Ptolemy I Soter
Ptolemy I | |
---|---|
Pharaoh | |
King of the Ptolemaic Kingdom | |
Reign | 305 – January 282 BC |
Predecessor | Alexander IV |
Successor | Ptolemy II Philadelphus |
Consorts | |
Children | (at least 12)
|
Father | Macedon, Greece |
Died | January 282 BC (aged 84–85) Alexandria, Ptolemaic Kingdom |
Dynasty | Ptolemaic dynasty |
Ptolemy I Soter (
Ptolemy I was the son of
Ptolemy I may have married
Early life and career
A Greek Macedonian,[2] Ptolemy was born in 367 BC.[5] Ptolemy's mother was Arsinoe. According to Satyrus the Peripatetic, Arsinoe was a descendant of Alexander I of Macedon and thus a member of the Argead dynasty, claiming ultimate descent from Heracles. Ostensibly, Ptolemy's father was Lagus, a Macedonian nobleman from Eordaea, but many ancient sources claim that he was actually an illegitimate son of Philip II of Macedon. If true, this would have made Ptolemy the half-brother of Alexander the Great. It is probable that this is a later myth fabricated to glorify the Ptolemaic dynasty.[6]
However, Ptolemy may have been a great-grandson of Amyntas I of Macedon, making him a member of the Argead royal house and a distant relative of Alexander the Great, who was a great-great-grandson of Amyntas.[7][8]
Ptolemy served with Alexander from his first campaigns, and was among the seven
Successor of Alexander
When Alexander died in 323 BC, Ptolemy is said to have instigated the settlement of the empire made at Babylon. Through the Partition of Babylon, he was appointed satrap of Egypt, under the nominal kings Philip III and the infant Alexander IV; the former satrap, the Greek Cleomenes, stayed on as his deputy. Ptolemy quickly moved, without authorization, to subjugate Cyrenaica.[9]
By custom, kings in Macedonia asserted their right to the throne by burying their predecessor. Probably because he wanted to pre-empt
Rivalry and wars
In 321 BC, Perdiccas attempted to invade Egypt, only to fall at the hands of his own men.[15] Ptolemy's decision to defend the Nile against Perdiccas ended in fiasco for Perdiccas, with the loss of 2,000 men. This failure was a fatal blow to Perdiccas' reputation, and he was murdered in his tent by two of his subordinates. Ptolemy immediately crossed the Nile, to provide supplies to what had the day before been an enemy army. Ptolemy was offered the regency in place of Perdiccas, but he declined.[16] Ptolemy was consistent in his policy of securing a power base, while never succumbing to the temptation of risking all to succeed Alexander.[17]
In the long wars that followed between the different
In 312, Ptolemy and Seleucus, the fugitive satrap of Babylonia, both invaded Syria, and defeated Demetrius I, the son of Antigonus, in the Battle of Gaza. Again he occupied Syria, and again—after only a few months, when Demetrius had won a battle over his general, and Antigonus entered Syria in force—he evacuated it. In 311, a peace was concluded between the combatants. Soon after this, the surviving 13-year-old king, Alexander IV, was murdered in Macedonia on the orders of Cassander, leaving the satrap of Egypt absolutely his own master.[9]
The peace did not last long, and in 309 Ptolemy personally commanded a fleet which detached the coastal towns of Lycia and Caria from Antigonus, then crossed into Greece, where he took possession of Corinth, Sicyon and Megara (308 BC). In 306, a great fleet under Demetrius attacked Cyprus, and Ptolemy's brother Menelaus was defeated and captured in another decisive Battle of Salamis. Ptolemy's complete loss of Cyprus followed.[9]
The satraps Antigonus and Demetrius now each assumed the title of king; Ptolemy, as well as Cassander, Lysimachus and Seleucus I Nicator, responded by doing the same. In the winter of 306 BC, Antigonus tried to follow up his victory in Cyprus by invading Egypt; but Ptolemy was strongest there, and successfully held the frontier against him. Ptolemy led no further overseas expeditions against Antigonus.[18] However, he did send great assistance to Rhodes when it was besieged by Demetrius (305/304). The Rhodians granted divine honors to Ptolemy as a result of the lifting of the siege.[19]
When the coalition against Antigonus was renewed in 302, Ptolemy joined it, and invaded Syria a third time, while Antigonus was engaged with Lysimachus in Asia Minor. On hearing a report that Antigonus had won a decisive victory there, he once again evacuated Syria. But when the news came that Antigonus had been defeated and slain by Lysimachus and Seleucus at the Battle of Ipsus in 301, he occupied Syria a fourth time.[18]
The other members of the coalition had assigned all Syria to Seleucus, after what they regarded as Ptolemy's desertion, and for the next hundred years, the question of the ownership of southern Syria (i.e., Judea) produced recurring warfare between the
Marriages, children, and succession
While Alexander was alive, Ptolemy had three children with his mistress
In 285, Ptolemy made his son Ptolemy II his co-regent. His eldest legitimate son, Ptolemy Keraunos, fled to the court of Lysimachus. Ptolemy I died in January 282 aged 84 or 85.
Historian
Ptolemy himself wrote an eyewitness history of Alexander's campaigns (now lost).
Ptolemy's lost history was long considered an objective work, distinguished by its straightforward honesty and sobriety,[18] but more recent work has called this assessment into question. R. M. Errington argued that Ptolemy's history was characterised by persistent bias and self-aggrandisement, and by systematic blackening of the reputation of Perdiccas, one of Ptolemy's chief dynastic rivals after Alexander's death.[33] For example, Arrian's account of the fall of Thebes in 335 BC (Anabasis 1.8.1–1.8.8, a rare section of narrative explicitly attributed to Ptolemy by Arrian) shows several significant variations from the parallel account preserved in Diodorus Siculus (17.11–12), most notably in attributing a distinctly unheroic role in proceedings to Perdiccas. More recently, J. Roisman has argued that the case for Ptolemy's blackening of Perdiccas and others has been much exaggerated.[34]
Euclid
Ptolemy personally sponsored the great mathematician Euclid. He found Euclid's seminal work, the Elements, too difficult to study, so he asked if there were an easier way to master it. According to Proclus, Euclid famously quipped: "Sire, there is no Royal Road to geometry."[35]
In art and fiction
- Ptolemy is portrayed by Anthony Hopkins and Elliot Cowan as the narrator and a main character in the historical epic Alexander, directed by Oliver Stone.
- Ptolemy appears as a minor character in Mary Renault's Alexander Trilogy novels.
- Ptolemy appears as a character in the mobile game Fate Grand Orderas an Archer Class Servant.
- Ptolemy is portrayed by Dino Kelly as a recurring character in Netflix's 2024 drama docuseries Alexander: The Making of a God.
See also
- History of Ptolemaic Egypt
- Serapis, Greco-Egyptian god, promoted by Ptolemy
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d Leprohon 2013, p. 178.
- ^ ISBN 9780806137414.
They were members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Macedonian Greeks, who ruled Egypt after the death of its conqueror, Alexander the Great.
- ISBN 9781135119836.
- ISBN 978-2-600-04414-1.
- ^ a b Ptolemy I at Livius.org
- ISBN 978-0-19-973815-1.
- ^ Alexander The Great: Myth, Genesis and Sexuality by Daniel Ogden 2011 P. 81 note 8
- ^ https://pothos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=47694#p47694
- ^ a b c d e Chisholm 1911, p. 616.
- ISBN 978-0-631-19396-8.
- ISBN 978-0-14-044253-3.
- ^ Lauren O'Connor (2008). "The Remains of Alexander the Great: The God, The King, The Symbol". Constructing the Past. Retrieved 28 March 2019..
- ISBN 978-0465006212
- ISBN 9780520083493.
- JSTOR 294603.
- ^ Peter Green p14
- ^ Peter Green pp 119
- ^ a b c d Chisholm 1911, p. 617.
- ^ Siege of Rhodes at Livius.org
- ^ ISBN 07156-29301.
- ^ ISBN 9780195370881.
- ISBN 978-0-89005-542-7.
- ISBN 978-0-06-019439-0.
- ISBN 978-9047424208.
- ^ Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Demetrius", 32, 46
- ^ "Berenice I at Livius.org". Archived from the original on 2016-03-17. Retrieved 2020-03-26.
- ^ Phillips, Heather A., "The Great Library of Alexandria?". Library Philosophy and Practice, August 2010 Archived 2012-04-18 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Ptolemaic Dynasty at World History Encyclopedia
- OCLC 769308142.
- ISBN 978-0198148630.
- ^ Anabasis 6.2.4
- ^ Anabasis, Prologue
- S2CID 170128227.
- S2CID 163042651.
- ISBN 978-1-4191-5431-7.
Sources
- Anson, Edward M. (15 June 2023). Ptolemy I Soter: Themes and Issues. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-350-26082-5.
- Caroli, Christian A. (2007). Ptolemaios I. Soter: Herrscher zweier Kulturen. Konstanz: Badawi - Artes Afro Arabica. ISBN 9783938828052.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ptolemies". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 616–618. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
- Ellis, Walter M. (1994). Ptolemy of Egypt. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415100205.
- Leprohon, Ronald J. (2013). The Great Name: Ancient Egyptian Royal Titulary. SBL Press. ISBN 978-1-58983-736-2. Retrieved 4 January 2024.
- McKechnie, Paul R.; Cromwell, Jennifer (2018). Ptolemy I and the Transformation of Egypt, 404-282 BCE. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-36696-1.
- Waterfield, Robin (2011). Dividing the Spoils – The War for Alexander the Great's Empire (hardback). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-957392-9.
External links
- Ptolemy Soter I at LacusCurtius — (Chapter II of E. R Bevan's House of Ptolemy, 1923)
- Ptolemy I (at Egyptian Royal Genealogy, with genealogical table)
- Livius, Ptolemy I Soter Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine by Jona Lendering
- Ptolemy I Soter entry in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith
- A genealogical tree of Ptolemy, though not necessarily reliable Alexander the Great