Episode 43 Middle Ptolemies: The Decline

The History of Ancient Egypt

Professor Robert Brier

Film Review

According to Brier, Ptolemy III (246-222BC) was the last good Ptolemy before they all started murdering one another. He built an Egyptian temple at Edfu dedicated to Horus, which was fairly well-preserved by houses later Egyptians built on top of it. The walls of Ptolemy III’s temple at Edfu is inscribed  with a mystery play about the mythical battle between Horus and Set (brothers who battled one another to succeed Osiris after Set killed him – see The Ancient Egyptian Origin Myth)

The Decree of Kanopsis (written on three stella) also date from Ptolemy III’s reign. Like the Rosetta Stone, it’s inscribed in both Greek and in Egyptian (in both hieroglyphs and demotic script).

A good administrator, Ptolemy III imported grain from overseas during a year when the Nile didn’t overflow and recovered all the Egyptian gods stolen under Persian occupation. He also built the Serapeum of Alexandria, a smaller temple-librarydedicated to Serapis, a manufactured Greek god (Osiris and the Apis bull combined) worshiped by Alexandria’s 300,000 Greeks.

Serapis, usually depicted with a basket of produce on his head

The Serapeum was constructed adjacent to caverns that continuously bathed it in hot air to preserve the papyrus scrolls. Every time a ship docked in Alexandria harbor, any papyri on board were seized, copied and returned.

Because the library in Alexandria was in competition with the Pergamum library in Asia Minor, they refused to export any papyri. This led the Pergamum library to start using velum (sheepskin) instead. Velum could be sewn together and stacked but not rolled, and this eventually led to the first flat books.

Alexandrian glass was also a big industry under Ptolemy III, as was cryptography. All the Ptolemies were obsessed with documents in code.

Ptolemy III’ successors

• Ptolemy IV (222-205 BC) had his mother poisoned and his brother scalded to death. His sister was poisoned after Ptolemy IV’s death.
• Ptolemy V ascended the throne as a child and the Rosetta Stone (see The Rosetta Stone, Hieroglyphs and the Egyptian Language) was inscribed during his reign.
• Ptolemy VI (180-145 BC) fought a civil war with his brother for the throne.
• Ptolemy VII murdered one year after becoming king.
• Ptolemy VIII (145-116 BC) married the wife of Ptolemy VII and had an affair with hi niece. He was called Physcon (“fatty”) and despised by the people who forced him to flee to Cyprus. When his wife Cleopatra II assumed the throne in his absence, he had their son dismembered and couriered to her. He eventually returned to Egypt and built a temple dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek.
• Ptolemy IX (116-107 BC) forced to flee to Cyprus after being accused of plotting to kill his mother.
• Ptolemy X (110-80 BC) was too obese to walk without assistance.
• Ptolemy XI (80 BC) married an older aunt to qualify for the Egyptian throne and killed by mob violence after murdering her. Left no legitimate heir.

Sobek

*The Apis bull was both a live bull and a god who was pampered and perfumed in hit own temple.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/1492791/1492887