PTOLEMY VI. PHILOMETOR (181-145), the elder of his two sons, succeeded as an infant under the regency of his mother Cleopatra. Her death was followed by a rupture between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid courts, on the old question of Palestine. Antiochus IV. Epiphanes invaded Egypt (17o) and captured Philometor.
The Alexandrians then put his younger brother PTOLEMY VII. EUERGETES II. (afterwards nicknamed Physkon, on account of his bloated appearance) upon the throne. Antiochus professed to support Philometor, but, when he withdrew, the brothers agreed to be joint-kings with their sister Cleopatra as queen and wife of Philometor. Antiochus again invaded Egypt (168), but was compelled by the Roman intervention to retire. The double king ship led to quarrels between the two brothers in which fresh ap peals were continually made to Rome. In 163 the Cyrenaica was assigned under Roman arbitration to Euergetes as a separate kingdom. As he coveted Cyprus as well, the feud still went on, Rome continuing to interfere diplomatically but not effectively. In 154 Euergetes invaded Cyprus but was defeated and captured by Philometor. He found his brother, however, willing to pardon and was allowed to return as king to Cyrene. In 152 Philometor joined the coalition against the Seleucid king Demetrius I. and was the main agent in his destruction. The protege of the coali tion, Alexander Balas, married Philometor's daughter Cleopatra (rhea), and reigned in Syria in practical subservience to him. But in 147 Philometor broke with him and transferred his sup port, together with the person of Cleopatra, to Demetrius II., the young son of Demetrius I. He himself at Antioch was en treated by the people to assume the Seleucid diadem, but he declined and installed Demetrius as king. In 145 in the battle on the Oenoparas near Antioch, in which Alexander Balas was finally defeated, Philometor received a mortal wound. Philometor was perhaps the best of the Ptolemies. Kindly and reasonable, his good nature seems sometimes to have verged on indolence, but he at any rate took personal part, and that bravely and success fully, in war. Philometor's infant son, Ptolemy Philopator Neos (?)', was proclaimed king in Alexandria under the regency of his mother Cleopatra. Euergetes however, swooping from Cyrene, seized the throne and married Cleopatra, making away with his nephew. He has left an odious picture of himself in the his torians—a man untouched by benefits or natural affection, de lighting in deeds of blood, his body as loathsome in its blown 'Or according to another view, Eupator. On the obscure questions raised by these two surnames, see L. Pareti, Ricerche sui Tolemei Eupatore e Neo Filopatore (Turin, igo8).
corpulence as his soul. Something must be allowed for the
rhetorical habit of our authorities, but that Euergetes was ready enough to shed blood when policy required seems true. He soon found a more agreeable wife than Cleopatra in her daughter Cleopatra, and thenceforth antagonism between the two queens, the "sister" and the "wife," was chronic. In 13o–i Cleopatra succeeded in driving Euergetes for a time to Cyprus, when he revenged himself by murdering the son whom she had borne him. (surnamed Memphites). Massacres inflicted upon the Alexan drians and the expulsion of the representatives of Hellenic culture are laid to his charge. On the other hand, the monument and papyri show him a liberal patron of the native religion and a con siderable administrator. In fact, while hated by the Greeks, he seems to have had the steady support of the native population. But there are also records which show him, not as an enemy, but a friend, like his ancestors, to Greek culture. He himself pub lished the fruit of his studies and travels in a voluminous collec tion of notebooks, in which he showed a lively eye for the oddities of his fellow kings. The old Ptolemaic realm was never again a unity after the death of Euergetes II. By his will he left the Cyrenaica as a separate kingdom to his illegitimate son Ptolemy Apion (116-96), whilst Egypt and Cyprus were be queathed to Cleopatra (Kokke) and whichever of his two sons by her, PTOLEMY VIII. Soter II. (nicknamed Lathyro.$) and PTOLEMY IX. Alexander I., she might choose as her associate. The result was, of course, a long period of domestic strife. From 116 to 108 Soter reigned with his mother, and at enmity with her, in Egypt, whilst her favourite son, Alexander, ruled Cyprus. Cleopatra compelled Soter to divorce his sister-wife Cleopatra and marry another sister, Selene. Cleopatra plunged into the broils of the Seleucid house in Syria and perished. In 1o8 Cleopatra Kokke called Alexander to Egypt, and Soter flying to Cyprus took his brother's place and held the island against his mother's forces. The attempts which Soter and Cleopatra respec tively made in 104-3 to obtain a predominance in Palestine came to nothing. Alexander now shook off his mother's yoke and mar ried Soter's daughter Berenice. Cleopatra Kokke died in tor and from then till 89 Alexander reigned alone in Egypt. In 89 he was expelled by a popular uprising and perished the following year in a sea-fight with the Alexandrian ships off Cyprus. Soter was recalled (88) and reigned over Egypt and Cyprus, now re united, in association with his daughter Berenice. This, his second, reign in Egypt (88-8o), was marked by a native rebellion which issued in the destruction of Thebes.