Talk:Ptolemy II Philadelphus

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Why isn't this page at Ptolemy II Philadelphus, as the intro would suggest?

(Note that the Seleucids are Seleucus I Nicator. and so on.) Wikipedia:naming conventions does not forbid either, by its own wording. Septentrionalis!

I fully agree. "Ptolemy"=Egypt, anyway, so it's completely redundant. john k 19:07, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

In carrying out this program, I find that Cleopatra's son is at Ptolemy Philadelphus, but half the inbound links are intended to head here; and presumably there will be more, as more public-domain text is wikified. I propose to solve this by making Ptolemy Philadelphus a redirect here, after moving that article to a suitably disambiguated location. Please discuss this at Talk:Ptolemy Philadelphus. Septentrionalis 19:27, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I am very confused about the bottom of the "Reign" section. There is discussion there about his wives being related to each other, but not his being related to them. Ptolemy II married his full sister, Arsinoe II. This is why they were called "Philadelphus" meaning "brother-loving" and "sister-loving." This made radical changes in Egyptian culture, making incestuous marriages en vogue in Egypt for a time. Lysimachus was the father of one of Ptolemy's wives named Arsinoe, and the husband of another of Ptolemy's wives named Arsinoe. This is confusing. Maybe we need a family tree visual? Was Ptolemy the uncle of the wife that was not his full sister? It's also confusing that Arsinoe II is (apparently) older than Arsinoe I. Was this a mistake? My source is Encyclopedia Britannica. MadVoo (talk) 04:58, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Disagree, the concept of Brotherly-love / "Philadeplhus" derived from Alexander's Hellenism. Philadelphus has a strong humanitarian(literally freeing slaves) and philanthropic(literally filling libraries) legacy which has nothing to do with consanguinous unions; which are not uncommon among Egyptian royalty. Most of ntrs have brother-sister relationships (eg. Asa-Aset;Set-Nebthet;Seb-Nut,Shu-Tefnut, etc) Phildelphus didn't introduce that concept -- it was there from the beginning. Ptolemais Philopater was not married to his father and Philometor wasn't married to his mother. Moreover Ptolemais Caesaer Philopater Philomater wasn't

married to either of his parents!...MBJ...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.46.234.83 (talk) 15:31, 4 January 2014 (UTC) 

I too am confused as Lysimachus is listed as his offspring by Arsinoe I and this links to Lysimachus who was father to Arsinoe I and born much earlier. Athosfolk (talk) 01:51, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe Arsinoe I was Lysimachus' daughter by a previous marriage. See here; Lysimachus was married twice before his marriage to Arsinoe II. Also, Ptolemy II and Arsinoe I apparently had a son also named Lysimachus. His article is at Lysimachus of Egypt, while that of Arsinoe I's father (and Arsinoe II's first husband) is at Lysimachus. john k (talk) 02:15, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

date of co-reign

I've corrected the beginning of Ptolemy's co-reign in accordance with the Oxford Classical Dictionary ed.3. Some give the date as 286. Ory Amitay (talk) 13:41, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm under the impression that he retroactively dated his reign by at least a year: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1088741 and that it was made up, and this redating was followed by Ptolemy III-V Cornelius (talk) 11:29, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Family

The insinuations that Ptolemy married Arsinoë II to follow Egyptian customs seems to be mostly discredited. Even the subsection linked only describes in detail Ptolemaic incest as customary which seems to be a cyclical definition. Modern scholarship tends to consider the lack of evidence for regular intra-familial marriages as stronger evidence than the Greek rumors of incest among them. While the reasons are unclear, a fair bit of modern scholarship argues that this incest was coupled with the deification of his family members to cement the dynasty as divine like the pharaonic rule before them. The incest being beneficial to this image as Isis/Osiris and Zeus/Hera were divine examples of incest that they could emulate.

I'd definitely consider removing the reference to the custom egyptian incest as by now it's mostly discredited. Aside from that, it's up for debate how much to insert considering so much of the debate around ptolemaic incest continues. --Snafu66 17:18, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

References

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This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 17:00, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

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Not with India.

QUOTE: Relations with India END OF QUOTE

India was born in 1947. The mention in the article is about a relation with a kingdom in the northeastern parts of the South Asian Subcontinent.

The Indus Valley was traditionally known as 'India' even in the time of Alexander. Relax.104.169.21.238 (talk) 16:26, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Infobox

The following is copy-pasted from User_talk:Furius#Consistency_is_"not_helpful";_something_no_one_ever_said: I understand that the Ptolemaic Dynasty is a tough case but the infoboxes of Ptolemaic rulers are insanely inconsistent. Inconsistency is an unavoidable part of Wikipedia but this is just laughable. I understand that just “Pharaoh” may be suboptimal when it comes to Ptolemaic rulers but bluntly reverting my changes without suggesting alternatives is truly not helpful. I’m absolutely open to suggestions. Placing “(Ptolemaic Kingdom)” or “(King/Queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty)” in small font below Pharaoh might do it. User23242343 (talk) 19:10, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

@User23242343. This is how the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle works. I'm glad that you're open to suggestions. The issue is that the Ptolemaic kingdom was not coterminous with Egypt, so the "role" field should reflect that. In my opinion, the best option is "[[Basileus|King]] of the [[Ptolemaic Kingdom]]<br/>[[Pharaoh]] of [[Ancient Egypt|Egypt]]" (currently used on Ptolemy III's page). Furius (talk) 21:56, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree. However: 1) Saying "Pharaoh of Egypt" is unnecessary, as the title is exclusively associated with the ruler of Ancient Egypt and I believe it is even technically wrong. 2) Having "King of the Ptolemaic Kingdom" and just "Pharaoh" in the same parameter is bizarre and some may argue that it is redundant as they are the one and the same position. However, I agree with you that Ptolemaic pharaohs should be ‘highlighted’ in some way so I’ve taken the liberty to alter the pharaoh template and add a parameter, which I’ve used on Ptolemy II Philadelphus as a demonstration. User23242343 (talk) 09:41, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@User23242343. Thanks for that; I appreciate your constructive work on this; particularly since I was brusque. I thought it might be best to continue discussion here, where other editors will be more likely to see it, so I've copied our chat to this talk page. Your point (1) is fair, although in practice "Pharaoh of Egypt" is pretty common in modern scholarship. I don't think I agree on (2) - the two positions were closely intertwined and the new set up makes it appear that the information on reign length etc applies only to the role as Pharaoh. How about "Pharaoh and King of the Ptolemaic kingdom"?

Sidenote: Something has gone wrong with the use of "alt name" on that template. Normally, the Greek name would appear in "native_name", but I don't know if Infobox: Pharaoh has that field? I don't think it is right to give the Egyptian name (which is ptwꜢlwmys / Petualumys?), since that already appears below in the Pharaonic titulary. Furius (talk) 15:24, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

1) I believe it is a bit early to solicit input from other editors, as we were in the process of finding common ground but I'm not uninterested in what others have to say. 2) This option allows for the inclusion of “King/Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom” without Ptolemaic rulers breaching consistency with the other pharaohs; as King and Queen are obviously regnal titles I believe their association with the pharaoh’s reign is evident. 3) My changes to the pharaoh template consist of moving alt_name into the name parameter, so there would be space for the creation of the new title parameter. 4) I haven’t changed anything related to Ptolemy II’s name. If you believe there to be something wrong with his Greek or Egyptian name, you're welcome to change it. User23242343 (talk) 17:45, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Moving the altname template into the main name parameter is what I was talking about with my side note. This has caused large amounts of bold text often with footnotes to appear in the top of the infobox in a large number of pages (examples: Khufu, Khafre, Akhenaten, Ptolemy X Alexander I); it doesn't belong there and creates an inconsistency with all other infoboxes for people.

The association with the reign as Pharaoh is not obvious to someone without background knowledge; it is quite common for monarchs to hold two or more titles with different dates (especially in the period immediately preceding the Ptolemaic dynasty). Consistency amongst all Pharaohs is impossible given the long period of history for which they existed, nor is it necessarily desirable, since the Ptolemies weren't just like Khufu or Thutmose. Furius (talk) 18:40, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Furius: better? User23242343 (talk) 10:15, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@User23242343. Much better! I have no further objections. Let's see if anyone else has anything to say.

(It might be worth leaving a note at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Egypt and on the talk page for the template, in case anyone with interests has not been watching this page?). Furius (talk) 18:47, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Excellent! "It might be worth leaving a note at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ancient Egypt and on the talk page for the template, in case anyone with interests has not been watching this page?" – If you believe it's necessary; I'll leave the decision to you. User23242343 (talk) 16:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

This solution looks good to me, though presumably it should be applied to the infoboxes of other Ptolemaic rulers as well. A. Parrot (talk) 17:03, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely! I just haven't had the time to do that yet. User23242343 (talk) 19:33, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ptolemy I Soter which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 08:45, 6 June 2023 (UTC)