(Πολεμαῖος), king of EGYPT, surnamed EUERGETES, was the eldest son
and successor of Ptolemy II., Philadelphus. When a mere child he was betrothed to Berenice,
the daughter of Magas; but it was not till after the death of Magas, and the assassination of
Demetrius the Handsome, who had made himself master of Cyrene [BERENICE, p. 483], that their nuptials were solemnised. The date of these events is
uncertain ; but the marriage cannot have long preceded the death of Philadelphus. B. C. 247. On that event Ptolemy succeeded quietly to the extensive
dominions of his father; to which he now rennited Cyrene in right of his wife. But a still
wider field was soon opened to his ambition. On a learning the death of Philadelphus,
Antiochus II king of Syria, put aside his wife Berenice, the daughter of the Egyptian king,
and recalled his former wife, Laodice, who soon sacrificed to her resentment both her
faithless husband and her rival, Berenice, with her infant son. Ptolemy appears to have taken
up arms on receiving the first news of the danger of his sister; but finding that he was too
late to save her, he determined at least to avenge her fate. and invaded Syria in person at
the head of a numerous army. The cruelties of Laodice, and the unhappy fate of Berenice, had
already excited general disaffection ; and many cities voluntarily joined Ptolemy, and neither
the youthful Seleucus nor his mother were able to oppose the progress of the Egyptian king,
who advanced apparently without opposition as far as Antioch, and made himself master of the
whole country south of Mount Taurus. But instead of crossing that ridge, and pursuing Seleucus
himself, he turned his arms eastward, crossed the Euphrates, advanced as far as Babylon and
Susa, and after reducing all Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Susiana, received the submission of
all the upper provinces of Asia as far as the confines of Bactria and India. From this career
of conquest he was recalled by the news of seditions in Egypt, and returned to that country,
carrying with him an immense booty, comprising, among other objects, all the statues of the
Egyptian deities which had been carried off by Cambyses to Babylon or Persia. These he
restored to their respective temples, an act by which he earned the greatest popularity with
his native Egyptian subjects, who bestowed on him in consequence the title of Euergetes (the
Benefactor), by which he is generally known. While the arms of the king himself were thus
successful in the East, his fleets reduced the maritime provinces of Asia, including Cilicia,
Pamphylia, and Ionia, as far as the Hellespont, together with Lysimachia and other important
places on the coast of Thrace which continued for a long period subject to the Egyptian rule.
(Monutm. Adulitan. apud Clinlzo. F. H. vol. iii. p. 382; Hieronymv. ad
Daniel. 11.7; Justin, 27.1; Appian. Syr. 65;
Plb. 5.58.) Concerning the events which followed the return of
Euergetes to his own dominions (probably in B. C. 243) we are almost
wholly in the dark; but it appears that the greater part of the eastern provinces speedily
fell again into the hands of Seleucus, while Ptolemy retained possession of the maritime
regions and a great part of Syria itself. He soon obtained a valuable ally in the person of
Antiochus Hierax, the younger brother of Seleucus, whom he uniformly supported in his wars
against his elder brother, and by this diversion effectually prevented Seleucus from
prosecuting active hostilities against Egypt. The war was at length terminated,
or rather suspended by a truce for ten years; but the contest between the two brothers soon
broke out afresh, and continued until the total defeat of Antiochus compelled him to take
refuge in Egypt. Here, however, he was received rather as a captive than an ally; probably
because it did not suit Ptolemy to renew hostilities with Syria. (Just.
27.2, 3.)
In regard to the remainder of the reign of Euergetes we have scarcely any information. It
appears, however, that in his foreign policy he followed the same line as his father. We find
him generally unfriendly to Macedonia, and on one occasion at least in open hostility with
that power, as we are told that he defeated Antigonus (Gonatas) in a great sea-fight off
Andros (Trog. Pomp. Prol. xxvii.); but the date and circumstances of this action are wholly
uncertain. (See on this subject, Niebuhr, Kl. Schrift. p. 297; Droysen,
vol. ii. p. 364.) With the same views he continued to support Aratus and the Achaean league,
until the sudden change of policy of the former, and his unnatural alliance with Macedonia,
led to a corresponding change on the part of Ptolemy, who thenceforth threw all the weight of
his influence in favour of Cleomenes, to whom he afforded an honourable retreat after his
decisive defeat at Sellasia, B. C. 222. (Plut. Arat. 24, 41, Cleom. 22,
32; Paus. 2.8.5.) We find him also maintaining the same friendly
relations as his father with Rome, though he declined the offers of assistance made him by
that powerful republic during his war with Syria. (Eutrop. iii. J.) During the latter years of
his reign Euergetes took advantage of the state of peace in which he found himself with his
neighbours to turn his arms against the Ethiopian tribes on his southern frontier, whom he
effectually reduced to submission, and advanced as far as Adule, a port on the Red Sea, where
he established an emporium, and set up an inscription commemorating the exploits of his reign.
To a copy of this, accidentally preserved to us by an Egyptian monk, COSMASINDICOPLEUSTES, we are indebted for much of the scanty information
we possess concerning his reign. (See Buttmann's Museum f.
Alterthumswissenschaft, vol. ii. pp. 105-166 ; the inscription itself is also given by
Chishull, Antiq. Asiaticae, p. 76, and by Salt in his
Travels in Abyssinia (1814), p. 453, as well as by Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 382, note.)
Ptolemy Euergetes is scarcely less celebrated than his father for his patronage of
literature and science : he added so largely to the library at Alexandria that he has been
sometimes erroneously deemed its founder, and the well-known anecdote of the stratagem by
which he possessed himself of the original manuscripts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,
sufficiently attests the zeal with which he pursued this object. (Galen, Comm.
ad Hippocr. lib. iii. Epidem. p. 411; Parthey, Das Alex. Mus. p.
88.) Among the distinguished men of letters who flourished at Alexandria during his reign, the
names of Eratosthenes, Apollonius Rhodius, and Aristophanes, the grammarian, are alone
sufficient to prove that the literature and learning of the Alexandrian school still retained
their former eminence.
The reign of Euergetes may undoubtedly be looked upon as the most flourishing period of the
Egyptian kingdom. (See Plb. 5.34.) His brilliant military successes
in the first years after his accession not only threw a lustre over his reign, but added some
important and valuable acquisitions to his territories; while his subjects continued to enjoy
the same internal tranquillity as under his predecessors. He appears also to have shown more
favour than the two former monarchs towards the native-born Egyptians; and he evinced a desire
to encourage their religious feelings, not only by bringing back the statues of their gods out
of Asia, but by various architectural works. Thus we find him making large additions to the
great temple at Thebes, erecting a new one at Esne, and dedicating a temple at Canopus to
Osiris in the names of himself and his queen Berenice. (Wilkinson's Thebes, p. 425; Letronne, Recueil, pp. 2-6.) On the other hand,
his foundations of new cities and colonies were much less numerous than those of his father,
though that of Berenice in the Cyrenaiica may in all probability be ascribed to him. (See
Droysen, vol. ii. pp. 723-726.) Among the last events of his reign may be mentioned the
magnificent presents with which he assisted the Rhodians after their city had been overthown
by an earthquake; the amount of which is in itself a sufficient proof of the wealth and power
which he possessed. (Plb. 5.89.)
The death of Euergetes must have taken place before the end of B. C.
222 : it is clearly ascribed by Polybius (2.71) to natural
causes; though a rumour followed by Justin (29.1) asserted that he
was poisoned by his son, a suspicion to which the character and subsequent conduct of the
young man lent sufficient countenance. He had reigned twenty-five years in uninterrupted
prosperity. By his wife Berenice, who survived him, he left three children : 1. Ptolemy, his
successor; 2. Magas ; and 3. Arsinoe, afterwards married to her brother Ptolemy
Philopator.
Trogus Pompeius twice designates Ptolemy Euergetes by the epithet of Tryphon (Prol. xxvii.
and xxx.), an appellation which is also found in Eusebius (p. 165, ed. Arm.). Neither this nor
the title of Euergetes appears on his coins, which can only be distinguished from those of his
two predecessors by the difference of physiognomy.