| |
Ptolemy I Soter "Ptolemy the
Savior"; c. 367 – January 282) was a companion and historian of
Alexander the Great of the Kingdom of Macedon in northern Greece who became
ruler of Egypt, part of Alexander's former empire. Ptolemy was pharaoh of
Ptolemaic Egypt from 305/304 to his death. He was the founder of the Ptolemaic
dynasty which ruled Egypt until the death of Cleopatra in 30, turning the
country into a Hellenistic kingdom and Alexandria into a center of Greek
culture. Ptolemy I was the son of Arsinoe of Macedon by either her husband
Lagus or Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander. Ptolemy was one of
Alexander's most trusted companions and military officers. After the death of
Alexander in 323, Ptolemy retrieved his body as it was en route to be buried in
Macedon, placing it in Memphis instead, where it was later moved to Alexandria
in a new tomb.
Afterwards he joined a coalition against Perdiccas,
the royal regent over Philip III of Macedon. The latter invaded Egypt but was
assassinated by his own officers in 320 , allowing Ptolemy I to consolidate his
control over the country. After a series of wars between Alexander's
successors, Ptolemy gained a claim to Judea in southern Syria which was
disputed with the Syrian king Seleucus I
Nicator, his former ally. He also took control of Cyprus and Cyrenaica, the
latter of which was placed under the control of Ptolemy's stepson Magas.
Ptolemy I may have married Thaïs, his mistress during the life of
Alexander; he is known to have married the Persian noblewoman Artakama on
Alexander's orders. He later married Eurydice, daughter of the Macedonian
regent Antipater; their sons Ptolemy Keraunos and Meleager ruled in turn as
kings of Macedon. Ptolemy's final marriage was to Eurydice's cousin and
lady-in-waiting, Berenice I. Ptolemy I died in 282 and was succeeded by his son
with Berenice, Ptolemy II. He also had built the Library of Alexandria.
Early life and career:
Ptolemy was born in 367. 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. It is probable that this is a later myth fabricated to glorify the
Ptolemaic dynasty. Ptolemy served with Alexander from his first campaigns, and
was among the seven somatophylakes (bodyguards) of Alexander. He played a
principal part in the later campaigns in Afghanistan and India. He participated
in the Battle of Issus, commanding troops on
the left wing under the authority of Parmenion. Later he accompanied Alexander
during his journey to the Oracle in the Siwa Oasis where he was proclaimed a
son of Zeus. Ptolemy had his first independent command during the campaign
against the rebel Bessus whom Ptolemy captured and handed over to Alexander for
execution.
Successor of Alexander:
When Alexander died in 323 , 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 Arrhidaeus and the infant
Alexander IV; the former satrap, the Greek Cleomenes, stayed on as his deputy.
Ptolemy quickly moved, without authorization, to subjugate Cyrenaica. By
custom, kings in Macedonia asserted their right to the throne by burying their
predecessor. Probably because he wanted to pre-empt Perdiccas, the imperial
regent, from staking his claim in this way, Ptolemy took great pains in
acquiring the body of Alexander the Great. On his deathbed, Alexander the Great
wished to be buried at the Temple of Zeus Ammon in the Siwa Oasis of ancient
Libya instead of the royal tombs of Aigai in Macedon. However, his successors
including Perdiccas attempted to bury his body in Macedon instead. In late 322
or early 321, the body of Alexander the Great was in Syria, on its way to
Macedon, when it was captured by Ptolemy I Soter. He brought Alexander's
remains back to Egypt, interring them at Memphis, but they were later moved to
Alexandria where a tomb of Alexander the Great was constructed for them.
Shortly after this event, Ptolemy openly joined the coalition against
Perdiccas. Perdiccas appears to have suspected Ptolemy of aiming for the throne
himself, and may have decided that Ptolemy was his most dangerous rival.
Ptolemy executed Cleomenes for spying on behalf of Perdiccas; this removed the
chief check on his authority, and allowed Ptolemy to obtain the huge sum that
Cleomenes had accumulated.
Rivalry and wars:
Kingdom of Ptolemy I Soter
Kingdom of Cassander
Kingdom of Lysimachus
Kingdom of Seleucus I Nicator
Epirus
Other: Carthage Rome Greek colonies
In 321, Perdiccas attempted to invade Egypt, only to fall at the hands of his
own men. 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. Ptolemy was consistent in his policy of securing
a power base, while never succumbing to the temptation of risking all to
succeed Alexander. In the long wars that followed between the different
Diadochi, Ptolemy's first goal was to hold Egypt securely, and his second was
to secure control in the outlying areas: Cyrenaica and Cyprus, as well as
Syria, including the province of Judea. His first occupation of Syria was in
318, and he established at the same time a protectorate over the petty kings of
Cyprus. When Antigonus One-Eye, master of Asia in 315, showed expansionist
ambitions, Ptolemy joined the coalition against him, and on the outbreak of
war, evacuated Syria. In Cyprus, he fought the partisans of Antigonus, and
re-conquered the island in 313. A revolt in Cyrene was crushed the same year.
In 312, Ptolemy and Seleucus, the fugitive satrap of Babylonia, both invaded
Syria, and defeated Demetrius Poliorcetes ("besieger of cities"), 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. 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 in 308.
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. 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,
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. 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. 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.
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 Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties. Henceforth, Ptolemy seems
to have involved himself as little as possible in the rivalries between Asia
Minor and Greece; he lost what he held in Greece, but reconquered Cyprus in
295/294. Cyrenaica, after a series of rebellions, was finally subjugated in
about 300 and placed under his stepson Magas.
Marriages, children, and succession:
Ptolemy I and Berenice I While Alexander was alive, Ptolemy had three children
with his mistress Thaïs, who may also have been his wife: Lagus;
Leontiscus; and Eirene, who was given in marriage to Eunostos of Soloi in
Cyprus. During the Susa weddings, Ptolemy married Persian noblewoman Artakama,
as ordered by Alexander the Great. Around 322 , he married Eurydice, daughter
of Antipater, regent of Macedonia. They had five children before she was
repudiated: three sons–Ptolemy Keraunos, king of Macedon from 281 to 279 ;
his brother and successor Meleager, who ruled for two months in 279 ; and a
'rebel in Cyprus' who was put to death by his half-brother Ptolemy II
Philadelphus–as well as the daughters Ptolemais, who married Demetrius I
of Macedon, and Lysandra, first married to Alexander V of Macedon and after to
Lysimachus' son Agathocles. Ptolemy married once more to Berenice, Eurydice's
cousin, who had come to Egypt as Eurydice's lady-in-waiting with the children
from her first marriage to Philip. Their children were Arsinoe II, Philotera,
and Ptolemy II. Their eldest child Arsinoe married Lysimachus, then her
half-brother Ptolemy Keraunos, and finally her full brother Ptolemy II. In 285,
Ptolemy made his son by Berenice, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 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.
Shrewd and cautious, he had a compact and well-ordered realm to show at the end
of forty years of war. His reputation for good nature and liberality attached
the floating soldier-class of Macedonians and other Greeks to his service, and
was not insignificant; nor did he wholly neglect conciliation of the natives.
He was a ready patron of letters, founding the Great Library of Alexandria.
The Ptolemaic dynasty which he founded ruled Egypt for nearly three hundred
years. It was a Hellenistic kingdom known for its capital Alexandria, which
became a center of Greek culture. Ptolemaic rule ended with the death of
Cleopatra VII in 30.
Lost history of Alexander's campaigns:
Ptolemy himself wrote an eyewitness history of Alexander's campaigns (now
lost). In the second century AD, Ptolemy's history was used by Arrian of
Nicomedia as one of his two main primary sources (alongside the history of
Aristobulus of Cassandreia) for his own extant Anabasis of Alexander, and hence
large parts of Ptolemy's history can be assumed to survive in paraphrase or
précis in Arrian's work. Arrian cites Ptolemy by name on only a few
occasions, but it is likely that large stretches of Arrian's Anabasis reflect
Ptolemy's version of events. Arrian once names Ptolemy as the author "whom
I chiefly follow", and in his Preface writes that Ptolemy seemed to him to
be a particularly trustworthy source, "not only because he was present
with Alexander on campaign, but also because he was himself a king, and hence
lying would be more dishonourable for him than for anyone else". Ptolemy's
lost history was long considered an objective work, distinguished by its
straightforward honesty and sobriety, 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. For example, Arrian's account of the fall of
Thebes in 335 (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.
|
|
