Ptolemaic Period
Ptolemy VI Philometor
Ptolemaic kings · 305-30 BCE
Open full-size illustration →Source: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Background
Ptolemy VI's regents dragged Egypt into a disastrous war against the Seleucid king Antiochus IV, and when Antiochus pressed his advantage all the way to the gates of Alexandria, it was a single blunt Roman envoy, not an Egyptian army, who forced him to turn back. Additional detail: UCL Digital Egypt.
Dynastic chronology: Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000)
Full profile
A war Egypt started and nearly lost
Ptolemy VI came to the throne as a child, and around 170 BCE his regents Eulaeus and Lenaeus launched a war to reclaim Coele-Syria from the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The campaign backfired badly: Antiochus crushed the Ptolemaic forces, occupied much of Egypt, and effectively became the power behind the throne in Memphis, leaving Ptolemy's own court scrambling to respond as Seleucid armies operated inside Egyptian territory itself.
Saved by a circle drawn in the sand
When Antiochus returned for a second invasion in 168 BCE and camped his army at Eleusis just outside Alexandria, the Roman Senate, unwilling to let Egypt fall under Seleucid control, sent the envoy Gaius Popillius Laenas to intercept him. Popillius handed Antiochus a Senate decree ordering him to withdraw, and when the king asked for time to consider it, Popillius used his staff to draw a circle in the sand around Antiochus's feet and told him to give his answer before stepping outside it. Faced with the certainty of open war against Rome, Antiochus agreed to withdraw immediately, and Egypt's independence survived entirely on the strength of Rome's reputation rather than any Egyptian victory on the battlefield.
Sources for this profile
- Shaw, I. (Ed.). (2000). The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford University Press.
- Dodson, A., & Hilton, D. (2004). The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. Thames & Hudson.
- University College London. Kings of Ptolemaic Egypt.
- UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. Chronology. UCLA.
The complete, APA-formatted reference list is on the Academic Sources & Bibliography page.