Cleopatra of Egypt is one of history's most famous rulers, but who
was responsible for founding the Ptolemaic dynasty from which she
came, how, and when? For the answers we go back 300 years before
Cleopatra's time, to Ptolemy of Macedonia. He was a friend of
Alexander the Great, fighting with him in the epic battles and
sieges, which toppled the Persian Empire, and after Alexander's
death taking over Egypt after the dead king's commanders carved up
his vast empire among themselves. They were soon at war with each
other, the co-called Wars of the Successors, as each man fought to
increase his share of the spoils. They made and broke alliances
with each other cynically and effortlessly, with Ptolemy showing
himself no different from the others. But unlike them he had
patience and cunning that arguably made him the greatest of the
Successors. He built up his power base in Egypt, introduced
administrative and economic reforms that made him fabulously
wealthy, and as a conscious imperialist he boldly attempted to
seize Greece and Macedonia and be a second Alexander. As well as
his undoubted military prowess, Ptolemy was an intellectual. He
founded the great Library and Museum at Alexandria, making that
city the intellectual center of the entire Hellenistic age, and
even patronized the mathematician Euclid. Ptolemy ruled Egypt first
as satrap and then as its king and Pharaoh for forty years, until
he died of natural causes in his early eighties. On his death, his
son, Ptolemy II, succeeded him, and the Ptolemaic dynasty was thus
established. It was the longest-lived of all the Hellenistic
dynasties, falling with Cleopatra three centuries later. As a king,
soldier, statesman, and intellectual, Ptolemy was one of a kind,
but, unlike Alexander, he never forgot his Macedonian roots.
Against all odds, Ptolemy fought off invasions, invaded opponents'
territories, and established an Egyptian empire, making his adopted
country a power with which to be reckoned. His achievements shaped
both Egypt's history and that of the early Hellenistic world.
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