- Ptolemy I Soter (Πτολεμαίος Ι Σωτήρ)
- Ptolemaic King of Egypt with Berenice I and
Ptolemy II
- Preceded by: Alexander IV of Macedon
- Succeeded by: Ptolemy II
Ptolemy I Soter (367 BC–283 BC) was the ruler of
Egypt (323 BC - 283 BC) and founder of the Ptolemaic
dynasty. In 305 BC he took title of King.
The son of Lagus, a Greek nobleman of Eordaea, he
was one of Alexander the Great's most trusted
generals, and among the seven "body-guards" attached
to his person. He played a principal part in the
later campaigns of Alexander in Afghanistan and
India. At the Susa marriage festival in 324,
Alexander had him marry the Persian princess
Artacama, but we find no further mention of her.
When Alexander died in 323, Ptolemy is said to have
instigated the resettlement of the empire made at
Babylon. He was now appointed satrap of Egypt under
the nominal kings Philip Arrhidaeus and the young
Alexander IV.
Bust of Ptolemy I
of Egypt, British Museum, London
He at once took a high hand in the province by
killing Cleomenes, the financial controller
appointed by Alexander the Great; he also subjugated
Cyrenaica. He contrived to get possession of
Alexander's body, which was to be interred with
great pomp by the imperial government in Macedonia,
and placed it temporarily in Memphis. This act led
to an open rupture between Ptolemy and the imperial
regent Perdiccas. But Perdiccas was murdered in an
attempt to invade Egypt of 321. In the long wars
between the different Diadochi that followed,
Ptolemy's first object was to hold Egypt securely,
and secondly to secure control in Cyrenaica, Cyprus
and Palestine (Coele-Syria). His first occupation of
Palestine was in 318, and he established at the same
time a protectorate over the petty kings of Cyprus.
When Antigonus, master of Asia in 315, showed
dangerous ambitions, Ptolemy joined the coalition
against him, and, on the outbreak of war, evacuated
Palestine. In Cyprus, he fought the partisans of
Antigonus and re-conquered the island (313). A
revolt of Cyrene was crushed in the same year.
Silver coin
depicting Ptolemy I (r. 305 - 283),
In 312, Ptolemy and Seleucus, the fugitive satrap of
Babylonia, invaded Palestine and defeated Demetrius,
the son of Antigonus, in the Battle of Gaza. Again
he occupied Palestine, and again—a few months later,
after 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 which the surviving king
Alexander was murdered in Macedonia, leaving the
satrap of Egypt absolutely his own master. The peace
did not last long, and in 309 Ptolemy commanded a
fleet in person which detached the coast towns of
Lycia and Caria from Antigonus, then crossed to
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 the decisive
Battle of Salamis. The complete loss of Cyprus
followed.
Antigonus and Demetrius now 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
the victory at Cyprus by invading Egypt, but here
Ptolemy was strong, and held the frontier
successfully against him. Ptolemy led no further
expedition against Antigonus overseas. To the
Rhodians, besieged by Demetrius (305/304), he sent
such help as won him divine honours in Rhodes and
the surname of Soter ("saviour"). When the coalition
was renewed against Antigonus in 302, Ptolemy joined
it and invaded Palestine a third time, whilst
Antigonus was engaged with Lysimachus in Asia Minor.
On a report that Antigonus had won a decisive
victory, for a third time he evacuated the country.
But when news came that Antigonus had been defeated
and slain by Lysimachus and Seleucus at the Battle
of Ipsus in 301, he occupied Palestine for the
fourth time.
The other members of the coalition had assigned
Palestine to Seleucus after what they regarded as
Ptolemy's desertion, and for the next hundred years
the question of its ownership became a recurrent
point of enmity between the Seleucid and Ptolemaic
dynasties. Henceforth, Ptolemy seems to have mingled
as little as possible in the rivalry between Asia
Minor and Greece; his possessions in Greece he did
not retain, but Cyprus he re-conquered in 295/294.
Cyrene, after a series of rebellions, was finally
subjugated about 300 and placed under his stepson
Magas.
In 285 he abdicated in favour of one of his younger
sons by Berenice, Ptolemy II, who had been co-regent
for three years; his eldest (legitimate) son,
Ptolemy Ceraunus, whose mother, Eurydice, the
daughter of Antipater, had been repudiated, fled to
the court of Lysimachus. Ptolemy I Soter died in 283
at the age of 84. Shrewd and cautious, he had a
compact and well-ordered realm to show at the end of
fifty years of war. His name for bonhomie and
liberality attached the floating soldier-class of
Macedonians and Greeks to his service; nor did he
neglect conciliation of the natives. He was a ready
patron of letters, founding the Great Library of
Alexandria. He wrote himself a history of
Alexander's campaigns, distinguished by its
straightforward honesty and sobriety—except where
his own actions were concerned, when he tended to
inflate his own importance to events. Although lost,
it was a principle source for the surviving account
by Arrian of Nicomedia.
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