Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Original Sources of Chapters
- List of illustrations
- Glossary
- Maps
- Foreword
- Introduction: Jean Bingen and the currents of Ptolemaic history
- Part I The Monarchy
- 1 Ptolemy I and the quest for legitimacy
- 2 Ptolemy III and Philae: snapshot of a reign, a temple, and a cult
- 3 Cleopatra, the diadem and the image
- 4 Cleopatra VII Philopatris
- 5 The dynastic politics of Cleopatra VII
- Part II The Greeks
- Part III The Royal Economy
- Part IV Greeks and Egyptians
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of passages discussed
- HELLENISTIC CULTURE AND SOCIETY
1 - Ptolemy I and the quest for legitimacy
from Part I - The Monarchy
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Original Sources of Chapters
- List of illustrations
- Glossary
- Maps
- Foreword
- Introduction: Jean Bingen and the currents of Ptolemaic history
- Part I The Monarchy
- 1 Ptolemy I and the quest for legitimacy
- 2 Ptolemy III and Philae: snapshot of a reign, a temple, and a cult
- 3 Cleopatra, the diadem and the image
- 4 Cleopatra VII Philopatris
- 5 The dynastic politics of Cleopatra VII
- Part II The Greeks
- Part III The Royal Economy
- Part IV Greeks and Egyptians
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of passages discussed
- HELLENISTIC CULTURE AND SOCIETY
Summary
My purpose in this opening chapter is not to sketch a new biography of Ptolemy son of Lagos, the first in the series of Macedonian monarchs who, during three centuries, ruled Egypt from Alexandria as kings and as pharaohs. Friend, confidant, and later general of Alexander, the man was a part of and even an actor during a few decades full of multiple, profound changes in the Eastern Mediterranean world and in the Middle East. Our protagonist does not occupy, in the rather poor sources we have at our disposal, the place he deserves, given the importance of his reign in the history of Egypt. Our best account of his reign is found in the penetrating and original pages Eric Turner devoted to him, which I will use here as background.
There is, however, still some light to be shed on certain aspects of the behaviour of the first Ptolemy as a testimony to the emergence of a philosophy of monarchic power which developed during the Hellenistic period. I have chosen some attitudes which seem to reveal how Ptolemy, a self-made man, needed and tried to justify the royal power he had seized. Indeed such an inquiry may reveal the values by which the new king felt, consciously or not, that he was able to create those ties between ruler and ruled which are the real sanctions of a new power.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Hellenistic EgyptMonarchy, Society, Economy, Culture, pp. 15 - 30Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2007