Talk:Ptolemy I Soter

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Palestine or Coele-Syria

This article mentions Palestine. That is inaccurate, as the area known as by that name came into existence by that name only hundreds of years later by the Romans.

There is no perfect term but Coele-Syria is more usual for this period. From the history it seems that Palestine is used only because it was in the 1911 Britanica article so probably now one would object to it being changed.Dejvid 08:32, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is incorrect regardless of a person objecting. Perhaps [[1]] is correct in calling it Syria Palaestina to relfect what the Greeks called it. Chacham 16:17, 21 Sep 2005 (UTC)

Hunh?? Palestine and Syria Palaestina are different spellings of the same word; and of the two, we should use the English form... Septentrionalis 16:48, 21 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Even if that is the case, the "English form" has political connotations whereas the older spelling does not since it uses the form written at the time. Chacham 18:43, 21 Sep 2005 (UTC)

with all due respect, why is it important to this article if there might be modern political connotations?

Too many Ptolemies!

There are a lot of similarities between the Ptolemy in this article and Ptolemy I Soter. Were they related, or did they serve together, or are aspects of Ptolemy I Soter incorrectly transferred to the other article? Evidently both were Generals who were very close to Alexander the Great, both were married while serving with him, both are about the same age, but the other one died in battle. This is not my forte, and there are about 50 Ptolemies on the disambiguation page. Anyone know if both of these are correct and just confusing coincidences, or if one of them is a little off? Kafziel 20:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The confusion undoubtedly arises because of incorrect additions to the article, made by people confusing the two. Ptolemy son of Seleucus was not the same individual as Ptolemy I Soter.Antialcidas 15:09, 30 July 2006 (EST)

There were undoubtedly a lot more Ptolemies than that. It seems to have been quite a common name in Macedonia and Ancient Greece. The disambiguation/name page at Ptolemy (name) (which I did quite a bit of work on) demonstrates how the name has persisted and spread outside of Greece (mainly due to the Hellenisation following Alexander the Great and his conquest of the known world). It only seems notable to English speakers because it is so obviously not an English name. Listing all the famous people named John doesn't have quite the same impact. I'd be interested to find out one day how common the name Ptolemy is in Macedonia, Greece and Egypt, or even the variants like the Italian Tolomeo. Carcharoth 22:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point isn't that there are so many, but that there seems to be information that has been jumbled together here. I'm not sure what belongs where. Kafziel 00:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I realise that. Not sure what is correct myself. Verifying stuff about Ptolemy Soter should be easy enough. Checking the other Ptolemy will be a bit harder. I was just making the point that there will be quite a few minor historical Ptolemies at that time, many only being mentioned in passing in the original historical sources. Carcharoth 01:44, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

According Seibert there were six or seven Ptolemaioi during the war of Alexander. One of them was Ptolemaios Lagu (=I Soter), who got somatophylax, but was not very important for the war at the beginning. One other was the one, who died in Issos. The name itself seems to be a variant of the Greek word polemaîos, the "warfull" and was expecially often in Macedonia.

Age

The article mentions that Ptolemy was only slightly older than Alexander - and yet he was 43 at the Susa marraige festival. Obviously there is something wrong here.

There is a little discussion about the age. The ancient sources tell us that he got 84 years, what does mean, [obscenities removed] than Alexander, if he was a "boyhood friend" of Alexander. But I think the first version is more correct (in 2007 there will come a new book about Ptolemaios I (but in German))

Contradiction

Someone who knows the correct answer might like to take a look at Arsinoe_of_Macedonia and sort out the contrary accounts of Ptolemy's birth. This article says Phillip II was her lover while the Arsinoe article says she was his concubine. The Arsinoe article also says that Phillip gave her to Lagus while she was pregnant with Ptolemy and that Ptolemy was regarded by the Macedonians as the son of Philip.

Morgan Leigh 07:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The story with Philipp II seems to be Ptolemaic Propaganda of the time of the Wars of the Diadochoi, because then Ptolemy could aim to be a half brother of Alexander the Great and the son of Alexander's precedor and so a legitimate successor of the Argeades. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Christian-alexander.caroli (talk • contribs) 12:01, 18 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Changed Ptolemaic dynasty to Ptolemaic Kingdom

Not that I object to the name, it's just Ptolemaic Kingdom links to a far better article--Ironzealot (talk) 23:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Coinage

Effigy of Ptolemy I on one of his gold coins. Feel free to insert it into the article. PHG (talk) 09:48, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]