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The Ptolemies, Last Indept. Dynasty Egypt > 
Ptolemies: name of the last dynasty of independent Egypt. In 332, the Macedonian king Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and gave a new capital to the old kingdom along the Nile, Alexandria. After his death (11 June 323), his friend Ptolemy became satrap of Egypt, and started to behave himself rather independently. When Perdiccas, the regent of Alexander's mentally unfit successor Philip Arridaeus arrived in 320, he was defeated. This marked the beginning of Egypt's independence under a new dynasty, the Ptolemies (or Lagids). Ptolemy accepted the royal title in 306.
The fourteen kings of this dynasty were all called Ptolemy and are numbered by modern historians I to XV (Ptolemy VII never reigned). A remarkable aspect of the Ptolemaic monarchy was the prominence of women (seven queens named Cleopatra and four Berenices), who rose to power when their sons or brothers were too young. This was almost unique in Antiquity. Another intriguing aspect was the willingness of the Ptolemies to present themselves to the Egyptians as native pharaohs (cf. the pictures below, some of which are in Egyptian style). This was less unique: the Seleucid dynasty that reigned the Asian parts of Alexander's empire did the same.
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More on this Website >
• http://www.livius.org/ps-pz/pt ... lemies/ptolemies.htm
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Ptolemy I, Founder Ptolemaic Dynasty
Ptolemy I Soter: friend and biographer of the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great, after his death king of Egypt, founder of the the Ptolemaic dynasty, one of the Di... |
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Alexander the Great
Alexander surprised everyone at age 20 by quickly revealing himself to be every bit the man (even moreso) than his father, the awesome Philip II (382-336) of Macedon. Al... |
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Cleopatra VII, the Last Pharaoh
In the springtime of 51 BC, Ptolemy Auletes died and left his kingdom in his will to his eighteen year old daughter, Cleopatra, and her younger brother Ptolemy XIII who... |
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Ptolemy, Astronomer / Geographer
Claudius Ptolemy lived in Alexandria (in Egypt) from approx. 87 -150 AD. He was an astronomer, mathematician and geographer. He codified the Greek geocentric view of the... |
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