Ptolemaic Kingdom

The Ptolemaic Kingdom (/tlme.k/; Greek: , Ptolemak Basilea)[3] was a Hellenistic

kingdom based in Egypt. It was ruled by the Ptolemaic
dynasty which started with Ptolemy I Soter's accession
after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC- and
which ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the
Roman conquest in 30 BC.
The Ptolemaic Kingdom was founded in 305 BC by
Ptolemy I Soter, who declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt
and created a powerful Hellenistic dynasty that ruled an
area stretching from southern Syria to Cyrene and south
to Nubia. Alexandria became the capital city and a major
center of Greek culture and trade. To gain recognition by
the native Egyptian populace, they named themselves the
successors to the Pharaohs. The later Ptolemies took on
Egyptian traditions by marrying their siblings, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style
and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life. The
Ptolemies had to ght native rebellions and were involved
in foreign and civil wars that led to the decline of the kingdom and its nal annexation by Rome. Hellenistic culture
continued to thrive in Egypt throughout the Roman and
Byzantine periods until the Muslim conquest.

History

Alexander the Great, 100 BC 100 AD, 54.162, Brooklyn Museum

The era of Ptolemaic reign in Egypt is one of the most

well documented time periods of the Hellenistic Era; a
wealth of papyri written in Greek and Egyptian of the 1.2 Establishment
time have been discovered in Egypt.[4]
Following Alexanders death in Babylon in 323 BC,[6] a
succession crisis erupted among his generals. Initially,
1.1 Background
Perdiccas ruled the empire as regent for Alexanders halfbrother Arrhidaeus, who became Philip III of Macedon,
In 332 BC, Alexander the Great, King of Macedon in- and then as regent for both Philip III and Alexanders invaded the Achaemenid satrapy of Egypt.[5] He visited fant son Alexander IV of Macedon, who had not been
Memphis, and traveled to the oracle of Amun at the Oasis born at the time of his fathers death. Perdiccas appointed
of Siwa. The oracle declared him to be the son of Amun. Ptolemy, one of Alexanders closest companions, to be
He conciliated the Egyptians by the respect he showed satrap of Egypt. Ptolemy ruled Egypt from 323 BC, nomfor their religion, but he appointed Macedonians to vir- inally in the name of the joint kings Philip III and Alexantually all the senior posts in the country, and founded a der IV. However, as Alexander the Greats empire disinnew Greek city, Alexandria, to be the new capital. The tegrated, Ptolemy soon established himself as ruler in his
wealth of Egypt could now be harnessed for Alexanders own right. Ptolemy successfully defended Egypt against
conquest of the rest of the Persian Empire. Early in 331 an invasion by Perdiccas in 321 BC, and consolidated his
BC he was ready to depart, and led his forces away to position in Egypt and the surrounding areas during the
Phoenicia. He left Cleomenes as the ruling nomarch to Wars of the Diadochi (322301 BC). In 305 BC, Ptolemy
control Egypt in his absence. Alexander never returned took the title of King. As Ptolemy I Soter (Saviour), he
founded the Ptolemaic dynasty that was to rule Egypt for
to Egypt.
1

nearly 300 years.

All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name
Ptolemy, while princesses and queens preferred the
names Cleopatra, Arsinoe and Berenice. Because the
Ptolemaic kings adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters, many of the kings ruled jointly with
their spouses, who were also of the royal house. This custom made Ptolemaic politics confusingly incestuous, and
the later Ptolemies were increasingly feeble. The only
Ptolemaic Queens to ocially rule on their own were
Berenice III and Berenice IV. Cleopatra V did co-rule,
but it was with another female, Berenice IV. Cleopatra
VII ocially co-ruled with Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator, Ptolemy XIV, and Ptolemy XV, but eectively, she
ruled Egypt alone.

HISTORY

When Antigonus, ruler of Syria, tried to reunite Alexanders empire, Ptolemy joined the coalition against him. In
312 BC, allied with Seleucus, the ruler of Babylonia, he
defeated Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, in the battle
of Gaza.

In 311 BC, a peace was concluded between the combatants, but in 309 BC war broke out again, and Ptolemy
occupied Corinth and other parts of Greece, although he
lost Cyprus after a sea-battle in 306 BC. Antigonus then
tried to invade Egypt but Ptolemy held the frontier against
him. When the coalition was renewed against Antigonus
in 302 BC, Ptolemy joined it, but neither he nor his army
were present when Antigonus was defeated and killed at
Ipsus. He had instead taken the opportunity to secure
Coele-Syria and Palestine, in breach of the agreement asthereby setting the scene for the fuThe early Ptolemies did not disturb the religion or the signing it to Seleucus,
[7]
ture
Syrian
Wars.
Thereafter
Ptolemy tried to stay out
customs of the Egyptians, and indeed built magnicent
of
land
wars,
but
he
retook
Cyprus
in 295 BC.
new temples for the Egyptian gods and soon adopted the
outward display of the Pharaohs of old. During the reign Feeling the kingdom was now secure, Ptolemy shared
of Ptolemies II and III thousands of Macedonian veter- rule with his son Ptolemy II by Queen Berenice in 285
ans were rewarded with grants of farm lands, and Mace- BC. He then may have devoted his retirement to writing
donians were planted in colonies and garrisons or settled a history of the campaigns of Alexanderwhich unforthemselves in the villages throughout the country. Upper tunately was lost but was a principal source for the later
Egypt, farthest from the centre of government, was less work of Arrian. Ptolemy I died in 283 BC at the age of
immediately aected, even though Ptolemy I established 84. He left a stable and well-governed kingdom to his
the Greek colony of Ptolemais Hermiou to be its cap- son.
ital. But within a century Greek inuence had spread
through the country and intermarriage had produced a
large Greco-Egyptian educated class. Nevertheless, the 1.4 Ptolemy II
Greeks always remained a privileged minority in Ptolemaic Egypt. They lived under Greek law, received a Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who succeeded his father as
Greek education, were tried in Greek courts, and were King of Egypt in 283 BC,[8] was a peaceful and culcitizens of Greek cities.
tured king, and no great warrior. He did not need to

1.3

Ptolemy I

Corinthian pillar of the Ptolemaic period, Egypt.

The rst part of Ptolemy I's reign was dominated by

the Wars of the Diadochi between the various successor
states to the empire of Alexander. His rst object was
to hold his position in Egypt securely, and secondly to increase his domain. Within a few years he had gained control of Libya, Coele-Syria (including Judea), and Cyprus.

be, because his father had left Egypt strong and prosperous. Three years of campaigning at the start of his
reign (called the First Syrian War) left Ptolemy the master of the eastern Mediterranean, controlling the Aegean
islands and the coastal districts of Cilicia, Pamphylia,
Lycia and Caria. However, some of these territories were
lost near the end of his reign as a result of the Second
Syrian War. In the 270s BC, Ptolemy II defeated the
Kingdom of Kush in war, gaining the Ptolemies free access to Kushite territory and control of important goldmining areas south of Egypt known as Dodekasoinos.[9]
As a result the Ptolemies established hunting stations
and ports as far south as Port Sudan, from where raiding parties containing hundreds of men searched for war
elephants.[9] Hellenistic culture would acquire an important inuence on Kush at this time.[9]
Ptolemys rst wife, Arsinoe I, daughter of Lysimachus,
was the mother of his legitimate children. After her repudiation he followed Egyptian custom and married his
sister, Arsino II, beginning a practice that, while pleasing to the Egyptian population, had serious consequences
in later reigns. The material and literary splendour of
the Alexandrian court was at its height under Ptolemy
II. Callimachus, keeper of the Library of Alexandria,

1.6

The decline of the Ptolemies

Theocritus and a host of other poets, gloried the Ptolemaic family. Ptolemy himself was eager to increase the
library and to patronise scientic research. He spent lavishly on making Alexandria the economic, artistic and
intellectual capital of the Hellenistic world. It is to the
academies and libraries of Alexandria that we owe the
preservation of so much Greek literary heritage.

1.5

Ptolemy III

3
This victory marked the zenith of the Ptolemaic power.
Seleucus II Callinicus kept his throne, but Egyptian eets
controlled most of the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece.
After this triumph Ptolemy no longer engaged actively
in war, although he supported the enemies of Macedon
in Greek politics. His domestic policy diered from his
fathers in that he patronised the native Egyptian religion more liberally: he has left larger traces among the
Egyptian monuments. In this his reign marks the gradual
Egyptianisation of the Ptolemies.

1.6 The decline of the Ptolemies

Ptolemaic Empire in 200 BC. Also showing neighboring powers.

Statue of Ptolemy III in the guise of Hermes wearing the chlamys

cloak. Ptolemaic Egypt.

Ptolemy III Euergetes (the benefactor) succeeded his

father in 246 BC. He abandoned his predecessors policy of keeping out of the wars of the other Macedonian
successor kingdoms, and plunged into the Third Syrian
War with the Seleucids of Syria, when his sister, Queen
Berenice, and her son were murdered in a dynastic dispute. Ptolemy marched triumphantly into the heart of
the Seleucid realm, as far as Babylonia, while his eets in
the Aegean made fresh conquests as far north as Thrace.

Ring of Ptolemy VI Philometor as Egyptian pharaoh. Louvre

Museum.

In 221 BC, Ptolemy III died and was succeeded by his son
Ptolemy IV Philopator, a weak and corrupt king under
whom the decline of the Ptolemaic kingdom began. His
reign was inaugurated by the murder of his mother, and he
was always under the inuence of royal favourites, male

and female, who controlled the government. Nevertheless his ministers were able to make serious preparations
to meet the attacks of Antiochus III the Great on CoeleSyria, and the great Egyptian victory of Raphia in 217 BC
secured the kingdom. A sign of the domestic weakness of
his reign was the rebellions by native Egyptians that took
away over half the country for over 20 years. Philopator
was devoted to orgiastic religions and to literature. He
married his sister Arsino, but was ruled by his mistress
Agathoclea.

HISTORY

son of Ptolemy X. He was lynched by the Alexandrian

mob after murdering his stepmother, who was also his
cousin, aunt and wife. These sordid dynastic quarrels left
Egypt so weakened that the country became a de facto
protectorate of Rome, which had by now absorbed most
of the Greek world.
Ptolemy XI was succeeded by a son of Ptolemy IX,
Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos, nicknamed Auletes, the
ute-player. By now Rome was the arbiter of Egyptian
aairs, and annexed both Libya and Cyprus. In 58 BC
Auletes was driven out by the Alexandrian mob, but the
Romans restored him to power three years later. He died
in 51 BC, leaving the kingdom to his ten-year-old son,
Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator, who reigned jointly with
his 17-year-old sister and wife, Cleopatra VII.

Ptolemy V Epiphanes, son of Philopator and Arsino,

was a child when he came to the throne, and a series of
regents ran the kingdom. Antiochus III of The Seleucid
Empire and Philip V of Macedon made a compact to
seize the Ptolemaic possessions. Philip seized several islands and places in Caria and Thrace, while the battle of
Panium in 198 BC transferred Coele-Syria from Ptolemeic to Seleucid control. After this defeat Egypt formed 1.8
an alliance with the rising power in the Mediterranean,
Rome. Once he reached adulthood Epiphanes became
a tyrant, before his early death in 180 BC. He was succeeded by his infant son Ptolemy VI Philometor.

Cleopatra

In 170 BC, Antiochus IV Epiphanes invaded Egypt and

deposed Philometor. The King James Bible, I Macabees
1:16-19, translates the passage as:
Now when the kingdom was established before Antiochus,
he thought to reign over Egypt that he might have the
dominion of two realms. Wherefore he entered into
Egypt with a great multitude, with chariots, and elephants,
and horsemen, and a great navy, and made war against
Ptolemy king of Egypt: but Ptolemy was afraid of him,
and ed; and many were wounded to death. Thus they
got the strong cities in the land of Egypt and he took the
spoils thereof.
Antiochus younger brother (later Ptolemy VIII Euergetes
II) was installed as a puppet king. When Antiochus withdrew, the brothers agreed to reign jointly with their sister Cleopatra II. They soon fell out, however, and quar- Coin of Cleopatra VII, with her egy.
rels between the two brothers allowed Rome to interfere [10]
and to steadily increase its inuence in Egypt. Eventually
Philometor regained the throne. In 145 BC he was killed When Cleopatra VII ascended the Egyptian throne, she
in the Battle of Antioch.
was only eighteen. She reigned as Queen Philopator
and Pharaoh between 51 and 30 BC, and died at the age
of 39.

1.7

The later Ptolemies

The demise of the Ptolemies power coincided with the

rise of the Roman Empire. Having little choice, and seeing one city after another falling to Macedon and the Seleucid Empire, the Ptolemies decided to ally with the Romans, a pact that lasted over 150 years. During the rule of
the later Ptolemies, Rome gained more and more power
over Egypt, and was even declared guardian of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Cleopatras father, Ptolemy XII, had to
pay tribute to the Romans to keep them away from his
Kingdom. Upon his death, the fall of the Dynasty seemed
even closer.

Philometor was succeeded by yet another infant, his son

Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator. But Euergetes soon returned, killed his young nephew, seized the throne and
as Ptolemy VIII soon proved himself a cruel tyrant. On
his death in 116 BC he left the kingdom to his wife
Cleopatra III and her son Ptolemy IX Philometor Soter
II. The young king was driven out by his mother in 107
BC, who reigned jointly with Euergetess youngest son
Ptolemy X Alexander I. In 88 BC Ptolemy IX again returned to the throne, and retained it until his death in 80
BC. He was succeeded by Ptolemy XI Alexander II, the As children, Cleopatra and her siblings witnessed the de-

1.9

Roman rule

feat of their guardian, Pompey, by Julius Caesar through With the death of Cleopatra, the dynasty of Ptolemies
civil war. Meanwhile, Cleopatra and her brother/husband came to an end. Alexandria remained capital of Egypt,
Ptolemy XIII were both attempting to gain control of but Egypt became a Roman province.
Egypts throne.
In the middle of all this turmoil, Julius Caesar left Rome
for Alexandria in 48 BC. During his stay in the Palace,
he received 22 year old Cleopatra, allegedly wrapped in a 1.9
rug. She counted on Caesars support to alienate Ptolemy
XIII. With the arrival of Roman reinforcements, and after
a few battles in Alexandria, Ptolemy XIII was defeated
at the Battle of the Nile. He later drowned in the river,
although the circumstances of his death are unclear.

Roman rule

In the summer of 47 BC, having married her younger

brother Ptolemy XIV, Cleopatra embarked with Caesar
for a two-month trip along the Nile. Together, they visited Dendara, where Cleopatra was being worshiped as
Pharaoh, an honor beyond Caesars reach. They became
lovers, and she bore him a son, Caesarion, who was later
proclaimed with many titles like king of kings. In 45 BC,
Cleopatra and Caesarion left Alexandria for Rome, where
they stayed in a palace built by Caesar in their honor.
In 44 BC, Caesar was murdered in Rome by several
Senators. With his death, Rome split between supporters
of Mark Antony and Octavian. Cleopatra was watching
in silence, and when Mark Antony seemed to prevail, she
supported him and, shortly after, they too became lovers.
Mark Antonys alliance with Cleopatra angered Rome
even more. The senators called her a sorceress, and accused her of all sorts of evil. The Romans became even
more furious as Antony was giving away parts of their
Empire - at the donations of Alexandria ceremony in autumn 34 BC - Tarsus, Cyrene, Crete, Cyprus, and Israel one after the other to Cleopatra and her children. Oc- Bust of Roman Nobleman, ca. 30 BC 50 AD, 54.51, Brooklyn
tavian was able to somehow gain possession of Mark Museum
Antonys will, which expressed his desire to be buried in
Alexandria, rather than taken to Rome in the event of his
Main article: Aegyptus (Roman province)
death.
It was the boiling point when Octavian declared war on
the Foreign Queen, and o the coast of Greece in the
Adriatic Sea they met in at Actium, where the forces of
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa defeated the Navy of Cleopatra and Antony.
Octavian waited for a year before he claimed Egypt as
a Roman province. He arrived in Alexandria and easily
defeated Mark Antony outside the city, near present day
Camp Csar. Following this defeat, and facing certain
death at the hands of Octavian, Antony committed suicide
by falling on his own sword.
Octavian entered Alexandria in 30 BC. Cleopatra was
captured and taken to him, but Octavian had no interest
in any relation, reconciliation, or even negotiation with
the Egyptian Queen. Realizing that her end was close,
she decided to put an end to her life. It is not known for
sure how she killed herself, but many believe she used a
poisonous snake as her death instrument.

In 30 BC, following the death of Cleopatra VII, the

Roman Empire declared that Egypt was a province
(Aegyptus), and that it was to be governed by a prefect
selected by the Emperor from the Equestrian and not a
governor from the Senatorial order, to prevent interference by the Roman Senate. The main Roman interest in
Egypt was always the reliable delivery of grain to the city
of Rome. To this end the Roman administration made
no change to the Ptolemaic system of government, although Romans replaced Greeks in the highest oces.
But Greeks continued to sta most of the administrative
oces and Greek remained the language of government
except at the highest levels. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not settle in Egypt in large numbers. Culture,
education and civic life largely remained Greek throughout the Roman period. The Romans, like the Ptolemies,
respected and protected Egyptian religion and customs,
although the cult of the Roman state and of the Emperor
was gradually introduced.

2 CULTURE

Culture

Ptolemy I, perhaps with advice from Demetrius of

Phalerum, founded the Museum and Library of Alexandria[11] The Museum was a research centre supported by
the king. It was located in the royal sector of the city. The
scholars were housed in the same sector and funded by the
Ptolemaic rulers.[12] They had access to the Library. The
chief librarian served also as the crown princes tutor.[13]
For the rst hundred and fty years of its existence this library and research centre drew the top Greek scholars.[14]
This was a key academic, literary and scientic centre.[15]
Greek culture had a long but minor presence in Egypt
long before Alexander the Great founded the city of
Alexandria. It began when Greek colonists, encouraged by the many Pharaohs, set up the trading post of
Naucratis, which became an important link between the
Greek world and Egypts grain. As Egypt came under foreign domination and decline, the Pharaohs depended on
the Greeks as mercenaries and even advisors. When the
Persians took over Egypt, Naucratis remained an important Greek port and the colonist population were used as
mercenaries by both the rebel Egyptian princes and the
Persian kings, who later gave them land grants, spreadPtolemaic Queen (Cleopatra VII?), 50-30 BC, 71.12, Brooklyn
ing the Greek culture into the valley of the Nile. When Museum
Alexander the Great arrived, he established Alexandria
on the site of the Persian fort of Rhakortis. Following
Alexanders death, control passed into the hands of the
Lagid (Ptolemaic) dynasty; they built Greek cities across
their empire and gave land grants across Egypt to the veterans of their many military conicts. Hellenistic civilization continued to thrive even after Rome annexed Egypt
after the battle of Actium and did not decline until the
Islamic conquests.

2.1

Art

Further information: Hellenistic art

Hellenistic art is richly diverse in subject matter and in
stylistic development. It was created during an age characterized by a strong sense of history. For the rst time,
there were museums and great libraries, such as those
at Alexandria and Pergamon. Hellenistic artists copied
and adapted earlier styles, and also made great innovations. Representations of Greek gods took on new forms.
The popular image of a nude Aphrodite, for example, reects the increased secularization of traditional religion.
Also prominent in Hellenistic art are representations of
Dionysos, the god of wine and legendary conqueror of
the East, as well as those of Hermes, the god of commerce. In strikingly tender depictions, Eros, the Greek
A detail of the Nile mosaic of Palestrina, showing Ptolemaic
personication of love, is portrayed as a young child.
Egypt circa 100 BC.
Most of the Ptolemaic magical stele were connected with
matters of health. They were commonly of limestone;
the Greeks tended to use marble or bronze for private ures is the range from idealizing to nearly grotesque realsculpture. The most striking change in depiction of g- ism in portrayal of men. Previously Egyptian depictions

2.3

Social situation

Head of an Egyptian Ocial, ca. 50 BC. Diorite, 16 5/16 x 11

1/4 x 13 7/8 in. (41.4 x 28.5 x 35.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum

tended toward the idealistic but sti, not with an attempt

at likeness. Likeness was still not the goal of art under
the Ptolemies. The inuence of Greek sculpture under
the Ptolemies was shown in its emphasis on the face more
than in the past. Smiles suddenly appear. Toward the end
of the Ptolemaic period, the headdress sometimes gives
way to tousled hair.
One signicant change in Ptolemaic art is the sudden reappearance of women, who had been absent since about
the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. Some of this must have been
due to the importance of women, such as the series of
Cleopatras, who acted as co-regents or sometimes occupied the throne by themselves. Although women were
present in artwork, they were shown less realistically than
men in the this era. Even with the Greek inuence on
art, the notion of the individual portrait still had not supplanted Egyptian artistic norms during the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

Bronze allegorical group of a Ptolemy (identiable by his

diadem) overcoming an adversary, in Hellenistic style, ca early
2nd century BC (Walters Art Museum)

cluded the worship of the new Ptolemaic line of pharaohs.

Alexandria supplanted Memphis as the preeminent religious city.
The wife of Ptolemy II, Arsinoe II was often depicted in
the form of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, but she wore
the crown of lower Egypt, with rams horns, ostrich feathers, and other traditional Egyptian indicators of royalty
and/or deity. She wore the vulture headdress only on the
religious portion of a relief. Cleopatra VII, the last of the
Ptolemaic line, was often depicted with characteristics of
the goddess Isis. She often had either a small throne as
her headdress or the more traditional sun disk between
two horns.[16]
The traditional table for oerings disappeared from reliefs during the Ptolemaic period. Male gods were no
longer portrayed with tails in attempt to make them more
humanlike.

The wealthy and connected of Egyptian society seemed

Ways of presenting text on columns and reliefs became to put more stock in magical stela during the Ptolemaic
period. These were religious objects produced for priformal and rigid during the Ptolemaic Dynasty.
vate individuals, something uncommon in earlier Egyptian times.

2.2

Religion

When Ptolemy I Soter made himself king of Egypt, he

created a new god, Serapis, which was a combination of
two Egyptian gods: Apis and Osiris plus the main Greek
gods: Zeus, Hades, Asklepios, Dionysios, and Helios.
Serapis had powers over fertility, the sun, corn, funerary
rites, and medicine. Many people started to worship this
god. In the time of the Ptolemies, the cult of Serapis in-

2.3 Social situation

The Greeks now formed the new upper classes in Egypt,
replacing the old native aristocracy. In general, the
Ptolemies undertook changes that went far beyond any
other measures that earlier foreign rulers had imposed.
They used the religion and traditions to increase their

own power and wealth. Although they established a prosperous kingdom, enhanced with ne buildings, the native
population enjoyed few benets, and there were frequent
uprisings. These expressions of nationalism reached a
peak in the reign of Ptolemy IV Philopator (221205 BC)
when others gained control over one district and ruled
as a line of native pharaohs. This was only curtailed
nineteen years later when Ptolemy V Epiphanes (205
181 BC) succeeded in subduing them, but the underlying
grievances continued and there were riots again later in
the dynasty.

CITIES

With the many wars the Ptolemies were involved in, their
pool of Macedonian troops dwindled and there was little
Greek immigration from the mainland so they were kept
in the royal bodyguard and as generals and ocers. Native troops were looked down upon and distrusted due to
their disloyalty and frequent tendency to aid local revolts.
However, with the decline of royal power, they gained
inuence and became common in the military.

The Ptolemies used the great wealth of Egypt to their

advantage by hiring vast amounts of mercenaries from
across the known world. Black Ethiopians are also known
Family conicts aected the later years of the dy- to have served in the military along with the Galatians,
nasty when Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II fought his brother Mysians and others.
Ptolemy VI Philometor and briey seized the throne. The With their vast amount of territory spread along the Eaststruggle was continued by his sister and niece (who both ern Mediterranean such as Cyprus, Crete, the islands of
became his wives) until they nally issued an Amnesty the Aegean and even Thrace, the Ptolemies required a
Decree in 118 BC.
large navy to defend these far-ung strongholds from enemies like the Seleucids and Macedonians.

2.4

Coinage

Ptolemaic Egypt was noted for its extensive series of

coinage in gold, silver and bronze. It was especially
noted for its issues of large coins in all three metals,
most notably gold pentadrachm and octadrachm, and silver tetradrachm, decadrachm and pentakaidecadrachm.
This was especially noteworthy as it would not be until the
introduction of the Guldengroschen in 1486 that coins of
substantial size (particularly in silver) would be minted in
signicant quantities.

2.5

3 Cities

Military

Hellenistic soldiers in tunic, 100 BC, detail of the Nile mosaic of

Palestrina.

Main article: Ptolemaic Army

Ptolemaic Egypt, along with the other Hellenistic states
outside of the Greek mainland after Alexander the Great,
had its armies based on the Macedonian phalanx and fea- Egyptian faience torso of a king, for an applique on wood
tured Macedonian and native troops ghting side by side.
The Ptolemaic military was lled with diverse peoples
from across their territories. At rst most of the military
was made up of a pool of Greek settlers who, in exchange
for military service, were given land grants. These made
up the majority of the army.

While ruling Egypt, the Ptolemaic Dynasty built many

Greek settlements throughout their Empire, to either
Hellenize new conquered peoples or reinforce the area.
Egypt had only three main Greek citiesAlexandria,
Naucratis, and Ptolemais.

3.3

3.1

Ptolemais

Naucratis

World for its unsurpassed height (perhaps 460 feet); it

was a square, fenestrated tower, topped with a metal re
Of the three Greek cities, Naucratis, although its com- basket and a statue of Zeus the Savior.
mercial importance was reduced with the founding of
The Library, at that time the largest in the world, conAlexandria, continued in a quiet way its life as a Greek
tained several hundred thousand volumes and housed and
city-state. During the interval between the death of
employed scholars and poets. A similar scholarly comAlexander and Ptolemys assumption of the style of king,
plex was the Museum (Mouseion, hall of the Muses).
it even issued an autonomous coinage. And the number
During Alexandrias brief literary golden period, ca.
of Greek men of letters during the Ptolemaic and Roman
280240 BC, the Library subsidized three poets
period, who were citizens of Naucratis, proves that in the
Callimachus, Apollonius, and Theocrituswhose work
sphere of Hellenic culture Naucratis held to its traditions.
now represents the best of Hellenistic literature. Among
Ptolemy II bestowed his care upon Naucratis. He built a
other thinkers associated with the Library or other
large structure of limestone, about 330 feet (100 m) long
Alexandrian patronage were the mathematician Euclid
and 60 feet (18 m) wide, to ll up the broken entrance
(ca. 300 BC), the inventor Archimedes (287 BC c. 212
to the great Temenos; he strengthened the great block of
BC), and the polymath Eratosthenes (ca. 225 BC).[17]
chambers in the Temenos, and re-established them. At
the time when Sir Flinders Petrie wrote the words just Cosmopolitan and ourishing, Alexandria possessed a
quoted the great Temenos was identied with p91the Hel- varied population of Macedonians,Greeks and Orientals,
lenion. But Mr. Edgar has recently pointed out that the including a sizable minority of Jews, who had their own
building connected with it was an Egyptian temple, not a city quarter. Periodic conicts occurred between Jews
Greek building. Naucratis, therefore, in spite of its gen- and ethnic Greeks.
eral Hellenic character, had an Egyptian element. That The city enjoyed a calm political history under the
the city ourished in Ptolemaic times we may see by Ptolemies. It passed, with the rest of Egypt, into Roman
the quantity of imported amphorae, of which the han- hands in 30 BC, and became the second city of the Rodles stamped at Rhodes and elsewhere are found so abun- man Empire.
dantly. The Zeno papyri show that it was the chief port
of call on the inland voyage from Memphis to Alexandria,
as well as a stopping-place on the land-route from Pelusium to the capital. It was attached, in the administrative
system, to the Sate nome.

3.3 Ptolemais

3.2

Alexandria

Main article: Alexandria

A major Mediterranean port of Egypt, in ancient times
and still today, Alexandria was founded in 331 BC
by Alexander the Great, one of the many Eastern
Macedonian cities that he established. Located 20 miles
(32 km) west of the Niles westernmost mouth, the city
was immune to the silt deposits that persistently choked
harbors along the river. Alexandria became the capital
of the Hellenized Egypt of King Ptolemy (1) I (reigned
323283 BC). Under the wealthy Ptolemy dynasty, the
city soon surpassed Athens as the cultural center of the
Greek world.
Laid out on a grid pattern, Alexandria occupied a stretch
of land between the sea to the north and Lake Mareotis
to the south; a man-made causeway, over three-quarters
of a mile long, extended north to the sheltering island
of Pharos, thus forming a double harbor, east and west.
On the east was the main harbor, called the Great Harbor; it faced the citys chief buildings, including the royal
palace and the famous Library and Museum. At the Great
Harbors mouth, on an outcropping of Pharos, stood the
lighthouse, built ca. 280 BC. Now vanished, the lighthouse was reckoned as one of the Seven Wonders of the

Main article: Ptolemais Hermiou

The second Greek city founded after the conquest in
Egypt was Ptolemais, 400 miles (640 km) up the Nile,
where there was a native village called Pso, in the nome
called after the ancient Egyptian city of Thinis. If
Alexandria perpetuated the name and cult of the great
Alexander, Ptolemais was to perpetuate the name and
cult of the founder of the Ptolemaic time. Framed in
by the barren hills of the Nile Valley and the Egyptian
sky, here a Greek city arose, with its public buildings
and temples and theatre, no doubt exhibiting the regular
architectural forms associated with Greek culture, with
a citizen-body Greek in blood, and the institutions of a
Greek city. If there is some doubt whether Alexandria
possessed a council and assembly, there is none in regard
to Ptolemais. It was more possible for the kings to allow a measure of self-government to a people removed
at that distance from the ordinary residence of the court.
We have still, inscribed on stone, decrees passed in the
assembly of the people of Ptolemais, couched in the regular forms of Greek political tradition: It seemed good
to the boule and to the demos: Hermas son of Doreon,
of the deme Megisteus, was the proposer: Whereas the
prytaneis who were colleagues with Dionysius the son of
Musaeus in the 8th year, etc.

10

4 DEMOGRAPHICS

Demographics

The Ptolemaic kingdom was diverse in the people who

settled and made Egypt their home on this time. During this period, Macedonian troops under Ptolemy I Soter
were given land grants and brought their families encouraging tens of thousands of Greeks to settle the country making themselves the new ruling class. Native
Egyptians continued having a role, yet a small one in the
Ptolemaic government mostly in lower posts and outnumbered the foreigners. During the reign of the Ptolemaic
Pharaohs, many Jews were imported from neighboring
Judea by the thousands for being renowned ghters and
established an important presence there. Other foreign
groups settled during this time and even Galatian mercenaries were invited. Of the aliens who had come to
settle in Egypt, the ruling race,Greeks, were the most important element. They were partly spread as allotmentholders over the country, forming social groups, in the
country towns and villages, side by side with the native
population, partly gathered in the three Greek cities
the old Naucratis, founded before 600 BC (in the interval of Egyptian independence after the expulsion of the
Assyrians and before the coming of the Persians), and
the two new cities, Alexandria by the sea, and Ptolemais
in Upper Egypt. Alexander and his Seleucid successors
were great as the founders of Greek cities all over their
dominions.
Macedonian and Greek culture was so much bound up
with the life of the city-state that any king who wanted
to present himself to the world as a genuine champion
of Hellenism had to do something in this direction, but
the king of Egypt, whilst as ambitious as any to shine as
a Hellene, would nd Greek cities, with their republican
tradition and aspirations to independence, inconvenient
elements in a country that lent itself, as no other did, to
bureaucratic centralization. The Ptolemies therefore limited the number of Greek city-states in Egypt to Alexandria, Ptolemais, and Naucratis.

attached to the gymnasium, who, according to the Greek

tradition, eat bread and salt with the negotiators from the
other town. All Greek dialects of the Greek world gradually became assimilated in the Koine Greek dialect that
was the common language of the Hellenistic world. Generally the Greeks of the Ptolemaic Egypt felt like a representative of a higher civilization yet were curious about
the native culture of Egypt.

4.1 Arabs under the Ptolemies

Arab nomads of the eastern desert penetrated in small
bodies into the cultivated land of the Nile, as they do today. The Greeks called all the land on the eastern side
of the Nile Arabia, and villages were to be found here
and there with a population of Arabs who had exchanged
the life of tent-dwellers for that of settled agriculturists.
Apollonius tells of one such village, Pos, in the Memphite nome, two of whose inhabitants send a letter on
September 20, 152 B.C. The letter is in Greek; it had
to be written for the two Arabs by the young Macedonian
Apollonius, the Arabs being unable apparently to write.
Apollonius writes their names as Myrullas and Chalbas,
the rst probably, and the second certainly, Semitic. A
century earlier Arabs farther west, in the Faym, organized under a leader of their own, and working mainly as
herdsmen on the dorea of Apollonius the dioiketes; but
these Arabs bear Greek and Egyptian names.
In 1990, more than 2,000 papyri written by Zeno of
Caunus from the time of Ptolemy II Philadelphus were
discovered, which contained at least 19 references to
Arabs in the area between the Nile and the Red Sea,
and mentioned their jobs as police ocers in charge of
ten person units, while some others were mentioned as
shepherds.[18]

Arabs in Ptolemaic kingdom had provided camel convoys

to the armies of some Ptolemaic leaders during their invasions, but they didn't have allegiance towards any of the
Outside of Egypt, they had Greek cities under their kingdoms of Egypt or Syria, and also managed to raid
conict between Ptolemaic
dominionincluding the old Greek cities in the Cyre- and attack both sides of the
[19] [20]
Kingdom
and
its
enemies.
naica, in Cyprus, on the coasts and islands of the
Aegean but they were smaller than the three big ones
in Egypt. There were indeed country towns with names
such as Ptolemais, Arsinoe, and Berenice, in which Greek 4.2 Jews under the Ptolemies
communities existed with a certain social life; there were
similar groups of Greeks in many of the old Egyptian The Jews who lived in Egypt had originally immigrated
towns, but they were not communities with the political from Israel. The Jews absorbed Greek, the dominant lanforms of a city-state. Yet if they had no place of political guage of Egypt at the time, while heavily mixing it with
assembly, they would have their gymnasium, the essential Hebrew[21] It was during this period that the Septuagint,
sign of Hellenism, serving something of the purpose of a the Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, appeared.
university for the young men. Far up the Nile at Ombi was Jewish legend has it that the Septuagint was written by
found in 136135 B.C. a gymnasium of the local Greeks, Seventy Jewish Translators under royal compulsion durwhich passes resolutions and corresponds with the king. ing Ptolemy IIs reign.[22] However, the translation of the
And in 123 B.C., when there is trouble in Upper Egypt Old Testament was more probably written over time in
between the towns of Crocodilopolis and Hermonthis, the Egypt during the last three centuries before the Christian
negotiators sent from Crocodilopolis are the young men era.

6.1

List

Agriculture

Ptolemaic rulers

11

BC. In 305 BC, he declared himself King Ptolemy I, later

known as Soter (saviour). The Egyptians soon accepted
The early Ptolemies increased cultivatable land through the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of indeirrigation and introduced crops such as cotton and better pendent Egypt. Ptolemys family ruled Egypt until the
wine-producing grapes. They also increased the availabil- Roman conquest of 30 BC.
ity of luxury goods through foreign trade. They enriched All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy.
themselves and absorbed Egyptian culture. Ptolemy and Ptolemaic queens, some of whom were the sisters of
his descendants adopted Egyptian royal trappings and their husbands, were usually called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or
added Egypts religion to their own, worshiping Egyp- Berenice. The most famous member of the line was the
tian gods and building temples to them, and even being last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Romummied and buried in sarcophagi covered with hiero- man political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey,
glyphs.
and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her apIn his lifetime Strabo made extensive travels to among parent suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end
of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.
others Egypt and Ethiopia.

Main article: List of Ptolemaic rulers

The Ptolemaic dynasty, (Ancient Greek:

6.1 List
Dates in brackets represent the regnal dates of the Ptolemaic pharaohs. They frequently ruled jointly with their
- wives, who were often also their sisters. Several queens
exercised regal authority, but the most famous and successful was Cleopatra VII (51 BC-30 BC), with her two
brothers and her son as successive nominal co-rulers.
Several systems exist for numbering the later rulers; the
one used here is the one most widely used by modern
scholars. Dates are years of reign.
Ptolemy I Soter (305 BC-283 BC) married rst
(probably) Thas, secondly Artakama, thirdly
Eurydice and nally Berenice I
Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283 BC-246 BC) married Arsinoe I, then Arsinoe II Philadelphus; ruled
jointly with Ptolemy I Epigone (267 BC-259 BC)
Ptolemy III Euergetes (246 BC-221 BC) married
Berenice II
Ptolemy IV Philopator (221 BC-203 BC) married
Arsinoe III
Ptolemy V Epiphanes (203 BC-181 BC) married
Cleopatra I
Ptolemy VI Philometor (181 BC-164 BC, 163 BC145 BC) married Cleopatra II, briey ruled jointly
with Ptolemy Eupator in 152 BC

Ptolemy I Soter of Macedon founded the Ptolemaic Kingdom.

, sometimes also known as the Lagids or

Lagides, Ancient Greek: , from the name
of Ptolemy Is father, Lagus) were the Macedonian
Greek[23][24][25][26][27] descendants of Ptolemy I Soter,
one of the six somatophylakes (bodyguards) who served
as Alexander the Great's generals and deputies and was
appointed satrap of Egypt after Alexanders death in 323

Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator (never reigned)

Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (Physcon) (170 BC-163
BC, 145 BC-116 BC) married Cleopatra II then
Cleopatra III; temporarily expelled from Alexandria
by Cleopatra II between 131 BC and 127 BC, reconciled with her in 124 BC.
Cleopatra II Philometora Soteira (131 BC-127 BC),
in opposition to Ptolemy VIII

12

7 SEE ALSO

Cleopatra III Philometor Soteira Dikaiosyne 6.3 Other members of the Ptolemaic dyNikephoros (Kokke) (116 BC-101 BC) ruled
nasty
jointly with Ptolemy IX (116 BC-107 BC) and
Ptolemy X (107 BC-101 BC)
Ptolemy Keraunos (died 279 BC) - eldest son of
Ptolemy I Soter. Eventually became king of Mace Ptolemy IX Soter II (Lathyros) (116 BC-107 BC, 88
don.
BC-81 BC as Soter II) married Cleopatra IV then
Cleopatra Selene; ruled jointly with Cleopatra III in
Ptolemy Apion (died 96 BC) - son of Ptolemy VIII
his rst reign
Physcon. Made king of Cyrenaica. Bequeathed
Ptolemy X Alexander I (107 BC-88 BC) married
Cleopatra Selene then Berenice III; ruled jointly
with Cleopatra III till 101 BC
Berenice III Philopator (81 BC-80 BC)
Ptolemy XI Alexander II (80 BC) married and ruled
jointly with Berenice III before murdering her; ruled
alone for 19 days after that.

Cyrenaica to Rome.
Ptolemy Philadelphus (born 36 BC) - son of Mark
Antony and Cleopatra.
Ptolemy of Mauretania (died AD 40) - son of Juba
II of Mauretania and Cleopatra Selene II, daughter of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony. King of
Mauretania.

Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos (Auletes) (80 BC-58

6.4
BC, 55 BC-51 BC) married Cleopatra V Tryphaena

Medical analysis

Cleopatra V Tryphaena (58 BC-57 BC) ruled jointly Contemporaries describe a number of the Ptolemaic dywith Berenice IV Epiphaneia (58 BC-55 BC) and nasty as extremely obese , whilst sculptures and coins reveal prominent eyes and swollen necks. Familial Graves
Cleopatra VI Tryphaena (58 BC)
disease could explain the swollen necks and eye promi Cleopatra VII Philopator (51 BC-30 BC) ruled nence (exophthalmos), although this is unlikely to occur
jointly with Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator (51 BC- in the presence of morbid obesity.
47 BC), Ptolemy XIV (47 BC-44 BC) and Ptolemy In view of the familial nature of these ndings, members
XV Caesarion (44 BC-30 BC).
of this dynasty likely suered from a multi-organ brotic
condition such as ErdheimChester disease or a famil Arsinoe IV (48 BC-47 BC) in opposition to ial multifocal brosclerosis where thyroiditis, obesity and
Cleopatra VII
ocular proptosis may have all occurred concurrently.[28]

6.2

Simplied Ptolemaic family tree

Many of the relationships shown in this tree are controversial. The issues are fully discussed in the external
links.

7 See also
Hellenistic period
Antipatrid dynasty
Antigonid dynasty
Kingdom of Pontus
Seleucid Empire
Indo-Greeks
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
History of Egypt
Library of Alexandria
Lighthouse of Alexandria

13

References

[1] Buraselis, Stefanou and Thompson ed; The Ptolemies, the

Sea and the Nile: Studies in Waterborne Power.
[2] North Africa in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, 323
BC to AD 305, R.C.C. Law, The Cambridge History of
Africa, Vol. 2 ed. J. D. Fage, Roland Anthony Oliver,
(Cambridge University Press, 1979), 154.
[3] Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica, 18.21.9
[4] Lewis, Naphtali (1986). Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt: Case
Studies in the Social History of the Hellenistic World. Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 5. ISBN 0-19-814867-4.
[5] Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art.
The
Achaemenid Persian Empire (550330 B.C.)".
In
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.
New York:
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. http://
www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/acha/hd_acha.htm (October 2004) Source: The Achaemenid Persian Empire
(550330 B.C.) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline
of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
[6] Hemingway, Colette, and Sen Hemingway. The
Rise of Macedonia and the Conquests of Alexander
the Great. In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.
New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000
. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/alex/hd_alex.htm
(October 2004) Source: The Rise of Macedonia and the
Conquests of Alexander the Great | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art

[19] A History of the Arabs in the Sudan: The inhabitants of

the northern Sudan before the time of the Islamic invasions.
The progress of the Arab tribes through Egypt. The Arab
tribes of the Sudan at the present day, Sir Harold Alfred
MacMichael, Cambridge University Press, 1922, Page: 7
[20] History of Egypt, Sir John Pentland Mahay, Pages: 2021
[21] Solomon Grayzel A History of the Jews p. 56
[22] Solomon Grayzel ibid pp. 56-57
[23] Jones, Prudence J. (2006). Cleopatra: A Sourcebook. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 14. They were members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Macedonian Greeks, who
ruled Egypt after the death of its conqueror, Alexander the
Great.
[24] Pomeroy, Sarah B. (1990). Women in Hellenistic Egypt.
Wayne State University Press. p. 16. while Ptolemaic
Egypt was a monarchy with a Greek ruling class.
[25] Redford, Donald B., ed. (2000). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press. Cleopatra
VII was born to Ptolemy XII Auletes (8057 BC, ruled
5551 BC) and Cleopatra, both parents being Macedonian Greeks.
[26] Bard, Kathryn A., ed. (1999). Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge. p. 488. Ptolemaic kings were still crowned at Memphis and the city
was popularly regarded as the Egyptian rival to Alexandria, founded by the Macedonian Greeks.

[7] Grabbe, L. L. (2008). A History of the Jews and Judaism

in the Second Temple Period. Volume 2 The Coming of
the Greeks: The Early Hellenistic Period (335 175 BC).
T&T Clark. ISBN 978-0-567-03396-3.

[27] Bard, Kathryn A., ed. (1999). Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge. p. 687. During
the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt was governed by rulers
of Greek descent...

[8] Ptolemy II Philadelphus [308-246 BC. Mahlon H. Smith.

Retrieved 2010-06-13.

[28] Ashraan, Hutan (2005). Familial proptosis and obesity

in the Ptolemies. J. R. Soc. Med. 98 (2): 8586.

[9] Burstein 2007, p. 7

[10] Cleopatra: A Life
[11] F.E. Peters, The Harvest of Hellenism p. 193
[12] ibid
[13] ibid p. 194
[14] ibid
[15] ibid p. 195f
[16] Antiquities Experts. Egyptian Art During the Ptolemaic
Period of Egyptian History. http://antiquitiesexperts.com/
egypt_ptol.html''.
[17] Phillips, Heather A., The Great Library of Alexandria?".
Library Philosophy and Practice, August 2010
[18] Arabs in Antiquity: Their History from the Assyrians to
the Umayyads, Prof. Jan Retso, Page: 301

9 Further reading
Bingen, Jean. Hellenistic Egypt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007 (hardcover, ISBN
0-7486-1578-4; paperback, ISBN 0-7486-1579-2).
Hellenistic Egypt: Monarchy, Society, Economy, Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press,
2007 (hardcover, ISBN 0-520-25141-5; paperback,
ISBN 0-520-25142-3).
Bowman, Alan Keir. 1996. Egypt After the
Pharaohs: 332 BCAD 642; From Alexander to the
Arab Conquest. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of
California Press
Burstein, Stanley Meyer (December 1, 2007). The
Reign of Cleopatra. University of Oklahoma Press.
ISBN 0806138718. Retrieved April 6, 2015.

14

10

Chauveau, Michel. 2000. Egypt in the Age of

Cleopatra: History and Society under the Ptolemies.
Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
Ellis, Simon P. 1992. Graeco-Roman Egypt. Shire
Egyptology 17, ser. ed. Barbara G. Adams. Aylesbury: Shire Publications, ltd.
Hlbl, Gnther. 2001. A History of the Ptolemaic
Empire. Translated by Tina Saavedra. London:
Routledge Ltd.
Lloyd, Alan Brian. 2000. The Ptolemaic Period
(33230 BC)". In The Oxford History of Ancient
Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw. Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press. 395421
Susan Stephens, Seeing Double. Intercultural Poetics
in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley, 2002).
A. Lampela, Rome and the Ptolemies of Egypt. The
development of their political relations 273-80 B.C.
(Helsinki, 1998).
Peters, F.E. 1970 The Harvest of Hellenism. New
York: Simon & Schuster
J. G. Manning, The Last Pharaohs: Egypt Under the
Ptolemies, 305-30 BC (Princeton, 2009).

10

External links

Map of Ptolemaic Egypt

EXTERNAL LINKS

15

11
11.1

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

Text

Ptolemaic Kingdom Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic%20Kingdom?oldid=655306627 Contributors: Wetman, Per Honor

et Gloria, Eregli bob, Domino theory, Klemen Kocjancic, Rich Farmbrough, Paul August, Iustinus, FeanorStar7, Sburke, Lapsed Pacist, BD2412, SeanMack, Talessman, RussBot, John Smiths, Conscious, The Ogre, Trainra, Arthur Rubin, Fram, BomBom, SmackBot,
Enlil Ninlil, Colonies Chris, Cplakidas, OrphanBot, Slabua, Ericl, Rigadoun, Robert Stevens, IronGargoyle, The Man in Question, A. Parrot, Peyre, Sweet byrd, Courcelles, Zurkhardo, Cydebot, Future Perfect at Sunrise, O cara, Dougweller, Ozzieboy, Deective, El Greco,
Rich257, Gomm, Jim.henderson, R'n'B, CommonsDelinker, Elysonius, Ian.thomson, Johnbod, Bebop123, Kansas Bear, Lanternix, Super Knuckles, Audubon, Philip Trueman, Kostaki mou, Andres rojas22, Laval, Bellatores, Javierfv1212, Hamiltondaniel, TEAKAY-C
II R, Martarius, Dvl007, Italiotis, Mild Bill Hiccup, Canislupisbarca, Excirial, Yorkshirian, Coinmanj, SchreiberBike, AgnosticPreachersKid, CapnZapp, Good Olfactory, D.M. from Ukraine, Addbot, Lt.Specht, MinisterForBadTimes, Ironzealot, Favonian, LinkFA-Bot,
Lightbot, OC Ripper, Contributor777, Yobot, Yngvadottir, Puttyschool, Againme, AnomieBOT, LlywelynII, Erud, GenQuest, Djhuty,
Mattis, Buchraeumer, Poliocretes, Philly boy92, Kibi78704, , Mackay 86, Rosas120988, Minimacs Clone, Rarevogel, Finn Bjrklid, Tommy2010, Italia2006, Septimus Wilkinson, NicatronTg, Greyshark09, WillBildUnion, Senjuto, TRAJAN 117, ClueBot NG, ,
Fatemi, Navops47, Babydirk, Helpful Pixie Bot, Voldemort175, BG19bot, Akiatu, Kkkz, Khazar2, Dexbot, Sowlos, Krakkos, Yamaha5,
WayneSmallman, Cmckain14, Omar amross, JohnDoeTheSecond, YiFeiBot, Tracield, N0n3up, Pktlaurence, Crazynyancat, Kaitlyn153,
Sruva123 and Anonymous: 93

11.2

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TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

File:Flag_of_Turkey.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Flag_of_Turkey.svg License: Public domain

Contributors: Turkish Flag Law (Trk Bayra Kanunu), Law nr. 2893 of 22 September 1983. Text (in Turkish) at the website of the
Turkish Historical Society (Trk Tarih Kurumu) Original artist: David Benbennick (original author)
File:Greek_-_Allegorical_Group_of_Triumphant_Ptolemy_-_Walters_541050_-_Three_Quarter.jpg
Source:
http:
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Greek_-_Allegorical_Group_of_Triumphant_Ptolemy_-_Walters_541050_-_Three_
Quarter.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Walters Art Museum: <a href='http://thewalters.org/' data-x-rel='nofollow'><img
alt='Nuvola lesystems folder home.svg' src='//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/81/Nuvola_filesystems_folder_home.
svg/20px-Nuvola_filesystems_folder_home.svg.png' width='20' height='20' srcset='//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/
8/81/Nuvola_filesystems_folder_home.svg/30px-Nuvola_filesystems_folder_home.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/thumb/8/81/Nuvola_filesystems_folder_home.svg/40px-Nuvola_filesystems_folder_home.svg.png 2x' data-le-width='128'
data-le-height='128' /></a> Home page <a href='http://art.thewalters.org/detail/19363' data-x-rel='nofollow'><img alt='Information
icon.svg'
src='//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Information_icon.svg/20px-Information_icon.svg.png'
width='20'
height='20'
srcset='//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Information_icon.svg/30px-Information_
icon.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Information_icon.svg/40px-Information_icon.svg.png 2x'
data-le-width='620' data-le-height='620' /></a> Info about artwork Original artist: Anonymous (Greece)
File:Head_of_an_Egyptian_Official,_ca._50_B.C.E..jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Head_of_
an_Egyptian_Official%2C_ca._50_B.C.E..jpg License: ? Contributors: Brooklyn Museum Original artist: Head of an Egyptian Ocial,
ca. 50 B.C.E. Diorite
File:HermesPtolemy.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/HermesPtolemy.jpg License: Public domain
Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:NileMosaicOfPalestrina.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/NileMosaicOfPalestrina.jpg License:
Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:NileMosaicOfPalestrinaSoldiers.jpg
Source:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/
NileMosaicOfPalestrinaSoldiers.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:Parthenon_from_west.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Parthenon_from_west.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: User:Mountain
File:Pt_eagle.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Pt_eagle.png License: Public domain Contributors: http:
//www.snible.org/coins/guide/ (hosting of images from pre-1923 book, click on 28 for this coin) Original artist: Not known. The coin is
Hellenistic Egyptian.
File:Ptolemaic-Empire_200bc.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Ptolemaic-Empire_200bc.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: Thomas Lessman (Contact!)
File:PtolemaicCorinthianPilar.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/PtolemaicCorinthianPilar.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: ? Original artist: ?
File:PtolemaicEmpire.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/PtolemaicEmpire.png License: CC-BY-SA3.0 Contributors: Crop of Image:Diadochen1.png Original artist: ?
File:Ptolemaic_Queen_(Cleopatra_VII?),_50-30_B.C.E.,_71.12.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/
Ptolemaic_Queen_%28Cleopatra_VII%3F%29%2C_50-30_B.C.E.%2C_71.12.jpg License: ? Contributors: Brooklyn Museum Original
artist: Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund
File:Ptolemy_I_Soter_Louvre_Ma849.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Ptolemy_I_Soter_Louvre_
Ma849.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Marie-Lan Nguyen (2011) Original artist: Unknown
File:Question_book-new.svg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Question_book-new.svg License: Cc-by-sa-3.0
Contributors:
Created from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. Based on Image:Question book.png created by User:Equazcion Original artist:
Tkgd2007
File:Ring_with_engraved_portrait_of_Ptolemy_VI_Philometor_(3rd2nd_century_BCE)_-_2009.jpg
Source:
http:
//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/22/Ring_with_engraved_portrait_of_Ptolemy_VI_Philometor_%283rd%E2%80%
932nd_century_BCE%29_-_2009.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Photographed by PHGCOM in 2009. Original artist:
Unknown.
File:Spqrstone.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Spqrstone.jpg License: CC-BY-SA-3.0 Contributors:
Originally from sv.wikipedia; description page is (was) here Original artist: User Lamr on sv.wikipedia
File:Vergina_Sun_-_Golden_Larnax.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Vergina_Sun_-_Golden_
Larnax.png License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist: SilentResident

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