The House of Ptolemy:
The Ptolemaic Empire Outside of Egypt

The Ptolemaic Empire Outside of Egypt

The following inscription items are from the Oxford University Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents: Image Bank of Inscriptions. The Centre is undertaking a long-term project to create a library of digitized images of Greek inscriptions, based in the first instance on material in its squeeze collection. Images of several hundred inscriptions are now available for viewing and downloading at resolutions of 72 dpi and 150 dpi. The images are listed according to geographical region - except for Attic inscriptions, which have been further divided between IG I and IG II texts. Relevant images for Egypt, Cyprus and the Near East and the Aegean Islands are included below.

The Aegean: [ Crete ] [ Chios ] [ Kos ]

Crete

• --- IC III.iv.18
  (dedication to Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe from Itanos)

Chios

• --- SEG, XIX, 569
  Chian Decree for Apollophanes, sent as judge by Ptolemy (Philadelphos?).
  Date: First half 3rd century BCE

Kos

• --- Iscrizioni di Cos ED 130
  One of a group of four fragments (ED 17, 26, 130, 194) of a Koan honorific decree dating to the late third century for an unnamed individual who mediated Koan relations with a Ptolemaic king; the present fragment refers to royal gifts, the import of grain from Cyprus, and a Ptolemy - presumably Ptolemy IV. The inscription was dated by Segre to the late fourth or early third century, but it was cut by the same stonemason as ED 49 which seems to belong to the context of the Cretan War at the end of the third century. PH 7 was associated by R. Herzog (RivFil 20 (1942) 13-18, 6B) with ED 17 and should be part of the same inscription. ED 110 may provide a further fragment of the jigsaw.
  Date: ca. 200(?) BCE.
• --- I.Creticae III.iv.4
  Decree of Itanos for Ptolemy III and Berenike, establishing a temenos and annual sacrifices for them.
  Date: shortly after 246 BCE.
• --- I.Creticae III.iv.18
  Dedication, Subject: Dedication by Lucius son of Gaius, a Roman citizen, of a nymphaeum and reservoir at Itanos to Ptolemy IV Philopator and Queen Arsinoe.
  Date: ca. 217-209 BCE
• --- Welles, Royal Correspondence 28
  Letter, probably of Ptolemy III, to Kos acknowledging the asylia of the Koan Asklepieion.
  Date: ca. 242 BCE.

• --- GVI 1076
  Verse epitaph from Kition on Cyprus of the Ptolemaic commander Praxagoras the son of Sosianax from Crete (Prosopographia Ptolemaica 15234).
  Date: ca. 180-140 BCE
• --- OGIS 257
  Letter of Antiochos VIII (or IX) to Ptolemy XI Alexander granting freedom to Seleukeia in Pieria.
  Date: 6 Sep 109 BCE.
• --- The Rule of the Ptolemies & Hellenistic Influences
• --- Strabo's description (book 14.6.6) of Cyprus' status and how it became a Roman Praetorian province by itself
  [From Perseus Online Encyclopedia]
• --- Nea Paphos Hellenistic Theatre Excavation
  A team from the University of Sydney has been excavating at the site of the ancient theatre at Paphos in western Cyprus since 1995. Situated a short way up the coast from the legendary birthplace of the goddess of love, Aphrodite, the city of Paphos was founded on the site of a small earlier settlement in the later part of the fourth century BC. It soon became the capital of the island and the major regional trading port under the Ptolemies of Alexandria in Egypt who included Cyprus as part of their empire.

• --- Euesperides: A Devastated Site -- A challenge for multimedia presentation
  By Maria Economou (Linacre College, Oxford OX1 3JA, UK) e-mail: economou @ vax.ox.ac.uk .This article gives an account of the history and archaeology of the Greek colony of Euesperides in Cyrenaica. It also describes a project based at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford for the multimedia presentation of the surviving evidence about the site, which is part of doctoral research on the use of multimedia systems in archaeology and museums. [From University of Tasmania, Australia *ELECTRONIC ANTIQUITY* (Vol 1, Iss 4 - Sep 1993)]
• --- EUESPERIDES: An Ancient Greek Colony in North Africa
  Topics include: Introduction Where is Euesperides? History What was Euesperides? Excavations How did we find out about Euesperides?
  Copyright University of Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, 1999. The Ashmolean Museum retains the copyright of all materials used here and in its Museum Web pages. (Last updated: jcm/13-feb-1998)
• --- Cyrenaica: Erythrum, Cyrene, and Ptolemais
  The site links to sevral images of the classic ruins at Leptis Magna, Jadu, Al-athroun (Erythrum), Sha'Haat (Cyrene) and Talmeetha (ancient Ptolemais), from the Lybiana site devoted to Lybian issues.

• --- Between Large Forces: Palestine in the Hellenistic Period
  By Andrea M. Berlin. What life was like in Hellenistic Palestine. A very important overview article incorporating the latest information on this topic. Each of the article's pages have been scanned as GIF files. Worth the annoying wait to download the large page images. [You get what you pay for.]
  From: Biblical Archaeologist (Vol 60, No 1, Mar 1997)(c)Scholars Press, 1997
• --- Archaeological Excavations in the Souks Area of Downtown Beirut 1994-1995: Hellenistic Coins

Herakleia Latmos
• --- OGIS 24
  Sundial dedicated to Ptolemy by Apollonios Apollodotou.
  Date: ca. 285-247 BCE.
• --- Lycia from the Ptolemies to Vespasian - by David Potter
  Abstract from the paper prepared for Regionalism in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor
  (22-24 Aug 1997).

Bibliographic Notes:
The Ptolemaic Empire Outside of Egypt

General Works


• The Administration of the Ptolemaic Possessions Outside Egypt (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition)
  by Roger S. Bagnall
  Hardcover. Brill Academic Publishers; ISBN: 9004044906
  Order this book from Amazon.com

The Aegean


• --- The Ptolemaic base of Methana,
  American Journal of Archaeology 93 (1989), pp. 247-248.
  By David W.J. Gill, L. Foxhall, C.B. Mee and H.A. Forbes
• --- Samothrace--the Propylon Of Ptolemy II; Volume 10: Excavations Conducted by the Institute of Fine Arts
  Lehmann, Karl & Phyllis Williams (editors). Translations by Alfred Frazer.
  Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ USA, for the Bollingen Foundation, New York.
  October 1990 reprint of 1958 original. 184 illustrations (figures and photographs); 88 plates (some folding) in separate volume. Bibliography. Indices [Topographical and general]. Part 1 text; Part 2 plates (2 volumes). 31 cm. Large Quarto 244 pp. Red cloth in jackets. One of ten part series on the NYU excavations.
  
  The Sanctuary of the Great Gods on the island of Samothrace was a renowned center of religious life in the eastern Mediterranean from the 7th century B.C. until the 4th century of the Christian era, and the mysteries practiced there rank in age and historical importance with those of Eleusis. Vol. 10 of the Samothrace excavations focuses on the elaborate Propylon dedicated by Ptolemy II, which was, from early Hellenistic times, the entrance to the Sanctuary. Among ancient Greek gatehouses, only the Propylaia of the Athenian Akropolis matched the Samothracian Proplyon in precipitousness of site and number of unusual features. The excavation of the Propylon at Ptolemy II was begun in 1963 under the direction of James R. McCredie as archaeologist, and Professor Frazer as architect and art historian.
  
  Order this book from Amazon.com
• --- (BMCR 1998-11-19) Getzel M. Cohen,
  The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor, Hellenistic Culture and Society, 17
  1995, Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford: University of California Press. $65.00. ISBN 0-520-08329-6
  Reviewed by Gary Reger -- Trinity College
  [Bryn Mawr Classical Review provides reviews of books of interest to classisists]
  
  Order this book from Amazon.com

Cyprus


• --- Prosopography of Ptolemaic Cyprus
  by Ino Nicolaou. ISBN: 918505870X.
  Although it is no longer available from the publisher, Amazon.com will query their network of used bookstores and send an update within one to two weeks if you Order this book via Amazon.com

Libya/Cyrenaica


• --- Euesperides: a bibliography
  (Compiled by David Gill). Covers: Early investigations; The early Ashmolean Museum excavations (1952-54); The Libyan Society investigations (1968-69); The Libyan Society investigations (1995-); and Other relevant studies.
• --- Ptolemais Cyrenaica by David. Nasgowitz
  Hardcover: pages: viii, 76 text p., 2 color fiches (168 photographs), 4 bw fiches (336 photographs).
  Published by The University of Chicago Press (June 1981); ISBN: 0226694747; Dimensions (in inches): 0.46 x 9.28 x 6.26
  Order this book from Amazon.com

Phoenicia


• --- (BMCR 4.1.13), John D. Grainger, Hellenistic Phoenicia
  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. pp. ix+219 (7 maps) $55.00 (hb) ISBN 0-19-814770-8
  Review by Nigel Pollard.
  [Bryn Mawr Classical Review provides reviews of books of interest to classisists]
  Order this book from Amazon.com



• Judaea and Mediterranean Politics 219 to 161 BCE
  By Gera, Dov. (Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, Vol. 8)
  Published by Brill Academic Publishers (October 1997). ISBN: 9004094415
  [Abstract describing book by Dov Gera as found at the AMAZON.COM site]
  Order this book from Amazon.com

Asia Minor


• --- (BMCR 1998-11-19) Getzel M. Cohen,
  The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands, and Asia Minor, Hellenistic Culture and Society, 17
  1995, Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford: University of California Press. $65.00. ISBN 0-520-08329-6
  Reviewed by Gary Reger -- Trinity College
  [Bryn Mawr Classical Review provides reviews of books of interest to classisists]
  
  
  
  Order this book from Amazon.com

• --- Life in the Hellenistic City
  Lots of links to small images.
• --- Athens from Alexander to Antony
  by Christian Habicht, Deborah Lucas Schneider (Translator).
  Hardcover: 416 pages. Harvard University Press (Nov 1997); ISBN: 0674051114 ; Dimensions (inches): 1.18 x 9.49 x 6.55
  Athens' fortunes seemed to be on a downward spiral after Alexander's effective takeover in 323 BCE. Habicht shows that though foreign policy and domination were effectively taken out of her hands, Greece's greatest polis never lost autonomy in internal affairs, and culturally, intellectually and socially, she retained a leading role in the Hellenistic era. 406p (Harvard UP 1997) Hb
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