Ptolemy I Soter

From bodyguard to king

Ptolemy served as one of Alexander the Great's most trusted companions and bodyguards throughout the campaigns that toppled the Persian Empire. When Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BCE without a clear adult heir, Ptolemy secured Egypt as his own satrapy during the chaotic division of the empire among the generals known as the Diadochi, and after decades of warfare against his rivals he formally took the title of king in 305 BCE, founding the dynasty that would rule Egypt until Cleopatra VII three centuries later.

Stealing a corpse to steal a kingdom

At the end of 321 BCE, the regent Perdiccas was moving Alexander's elaborate funeral carriage from Babylon toward Macedonia, intending to use the body to bolster his own claim to lead the empire. Ptolemy bribed Arrhidaeus, the officer escorting the cortege, and conspired with the governor of Babylonia to divert the procession south into Egypt instead, where he installed the body at Memphis. Perdiccas marched an army into Egypt to retrieve it and punish Ptolemy, but the invasion collapsed and Perdiccas was killed by his own officers, leaving Ptolemy in firm control of Egypt and in possession of the one relic every rival successor wanted for himself.