170
PTOLEMY I
PTOLEMY in.
with this fortress. The last siege took place in 1840, when Sir Charles Napier, tighting for the Turks, took the town from the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasha.
Acre never recovered the bonibardinent of the English fleet; and it is now a dull, niiiious town of about 10,(100 inhabitants. It is the market-place of the Syrian wheat trade ; and the breuil manu- factured from the rich crops grown on the sur- rounding plain of Acre is jjroverbially said to be ' the best in the Holy Land '; tlius maintaining still the reputation it had acquired in the days of Israel, when the Patriarch cast the blessing of his son into its local mould, ' out of Asher his bread shall be fat.' The shallow Kahr Xartutn, the ancient Belus, which falls into its broad bay, recalls the Greek story of the chance invention of glass on its b.anks ; and the patriarchal promise to the lot of Issachar of ' the treasures hid in the sands,' which may have had something to do with the ancient classical tradition. The view from the shattered ramparts is very extensive and beautiful, comprising on the one side tlie opposite headland of Carmel, reflected in the blue waters of the curved bay, and on the other the dark green plain along the coast up to the white promontory of the Ladder of Tyre ; the distant snow-clad Lebanon range fading northwards in the clouds ; while the eastern horizon is closed up by the shadowy hills of Galilee.
Literature. — Conder, Tent - Work in Pakstinf, pp. 18S-192 ; Stanley, SP pp. 204 - 2(i6 ; Bovet, Egypt, Palestine, and Phwnicia, pp. 3S3-3a5. HUGH MaCMILLAN.
PTOLEMY {IlToKefiatos, a metric alternative for the Ion. TToXe/i^ios, ' warlike ') I., surnamed Ziiir-qp, ' Preserver ' (on account of his defence of tlie Rliodians in B.C. 306; Pans. i. 8. 6; or by the Confed. of the Cyclades, who claim the credit, according to Inscript. 373 in Michel's Bccueil—see Mahatiy, Emp. Ptol. llOf.), was the son of Lagus and Arsinoe, a reputed concubine of Philip of Macedon. He was born about B.C. 367, and upon the death of Alexander (1 Mae P") he assumed tlie satrapy of Egypt. For the intricate details of the wars that preceded his assumption of royalty in B.C. 305, see Mahafly, op. cit. 27-58 ; Droysen, Hellenismus ; Niese, Gesch. der Griech. Staaten, pt. i. — by each of whom the original authorities are given. He abdicated in B.C. 285 in favour of his second son, and died two years later, with his dynasty flnnly established by his wise and vii'orous administration upon the throne of Egypt. In the course of his campaigns Jie several times traversed or ocoipied Palestine. In B.C. 320 (Cless in Pauly, art. ' Ptolemy'), or more probably eight years later, he took advantage of the Sabbath law to seize Jerusalem on that day (Jos. Ant. Xll. i.), but so ingratiated himself witn the people that many of them accom])anied him to Egypt and settled there (Jos. c. Ap. i. 22 ; Miiller, Fragm. Hist. Grmc. u. 393). They were employed partly as mer- cenaries ; and in Alexandria a kind of citizenship and a special quarter of the city appear to have been a-ssigned them (Jos. ]Vars, n. xWii. 7). Such migrations to Egypt occurred three or four times during this reign ; and the favour with which the Egyp. rule was regarded in Palestine was largely due to the kindness with which the settlers were treated, and to the comparative avoidance of inter- ference with their religious practices. It has been assumed [e.g. by Cheyne) that Is lO""^ (this pas- sage maj' allude to the Jewish temple at Heliopolis founded in tlie time of Ptol. VII.) was written in tho time of this king, and he is generally held to be 'the king of the south' referred to in Dn 11°, where the liVm is to be preferred.
R. W. Moss.
PTOLEMY II. (afterwards known as *iXd5eX0os, ' brother-loving,' from the title adopted by hia sister and wife, Arsinoe), the youngest son ol Soter, succeeded his father in B.C. 285. He con- tinued his father's policy, and, instead of Hellen- izing Egypt, treated the country rather as a private estate to be administered wisely in the interest of its projirietor. On the series of coins which he struck at Tyre the earliest date that occurs is B.C. 266 (Poole, Coins of Ptol. .\xix.) ; and conse- quently his lirst Syrian war took place at least two or three years earlier. From that time Pales-tine formed a permanent part of his kingdom, his right to hold it as an inheritance from his father having been unrecognized before. Among the cities which he founded were PhUotera to the soxith of the Lake of Galilee (Polyb. v. 70), Phila- delphia on the site of Kabbah (Jerome, in Ezek. 25), and Ptolemais on the site of Acco (pseudo-.Aristeas in Merx, Arc/iiv, i. 274 ; Droysen, HcllenisnmSy iii. 2. 305). In these foundations his principal object seems to have been to conciliate the peojde, and to furnish himself with centres of inltuence. A second .Syrian war soon after B.C. 250 was pro- voked by an attempt on the part of Antiochus II. to annex the country ; but of its details nothing is known with certainty, except that Philailclplius lost no part either of his dominions or ap])arently of his supremacy by sea in the Eastern Alediter- ranean. He died in B.C. 247. The reign of Pliila- delphus was a brilliant literary epoch in Alex- andria. At his court, as officials of the Museum and Library which his father founded and he fostered, gathered many of the most eminent writers, artists, dOettanti, of the period : and thus was provided a place for the fusion of Jewish and Greek ideas, and a means of introducing the latter into Palestine itself. It is not impossible that the story of the origin of the LXX is so far correct, that the Pent, and perhaps also Joshua were trani- lated during his reign and under royal patronage : see Septuagint. Dn 11" is to be interpreted of Pliiladelphus ; but the latter part of the verse is so vague and even so dithcult of translation that tliere is ground for suspicion that the text is corrupt. It has been conjectured that Ps 72 was written soon after the accession of Pliiladelphus as an expression of the anticipations which his repu- tation warranted, and Ps 45 in honour of liia marriage with the daughter of Lysimachus, king of Thrace ; but neither conjecture has much suj)- port. K. W. Moss.