the Fourth Week of Advent
Click here to learn more!
Bible Encyclopedias
Ptolemy V
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or V. Epiphanes reigned 204-181), son of Philopator and Arsinoe, was not more than five years old when he came to the throne, and under a series of regents the kingdom was paralysed. Antiochus III. and Philip V. of Macedonia made a compact to divide the Ptolemaic possessions overseas. Philip seized several islands and places in Caria and Thrace, whilst the battle of Panium (198) definitely transferred Palestine from the Ptolemies to the Seleucids. Antiochus after this concluded peace, giving his own daughter Cleopatra to Epiphanes to wife (193-192). Nevertheless, when war broke out between Antiochus and Rome Egypt ranged itself with the latter power. Epiphanes in manhood was chiefly remarkable as a passionate sportsman; he excelled in athletic exercises and the chase. Great cruelty and perfidy were displayed in the suppression of the native rebellion, and some accounts represent him as personally tyrannical.
The elder of his two sons, Ptolemy Vi. Philometor (181-145), succeeded as an infant under the regency of his mother Cleopatra. Her death was followed by a rupture between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid courts, on the old question of Palestine.
XXII. 20 a Antiochus IV. Epiphanes invaded Egypt (170) and captured Philometor.
The Alexandrians then put his younger brother Ptolemy Vii. Euergetes II. (afterwards nicknamed Physkon, on account of his bloated appearance) upon the throne. Antiochus professed to support Pliilometor, but, when he withdrew, the brothers agreed to be joint-kings with their sister Cleopatra as queen and wife of Philometor. Antiochus again invaded Egypt (168), but was compelled by the Roman intervention to retire. The double kingship led to quarrels between the two brothers in which fresh appeals were continually made to Rome. In 163 the Cyrenaica was assigned under Roman arbitration to Euergetes as a separate kingdom. As he coveted Cyprus as well, the feud still went on, Rome continuing to interfere diplomatically but not effectively. In 154 Euergetes invaded Cyprus but was defeated and captured by Philometor. He found his brother, however, willing to pardon and was allowed to return as king to Cyrene. In 152 Philometor joined the coalition against the Seleucid king Demetrius I. and was the main agent in his destruction. The protege of the coalition, Alexander Balas, married Philometor's daughter Cleopatra (Thea), and reigned in Syria in practical subservience to him. But in 147 Philometor broke with him and transferred his support, together with the person of Cleopatra, to Demetrius II., the young son of Demetrius I. He himself at Antioch was entreated by the people to assume the Seleucid diadem, but he declined and installed Demetrius as king. In 145 in the battle on the Oenoparas near Antioch, in which Alexander Balas was finally defeated, Philometor received a mortal wound. Philometor was perhaps the best of the Ptolemies. Kindly and reasonable, his good nature seems sometimes to have verged on indolence, but he at any rate took personal part, and that bravely and successfully, in war.
Philometor's infant son, Ptolemy Philopator Neos (?) 1, was proclaimed king in Alexandria under the regency of his mother Cleopatra. Euergetes however, swooping from Cyrene, seized the throne and married Cleopatra, making away with his nephew. He has left an odious picture of himself in the historians - a man untouched by benefits or natural affection, delighting in deeds of blood, his body as loathsome in its blown corpulence as his soul. Something must be allowed for the rhetorical habit of our authorities, but that Euergetes was ready enough to shed blood when policy required seems true. He soon found a more agreeable wife than Cleopatra in her daughter Cleopatra, and thenceforth antagonism between the two queens, the "sister" and the "wife," was chronic. In 130 - I Cleopatra succeeded in driving Euergetes for a time to Cyprus, when he revenged himself by murdering the son whom she had borne him (surnamed M emphites). Massacres inflicted upon the Alexandrians and the expulsion of the representatives of Hellenic culture are laid to his charge. On the other hand, the monument and papyri show him a liberal patron of the native religion and a considerable administrator. In fact, while hated by the Greeks, he seems to have had the steady support of the native population. But there are also records which show him, not as an enemy, but a friend, like his ancestors, to Greek culture. He himself published the fruit of his studies and travels in a voluminous collection of notebooks, in which he showed a lively eye for the oddities of his fellow kings. The old Ptolemaic realm was never again a unity after the death of Euergetes II. By his will he left the Cyrenaica as a separate kingdom to his illegitimate son Ptolemy Apion (116-96), whilst Egypt and Cyprus were bequeathed to Cleopatra (Kokke) and whichever of his two sons by her,
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Ptolemy V'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/p/ptolemy-v.html. 1910.
