General Notes

[2280151.ged]
Event: Ruled 305 - 282 BC, Pharaoh of Egypt 2
Event: Throne Name Mery-amun Setep-en-re 3
Note:
Ptolemy I SOTER (Greek: Saviour) (b. 367/366 or 364 BC, Macedonia--d.
283/282, Egypt), Macedonian general of Alexander the Great, who became
ruler of Egypt (323-285 BC) and founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which
reigned longer than any other dynasty established on the soil of the
Alexandrian empire and only succumbed to the Romans in 30 BC.
Early life and career.
Ptolemy was the son of the nobleman Lagus, a native of the Macedonian
district of Eordaea whose family was undistinguished until Ptolemy's
time, and of Arsinoe, who was related to the Macedonian Argead dynasty.
He was probably educated as a page at the royal court of Macedonia, where
he became closely associated with Alexander. He was exiled in 337, along
with other companions of the crown prince. When he returned, after
Alexander's accession to the throne in 336, he joined the King's
bodyguard, took part in Alexander's European campaigns of 336-335, and in
the fall of 330 was appointed personal bodyguard (somatophylax) to
Alexander; in this capacity he captured the assassin of Darius III, the
Persian emperor, in 329. He was closely associated with Alexander during
the advance through the Persian highland. As a result of Ptolemy's
successful military performance on the way from Bactria (in northeastern
Afghanistan) to the Indus River (327-325), he became commander
(trierarchos) of the Macedonian fleet on the Hydaspes (modern Jhelum in
India). Alexander decorated him several times for his deeds and married
him to the Persian Artacama at the mass wedding at Susa, the Persian
capital, which was the crowning event of Alexander's policy of merging
the Macedonian and Iranian populations.
Satrap of Egypt.
Ptolemy, who distinguished himself as a cautious and trustworthy troop
commander under Alexander, also proved to be a politician of unusual
diplomatic and strategic ability in the long series of struggles over the
throne that broke out after Alexander's death in 323. Convinced from the
outset that the generals could not maintain the unity of Alexander's
empire, he proposed during the council at Babylon, which followed
Alexander's death, that the satrapies (the provinces of the huge empire)
be divided among the generals. He became satrap of Egypt, with the
adjacent Libyan and Arabian regions, and methodically took advantage of
the geographic isolation of the Nile territory to make it a great
Hellenistic power. He took steps to improve internal administration and
to acquire several external possessions in Cyrenaica (the easternmost
part of Libya), Cyprus, and Syria and on the coast of Asia Minor; these,
he hoped, would guarantee him military security. Although he pursued a
friendly policy toward Greece that secured his political influence there,
he also succeeded in winning over the native Egyptian population.
In 322 Ptolemy, taking advantage of internal disturbances, acquired the
African Hellenic towns of Cyrenaica. In 322-321, as a member of a
coalition of "successors" (diadochoi) of Alexander, he fought against
Perdiccas, the ruler (chiliarchos) of the Asiatic region of the empire.
The coalition was victorious and Perdiccas died during the fighting.
Ptolemy's diplomatic talent was put to the test during this war. When the
satrapies were redistributed at Triparadisus in northern Syria,
Antipater, the general of the European region, became regent of the
Macedonian empire and Ptolemy was confirmed in possession of Egypt and
Cyrene. He further strengthened his position by marrying Eurydice, the
third daughter of Antipater.
About 317 he married Berenice I, the granddaughter of Cassander, the son
of Antipater. Cassander, at his father's death in 319, refused to accept
his father's successor, made war upon him, seized part of the empire, and
in 305 assumed the ti