Ptolemy I Soter

Ptolemy I took Egypt after Alexander's death and founded a dynasty that lasted until Cleopatra. Born in Macedon around 367 BC, he was a companion of Alexander from boyhood, possibly a distant relative, and served throughout the eastern campaigns as a bodyguard and then as a commander, capturing Bessus and fighting in the Indian campaign. When Alexander died at Babylon in 323 BC, the generals divided the provinces. Ptolemy asked for Egypt, which was defensible, self-sufficient in grain and remote from the wars he expected — the shrewdest choice any of them made. He hijacked Alexander's funeral cortege on its way to Macedon and installed the body at Memphis and later Alexandria, which gave his rule a legitimacy nobody else could claim. He fought the other successors for forty years, holding Egypt against every attempt, taking Cyprus and Cyrene and losing and regaining Coele-Syria. He took the title of king in 305 BC. He governed as a Macedonian king and as a pharaoh simultaneously, keeping the Egyptian priesthood, temple building and titulature intact while running the administration through Greeks. He promoted the cult of Serapis, a deity designed to be acceptable to both populations. He founded the Museum and began the Library at Alexandria, which made the city the intellectual centre of the Mediterranean for centuries, and Euclid worked there under him. He wrote a history of Alexander's campaigns, now lost, which Arrian used as his principal source and which is the reason that account is comparatively sober. He abdicated in favour of his son in 285 BC and died in 283 BC.

• Lived: 367 BCE – 282 BCE
• Nationality: Macedonian
• Roles: ruler, general