Ptolemy IV Philopator (his father's lover) , the fourth king of the Ptolemaic state in Egypt. He ruled from 221 BC.Until 203 BC.M .His sister arsenoy passed away, and he tried to keep the throne of Egypt for himself by assassinating a number of his relatives.
The first need that Ptolemy philipator made after he sat on the throne of Egypt after his father, was that he set up an advisory council in order to take the opinion of his advisers to kill his mother Berenice and brother Magas. The military commanders agreed with him, but Cleomenes, the exiled king of Sparta in Egypt, advised him that he would not work like this. But with his consent, he killed them, and the idea spread that he killed his father Ptolemy followed before them as a violin.
With the death of his brother and the young age of Antiochus in Syria and Philip in Macedonia, malhoush remained rivals in the face or on the ground of Egypt, so he lived the life of the king of taysh immersed in pleasures, and the former Fleet and army Boz and what remained interested in the lands belonging to Egypt Braha. His father handed Egypt over as the most powerful country in the world at the time, and it is a former indiscretion that every need collapses. The first problem faced by Ptolemy IV was a revolt against him in Alexandria orchestrated by Cleomenes, and concluded with the suicide of Cleomenes after he failed to capture the fortress of Alexandria.
Battle of Rafah
After the problem of Cleomenes was concluded, Antiochus the next ( he was called when he grew up, Antiochus the great ) seized Seleucia, the capital of Syria, which was a vassal of Egypt, after the garrison in which he surrendered to him.
When he returned to Alexandria, he deprived the Jews of Macedonian citizenship, and ordered them to tattoo their skin with a tattoo in the form of an Ivy Leaf as a tribute to the god Bacchus. The makansh skin tattoo was followed by the Egyptians and was forbidden by the Jews, but Jays were present among foreigners in northern Egypt. And Ramses the second before that was the tattoo of the Arabs who were taken prisoner in wars, and the tattoo of the Arabs continued for themselves in Egypt for the modern era.
The success of the Egyptian army commanders and the demonstration of their abilities in the Battle of Rafah saved them from thinking about getting rid of Ptolemy IV, whom they hated because of his corruption, but Ptolemy IV was able to eliminate the rebellion in some way recorded in history.
Boats of Ptolemy IV
Ptolemy IV built huge and wide military ships, including a ship with a capacity of one thousand, which could hold 3,000 Warriors on its back, and had ten beaks in the front if hit in a boat sinking it lengthwise. And Ptolemy had a huge Royal ship on the Nile, full of galleries and odes.
External relations
During the reign of Ptolemy IV, they were engaged in the war against Hannibal ( the Punic Wars), renewed the peace treaty with Egypt, and sold valuable gifts to Ptolemy and his wife arsenoi to ensure that Egypt would not attack them while they were busy in the war. Among the gifts was a chair for Ptolemy made of Dahab and Ivory. Egypt preferred neutrality in the war, and had close relations with the Romans and Carthaginians. When a major earthquake on the island of Rhodes destroyed it, Ptolemy sold significant aid to Egypt's Rhodesian allies.
When the only son of Ptolemy IV was born and passed away, all the countries traveled to Alexandria with gifts and congratulations of the Kings.
But after his son was born, Ptolemy decided to kill his wife and sister arsenoi with the advice of his mistress agathoclea, whose brother Agathocles was controlled and with alternative advice in every need, as well as in the administration of the state. Ptolemy's relationship with the brother of his mistress, whose morals were brutal, and one named sosibius was the second hated, and the method of murder that Ptolemy used, attracted many criticisms of Ptolemy, so he had to abandon Agathocles, not responsible for collecting taxes and replaced by a young man named tlepolemus, the soldiers of the army loved him. He took from sosibius the King's seal and gave it with his consent to tlepolemus.
His achievements
Although Ptolemy IV was a corrupt king, he inherited from his father and grandparents an interest in science and knowledge and took an interest in the library of Alexandria. Aratosthenes, the inventor of astrogeography and the head of the Alexandrian Mathematical School, was the head of the library of Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy IV, and he was a scholar and a senior writer in Alexandria in the period D. Z. The Historian Timaeus.
Ptolemy IV built a temple for Homer, and landed in it a statue of him, and about seven statues of each of them representing a country that Homer said was from. He built a small temple next to the city of Habu and placed his name in the temple of Karnak and added needs in the temple of Thoth in Ethiopia.
Ptolemy IV had a violin named obator and a monument to his name was erected in the temple of Venus in Paphos.
The first Ptolemaic Kings were loved by the Egyptians and a source of terror for the enemies of Egypt, but Ptolemy IV, despite the fact that the whole world respected him and did a thousand accounts as the king of Egypt, by his brutal and violent manners, the Egyptians hated him and caused the corruption of the state. He began his reign by killing his brother, appointed the men of his corrupt entourage to high positions in the state, and the eunuchs entered Egypt and brought them closer to him.
Ptolemy IV died tired and sick at the age of about forty, after ruling Egypt for 17 years. Agathocles, with the help of his sister agathoclea and Ptolemy's next mistresses, broke the news to the point of stealing jewelry and Pennies from the palace and tidying up their affairs. And after the news of Ptolemy's death spread, Agathocles gathered people in Alexandria and told them that he was dead. Ptolemy V Epiphanes (the apparent), the only son of Ptolemy, who was then five years old, took his place on the throne of Egypt.
His coins
Ptolemy IV has beautiful coins with the inscription "to Ptolemy Philopator" and for a time coins with the inscription "larsenoy Philopator".