The son of Ptolemy
IV succeeded his father when he was only 5 & spent most of his
reign as pawn in the intrigues of his father's advisors, who
murdered his mother. Instability
in the court of Alexandria, allowed Syrian forces under Antiochus
III to occupy all of Asia Minor & Palestine. In 194
BCE Rome
finally brokered a peace settlement between the rival Macedonian regimes
which resulted in Ptolemy's marriage to Antiochus' daughter, Cleopatra
I. His sudden death at age 30 left her as regent of Egypt.
Ironically, Ptolemy's most important act
for later history was the direct product of his weakness as a ruler. In an
attempt to quell native uprisings in Egypt, Ptolemy's guardians staged a
traditional Egyptian coronation at Memphis (196
BCE) & issued a decree
celebrating him as the manifestation of divine grace [hence his by-name]. To
encourage his cult the declaration portrayed the young king as benefactor
of Egypt, who adorned the temples of Egypt's traditional gods, cancelled debts,
reduced taxes, freed prisoners & pardoned any rebels who went back to
farming.
Though ineffective in restoring Macedonian
control over upper Egypt, this decree became the key that eventually helped unlock all the records of ancient Egypt
for modern scholars. For it was carved in Greek &
two Egyptian scripts (hieroglyphs & demotic) on a stela erected
at Memphis. A fragment of that monument
was accidentally discovered at Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile delta
by Napoleon's troops in 1799
CE. So, thanks to a weak king's
propaganda offensive to win the support of his subjects, 19th c. British
& French scholars (especially Thomas Young & Jean-François
Champollion) were able to decipher the hieroglyphic
script in which Egyptian documents & inscriptions had been written for
over 3000 years.
References:
Josephus,
Antiquities 12.130-135,
154-178, 196, 205-207, 234.
Polybius, Histories
15.25, 31-32.
Justin, Epitome
30.2
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