Scenes From Elsewhere (Ptolemies)

In two-ninety-one, the situation in Egypt was on a precipice, kept stable only by the adept hand of Ptolemy I Soter, Companion of Alexandros Megas, Basileus of Egypt, Pharoah, He of the Two Ladies, He of Sedge and Bee, and a number of other titles. The adept Elder Statesman seemed to be able to navigate various crises with the wisdom of his years and not an insignificant amount of wit. However, he was seventy-six years old and would not be around forever. While he had managed to put a lid on the brewing succession crisis between his two sons and placate his Stepson, Magas of Cyrene with more autonomy for the Cyrenaican Pentopolis, these issues were far from settled.

For the time being, however, Egypt was stable. Its coffers were also refilling, thanks to a renewed and vigorous amount of trade with Magna Graecia, Rome, Athens, and Epirus. Carthage, Epirus, and Athens would pay good silver for papyrus, and Carthage and Rome hungered for linen as well as for Silphium, which was grown in great plantations in Cyrene. Meanwhile, Magna Graecia was hungry for grain, with so many Poleis in so small an area, how could they not be?

Epirus especially spent good silver for lapis lazuli, something that Egypt had in no small amount of supply, grinding up the stone in their mills to turn it into a rich blue dye. This was in addition to the aforementioned papyrus, which King Pyrrhus' ever-expanding system of clerks and scribes used to excess. In fact, the Epirote dyeworks were so hungry for the lapis and their scribes so hungry for papyrus, that not only was Ptolemy able to refill his treasury with Epirote Drachmae, but he was able to bargain for steel and high-quality iron weaponry for his armies.

This turned out to be sorely needed, as in two-eighty-seven, the King of Kush, Ergamenes, who was a Hellenized Ruler and friend to Egypt, was slain by the Kushite Priesthood. They crowned a noble named Emantekos as the new King of Kush. Emantekos was little more than a puppet of the priesthood, who bade him gather an army and raid the southern reaches of Egypt. In two-eighty-six, Emantekos did just that, laying waste to areas as far north as Diospolis Parva, stealing grain, cattle, and goods in the name of Emantekos, whom the Kushite Troops proclaimed as the True Pharaoh of Egypt.

This proved to be a miscalculation by Emantekos' Priestly Masters, as it turned the lands of Upper Egypt from a hotbed of resistance to Hellenistic Rule into one that was now loyal, especially once Ptolemy Keraunos marched south at the head of his father's army, newly equipped with weapons supplied from Epirus, to sweep Upper Egypt clear of raiders. For the first time since Alexandros Megas, a Hellenistic Ruler was actually welcomed into Thebes as a liberator. It was a sudden reversal of sentiment from just a few years ago.

Ptolemy Keraunos pursued Emantekos and his army back across the border into Kush, where they met outside of the New Kushite Capital of Meroe between the fifth and sixth cataracts of the Nile. The Battle of Meroe in two-eighty-five saw the destruction of Emantekos' lighter-armed Kushite Army, whose forces were armed with cowhide shields, leather armor, hatchets, and spears. The Kushite Forces were less battle-hardened as well than the Ptolmaic Force, many of whom had fought against the Seleucids in the previous decade.

In fact, the only significant casualties came from the Kushite Archers, their bows were roughly four cubits in length, providing enough power to pierce through the high-quality iron scale armor worn by the Ptolmaic Troops, though not always. During the following sack of Meroe, many of these bows would be taken back to Egypt for study and replication, as anything capable of piercing the Epirote armor was considered valuable.

They were not the only things to be taken, as Ptolemy Keraunos plundered the treasury before placing a relative of Ergamenes on the throne and marching back to Egypt laden with wealth. For this action, Ptolemy Keraunos was immensely popular in Upper Egypt, and this territory would form the heartland of his support in the coming years when the succession dispute boiled over. Unfortunately for him, he was not the only one who had been gathering support.

Ptolemy the Younger, the second son of Ptolemy I, had been cautiously gathering support in his father's court while Ptolemy Keraunos was away, first by approaching various nobles who, though uninclined toward martial pursuits, nonetheless commanded great amounts of wealth. As witty as his father, Ptolemy the Younger won these rich men over with his wit and charm and built up a powerbase of his own among the wealthy of Alexandria.

Notably, he also reached out to the Mousieon and especially to Demetrios of Phalerum, about building the proposed Great Library should they back his bid for the throne upon the death of his father, Ptolemy I, who, at eighty-two-years-old was declining in health. In so doing, he also received the backing of many of the scholars of Alexandria for his bid for power.

Then there was Meleager, half-brother of Ptolemy Keraunos and Ptolemy the Younger, and current governor of Cyprus. Meleager was popular with the Navy and many of the Clients in Asia Minor and the Levant, but especially the Phoenician Cities, who like Meleager and the Navy, were also seafarers by trade and inclination. While Meleager insisted that he would not intervene in the succession unless their father declared him heir, Ptolemy the Younger viewed such claims with suspicion.

For his part, Ptolemy I was already the last living Diadochi, having outlived Seleucus who had died the year previously, just one year after the death of Lysimachus at Seuthopolis. He was in ill health and would not be able to keep a lid on tensions for much longer. By two-eighty-five he was already appearing sporadically at court, and those appearances dwindled over the next few years from sporadically appearing to seldomly appearing, until in the winter of two-eighty, he caught a chill that left him bedridden and dying.

On his deathbed, Ptolemy I Soter named Ptolemy Keraunos as his official successor, however, Ptolemy Keraunos was out of the capital on a military inspection at the time and only returned in time for the funeral. Ptolemy the Younger claimed instead that Ptolemy I had named him the official successor, holding Ptolemy I's will up in court, claiming it was not proper to read the will until the mourning period had passed. Ptolemy Keraunos appeared to agree to this out of love for their father. For a few short weeks, there was peace still in Egypt.

When violence started, it started as these things normally do. Over a woman. Arsenoe was half-sister to Ptolemy Keraunos and full-sister to Ptolemy the Younger. Formerly married to Lysimachus, she had fled the attack of Antigonos Gonatas that had devastated Seuthopolis and resulted in her husband's death back to Egypt, where she had found solace in the arms of her recently widowed half-brother, Ptolemy Keraunos. However, in the years since, that relationship had grown stale, continuing on inertia more than out of love.

In came Ptolemy the Younger, who saw Arsenoe's dissatisfaction with Ptolemy Keraunos as a method to rid himself of his rival before he could press for their father's will to be read and reveal the lie of his place as heir for all Egypt to see. Ptolemy the Younger came in and seduced Arsenoe using the same wit and charm he had gained the support of the rich and learned of Alexandria with. By the time the mourning period ended in the summer of two-eighty, he had not only overcome any hesitance of Arsenoe's to having a relationship with a full-blood relative like himself but also got her to agree to poison Ptolemy Keraunos' wine.

As it happened, however, Ptolemy Keraunos survived the assassination attempt thanks to a rather unlucky cupbearer, who had snuck a bit of his master's wine before serving it and paid for it with his life. His death alerted Ptolemy Keraunos that something was wrong with the wine in time to purge himself, vomiting up the cup he'd just drank. When he called for his guards, Arsenoe broke into tears and confessed everything. Ptolemy Keraunos fled across the desert to the Peleusium Fortress where he gathered an army to him.

Unfortunately, Ptolemy the Younger, now being called Ptolemy Philadelphos, had done likewise with the garrisons of many of the cities of the Delta, who viewed him more favorably than his more rough and tumble brother. In the fall of two-eighty, the brothers clashed at the strategically inconclusive battle of Sais that nonetheless saw Ptolemy Philadelphos' larger force retain control of the field. Ptolemy Keraunos went south to winter in Upper Egypt and gathered a larger force.

Meanwhile, Meleager had begun consolidating power in the Levant in preparation for breaking off from his father's Kingdom and Declaring himself Great King of Phoenicia and Cyprus. In this, he had the backing of Antiochus I Asianos in exchange for recognition of Antiochus regaining his father's lost territories in Asia Minor. This attempt kicked off with a raid on the port of Raphia, which marked the furthest extent of support for Ptolemy Philadelphos into the Levant.

Thus were the claimants in the Ptolmaic Succession War declared. Ptolemy Keraunos with his power base in Upper Egypt, Ptolemy Philadelphos with his power base in Lower Egypt, and Meleager with his power base in Cyprus and the Levant. With Antiochus gobbling up Ptolemaic conquests in Asia Minor and Magas in the Cyrenaican Pentopolis looking to extract more concessions from the claimants in exchange for his support. It was a mess of Ptolemy I's own making, showing the dangers of having too many heirs as opposed to Alexandros Megas' not enough.

When it was over and done with, the face of the Eastern Mediterranean would be drastically changed. . .

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AN: As expected, Egypt is a shitshow. That's what happens when you throw multiple, highly ambitious, people into the mix, all with a good claim on the throne. You get a civil war.

Also, yes Ptolemy Philadelphos and Arsenoe fucking behind Ptolemy Keraunos' back is a thing that actually happened IOTL. I did tell you guys the Ptolemies were basically Game of Thrones. That wasn't hyperbole.

As to Kush, we know remarkably little about them in this period, but what we do know was fascinating enough to have potential. For instance, Ergamenes really was a Hellenized King of Kush. He really did almost get assassinated by the Priesthood, who viewed his Hellenism as an affront to the Gods and a threat to their grip on power. IOTL they failed and Ergamenes had them killed for the attempt. ITTL they succeeded and placed a puppet on the throne. It didn't work out so well for them.

Also yes, there is evidence for Kushite Longbows. Apparently, they were four cubits in length, which is roughly six feet, or around six inches shorter than the medieval English longbow. Of course, without bodkin points, they won't reliably pierce the Epirote-made high-quality iron scale armor the Ptolemaic forces use, but they can pierce it sporadically. Expect longbows to slowly circulate through the Mediterranean in the future.

As for lapis, as far as we can tell, the Egyptians didn't make ultramarine pigment from it before their mines played out in the Roman Period. Apparently, the grinding was too time and labor-intensive for them to do that. Here, Pyrrhus has tidal mills to do the grinding for him. Hence paying lower prices for raw lapis than he'd have to pay for crushed lapis.

At any rate, next up is a look at Carthage.

Stay tuned. . .