page_title: Ptolemy Epigonos
section_title: Revolt and rule over Telmessos
hierarchical_section_title: Ptolemy Epigonos / Revolt and rule over Telmessos
caption_attribution_description: Amyntas Tomb
context_page_description: Ptolemy Epigonos was a Greek Prince from Asia Minor who was of Macedonian and Thessalian descent.
context_section_description: In 262/261 BC, Ptolemy II sent Ptolemy to the city of Miletus in Asia Minor, to represent the Pharaoh in reporting political conditions back to him. The tyrant Timarchus was in charge of that city. For unknown reasons, Ptolemy with Timarchus led a revolt against Ptolemy II in 259/258 BC. It is possible that Ptolemy may have revolted against Ptolemy II because Ptolemy II may have wanted Ptolemy to hand over his command in Asia Minor to him. Ptolemy and Timarchus’ revolt didn't help Ptolemy II's strategic planning in Asia Minor as in 258 BC, Timarchus was slain by the Seleucid King Antiochus II Theos during the course of the Second Syrian War which was between the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire which resulted in war losses including Miletus being captured by Antiochus II.
  After the revolt had ended in 258 BC, Ptolemy II could have reconciled with Ptolemy and probably may have forgiven him due to his fear of the growing power of the Seleucid Empire. Ptolemy II terminated Ptolemy's co-regency with him and made him renounce any claims he had to Egyptian throne. After this occurred, Ptolemy II gave Ptolemy a city in Asia Minor called Telmessos in Lycia, to govern in his own right and establish his own dynasty. The city of Telmessos, prior to being under Ptolemaic rule was previously under the kingship of Ptolemy's late father Lysimachus, thus Ptolemy would become a client monarch and have a client kingdom to rule under the Ptolemaic Kingdom. A surviving inscription from Telmessos dated from 258 BC, reveals an arms-length accord that Ptolemy reached with the Egyptian government and indicates that Ptolemy II made Ptolemy a Ptolemaic official in the area and was given a large estate in the area by the Pharaoh. Ptolemy ruled as a Ptolemaic Client King of Telmessos from late 258 BC until his death in February 240 BC.
  In his co-regency with Ptolemy II and in particular his rule of Telmessos, Ptolemy re-established and continued the rule of the Lysimachid dynasty, which is also known as the Ptolemaic/Lysimachid dynasty in Lycia. The evidence below reveals that Ptolemy was in a semi-autonomous position typical of the Hellenistic dynasts:  
  He remained subordinate loyal to Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III.
  He recommended a philos or friend, for honors and altered the tax burden of Telmessos.
  He appeared to have caused the Telmessians to issue coinage with types borrowed from the coinages of his father Lysimachus and with a monogram (ΠΤ) representing his own name, and to have made other internal dispensations in Telmessian institutions without apparent reference to his Ptolemaic suzerain. He made one archon at the head of the city government instead of the previous three and making a hiereus the eponymous magistracy instead of the archons.
  After he died, Ptolemy had descendants ruling over Telmessos.
  Ptolemy had an extraordinary degree of autonomy and was loosely under the authority of the Ptolemaic Pharaohs. Ptolemy had achieved substantial influence in Telmessos and in the surrounding local cities in the region. He established himself in Telmessos to the extent that he was mentioned in a decree honoring a certain Leimon son of Antipater, who is said to be a philos or friend of Ptolemy, which was mentioned as one of the motivating factors in the decree.
  Ptolemy changed the payment to the tenth of the produce on apomeira or levies on beams, grain, millet, pulse, sesame, wheat and other crops in Telmessos. He levied orchard crops and the use of pasture land, taxies typical of Ptolemaic practices in Egypt. It is unknown how much time these agricultural levies lasted for and through Ptolemy's taxation reforms he was honored with a decree. The taxation reforms for Telmessos was out of the ordinary for the citizens of the city and was a big shift from a complicated system of taxation and rents imposed by the Ptolemies that was elsewhere known in Asia Minor.
  Before he died in 240 BC, Ptolemy III honored Ptolemy in another decree in the city assuring the city still recognised the authority of the King in Alexandria and to Ptolemy's good c
caption: Hellenistic rock-cut tombs at Telmessus
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