanicians clothed themselves in the virtues of courtiers attendant on the kings. The
multicultural Greco-Egyptian court society prized entertainment that drew on earlier literature
mixed genres and cultures and highlighted motion and sound. New cross-disciplinary science in
the Hellenistic period gained its social currency and subsequent scientific success through its
entertainment value as court science. Ancient court science sheds light on the long history of
scientific interdisciplinarity.
