General Notes

[2280151.ged]
Event: Throne Name Iwa-en-netjerwy-merwyitu Setep-ptah User-ka-re
Sekhem-ankh-amun 2
Event: Ruled 205 - 181 BC, Pharaoh of Egypt
Note:
Ptolemy V EPIPHANES (Greek: Illustrious) (b. c. 210--d. 180 BC),
Macedonian king of Egypt from 205 BC under whose rule Coele Syria and
most of Egypt's other foreign possessions were lost.
After Sosibius, Ptolemy IV's corrupt minister, had murdered Ptolemy V's
mother, the five-year-old king was officially elevated to the throne;
Sosibius became his guardian. According to the 2nd-century BC Greek
historian Polybius, all prominent officials were banished from Egypt
while Sosibius' clique announced the young king's accession and the death
of his parents. The rulers of Macedonia and of the Syrian-based Seleucid
kingdom, however, realizing Egypt's weakness, conspired to partition that
Kingdom's Asiatic and Aegean possessions.
When Sosibius retired about 202, Agathocles, another member of the
clique, became Ptolemy's guardian. Soon, however, he provoked Tlepolemus,
the governor of Pelusium (Egypt's eastern frontier city), who marched on
Alexandria, where his supporters roused a mob, compelling Agathocles to
resign in favour of another courtier. When the boy king, enthroned in the
stadium while the mob clamoured for the murderers of his parents, nodded
in confusion at the prompting of a courtier, the mob searched out and
butchered Agathocles and his family. Tlepolemus, however, soon proved
incompetent and was removed.
During the confusion in Egypt, Antiochus III, the Seleucid king, made
serious inroads into Coele Syria. Ptolemy's forces mounted a
counteroffensive, capturing Jerusalem; but in 201 the Seleucid king
returned, defeating the Ptolemaic army and later seizing the Ptolemaic
lands in Asia Minor. Roman diplomatic intervention finally halted the
war; and in 194/193 BC, as part of the peace treaty, Cleopatra I, a
daughter of Antiochus, was married to Ptolemy.
Within Egypt the revolts that had begun under Ptolemy's father continued;
in 197 the King fought rebels in the Nile Delta, exhibiting great cruelty
toward those of their leaders who capitulated. In Upper Egypt troubles
persisted until 187/186. Though an adult, the King still was under the
control of his guardians and advisers. To forestall further
insurrections, he extended the authority of the governor of Thebes to
include all Upper Egypt. In 196 he promulgated the decree inscribed on
the Rosetta Stone; found in 1799, it provided the key to the
hieroglyphic, or pictographic writing, of ancient Egypt. The decree,
which reveals the increasing influence of Egyptian natives, remitted
debts and taxes, released prisoners, pardoned rebels who surrendered, and
granted increased benefactions to the temples.
Ptolemy retained existing alliances in Greece. Late in his reign an able
eunuch was sent to recruit Greek mercenaries; but whatever the King's
plans may have been, he died suddenly, about May 180, leaving two sons
and a daughter, with the Queen as their regent