Talk:Ptolemaic Kingdom

message: I've corrected some factual inaccuracies and spelling errors.  Some rough sentences were also tightened up.
:Also replaced the pompous and unwieldy BCE with the more conventional BC.--Ironzealot (talk) 00:08, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You also seem to have erased the Civil War that was the focus of the kingdom for 20 years....hm....Ericl (talk) 23:02, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleaning House

message: I just got finished working on a project about the Ptolemies at Florida State University, so I logged on to this article because the topic is on my mind. To my surprise, it seems that it's been edited recently by someone of the persuasion that modern Slavic "Macedonians" are somehow equivalent to the Greeks that governed the Ptolemaic kingdom and other Hellenistic dynasties. Given that the Slavs didn't live in the Balkans until the early Middle Ages, I find this highly unlikely. The names of the kings are rendered in their Slavic Macedonian translations (I speak Russian and they're basically the same from that) and when listing the countries the Ptolemaic Kingdom is now part of, it lists Macedonia as opposed to Greece, which certainly couldn't have been the case since the only part of Europe the Ptolemies ever occupied for any portion of time was eastern Crete. Most horrifically of all, the currency was changed to the Macedonian denar, the currency used in modernMacedonia; I'm sure Egyptians during antiquity were exchanging goods with the same currency as a present day Former Yugoslav Republic. All in all what has happened to this article is a travesty and representative of the terrible historical revisionism that "Macedonian" Slavs since the 19th Century have put on the rightfully Greek kingdom that was ancient Macedon and its Successor States in the Eastern Mediterranean. I would edit the article myself but I'm not familiar with how links work, so I was wondering if someone could help out and stem the tide against really banal historical revisionism. Also, I'd like to point out that I'm not a Greek either, and that's not where I'm coming from with this.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.106.100.224 (talk) 01:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent changes to this article... 

message: All right, so it doesn't take much effort to "translate" the German, but an English version would still be nice. 72.200.151.13 (talk) 04:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map and language 

message: This article links distant volcanoes, Nile droughts, famine and riots in the Ptolemaic epoch. Popular description here and here. TGCP (talk) 18:21, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Volcanoes cause riots 

message: *  Too late to respond in the RM, but re citing Blackwell's A Companion to the Hellenistic World...  I checked the dead-tree edition at the library.  There's a whole chapter on "The Ptolemies and Egypt" but it seems to call the state "Ptolemaic Egypt" when there's cause to talk about the phrase as a whole.  There's only two-three hits on "Ptolemaic kingdom" in the Google Books search above which happen elsewhere in the volume (which is quite long!), and they seem plausible uses of lower-case k kingdom rather than as a "proper name."  I'd consider ACtHW a source arguing for "Ptolemaic Egypt" but being a null tell on Kingdom vs. kingdom, myself.  (Will update if I get around to reading your other sources as well, just figured I'd mention it now while it's fresh in my head since the RM close explicitly left open the possibility of a later RM on capitalization.  SnowFire (talk) 21:12, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Minor follow-up on capitalization

message: Since it has recently become subject to a tussle that is at risk of developing into an edit war, it seems sensible to have a talk page discussion on whether it is best to describe the Ptolemaic state as a Greek or Greco-Egyptian one. As noted in one of the recent edit summaries, religion in Ptolemaic Egypt developed along syncretistic lines into a Greco-Egyptian mythology, and the model of rulership combined both Greek and Egyptian traditions, with the ruler as both basileus and pharaoh. Both terms are used in scholarship, with the use of "Greco-Egyptian state" for the political entity itself plain to see in sources such as  and , or as "Greco-Egyptian kingdom" in sources such as , or "Greco-Egyptian empire" in . Food for thought. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:04, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Just like with every  other empire, the Ptolemaic monarchs reigned over a multinational and diverse society. As part of the former Macedonian empire that split into various polities, all of the emerging Hellenistic states, regardless of where they emerged, are overwhelmingly referred to as Greek states in literature. This means that the political institutions that exercised power were founded by and were reserved only for Greeks, specifically one family. The IP editor claimed that the Ptolemies were egyptianized, which is not really the case, since, while they adopted some aspects of Egyptian culture, mainly those that were politically beneficial (incest tradition and the deification of the ruler), not one Egyptian ruled the state under the Ptolemies and they themselves did not even learn Egyptian after reigning for three centuries (with Cleopatra being the only exception). I won't make any comments about the half-Egyptian theory the IP user brought up. For further scholarly analysis on these matters, please see Cleopatra race controversy. Piccco (talk) 18:36, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: So I don't at all disagree that the Ptolemaic dynasty would be characterized wholly as Greek, but I wonder if there is a distinction to be drawn between the dynasty and the state itself, and between Ptolemaic Egypt and the other states of the Diadochi. As noted, Ptolemaic Egypt had some fairly distinct syncretistic trends, and the Ptolemaic period heralded a distinctly new era for the blending of a new Greco-Egyptian culture, and this was an intentional act of the state . Iskandar323 (talk) 18:49, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah I understand what you meant; to clarify, the term Greco-egyptian that the editor used might not be wrong for the society of the Ptolemaic territory, but I find it misleading being used for the state itself, as a political institution. It gives a false impression that Greeks and Egyptians exercised power in the state equally, which is not the case. It's true that the Ptolemies actively embraced aspects of local culture and the Greco-egyptian syncretism is undeniable, eventhough it wasn't a unique characteristic of Ptolemaic Egypt; see for example Greco-Buddism syncretism. As I mentioned, every empire by definition is multicultural. The Ptolemies themselves, however, were still pretty reserved when it came to sharing power, with the family practicing especially high levels of incest, unlike the Seleucid dynasty, who married local royalty when they came to power. Piccco (talk) 19:15, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

text: Comment, perhaps an alternative wording, that would hopefully satisfy the IP editor, would be a different sentense added in the lead paragraph mentioning the Greco-egyptian syncretism that occured in the Ptolemaic society, as you also mentioned above. For example, Reigning for nearly three centuries, the Ptolemies were the longest and final dynasty of ancient Egypt heralding a distinctly new era for the blending of a new Greco-Egyptian culture. or something like that? Piccco (talk) 20:46, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Works for me. The lead currently underplays the Greco-Egyptian cultural fusion that took place under the Ptolemies, focusing more on politics (except for a religious syncretism aside in the infobox). Iskandar323 (talk) 07:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice. I figured there could easily be a compromising solution here and the cultural blending seems worth the mention. Above, I just gave an example. I'll wait in case if you have a specific wording you'd also like to discuss/propose. Piccco (talk) 09:43, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not super inspired on precise wording, so fine with the above. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, I'll add this one soon. Piccco (talk) 09:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Greek or Greco-Egyptian state? 

message: One thing that is missing is an estimate of the relative proporitions of Greeks and native Egyptians. Were the Greeks a small overlay on the native population, or was there substantial Greek immigration?Bill (talk) 20:24, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Demographics