Ptolemy II Philadelphus

“ PTOLEMY PHILADELPHIA.—Ptolemy II., surnamed Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.) , with less talent for war than his father, did much to encourage commerce, and was especially active in his patronage of learning. In this last province he did a greater work than his father. He greatly enlarged the library. He drew learned men to his court from all directions. In his time the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, in the version called the Septuagint. Under his auspices Manetho composed his History of Egypt. ”

“ New books were continually acquired. The librarians had orders to pay any sum for the original of the works of great masters. The Ptolemies were not only patrons of learning but were themselves highly educated. Ptolemy Soter was an historian of no mean talent, and his son Philadelphus, as a pupil of the poet Philetas and the philosopher Strabo, was a man of great learning. Ptolemy III. was a mathematician, and Ptolemy Philopator, who had erected and dedicated a temple to Homer, was the writer of a tragedy. ”

“ In those days every people had its own idols by hundreds, and in every tongue on earth men put up their prayers to the supreme Power which makes itself felt wherever mortal creatures dwell. Here, by the Nile, after Alexander's death, reigned the Ptolemies; and the Egyptian citizens of Alexandria prayed to other gods than their Greek neighbors, so that they could never unite in worshipping their divinities; but Philadelphus, the second Ptolemy, a very wise man, gave them a god in common. ”

“ At its greatest extent, the dominion of the Ptolemies, under Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Lagus, included large parts of Asia Minor and many of the Greek islands. Egypt and Cyrene they held, with little disturbance, until Rome absorbed them. Notwithstanding the vices which the family of Ptolemy developed, and which were as rank of their kind as history can show, Egypt under their rule appears to have been one of the most prosperous countries of the time. In Alexandria, they more than realized the dream of its Macedonian projector. ”

“ So far we can point to no instance of a cult of the living sovereign (though the cities might institute such locally) being established by the court for the realm. This step was taken in Egypt after the death of Arsinoë Philadelphus (271) when she and her still-living brother-husband, Ptolemy II., began to be worshipped together as θεοὶ ἀδελφοί. After this the cult of the reigning king and queen was regularly maintained in Greek Egypt, side by side with that of the dead Ptolemies. ”

“ When it was completed, it was found that there was no harbour in Sicily fit to receive it; so the king sent it as a present to Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt.
Theocritus, the great pastoral and miscellaneous poet, for pastoral was not his only, or his highest excellence. Circumstances appear to have made a present of him also, as well as the ship, to King Ptolemy; for Hiero neglected, and Philadelphus patronised him.
Archimedes, kinsman of Hiero. His wonderful mechanical inventions are among the daily instruments of utility all over the world. ”

“ Ptolemy Sotor did not marry young, but lived to see his children grow up and to associate with him, on the throne, his son Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, son of Berenike, and for the last years of his life seemed to have resigned the regal power into his hands. So large a family, composed of such diverse elements, would, even in modern times, have been apt to have difficulties as regards matters of inheritance, and it is little to be wondered at perhaps that such was supremely the case in this instance. ”

“ He was succeeded by his son Ptolemy Philadelphus, who had been his partner on the throne the last 10 years of his reign. Ptolemy Lagus has been commended for his abilities, not only as a sovereign, but as a writer, and among the many valuable compositions which have been lost, we are to lament a history of Alexander the Great, by the king of Egypt, greatly admired and valued for elegance and authenticity. All his successors were called Ptolemies from him. Pausanias, bk. 10, ch. 7.—Justin, bk. 13, &c.—Polybius, bk. 2.—Arrian.—Curtius.—Plutarch, Alexander. ”

“ So far as we can see Ptolemy's personality through the mists of time, he was a robust, full-blooded Macedonian, with the sound common sense which often characterizes the leaders of a people of country farmers, the shrewd caution which looks a long way ahead, and likes to play a safe game and secure solid advantages, an animal lustihood which made him take joy in many women, a genial bonhomie which attracted soldiers of fortune to his standard from all Greek lands — a man rather of vigorous bodily and mental constitution than of fine fibre. ”

“ Through the forty years of struggle which followed between the great Macedonian chiefs — the men who had learnt war under Alexander — Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, remained in his African province, safe as a tortoise in his shell, while armies marched to and fro across Asia and rival fleets battled in the Aegean. To some extent, indeed, he stretched forth out of his shell to mingle in the mellay, for the power ruling Egypt was now one of Hellenistic character, having various connexions, political, economic, cultural, with the other states of the Greek world. ”

“ They were forced to be content with sharing the provinces between them as his lieutenants; some hoping to govern by their power over the weak mind of Arridæus, and others secretly meaning to make themselves independent.
In this weighty matter, Ptolemy showed the wisdom and judgment which had already gained him his high character. Though his military rank and skill were equal to those of any one of Alexander’s generals, and his claim by birth perhaps equal to that of Arridæous, he was not one of those who aimed at the throne ”

“ Certain arms in an army of the period were almost always furnished, not by Macedonian regulars, but by mercenaries from some particular region — archers from Crete, javelineers from Thrace. Of the Cretans, Thracians, Athenians, Spartans, Boeotians, Sicilians, who came in this way to Egypt, many apparently stayed there. Ptolemy seems to have exerted himself to be known all over the Greek world as the kind of genial, free-handed, valiant gentleman whom any young man inclined to the life of a soldier might cross the sea to serve. ”

“ When she reached Egypt, as she heard that Ptolemy had received an embassy from Antigonus, and was told that although the Achæans wished to come to terms with him, he had feared on her account to make peace with them without consulting Ptolemy, she wrote to him bidding him act worthily of Sparta, and consult her interests, and not fear to displease Ptolemy because of what he might do to an old woman and an infant. So great a spirit is she said to have shown in her misfortunes. ”

“ During the wars of the Diadochi, all the powers who at any time found themselves Ptolemy’s pawns in the mighty war game then played on a board stretching from India to Thrace, thought to curry favour with their rich ally by giving countenance to his new religion. An association of Sarapiasts or worshippers of Serapis held their meetings in the Piraeus not long after the institution of the Alexandrian cult [162] ; and before the death of Ptolemy Soter, a Serapeum was built in Athens over against the Acropolis itself [163] . ”

“ It is about half a century earlier than the Rosetta Stone, and was set up at Canopus in the ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy III. to record a decree made by the priesthood there assembled in honour of the king. It recites acts similar in their beneficent character to those recounted of Ptolemy V., and decrees what honours shall be paid him and his consort Berenice, whose famous hair, dedicated in the temple of Arsinoë at Zephyrium in gratitude for Ptolemy's safe return from his Syrian expedition, was said to have been metamorphosed into the constellation known as Coma Berenices. ”

“ Sarapis and Isis are the only two deities singled out by name. But that from the very beginning, from the time when Ptolemy was only satrap of Egypt, the court at Alexandria showed special interest in the cult of the new god, can be shown by the inscription put up by Arsinoe at Halicarnassus: "With good fortune for Ptolemy the Saviour and God, Arsinoe erected the shrine to Sarapis and Isis." ”

“ A statue of the young king is in the Gizeh Museum. It is of granite and about nine feet in height. The gentle and melancholy expression seems well suited to the youth’s tragic fate, but he is represented as much older than when he died, and it is probably a conventional likeness, with a mingling of the Egyptian and Greek in type and attributes. A certain inscription in Egypt mentions Ptolemy in the seventh year of the absent Alexander. His destroyer kept up the fiction of his authority, thus [347] Ptolemy granted lands in the name of Alexander and Philip after their decease. ”

“ While Ptolemy, the first Macedonian king who consolidated the power of Egypt, was setting up in the newly-built city of Alexandria fortifications, temples, and rites of worship, there appeared to him in his sleep a youth of singular beauty and more than human stature, who counselled the monarch to send his most trusty friends to Pontus, and fetch his effigy from that country. ”

“ I have discovered several very per{103}fect series of Ptolemies, the longest coming down to Neos Dionysos and his wife Cleopatra, who{104} was surnamed Tryphæna by the Egyptians, according to the hieroglyphic inscriptions. [48] A fact of some importance is also that in this Egyptian list of Ptolemies, the first King is never Ptolemæus Soter I. but Philadelphus. ”

“ When some one praised that prince for carefully training his army and exercising himself under arms every day, Philopœmen answered, "Who can admire a king of Ptolemy's age who is still practising and not performing." However, the citizens of Megalopolis were much vexed by his conduct, which they considered to be that of a traitor, and would have banished him had they not been restrained by the whole body of the Achæans. ”

“ Surely this Ptolemy was a man of genius!
But Ptolemy had even more important work to do than making gods. He had to make men; for he had few or none ready made among his old veterans from Issus and Arbela. He had no hereditary aristocracy: and he wanted none. No aristocracy of wealth; that might grow of itself, only too fast for his despotic power. But as a despot, he must have a knot of men round him who would do his work. And here came out his deep insight into fact. It had not escaped that man, what was the secret of Greek supremacy. ”

“ Intermarriages, however, gradually had their effect; after the revolt of the natives in the reign of Ptolemy V., we find the Greek and Egyptian elements closely intermingled. Ptolemy I. had established the cult of the Memphite Serapis in a Graeco-Egyptian form, affording a common ground for native and Hellenistic worshippers. The greater number of the temples to the native deities in Upper Egypt and in Nubia (to 50 m. south 89 of the Cataract, within the Dodecaschoenus) were built under the Ptolemies. ”

“ Alexander succeeded his father as King of Macedon, and immediately made Ptolemy one of his principal generals. Ptolemy rose, in fact, to a very high command in the Macedonian army, and distinguished himself very greatly in all the celebrated conqueror's subsequent campaigns. In the Persian invasion, Ptolemy commanded one of the three grand divisions of the army, and he rendered repeatedly the most signal services to the cause of his master. He was employed on the most distant and dangerous enterprises, and was often intrusted with the management of affairs of the utmost importance. ”

“ A granite gateway to the temple of Khnūm at Elephantine bears his name in hieroglyphic, and demotic documents are found dated in his reign.
The Ptolemaic Period.—On the division of Alexander’s dominions in 323 b.c., Egypt fell to Ptolemy the son of Lagus, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty (see Ptolemies) . Under these rulers the rich kingdom was heavily taxed to supply the sinews of war and to support every kind of lavish expenditure. ”

“ That was left for the general whom he most esteemed, and to whose personal prowess he had once owed his life; a man than whom history knows few greater, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus. He was an adventurer, the son of an adventurer, his mother a cast-off concubine of Philip of Macedon. There were those who said that he was in reality a son of Philip himself. However, he rose at court, became a private friend of young Alexander, and at last his Somatophylax, some sort of Colonel of the Life Guards. And from thence he rose rapidly, till after his great master’s death he found himself despot of Egypt. ”

“ Trade crowded the harbours and markets, learning filled the schools, conquests rewarded the discipline of the fleets and armies; power, wealth, and splendour followed in due order. The blaze thus cast around the throne would by many kings have been made to stand in the place of justice and mildness, but under Philadelphus it only threw a light upon his good government. He was acknowledged both at home and abroad to be the first king of his age; Greece and its philosophers looked up to him as a friend and patron ”

“ And Ptolemy on one occasion, flouting a grammarian for his ignorance, asked him who was the father of Peleus, and he answered, "I will tell you, if you tell me first who was the father of Lagus." This was a jeer at the obscure birth of the king, and all his courtiers were indignant at it as an unpardonable liberty; but Ptolemy said, "If it is not kingly to take a flout, neither is it kingly to give one." ”