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Ptolemy II had a decisive role in the creation of Ptolemaic dynastic ideology. Decisions he made would form the basis of how the Ptolemies represented themselves as rulers until the end of the Ptolemaic kingdom. Certain examples of these decisions have been discussed at length, including Ptolemy II’s decision to marry his full-blood sister, Arsinoë II, a move that led to subsequent king–queen relationships in the Ptole-maic dynasty being represented as sibling marriages irrespec-tive of whether or not the royal couple were actually related.1 However, one important aspect of Ptolemy II’s dynastic strat-egy is rarely contextualised – his decision to appoint a prince, known in scholarship as Ptolemy the Son, as coregent while he himself was still only in his early 40s. Although the iden-tity of Ptolemy the Son has been discussed many times, not least in detailed articles by W. Huß and J. A. Tunny, exactly who this prince was remains an open question.2 Moreover, very little attention has been given to the matters of how Ptolemy the Son functioned as a coregent and why his core-gency began so early in Ptolemy II’s reign. The following discussion will assess different solutions to the question of

Coregency in the reign of Ptolemy II: Findings from the Mendes Stela

Matthew L. SkuseUniversity of Edinburgh, UK

Abstract

Coregencies are a familiar feature of Hellenistic dynastic strategy, which can usually be explained as a means of avoiding crises of succession or internal conflict, and of strengthening dynastic identity and ideology. However, precisely what relationship we intend to express with the conventional term ‘coregency’ is often left undetermined. This paper explores the validity of the term ‘coregency’ in describing the relationship between the authority and ideological role of Ptolemy II, king of the Ptolemaic Empire, and an enigmatic prince, known only as Ptolemy the Son, who appears alongside Ptolemy II in the dating formula between 268/7 and 259/8 BC. Through a consideration of the Mendes Stela and other sources, Ptolemy the Son is identified and the nature of his role in Ptolemy II’s dynastic strategy is clarified. The discussion concludes that the term ‘coregency’ does not reflect the nuances of power conveyed by the source material, and masks a deliberate differentiation of Ptolemy II’s ruling authority and pharaonic identity and Ptolemy the Son’s inferior, non-ruling status.

Keywords

Coregency, cultural interaction, Egypt, epigraphy, Hellenistic Period, kingship, Ptolemies

Corresponding author:Matthew L. Skuse, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, EH8 9AG, UK. Email: mskuse@ed.ac.uk

722457 EGA0010.1177/0307513317722457The Journal of Egyptian ArchaeologySkuseresearch-article2017

Article

1B. F. van Oppen de Ruiter, Berenice II Euergetis: Essays in Early Hellenistic Queenship (New York, 2015), 23; G. Hölbl, A History of the Ptolemaic Empire (London, 2001), 111–12.2W. Huß, ‘Ptolemaios der Sohn’, ZPE 121 (1998), 229–50; J. A. Tunny, ‘Ptolemy “the Son” Reconsidered: Are there too many Ptolemies?’, ZPE 131 (2000), 83–92.

3For the Mendes Stela (Cairo, CG 22181) see: D. Schäfer, Make-donische Pharaonen und hieroglyphische Stelen: historische Untersuchungen zur Satrapenstele und verwandten Denkmälern, (Studia Hellenistica 50, Leuven, 2011), 239–76; G. Roeder, Die Ägyptische Götterwelt (Zürich, 1959), 166–88.

the Son’s identity before introducing the Mendes Stela (Cairo, CG 22181), perhaps our most informative source for the period of the Son’s coregency. The Mendes Stela will be used in combination with other sources in order to address what sort of coregent the Son was, and what his part was in the wider dynastic strategy of Ptolemy II.3

Who was Ptolemy the Son?

In order to tackle the nature of the Ptolemy the Son’s core-gency, one must first address the difficult question of who the Son was, as his identity is relevant to the task of understanding and contextualising his role as coregent. However, very little is known for certain about Ptolemy the Son. The formula ‘King Ptolemy, son of Ptolemy, and his son Ptolemy’ first

ماثيو ل. سكيوزاالشتراك في الحكم خالل عهد بطلميوس الثاني: نتائج من لوحة منديس

كان بطلميوس الثاني، المعروف في المصادر المعاصرة لفترة حكمه ببطلميوس بن بطلميوس، ملكًا في الفترة من 284 حتى 246 قبل الميالد، إال أنه لم يكن الحاكم الوحيد لمدة 12 عامًا على األقل. في الفترة من 4/285 حتى 282 قبل الميالد كان مشاركًا في الحكم لوالده بطلميوس األول، وكذلك في الفترة من 7/268 حتى 8/259 عيَن األمير المعروف بإسم بطلميوس اإلبن كمشاركًا في الحكم. تقوم هذه المقالة، من خالل لوحة منديس، بدراسة طبيعة تلك المشاركة الطويلة في الحكم بين بطلميوس الثاني وبطلميوس

اإلبن، وكذلك الدور الذي لعبته تلك المشاركة في االستراتيجية العامة لتلك األسرة.

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4Huß, ZPE 121, 229; H. Cadell, ‘À quèlle date Arsinoé II Philadel-phe est-elle décédée?’, in H. Melaerts (ed.), Le culte du souverain dans l’Égypte ptolémaïque au IIIc siècle avant notre ère (Studia Hellenistica 34; Leuven 1998), 1–3. Arsinoë II had died in Year 15 (Cairo CG 22181, lines 11–12), note that the phrase ‘ascended to heaven’ means death not living deification, as also seen in an inscription relating to the transition of Thutmose II’s rule to Hat-shepsut, P. Dorman ‘The Early Reign of Thutmose III: An Unor-thodox Mantle of Coregency’, in E. H. Cline and D. O’Connor (eds), Thutmose III: A New Biography (Ann Arbor, 2006), 41. 5Huß, ZPE 121, 229–33. 6Huß, ZPE 121, 233. 7The mention of the revolt of a son of Ptolemy II in Miletus can be found in Prol. Trogus 26, and a Milesian inscription (Milet III 139) places the Son in Miletus on royal duties in 262 bc. Other events might help to date the rebellion if the full text of Trogus’ histories survived, but an exact date is far from clear from the surviving material. Antigonas’ campaigns at Megara and in the Peloponnese, and the death of Areus I of Sparta seem to put an upper date for the events in Prol. Trogus 26 at about 267 bc; however, the terminal date for events included in the same prologus is later than 259 bc, as these events include the deaths of Demetrius of Cyrene (250 bc) and Antiochus II (246 bc). The date of 259 bc is, therefore, set by the documents recording the end of the Son’s rule and on the assumption that the Son rebelled and was subsequently disinher-ited, rather than the other way around.

8Tunny, ZPE 131, 84. 9Tunny, ZPE 131, 89–90. This solution is also presented in D. Ogden, Polygamy, Prostitutes, and Death (London, 1999), 79.10W. Clarysse, ‘A Royal Journey in the Delta in 257 b.c. and the Date of the Mendes Stele’, CdE 82 (2007), 201–6. There is no other evidence to suggest that Ptolemy III was written into Ptole-maic propaganda as early as 257 bc. Further criticisms of this hypothesis will be dealt with later in the article.11There is evidence of damnatio memoriae in another Egyptian coregency. Hatshepsut’s coregency was eradicated by her coregent Thutmose III. However, the context for this action is certainly too complex to draw a comparison to the alleged destruction of the Son, and it can be noted that Hatshepsut’s proscription left a consid-erable trace, whereas the Son never seems to have received much monumental attention in the first place. D. O’Conner ‘An Enig-matic Pharaoh’, in Cline and O’Connor (eds), Thutmose III, 33–4.12Tunny, ZPE 131, 90, dates the Stela to 264 bc in her chronol-ogy, but it is certainly later, quite plausibly as late as 257 bc, as discussed later in the article.13Names of Ptolemy II’s mistresses can be found in Athenaeus (Deip-nosophistae 13.576e–f). Tunny, ZPE 131, 87, lists further names: FGrH 2B 234 F4; Pros. Ptol. 14713–19; 14726–29; 14732–33.14In favour of the Son being an illegitimate child of Ptolemy II: M. Domingo Gygax, ‘Zum Mitregenten des Ptolemaios II Philadelphos’, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 51.1 (2002), 49–56; R. A. Hazzard, Ptolemaic Coins: An Introduction for Collectors (Toronto, 1995), 30; J. Crampa, Labraunda, Swedish Excavations and Researches III: The Greek Inscriptions. Part I: 1–12 (Lund, 1969), 98–120. Against this theory: Huß, ZPE 121, 239; Tunny, ZPE 131, 86; K. Buraselis, Kronprinzentum und Realpolitik: Bemerkungen zur Thronanwartschaft, Mitregentschaft und Thronfolge unter den ersten vier Ptolemäern’, Gerión-Anejos 9 (2005), 97. For Ptolemy III on Ptolemy II’s consorts, see Athenaeus (Deipnosophistae 13.576e–f).

appears in Year 18 of Ptolemy II (P.Sorb 3.71, 268/67 bc), shortly after the death of Arsinoë II.4 Between 268/7 and 259/8 bc this formula appears 27 times in documents written in Greek, Hieroglyphs, or Demotic.5 The formula last appears in Year 26 of Ptolemy II (P. Rev., Col. 24, 260/59 bc), after which there are only scattered Greek inscriptions and later texts with which to understand the Son’s possible further movements and eventual fate.6 The introduction of the Son into the dating formula makes it clear that he was granted a recognised role alongside Ptolemy II in the leadership of the Ptolemaic king-dom, a role which scholarship has typically described as core-gency. It is also probable that the termination of this dating formula in 259 bc can be attributed to the Son’s rebellion against Ptolemy II in the same year.7 However, because of the limitations of our sources, all other details of the Son’s geneal-ogy and biography remain subject to scholarly debate.

Fortunately, there are only a handful of possible options for the identity of the Son, and some of these can be addressed quickly using the ancient sources and some common sense. One can start by rejecting the possibility that an extra son should be added to Ptolemy II’s marriage to either Arsinoë I or Arsinoë II and that this son can be labelled Ptolemy the Son. It is apparent that the Son was not a child born of the marriage of Ptolemy II and Arsinoë II. Both the Scholiast on Theocritus (17.128) and Pausanias (1.7.3) explicitly state that the mar-riage of Ptolemy II and Arsinoë II was childless. Furthermore, as Tunny highlights, Arsinoë II was likely to be near the end of her childbearing years by the time of their marriage and any such child would have been too young to be capable of carry-ing out the few duties that can securely be attributed to the Son.8 I also reject Tunny’s solution to the Son’s identity, which is to add another son of Arsinoë I and Ptolemy II to the list given by the Scholiast on Theocritus (17.128) in order that this child can be identified as Ptolemy the Son.9 Tunny’s notion that this additional son went unrecorded by the Scholiast on Theocritus and elsewhere because he suffered damnatio

memoriae would appear to be contradicted by the survival of the account of the Son’s rebellion (Prol. Trogus 26) and the survival of the Mendes Stela, on which the Son’s actions are recalled. Admittedly, it is possible that the Mendes Stela may have been recut or its design edited so that the figure on the lunette commonly identified as Ptolemy the Son was made to represent Ptolemy II, and it is even possible, though rather unlikely, that the text of the Stela was edited to refer to Ptolemy III.10 However, neither of these actions are necessarily repre-sentative of damnatio memoriae.11 As will be seen later, the Mendes Stela may still have been under production at the time of Ptolemy the Son’s rebellion, therefore if any editing did occur, one could point out that editing a current project is not equivalent to eradicating the memory of a decade-long core-gency and the existence of the coregent.12 Moreover, the crea-tion of another son of Ptolemy II and Arsinoë I, for whom there is no corroborating evidence, is a deus ex machina solu-tion to a problem for which other, equally viable and better-evidenced, answers can be proposed.

Ptolemy the Son was probably not an otherwise unknown child of Ptolemy II by either of his royal wives, and it is also highly unlikely that Ptolemy the Son was a bastard son of Ptolemy II and one of his numerous mistresses.13 Although it has been argued that Ptolemy II had the impetuous nature to have adopted an illegitimate son, and both Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III promoted the image of certain consorts, it would make very little sense for Ptolemy II to complicate succes-sion and destabilise his own reign by legitimising further male children with a claim to the throne.14 This is especially true when one considers that in the early 260s bc Ptolemy II

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C. 16376’, BIFAO 103 [2003], 281–9) relates to the exile of Ars-inoë I to Coptos are both currently best summarised by C. Bennet on the Ptolemaic Dynasty pages for Ptolemy III <http://www.tyn-dalehouse.com/egypt/ptolemies/andromachou_fr.htm> accessed 15 January 2016, and Arsinoë I <http://www.tyndalehouse.com/egypt/ptolemies/Arsinoë_i.htm#Arsinoë.i.8> accessed 15 January 2016.21Schol. Theocritus 17.128. Huß, ZPE 121, 243, points to Ptolemy II’s resolution of quarrels with Magas and Ceraunus as examples of his ability to reconcile with those who wronged him in the past.22Buraselis, Gerión-Anejos 9, 99.23The argument is presented in detail at <http://www.ptolemaic.net/two-eagles/4summary.htm>, accessed 12 January 2016. That this argument has not found publication in a peer-reviewed journal diminishes its authority. The Svoronos coins bearing the double-eagle during Ptolemy II’s reign include nos: 422 (270 bc), 431 (269 bc), 437 (267 bc), 447 (266 bc), 457 (265 bc), 463 (263 bc), 464 (263 bc), 472 (262 bc), 479 (260 bc), 497 (254 bc), 504 (252 bc), 514 (249 bc), 758 (247 bc), 788 (246 bc), J. Svoronos, Ta Nomismata tou Kratous ton Ptolemaion (Athens, 1904).

15This is well evidenced in sources such as the Mendes Stela and the Pithom Stela (Cairo, CG 22183, C. Thiers, Ptolémée Philadel-phe et les prêtres d’Atoum de Tjékou [Monpellier, 2007], 13–81, 167–77).16Huß, ZPE 121, 236; Tunny, ZPE 131, 84–6.17Hölbl, Ptolemaic Empire, 365; Buraselis, Gerión-Anejos 9, 95–9.18Buraselis, Gerión-Anejos 9, 97–8, deems Ptolemy Lysimachou and other alternatives to be entirely unsuitable heirs. For the extent of tolerance of kings for the indiscretions of their heirs, one can highlight the troubled relationship of Philip and Alexander, as dis-cussed in E. Fredricksmeyer ‘Alexander and Philip: Emulation and Resentment’, The Classical Journal 85 (1990) 301–3; L. Mitchell ‘Born to Rule?’, in W. Heckel, L. Tritle, and P. Wheatley (eds), Alexander’s Empire: Formulation to Decay (Claremont, 2007) 61–74; E. Carney ‘Philippeum, Women, and Dynastic Image’, in Heckel, Tritle and Wheatley (eds), Alexander’s Empire, 27–60.19Schol. Theocritus 17.128.20The arguments that IG XII, 3 464, provides evidence that Ptolemy III was raised on Thera and that a stela from Coptos (Cairo, CG 70031, W. Petrie, Koptos [London, 1896], 19–21, pl. 20; I. Guer-meur, ‘Glanures § 1 – La statue d’Esnou[n] Caire CG 70031 + RT 31/3/64/1, § 2 – Le gnomon au nom d’Esnou[n] Petrie Museum U.

can be seen to have been reinforcing the dynastic identity and royal cult of the Ptolemies around his marriage to Arsinoë II and the legitimacy offered by their full-blood relation to the previous rulers.15 This leaves us with two main options as to the identity of the Son: he was either a young Ptolemy III Euergetes, son of Ptolemy II and Arsinoë I; or he was Ptolemy Lysimachou, the son of Arsinoë II and Lysimachus.

That Ptolemy the Son was the would-be Ptolemy III Euergetes is rejected in brief evaluations by both Tunny and Huß, who find it unlikely that Ptolemy the Son could achieve the sort of reconciliation with Ptolemy II which would enable him to return to rule in Egypt following the rebellion of 259 bc. They emphasise that there is no evi-dence to suggest that Euergetes ever associated himself with the coregency, for example by dating his reign to 267 bc.16 Nonetheless, the association of Euergetes, probably the old-est biological son of Ptolemy II, with the Son has been sup-ported in other scholarship, and does deserve fuller consideration than that given by Tunny and Huß.17 Certainly, it would be understandable if Ptolemy II had manoeuvred a younger, less threatening, son of his own blood into an early coregency in an effort to control the process of succession and provide stability to his own reign, reacting to the threat posed by the adult Ptolemy Lysimachou. It is not entirely unreasonable to suppose that a son who conspired against Ptolemy II might be able to later return to the court in the right conditions, for example if Ptolemy II were unable to find another suitable heir.18 It can also be highlighted that when Euergetes took up his claim to the throne in 246 bc he must have had already recovered from being associated with at least one other disgrace – the alleged plot of Arsinoë I in the early years of Ptolemy II’s reign.19 If Euergetes spent some of his childhood and adolescence on Thera, as sources might indicate, then it can be read that he was deemed a threat to his father, and was to be kept far away from his mother, Arsinoë I, who was exiled in Coptos.20 Whether he made his way back to court before the death of

Arsinoë II and was one of the children of Ptolemy II that she adopted, or whether he arrived later, it is likely that Euergetes was removed from and reintroduced to the royal court at least once; the relatively merciful treatment of Arsinoë I chimes with other instances of clemency from Ptolemy II to create the image of a king somewhat magnanimous to his own relatives.21 This being so, if Ptolemy III had been able to come back to the court from one plot, is it possible that he could also have returned from the rebellion of 259 bc? Buraselis suggests that reconciliation would be possible, and that although the trauma of the rebellion prevented the formal backdating of Ptolemy III’s reign to 267 bc, ulti-mately “die Narben wurden sorgfältig weg geschminkt”.22 However, not much evidence exists to support this conclu-sion. Because of his age at the time, perhaps 10 years old at most, the nature of Euergetes’ involvement in Arsinoë I’s plot would have been passive and thus very different from the active role the Son played in the rebellion of 259 bc, which stripped Ptolemy II of one of his important Aegean allies, Miletus. It is also stated (Schol. Theocritus 17.128) that other actors in Arsinoë I’s plot were executed. Perhaps the only way to imagine that a full reconciliation could have occurred after the rebellion of 259 bc would be if Ptolemy II had pushed the Son out of the coregency, sparking the Son’s rebellion, and thereafter attempted to bring him back to sta-bilise the kingdom during the Second Syrian War. However, there is no firm evidence to suggest that Ptolemy III was recognised in the court at any point in the period between 257 bc and his ascension in 246 bc. It has been suggested that coins bearing the double-eagle indicate periods of core-gency, and indeed there is a run of coins minted from 270 to 260 bc, and reoccurring from 254 to 246 bc, which does use the double-eagle motif (270 bc being the date giving in Callimachus’ Suda for the beginning of Ptolemy III’s reign).23 Nonetheless, the absence of the Son/Ptolemy III in the dating formula following 259 bc provides a much stronger indication to the contrary, that there was no for-mally recognised coregent in this period. The lack of a core-gency between Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III could indicate a number of things, including that Ptolemy II had grown wary

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28Roeder, Ägyptische Götterwelt, 185; Huß, ZPE 149, 232; Clar-ysse, CdE 82, 201–6.29The Mendes Stela’s reference to the son Ptolemy II begat is an exact parallel of the phrasing found in a succession text of Hat-shepsut, suggesting it might be a formulaic element rather than something specific to this situation. See Dorman, in Cline and O’Connor (eds), Thutmose III, 41.30E. Carney, Arsinoë of Egypt and Macedon: A Royal Life (Oxford, 2013), 59–61.31Huß, ZPE 121, 229–50.32Carney, Arsinoë, 31–48.33It is certain that Lysimachou was a Ptolemaic representative until at least 240 bc, as he is honoured by Ptolemy III for good service in the period since Ptolemy II gave him the city (OGIS 55), R. S. Bagnall, The Administration of Ptolemaic Possessions Outside Egypt (Leiden, 1976), 106–7.34Tunny, ZPE 131, 87.35R. A. Hazzard, Imagination of a Monarchy: Studies in Ptolemaic Propaganda (Toronto, 2000), 3–4; Bagnall, Ptolemaic Possessions, 106–7.

24Though I would maintain that this proposal, that Ptolemy III is Ptolemy the Son, is still more reasonable than the invention of another son.25Domingo Gygax, Historia 51, 49–56, commenting on Cairo, CG 22181, line 19.26Although the Ptolemies altered cults and cult locations associated with the passage of the pharaonic Ka, unlike Alexander, they con-tinued to respect these traditions as noted with several examples in: M. Minas-Nerpel, ‘Koregentschaft und Thronfolge: Legitima-tion ptolemäischer Machtstrukturen in den ägyptischen Tempeln der Ptolemäerzeit’, in F. Hoffmann and K. S. Schmidt (eds), Orient und Okzident in hellenistischer Zeit: Beiträge zur Tagung ‘Orient und Okzident – Antagonismus oder Konstrukt? Machtstrukturen, Ideologien und Kulturtransfer in hellenistischer Zeit’, Würzburg 10.–13. April 2008 (Vaterstetten, 2014), 143–66.27Schol. Theocritus 17.128; W. Huß, ‘Noch einmal: Ptolemaios der Sohn’, ZPE 149 (2004), 232; van Oppen de Ruiter, Berenice II, 23; P. Clère, ‘La porte d’Évergète à Karnak, 2e partie’, MIFAO 84 (Cairo, 1961); M. Minas-Nerpel, ‘Arsinoe II. und Berenike II.: frühptolemäische Königinnen im Spannungsfeld zweier Kul-turen’, in M. Eldamaty, F. Hoffmann, and M. Minas-Nerpel (eds), Ägyptische Königinnen vom Neuen Reich bis in die islamische Zeit: Beiträge zur Konferenz in der Kulturabteilung der Botschaft der Arabischen Republik Ägypten in Berlin am 19.01.2013 (Vater-stetten, 2015), 87–113.

of the title, that Ptolemy III was Ptolemy the Son and had already abused the role, or that the benefits attached to for-mal recognition of Ptolemy the Son were not also attached to the formal recognition of Ptolemy III. Overall, that the Son was Ptolemy III Euergetes remains a possibility, but the idea of a reconciliation leading to the eventual ascension of the Son as Ptolemy III is ill supported, and a rebellion of Ptolemy III in 257 bc seems especially difficult to rationalise.24

The final plausible suggestion for the identity of the Son is that he is Ptolemy Lysimachou, son of Arsinoë II and Lysimachus of Thrace. This might initially seem impossi-ble; the dating formula that provides the dates for the Son’s coregency explicitly states that Ptolemy the Son is the son of Ptolemy II, and M. Domingo Gygax argues that this claim is clearly reiterated on the Mendes Stela.25 However, it should be noted that actual biological bonds can be less important than the ideologically unified ruling family, tak-ing up the mantle of their pharaonic predecessors, in creat-ing and reinforcing the legitimacy of the king.26 Arsinoë II and Ptolemy adopted one another’s children as their own, and in continuing the dynastic image established by their predecessors’ ruler-cult, Ptolemy III and Berenice II ‘adopted’ Ptolemy II and Arsinoë II as their parents (as seen on the ‘Euergetes-gate’ at Karnak) despite neither being a child of Arsinoë II.27 Once created, these genea-logical relationships were, for the purposes of self-promot-ing representations such as the Mendes Stela, real. Secondly, the Mendes Stela might not be stating, or have originally stated, that Ptolemy the Son was the biological child of Ptolemy II. Roeder and Huß have both presented some ambiguity over whether the phrase should be related to a man or to a god. Clarysse also emphasises that the phrase is an indication of biological paternity, and suggests that the entire phrase was actually an addition intended to

remove the Son from the Stela in favour of Ptolemy III.28 However, Clarysse’s argument would appear to be entirely thwarted by the appearance of the same sort of turn of phrase in previous documents relating to succession, sug-gesting that the Stela’s inclusion of a line emphasising Ptolemy II’s biological relationship with Ptolemy the Son is a formulaic feature rather than a last-minute edit.29 There is, therefore, no reason why the sources should stop us from considering the notion that Ptolemy Lysimachou might have been Ptolemy the Son.

Ptolemy Lysimachou, the son of Arsinoë II and Lysimachus, king of Thrace and Macedon, was the only son of Arsinoë II to survive her brief and disastrous mar-riage to Ceraunus, the older half-brother of Ptolemy II who betrayed her and murdered her two younger sons (Justin 24.2.2-5).30 Huß argues that when Arsinoë II sought refuge in Egypt, Ptolemy Lysimachou went with her and became Ptolemy II’s coregent after her death.31 Ptolemy Lysimachou, an adult male with a good deal of experience of the royal court of Lysimachus, was certainly in a posi-tion to adopt such a role.32 Huß also proposes that follow-ing the failed rebellion of 259 bc, the Son went to Telmessos, where he ruled under the name Ptolemy Lysimachou, but as a Ptolemaic representative.33 Tunny objects to this sugges-tion on two counts: first, if Ptolemy Lysimachou is identi-fied with the Ptolemy ruling at Telmessos, then Ptolemy Lysimachou can be removed from the picture of Egyptian succession by showing that during the period of coregency he operated elsewhere. Second, that it is unlikely that there would have been a reconciliation between Ptolemy II and Ptolemy the Son which would have facilitated the Son’s operating as a Ptolemaic representative in Telmessos.34 The first of these criticisms does not account for the dating of key sources. The first extant instance of Ptolemy Lysimachou in Telmessos is dated to the third decade of Ptolemy II’s reign, and the inclusion of Ptolemy I’s title Soter, introduced by Ptolemy II in or shortly after 262 bc, places the inscription between 262 and 256 bc.35 This dat-ing allows us to map out a career for Ptolemy Lysimachou, beginning with the coregency in Egypt, followed by an

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39K. Buraselis, Das Hellenistische Makedonien und die Ägäis: Forschungen zur Politik des Kassandros und der drei ersten Antigoniden im Ägäischen Meer und in Westkleinasien (Munich, 1982), 129–33, highlights the priesthood of Alexander and the theoi adelphoi occupied by an Andromachou in 251 (P. Cair. Zen. II 59289; P. dem. Zen. 6B), and the military role of Andromachou under Ptolemy III (P. Haun. 6).40D. Ogden, ‘Bilistiche and the Prominence of Courtesans’, in P. R. McKechnie and P. Guillaume (eds), Ptolemy II Philadelphus and his World (Leiden, 2008), 353–87.41H. Bengston, Die Inschriften von Labraunda und die Politik des Antigonos Doson (Munich, 1971), 17.42M. Domingo Gygax, ‘Ptolemaios, Bruder des Königs Ptolemaios III. Euergetes, und Mylasa: Bemerkungen zu I. Labraunda Nr. 3’, Chiron 30 (2000), 353, argues compellingly that the letter refers to Ptolemy Lysimachou, while Tunny, ZPE 131, 87, assumes it to be a reference to Andromachou.

36Tunny, ZPE 131, 87.37Huss, ZPE 121, 247–8.38Tunny, ZPE 131, 87–8.

unsuccessful revolt in 259 bc and thereafter a consolidation of power in Telmessos at some point between 259 and 256 bc, where he continued to act as a semi-independent repre-sentative of Ptolemy II and III, but identified in his coinage with his biological father, Lysimachus.36 Admittedly, this version of events requires an extremely rapid settlement between Ptolemy II and Ptolemy the Son following events in Miletus. However, I would emphasise that this was a set-tlement rather than a reconciliation. Tunny may be correct in stating that Ptolemy II would not have reconciled him-self with a rebellious coregent, but if the Son was Ptolemy Lysimachou then he was not fully reconciled and did not return to Egypt to retake a royal role; instead, he occupied a semi-autonomous territory near the fringes of Ptolemaic power and never returned to Egypt. Against the backdrop of the Second Syrian War, which proved exceptionally challenging for Ptolemy II, it seems perfectly plausible that the failed rebel and the warring king could have come to some kind of agreement recognising the de-facto, but lim-ited, ability of the Son to exercise power in the Aegean, while continuing Ptolemaic claims there. For the Son’s part, maintaining an association with the Ptolemaic dynasty would have been a recognition of his minor abilities to muster military force, and might have been useful to avoid being crushed by one of the major powers. Furthermore, that Ptolemy the Son would, in this case, revert to being Ptolemy Lysimachou is not all that surprising. Telmessos sat among Lysimachus’ old possessions, and with no hope of regaining priority in the competition for Ptolemaic suc-cession, Ptolemy Lysimachou might have been best served by his biological patronym. This account appears to pro-vide a sensible argument for the Son’s identity and what happened to him after his rebellion in 259 bc, and in doing so provides the most rounded solution to the problem of the Son’s identity.

It is worth mentioning, before concluding the discussion of the Son’s identity, that Huß attempts to incorporate a number of other scattered references to three more Ptolemies – the Ephesian Ptolemy, Ptolemy Andromachou, and Ptolemy ‘the brother’ – into the biography of Ptolemy Lysimachou, thereby providing details for his later life and death.37 However, in general these additions of unnamed or differently named Ptolemies seem awkward and unneces-sary. The Ptolemy, son of King Ptolemy (υἱὸς ὢν Φιλαδέλφου βασιλέως), who, according to Athenaeus (13.593a-b) died at Ephesus at the hands of mercenaries, might have been a son of Ptolemy II, but it seems unlikely that he was Ptolemy the Son/Ptolemy Lysimachou. Huß and Tunny both high-light that the very same fate, murdered by mercenaries at Ephesus, is attributed in a papyrus fragment (P. Haun. 6) to a Ptolemy ‘so-called’ (epiklēsin). As for Andromachou, while Huß believes that this is a later name for Lysimachou, Tunny’s argument that he may have been an illegitimate son of Ptolemy II by his consort Bilistiche, is more convinc-ing.38 There is a reference to an Andromachou occupying a

priestly position during the later years of the reign of Ptolemy II, where Andromachou appears in association with the name Bilistiche, and an Andromachou can also be found occupying a military position during the reign of Euergetes III.39 It would be quite in character for Ptolemy II to have kept the children of consorts, especially of Bilistiche, in well-regarded positions, having honoured the consorts themselves.40 If the Ephesian Ptolemy and Ptolemy Andromachou are one and the same person, only one more Ptolemy remains, the ‘brother of Ptolemy the king’ (Ptolemy III Euergetes), who is mentioned in a letter of a Carian dynast dated to the 240s bc (iLabraunda 3).41 This character could be either Ptolemy Andromachou or Ptolemy Lysimachou. Considering that the letter dates to the Third Syrian War and discusses Ephesus, where Ptolemy Andromachou died, and was written in Caria, near Ptolemy Lysimachou’s territory of Telmessos, either option is plausi-ble.42 However, whether or not the actions of Ptolemy Andromachou are attached to the biography of Ptolemy Lysimachou has very little impact upon on the conclusions of this article, and at present there is no compelling cause to associate the two figures.

This discussion has assessed the range of possible identi-ties of Ptolemy the Son and found that two, Ptolemy III and Ptolemy Lysimachou, emerge as forerunners. Of these, the latter is most likely and will be assumed to be the correct identification when considering further questions about the Son and his coregency. The matter of establishing a geneal-ogy and biography for the Son has dominated scholarship about him, most of which has sought to place the Son within the intrigues of court and the broader picture of Mediterranean politics leading up to the Second Syrian war. Despite numerous articles on the identity of the Son, almost no attention has been centred on the actual nature of the Son’s coregency. As such, many questions remain unasked, let alone answered, not least (1) was Ptolemy the Son a king, like other Egyptian coregents? (2) Was the Son capa-ble of acting on his own authority and what kind of author-ity did he hold? (3) Was the nature of the Son’s coregency stable or did it change over time? (4) Why did Ptolemy II take Ptolemy the Son as coregent so early in his own reign? (5) How does the coregency of Ptolemy the Son fit into the context of Ptolemy II’s wider use of coregency and dynastic

6 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 00(0)

which the Son and Ptolemy II should be expected to have visited Mendes together was when Arsinoë II was still alive and likely not yet even married to Ptolemy II (see the discussion later in this article of the dating of the Stela). The scene is, therefore, evidently a fiction attached to no specific instance of ritual. Its function as a representation of royal unity is not undermined by the seemingly contradictory nature of Arsinoë II’s double appearance, whereas replacing her with a priestess in full royal iconography would be both unnecessary and possibly to the detriment of the composition of the royal side of the Stela.47As accepted in: Roeder, Ägyptische Götterwelt, 173; Huß, ZPE 121, ZPE 149; Tunny, ZPE 131; Clarysse, CdE 82 (though arguing for later editing); Hölbl, Ptolemaic Empire, 84; J. Quack, ‘Inno-vations in Ancient Garb?’, in P. R. McKechnie and P. Guillaume (eds), Ptolemy II Philadelphus and His World (Leiden, 2008), 279–80; M. Nilsson, The Crown of Arsinoe II (Exeter, 2012), 155–7; Schäfer, Makedonische Pharaonen, 239–76.48Schäfer, Makedonische Pharaonen, 239–41.49The deity group of Hatmehit, the anthropomorphised Ram, and Harpocrates appears conventional, and is also found on a Third Intermediate Period stela in the Brooklyn Museum: ‘Donation Stela with a Curse, year 22 of Shoshenq III, ca. 804 B.C.E. Lime-stone, 20½ x 12¾ x 2½ in., 41 lb. (52.1 x 32.4 x 6.4 cm, 18.6 kg)’ Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 67.118.50These labels are detailed most recently in Schäfer, Makedonische Pharaonen, 239–76.

43It is worth noting that questions about the nature and function of coregency are not restricted to the Ptolemies, and the number and nature of coregencies in pre-Ptolemaic Egypt is subject to ongoing debate. M. Van De Mieroop, A History of Ancient Egypt (Chich-ester, 2011), 124; W. Murnane, Ancient Egyptian Coregencies (SAOC 40, Chicago, 1977).44Roeder, Ägyptische Götterwelt, 168–70.45The matter of Arsinoë II’s deification cannot be discussed in detail in this article. Nonetheless, it can be stressed that the Mendes Stela gives an explicit chronology to the marriage, death, and dei-fication of Arsinoë II, which is all too often ignored in discussions of the sibling marriage and the creation of Arsinoë II’s cult.46That the figure is a priestess, as opposed to Arsinoë II, is presented in: M. Minas, ‘Die κανηφόρος: Aspekte des ptolemäischen Dynas-tiekults’, in Melaerts (ed.), Le culte du souverain dans l’Égypte, 43–60; and adopted by Schäfer, Makedonische Pharaonen, 246. I do not adopt Minas’ conclusion that the female figure on the left of the scene is a priestess. I accept Minas and Schäfer’s reading of the inscription accompanying the figure as ‘Eine Ährer (?) der Göttin darbringen, die ihren Bruder liebt, geliebt vom Bock, Gebieterin der beiden Länder [Arsinoe]’, indicating that the female figure bears offerings. However, while this inscription seems exceptional in indicating that Arsinoë II presents offerings to her deceased and deified self, I would not agree that we should conclude that the Mendes Stela’s scene included a priestess dressed in the royal crown of Arsinoë II. The scene on the Stela is an idealised repre-sentation of the dynastic unity of Ptolemy II, the Son, and Arsinoë II, which is not bound to a particular instance of ritual activity. There is no occasion on which Ptolemy II, a priestess, and Ptolemy the Son would all be at Mendes together, and the only period in

strategy? The remainder of this article will seek to address these questions.43

The Mendes Stela

In order to answer questions about the nature of the Son’s coregency a different sort of source to those which domi-nate most of the discussion concerning the Son’s identity is needed, one which can tell us more about his activities in Egypt in the period leading up to the rebellion of 259 bc. At present, the only source suitable for this task is the Mendes Stela, a limestone slab, found at Mendes, which stands 1.47 m tall at the peak of its curved top, and is decorated and inscribed on one side.44 This Stela is crucial to the study of Ptolemy II’s dynastic strategy, and in particular its represen-tation to the Egyptian elite, as it is not only the single source that explicitly provides information on activities of Ptolemy the Son within Egypt but also gives a a sequence for Ars-inoë II’s marriage, death, and deification.45 As the Stela will form the basis of my observations as to the nature of the Son’s coregency, a short digression to address the content and dating of the Stela is necessary.

The lunette

The Stela’s upper portion depicts an offering scene, crowned by the curving wings of a central sun from which hang anguine embodiments of Ptolemy II’s rule over Upper and Lower Egypt. The left-hand side of the offering scene depicts, from centre: Ptolemy II, Arsinoë II or a priestess fulfilling her role,46 and a third figure widely accepted to be

the heir-apparent known as Ptolemy the Son.47 All three fig-ures are dressed in different sorts of Egyptian royal attire and are of equal stature, though Ptolemy II’s double-crown is taller than the khepresh (“blaue Krone”) or cap crown worn by Ptolemy the Son.48 The three royals bear offerings and utter prayers for the deities occupying the right-hand side of the scene, from the centre: the Mendes Ram, Harpo-crates, the anthropomorphised form of the previous Mendes Ram, the local goddess Hatmehit, and the deified Arsinoë II.49 The Mendes Ram and Harpocrates appear on pedestals, while the latter three figures are all of the same stature as each other and the royals opposite, albeit with the anthropo-morphised Mendes Ram having the tallest crown. The scene is annotated with descriptions of the characters, the prayers of the royal family, and the responses of the deities, all in hieroglyphs. In terms of the script and iconography used, if not in how they are used, the Stela is entirely Egyptian.50

The inscription

The inscription below this scene is dedicated to recalling a series of events relevant to the Mendes temple occurring through roughly two decades of Ptolemy II’s rule. In the first portion of the Stela, Ptolemy II is given full royal titles and his first visit to Mendes for the selection of a new Mendes Ram is described. While in Mendes, Ptolemy also orders construction work on the temple of the Ram to repair damage caused by the Persians, reaffirming his role as the figurehead and protector of Egyptian religion. The inscrip-tion then recalls events at Alexandria, Ptolemy II’s marriage to Arsinoë II, her death in Year 15 (271/270 bc), and her subsequent deification at Mendes and across Egypt. The focus then moves back to Mendes and the surrounding region, where Ptolemy founded a new troop of native sol-diers, significantly relaxed taxation for the Mendes temple,

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56S. Pfeiffer, Herrscher- und Dynastiekulte im Ptolemäerreich: Systematik und Einordnung der Kultformen (MBPR 98, München, 2008), Fig. 3.

51This contrasts the Pithom Stela, on which there is an account of Ptolemy travelling and consulting with his sister-wife. Cairo CG 22183; Nilsson, Arsinoë II, 160.52Cairo, CG 22181, line 22. Roeder, Ägyptische Götterwelt, 185.53See footnote 7, on the questionable accuracy of this dating.54Clarysse, CdE 82, 201–6.55Clarysse, CdE 82, 203–2.

and had a canal dug out to the East of the Delta (lines 14–19). There is no date for these actions, but it can be assumed that they took place between Year 15 and Year 21 of his reign (271/270–264 bc). Until this point in the inscription Ptolemy II has been the only active (mortal) agent in the actions described, even during his marriage to Arsinoë II.51 However, after the completion of the aforementioned con-struction work on the Mendes temple in 264 bc, the inscrip-tion tells us that the inauguration is not carried out by Ptolemy II. Instead, Ptolemy orders Ptolemy the Son to offi-ciate at the inauguration and the accompanying festival. After this, there is a break of uncertain length before the selection and institution of another royal ram, which seems to be a repeat of the process early in Ptolemy II’s reign and marks his first visit to Mendes since the previous institution of a new Ram. There is no mention of the Son in Ptolemy II’s second trip to Mendes. The date for these later events is lost in a lacuna, but they may be the occasion for the erec-tion of the Stela, as they are followed by the closing prayer which marks the end of the inscription.

Dating the Stela

The events given in the Stela’s inscription provide a rough idea for the date of its erection. Working on the assumption that the entire inscription was executed on a single occa-sion, it can be concluded that it must have been commis-sioned at least one year after 264 bc, as part of a dating formula including a year survives in the line after the con-clusion of Ptolemy the Son’s visit to Mendes in 264 bc.52 On account of the appearance of Ptolemy the Son on the Stela, it has also been assumed that it was at least commissioned, if not erected, before the Son’s rebellion against Ptolemy II, which is typically attributed to 260/259 bc.53 Accordingly, the Stela is typically dated as 264–259 bc. However, this date has been challenged by Clarysse, who sets out a con-vincing argument for re-dating the erection of the Stela to 257 bc, using the dockets that Zenon, secretary to the dioiketes Apollonios, wrote on his correspondence.54

Clarysse’s key argument is that the Mendes Stela would have been erected on the rare occasion of a royal visit to Mendes. The Zenon dockets inform us that Apollonios, Zenon and, most likely, Ptolemy II were in Mendes in April 257 bc, on dates corresponding to those that the Mendes Stela tells us belong to the festival of the Mendes Ram.55 As there is only one recorded instance of Ptolemy II visiting Mendes prior to 257 bc, in 280 bc, and the Stela states that Ptolemy the Son visited in 265/64 bc, Clarysse argues that it is reason-able to suppose that Ptolemy II visited Mendes to commemo-rate the festival of the Mendes Ram only twice, once in 280 bc and again in 257 bc. This, according to Clarysse, is more likely than Ptolemy II visiting three times, in 280 bc, between

264 and 257 bc to institute a new Ram, and then again in 257 bc when the Zenon dockets tell us he was there. Dating the erection of the Stela to 257 bc does, however, mean that the Stela depicting Ptolemy the Son would have been set up after the accepted year of his rebellion against Ptolemy II. Clarysse suggests that the stone was recut for the event, removing obvious allusions to the Son in favour of Ptolemy III, though objections to this have been raised earlier in this article, including that the phrasing around the Son is formulaic, and that it seems unlikely that Ptolemy III would appear on this stone and then vanish until late in Ptolemy II’s reign. If the stone was edited then the craftsmen had two years between the rebellion and the supposed occasion of the Stela’s presen-tation to edit it, so why would they leave the Son present at all? Considering that the Stela was not more heavily edited in this period, it seems more likely that the Son’s presence on the Stela was not a problem. This could be the case if an agreement with the Son and his appointment in Telmessos had neutralised him as a threat to the reality or ideology of Ptolemy II’s kingship, and thereby mitigated the need to remove him from events in Mendes, or at least made the pres-ervation of the valuable façade of dynastic unity possible without farce or embarrassment. Alternatively, the Son’s presence on the Stela might have gone unnoticed, if the Stela was not erected on the occasion of a visit by Ptolemy II, and/or it was in use by 259 bc, or if it was abandoned and never officially erected in the first place.

In the discussion that follows, I work from the basis that the Mendes Stela was not edited, that the figure in the offer-ing scene generally held to be Ptolemy the Son is indeed him, and that the text also relates the actions of the Ptolemy the Son. If the Stela was edited mid-production to expunge the Son in place of another heir of Ptolemy II or Ptolemy II him-self, then it can be noted that the actions relayed in the inscrip-tion are likely still those taken by the Son and that the pictorial representation was initially supposed to be of the Son, thus many points in the following discussion may still stand.

What sort of coregent was Ptolemy the Son?

Having outlined some of the key details of the Mendes Stela, and some of the difficulties using it as a source, let us return to the first three questions I asked about the nature of the coregency of Ptolemy the Son: (1) was Ptolemy the Son a king, like other Egyptian coregents? (2) Was the Son capa-ble of acting on his own authority and what nature of author-ity did he hold? (3) Was the nature of the Son’s coregency stable or did it change over time?

At first, the depiction of Ptolemy the Son on the Mendes Stela appears to support the consensus that he was coregent to Ptolemy II. We can compare, for example, the Son’s depiction on the Mendes Stela favourably with the repre-sentation of Ramesses II as heir-apparent to his father Sethos I on the Abydos King List.56 Both Ramesses II and

8 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 00(0)

62Minas-Nerpel, in Hoffmann and Schmidt (eds), Orient und Okzi-dent in hellenistischer Zeit, 143–66; M. Minas-Nerpel, ‘Cleopatra II and III: The Queens of Ptolemy VI and VIII as Guarantors of Kingship and Rivals for Power’, in A. Jördens and J. Friedrich Quack (eds), Ägypten zwischen innerem Zwist und äußerem Druck: Die Zeit Ptolemaios’ VI. bis VIII. Internationales Symposion Hei-delberg 16.–19.9.2007 (Wiesbaden, 2011), 62–3, 75, Fig. 5.63The triangular piece is even appropriate for an heir apparent – see pl. 78, ‘Relief of Seti 1 from the Gallery of the Kings at Abydos. The future Ramesses II is depicted as prince and heir apparent. On his sash is a pendant with his cartouches. He is entitled “heir appar-ent, and king’s eldest bodily son Ramessu.” PM VI. 25 (229)’ in Brand, Seti I, 535; E. Vassilika, Ptolemaic Philae (Leuven, 1989), 95–6; Hölbl, Ptolemaic Empire, Fig. 3.5, 102.64S. Collier, ‘The Khepresh Crown of Pharaoh’, Ufahamu 21 (1993), 137–55.65G. T. Martin and S. J. Clackson, Stelae from Egypt and Nubia in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, C.3000 bc–ad 1150 (Cam-bridge, 2005), 17.66Murnane, Coregency, 243–4. For non-Ptolemaic examples of the non-triangular shendyt and the khepresh see, for example the depiction of Amenhotep II at Karnak, as pictured by the Centro di Egittologia Francesco Ballerini, <http://www.cefb.it/immagini/amenhotep/karnak.jpg>, accessed 3 January 2016.67Examples are found among the carvings of Philae temple, but also on stelae including the Pithom Stela, the lesser Mendes Stela and others. See Nilsson, Arsinoë II, 155–9, 166–8, 171–5, 196–9.68Tunny, ZPE 131, 84.69Collier, Ufahamu, 150–1.

57Roeder, Ägyptische Götterwelt, 173.58Roeder, Ägyptische Götterwelt, 173.59P. Brand, The Monuments of Seti I and their Historical Signifi-cance: Epigraphic, Art Historical, and Historical Analysis (PhD thesis, University of Toronto; Toronto, 1998); Murnane, Core-gency; K. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II (Warminster, 1982), 27–30.60Murnane, Coregency, 243, 257; Brand, Seti I, 370.61Hölbl, Ptolemaic Empire, Fig. 9.7, 269; P. du Bourguet, ‘Le tem-ple de Deir al-Médîna’, MIFAO 121 (Cairo, 2002), nos 100, 103.

Ptolemy the Son are shown as heirs to the throne, appearing alongside their ruling fathers. However, despite being repre-sented as the chosen heir to the throne and despite his wider association of his rule with his father’s, Ramesses II is still depicted as small and adolescent, he only reaches the height of his father’s shoulder and wears his hair in a side-lock, indicating that he is neither a king nor an adult. Ptolemy the Son, in contrast, appears with a crown on the Mendes Stela and is depicted at equal height to Ptolemy II and Arsinoë II, indicative of his high, if not equal, status. While one could attribute this to Ramesses II having been an adolescent heir-apparent and Ptolemy the Son an adult, other child rulers in Egypt represent themselves as pharaohs, and Ramesses’ choice not to be depicted as a pharaoh on the King List at Abydos is not accidental. Just as significant is the attribu-tion of Ptolemy II’s royal titles to Ptolemy the Son in the annotation of his image. Ptolemy the Son is described, just like Ptolemy II, as “Der König von Ober- und Unterägypten, Herr der beiden Länder (Geliebt von Re, stark ist der Ka des Amun)|, Sohn des Re Herr der Kronen (Ptolemaios)|”, fix-ing his importance in the royal family and ruler cult.57 He also utters a prayer to Osiris, which puts him in the role of Horus, the divine equivalent to the pharaoh – ‘I unite you with your limbs, and join your body together in the Tenenet chapel’.58 There is ample evidence that Ramesses II, and other Egyptian heirs, had previously adopted lesser titles befitting an heir-apparent and distinguishing their position from that of the pharaoh (though they sometimes used royal titles).59 Clearly, therefore, there existed a suitable vocabu-lary, visual and titular, for representing an heir-apparent not yet occupying the ritualised position of king. To all intents and purposes, therefore, it might seem as though the excep-tional representation of Ptolemy the Son with certain royal characteristics deliberately portrayed him to be as much a ruler of Egypt as Ptolemy II and Arsinoë II.

However, looking more closely at the Mendes Stela and its inscription, a number of features raise doubts as to the precise status of the Son. Starting with the offering scene of the Mendes Stela, it can be seen that Ptolemy the Son is not depicted in the manner typically expected of a coregent. Though depictions of coregency are relatively rare, it is usual that in such depictions the coregents carrying out a shared offering will both be represented in the same or very similar dress, reflecting their equivalent power and role.60 This can be seen on the Ptolemaic temple at Deir al-Médîna, where relief sculpture depicts the coregents Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VIII in the same triangular kilts and with crowns of the same height, with one wearing the Red Crown, the other the White Crown.61 Here, Ptolemy VI and VIII, with

Cleopatra II, carefully present a unifying dynastic image through distribution of iconography indicating their shared adoption of the mantle of divine kingship.62 However, on the Mendes Stela, the Son appears in different dress to Ptolemy II. Ptolemy II wears the royal shendyt with triangular front-piece, typical for two-dimensional scenes in which the king is static, such as offering and prayer scenes.63 He also wears the tall double crown, signifying his reign over Upper and Lower Egypt. Ptolemy the Son, however, wears the shendyt with no triangular front piece, and is shown with a short, close-fitting crown, probably the khepresh.64 This outfit is more typically associated with two-dimensional scenes of action, such as war, fishing or hunting.65 Both of these outfits can be appropriate for a pharaoh, but the fact that two differ-ent outfits are used in a single offering scene needs explana-tion, as this differentiation between Ptolemy the Son and Ptolemy II is almost certainly neither accidental nor mean-ingless.66 Ptolemy II can be found in the war-crown in many other offering scenes, but in these scenes he generally still wears the royal shendyt with the triangular front-piece, denoting his status as king, so why is the Son not wearing this distinctive piece of royal dress on the Mendes Stela?67

The Son’s depiction in an ‘active’ costume could have been intended to stress his role in the Egyptian army, juxta-posing with Ptolemy II’s more ceremonial role. Tunny states that the ‘war crown’ the Son wears might indicate an active role in military affairs; however, there are several problems with this reading.68 First, that this crown is a strictly a war-crown is questionable. If the crown is the khepresh, com-monly known as the war-crown or blue-crown, then it has been shown to have connotations beyond war, not least to ritual.69 Second, there is no evidence that the Son was

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73Murnane, Coregency, 243–4.74Cairo, CG 22181, line 19. Roeder, Ägyptische Götterwelt, 185; Pfeiffer, Dynastiekulte, 19–30; Schäfer, Makedonische Pharaonen, 166–88.75Murnane, Coregency, 103–4.76Murnane, Coregency, 199–200. For example, the funerary stele of Intef, dating to Year 30 of Amenemhat I and Year 10 of Senusret I, Kom es-Sultan, CGC 20516, as in A. Mariette, H. Délié, and E. Béchard (eds), Album du Musée de Boulaq (Cairo, 1872), 125.77Huß, ZPE 121, 230.78Huß, ZPE 121, 232.

70C. Fischer-Bovet, Army and Society in Ptolemaic Egypt (Cam-bridge, 2014), 329–62.71Cairo, CG 22181, lines 7–10. Roeder, Ägyptische Götterwelt, 179–81.72Quack, in McKechnie and Guillaume (eds), Ptolemy II Philadel-phus and His World, 279–80. See footnote 46 for the rejection of the possibility that a priestess occupied this position in the royal family.

particularly active in military matters or, moreover, that the Stela sought to emphasise his military activities or attrib-utes; the Son’s role in the inscription is wholly related to the construction work on the temple at Mendes, and it is Ptolemy II who enacts military reforms. Finally, even if the Son were an active military leader, it is doubtful that those responsible for the production of the Stela would have given special emphasis to his role in war at the cost of Ptolemy II, considering the importance of the king as a warrior in both Hellenistic and Egyptian conceptions of kingship. It is true that the reliefs of later Ptolemaic coregents at Deir al-Médîna have been seen to have divided up pharaonic ico-nography, but only in such a way that stresses the equivalent and equal rule of the two regents, not to portray two differ-ent facets of pharaonic power. It is more likely, therefore, that the Son is represented in ‘active’ dress as a means of stressing certain limits of his role in the events relayed by the inscription. It is not clear what these limits were. The Son did participate in the act of inaugurating the temple’s restoration work ordered by Ptolemy II, and his participa-tion in the ceremony inaugurating new building work may be partially responsible for the attribution of royal titles to him, but such a ceremony would not require that the Son held full royal authority.70 The Stela only explicitly states that Ptolemy II carried out actions that were most dependent on the divine authority of the institution of kingship, such as selecting the Mendes Ram.71 It seems likely that such limi-tations were intended to indicate that the Son had not been crowned and had not taken up, officially, the mantle of kingship.

Examining the Mendes Stela’s offering scene, it seems unavoidable to conclude that there is an iconographic hier-archy that denied the Son full pharaonic status, while his titles indicate that he had been recognised to be able to fulfil some aspects of the role of pharaoh. Furthermore, this hier-archy is not created to accommodate the Son’s role in one ceremony, but appears to operate on a conceptual level, which we can apply more broadly to his status in the late 260s bc. On the lunette, Arsinoë II appears in the depiction of the ruling family, though as the inscription implies that she never went to Mendes during her lifetime,72 her pres-ence, and the fact that Ptolemy II and Ptolemy the Son appear together, shows that the representation of Ptolemy II, Arsinoë II, and Ptolemy the Son is idealised rather than rep-resenting a real event, or even an amalgamation of real events. It can be concluded, therefore, that in the eyes of the Egyptian priesthood at Mendes Ptolemy the Son did not hold the conceptual role of king, he was not a regent and did not have divine authority equivalent to Ptolemy II, so he could not be represented in the same way as Ptolemy II. Instead, Ptolemy the Son acts as an heir to the throne on the

Stela, albeit one who transgressed boundaries that we might typically expect of an heir-apparent in Egypt’s pharaonic tradition. That the heir-apparent was given such a prominent role on a stela commemorating the pharaoh’s actions and that his identity was blurred but not homogenised with that of the pharaoh appearing on the same stela are, therefore, both remarkable facts that set the Son apart from previous Egyptian heirs. The reasons why this might be the case will be addressed later.73

The conclusions drawn from the lunette are reinforced by the inscription of the Stela. The Son does not appear in the preamble of the inscription, where the legitimacy of Ptolemy II’s kingship is set out. Furthermore, although the Son inaugurated the new construction at the temple of Mendes in the midst of what is called his coregency, the temple’s new edifice is not inscribed in his name. The Stela tells us that a report came to His Majesty (Ptolemy II) informing him that the temple had been completed and inscribed in the name of His Majesty, the name of his father (Ptolemy I or, in keeping with the broader theology of the pharaonic role, the Mendes Ram) and the name of the god-dess Arsinoë Philadelphus.74 Therefore, despite the fact that the Son appears on the Mendes Stela with royal titles and dress, the account of the completion of the new edifice indi-cates that he was not sufficiently important by 264 bc that it was deemed necessary to add his name to the temple itself. Furthermore, he acted only on the orders of Ptolemy II rather than on his own authority. That this represents a con-ceptual separation of the king and the so-called coregent is all the more convincing in the light of the monumental records of other Ptolemaic coregencies.75

Other sources also seem to support the conclusions drawn from the Mendes Stela as to the nature of the Son’s coregency. While the Son appears in the dating formula from 268 bc, no documents exist which suggest that Year 21 of Ptolemy II was Year 2 of Ptolemy the Son, and so on, such as might be found for other Egyptian coregencies.76 Similarly, titles that might be attributed to those of royal status are absent from all records mentioning Ptolemy the Son except the Mendes Stela. There is one extant instance of a ‘Life, Prosperity, Health’ (L.P.H.) formula being associ-ated with Ptolemy the Son (O. dem. Louvre 74, Z. 4–7, 23.7.261),77 in a text dated to 261 bc that also uses this for-mula with the names of Ptolemy II and his father. However, the significance of this is debatable. While it is true that an earlier document (O. Brooklyn Inv.-Nr. 37.1821 E, Z. 1–4 (Acta Orientalia 25 [1960] 252f., Z. 1–4), 24.3.265)78 includes an L.P.H. formula for Ptolemy II but not for his

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81Huß, ZPE 121, 234.82Contrary to Huß, ZPE 121, 236, who sees the Son as being made a pharaoh by the status he is given in the Mendes Stela.83This is comparable to previous practices in Macedon, includ-ing the ranking of Argeads in official Macedonian documents and Philip’s recognition of Alexander as the heir-apparent through his inclusion in the Philippeum, a dynastic monument representing only the favoured son, Alexander, and his mother of Philip’s larger family. Carney, in Heckel, Tritle, and Wheatley (eds), Alexander’s Empire, 50; Mitchell, in Heckel, Tritle, and Wheatley (eds), Alex-ander’s Empire, 72.

79Cairo CG 22183; Nilsson, Arsinoë II, 158–9.80Murnane, Coregency, 257. Although Murnane does not com-ment on the Mendes Stela, he does make a tentative case for other, pre-Ptolemaic cases of tiered or preferential representations of coregency, but ultimately declines to hold to it, stating that the evidence is insufficient.

father or for Ptolemy the Son, the extreme scarcity of the L.P.H formula in association with any of the royals in the extant documents naming the Son means that it is impossi-ble to conclude that a ‘royal family’ ideology, or one giving the Son greater prominence, became increasingly dominant in place of an ‘individual pharaoh’ ideology. On account of the naming formula, therefore, it can be established that Ptolemy the Son was very likely recognised by the court as being at least the heir-apparent, but no documents provide clear confirmation that this role involved any sense of co-rule. Similarly, while double-dating is by no means univer-sal in instances of coregency, the absence of double-dating and royal titles give an indication that Ptolemy the Son was not perceived as a king with individual authority and did not occupy the conceptually well-defined role of Egyptian kingship. Finally, it is remarkable that on the Pithom Stela, dated to about 264 bc, on which Arsinoë II has such a strong presence, the Son is not included in any way.79

In sum, the Mendes Stela and certain other Egyptian sources represent the Son as possessing certain royal attrib-utes and titles, but also disrupt his presentation as a king, distinguishing him from the full pharaonic status of Ptolemy II. We have no indication that the Son, standing behind his royal parents in the offering scene and acting on Ptolemy II’s bidding in Mendes, had the individual ability to apply the executive power granted by the divine role of king. Murnane states that in a typical coregency “any differences in power of ability were masked by the mantle of kingship that clothed both partners equally and individually”.80 The picture from the Mendes Stela and other Egyptian sources is not straightforward, but if the coregency of Ptolemy the Son and Ptolemy II did not even maintain the façade of equal and individual kingship, then surely the notion that the inclusion of the Son in the dating formula represents some sort of coregency can be rejected. Based on this observa-tion, we can begin to think carefully about how to stitch together conclusions from the Mendes Stela with what is known about Macedonian, or early Hellenistic, courts and their ideologies of kingship and succession practices. Balancing the discussion of the Mendes Stela with an under-standing of the Son’s power in the context of Macedonian concepts of kingship is a difficult task because of a lack of similarly rich Greek source material on the subject, and cau-tion is needed in applying findings from Egyptian sources to the wider situation in the Macedonian court. We must, none-theless, make best use of the few sources available in the context of our broader understanding of Macedonian and Hellenistic kingship.

To a certain extent, our Greek sources corroborate the conclusions drawn from the Mendes Stela, if only through omission. The Son is never explicitly described as a king or coregent in contemporary inscriptions or in later authors. The Son’s role at Miletus (Milet III 13), from where he and

his philoi sent reports back to Ptolemy II on the state of the city and its relationship with Egypt, is similarly not repre-sentative of royal action, but the action of someone in the service of Ptolemy II. There is no indication that Miletus accorded the Son special treatment beyond what might be expected of any representative of the Ptolemies. This fits well with what had occurred in Mendes two years earlier, where the Son was a representative of the king at the temple inauguration, but was not actually included in the temple inscriptions, as he would surely have been if he himself had been recognised as a regent. If more information existed about the exact role of Ptolemy the Son at Miletus, such as whether he was only a visiting dignitary or also in command of some units of military forces, then more could be said about the development of the Son’s coregency towards the end of the 260s bc. On the one hand, one might interpret the Son’s position in Miletus as a sign that Ptolemy II gave him increasingly free rein to build up relationships with (and within) Ptolemaic dominions in the Aegean for the benefit of the Ptolemaic empire, but on the other hand this could be seen as Ptolemy II having pushed the Son away from the centre of the Egyptian court. The Son does get included in the honours given to Ptolemy II and Ptolemy I at Methymna, on Lesbos, in 267/66 bc (IG XII Suppl. 115).81 This inscrip-tion seems to draw upon the contemporary dating formula and might be more remarkable if it were more emphatic in some way, either through the omission of Ptolemy I or even through the attribution of a title to the Son. Nonetheless, it does provide evidence that the formal recognition of Ptolemy the Son as the heir-apparent was known and propa-gated abroad. Why this might be particularly advantageous to Ptolemy II will be discussed further later. The Greek sources relating to the period of the coregency do not tell us much, but what little they do tell us fits in with the under-standing that Ptolemy the Son was an heir-apparent.

To conclude, if the litmus test for coregency is the exist-ence of two ruling monarchs, each recognised as occupying the ideological functions of king, then all of the available source material would caution against calling Ptolemy the Son a coregent in either the Macedonian or Egyptian con-text.82 Ptolemy the Son was publicly recognised in the actions of Ptolemy II as the one and only son and heir, which denoted his prime position for succession and lent legitimacy to his future claim to the throne.83 At the same time, however, there was little or no formal recognition that the Son had independ-ent agency or authority. The real limits of the Son’s power must have been determined by the pressure he was willing to apply on Ptolemy II’s dominance, and the extent and nature

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in his late 70s at the time of Ptolemy II’s coregency. It is notable, though not necessarily believable, that despite Ptolemy I’s age, Justin (16.2) states that the abdication occurred before illness set in, was publicly enacted and that Ptolemy I had acted to secure the succession and the people’s goodwill for Ptolemy II.86K. A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (2nd edn; Warminster, 1986).87In fact, Murnane, Coregency, 255, notes that threats to royal authority are the dominant factor in prompting Egyptian coregen-cies both in and before the Hellenistic period.88Mitchell, in Heckel, Tritle, and Wheatley (eds), Alexander’s Empire, 73.

84For the struggles of Philip and Alexander, see: Plut. Alex. 9.7–14; 10.1–4; Plut. Mor. 70B, 179C; Justin 9.7; Arr. 3.6.5–6, and also: Fredricksmeyer, The Classical Journal 85, 301–3; Mitchell, in Heckel, Tritle, and Wheatley (eds), Alexander’s Empire, 61–74; Carney, in Heckel, Tritle, and Wheatley (eds), Alexander’s Empire, 27–60. The challenge of identifying the role of an heir-apparent with certain royal attributes is not confined to Ptolemy the Son, as can be seen in Kitchen’s rather awkward description of Ramesses II as a prince-regent. Kitchen, Pharaoh Triumphant, 27–30.85Lucian (Makrobioi 12) gives us the age of 84 for Ptolemy I’s abdication of royal duties, while Plutarch, (Alexander 10.5) sug-gests that Ptolemy was close in age to Alexander, and therefore

of Ptolemy II’s resistance to this pressure, but there was only one king and it was only ever Ptolemy II. As a result, the Mendes Stela is neither a depiction of a conventional and orderly relationship between the roles of king and heir, nor is it a carefully structured image of dynastic unity and shared adoption of the mantle of kingship like those created to stabi-lise later Ptolemaic coregencies. Instead, the unusual and transgressive representation of the Son on the Mendes Stela reflects the collision of fixed Egyptian ideologies of kingship with the fluid power struggles common in Macedonian suc-cession (such as that between Philip II and Alexander the Great whose age difference was comparable to that between of Ptolemy II and Ptolemy the Son, if Ptolemy the Son is Ptolemy Lysimachou), which lacked a clear ideology of suc-cession to govern it.84 Such a reading of the Stela naturally hinges on the extent to which the Egyptian administration at Mendes was tuned in to, or under instruction from, the politi-cal dynamics of the Alexandrian court. Nonetheless, on account of the unique representation of the royal family on the Mendes Stela, and considering that Mendesian officials would have had to consider how to address and treat the Son appropriately on his visit in 264 bc, I would certainly suggest that the Stela’s production was executed with a good aware-ness of court politics.

Ptolemy II’s dynastic strategy: Putting the Son in context

It has been shown that in the period commonly referred to as the coregency of the Son, he probably functioned more as an heir-apparent than a coregent, holding a position which con-ferred upon him neither the power nor the religious identity of a king. Nonetheless, Ptolemy the Son clearly held an important and officially recognised role for nearly a decade, giving him prime position among the potential successors to the Ptolemaic throne. In order to understand how this situa-tion came about, the final two questions raised in this article need to be answered: Why did Ptolemy II take Ptolemy the Son as coregent so early in his own reign; and: How does the coregency of Ptolemy the Son fit into the context of Ptolemy II’s wider use of coregency and dynastic strategy?

The designation of a coregent or heir-apparent generally is the outcome of one of a number of situations. The first is the old age of the existing monarch; for example, Ptolemy I was in his 70s or perhaps even 80s when he made Ptolemy II coregent, presumably due in part to his own failing health and inability to fulfil the royal duties.85 In the second situa-tion, two or more kings would rule independently in a single

kingdom (Egypt) while recognising each other as fulfilling the divine role of the single kingship. This can be found among the minor kingdoms of Egypt during the Third Intermediate Period.86 The third cause of a coregency or the appointment of an heir-apparent was instability, competi-tion and the inability of one ruler to secure a dominant posi-tion in court, perhaps caused by the succession of an infant, a contest among successors or the pressure of external rivals for the throne. Such a situation could be found during the latter stages of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.87 All of these situa-tions can be noted to share a common characteristic – the inability of the incumbent king to express his kingship over the entirety of his kingdom with total authority. However, the appointment of a coregent or heir-apparent is not neces-sarily a sign of weakness, as Hellenistic rulers could also choose to set out clear successors in order to secure the posi-tions of their favoured children and to emphasise dynastic continuity and stability, promoting the legitimacy of the king.

Which of these foregoing situations best describes that of Ptolemy II in 268/67 bc? The answer could be a combina-tion of all of them, as the options are not mutually exclusive, but a combination of the latter two is most likely to be accu-rate. Ptolemy II was not elderly in 267 bc, and with many of Ptolemy I’s contemporaries living well past their 60th year he would have been facing a period of coregency with the Son of at least 20 years if he expected to die in his old age. There are references to Ptolemy II’s infirmity and sickness in Strabo (17.1.5) and Aelian (VH. 4.15). Such afflictions can be nothing more than aspects of a wider characterisation of a monarch, matching physical to administrative, military or moral incapability. Nonetheless, if Ptolemy II had been suffering any severe illnesses then he might have feared dying at a young age and plunging the kingdom into disor-der, or it may have been difficult for him to fulfil the duties of kingship, especially maintaining a presence among the religious centres of Egypt. In the inscription of the Pithom Stela, Arsinoë II is stated to have accompanied Ptolemy II in his duties around Egypt, and it is possible that the Son was given a more official position in recognition that he would be expected to represent the court in fulfilling royal duties that the king was unable to execute himself, such as the inauguration of the Mendes temple refurbishment and the diplomatic mission in Miletus. However, it is difficult to square the image of the Son dutifully running the errands of a sickly king for about nine years with the ‘might is right’ ideology of Hellenistic kingship.88 Unless Ptolemy II was sick in the early 260s bc, to the extent that the Son felt he would only need to wait a few years to gain power, and

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95Hölbl, Ptolemaic Empire, 24.96Carney, Arsinoë, 31–64.97There is an extensive bibliography on the importance of Arsinoë II and her image, including: Nilsson, Arsinoë II; Carney, Arsinoë; Vassilika, Ptolemaic Philae; Hazzard, Imagination of a Monarchy.

89Territories of Lysimachus or territories that were associated par-ticularly strongly with his mother.90Huss, ZPE 131, 238.91Carney, Arsinoë, 76, argues against this having been a cause for the sibling marriage, identifying it as an isolationist rather than expansionist move.92Huss, ZPE 131, 238.93Huss, ZPE 131, 238.94Bagnall, Ptolemaic Possessions, 109.

subsequently recovered, thereby changing the situation and forcing the rebellion of the Son, the idea that the coregency was born of infirmity does not seem to make much sense.

As for the notion of two pharaohs, it is certainly true that Ptolemy II would not have recognised the Son as possessing kingship over a distinct area of Egypt. However, if the Son was Ptolemy Lysimachou, the son of Arsinoë II and Lysimachus, as has been argued earlier, he could have repre-sented a number of territorial claims around the Aegean, including around Ephesus, Lycia and Thrace.89 Ptolemy II might have intended to make his claims to these regions more tangible by elevating the Son to the position of heir-apparent, as Huß argues.90 These claims would previously have been embodied in Arsinoë II, Lysimachus’ wife.91 However, with her death Ptolemy may have felt the need to announce the Son as the successor of the Ptolemaic kingdom in order to strengthen the legitimacy of his claim to territories more strongly associated with the family of Lysimachus. As Huß notes, around 268 bc would have been a particularly oppor-tune moment to make Ptolemy the Son a recognised part of the Ptolemaic dynasty, as more territories became disputed and looked for patronage from major powers because of the outbreak of the Chremonidean War.92 This motivation for the coregency can also provide a firm cause for its end: Huß believes that with the Chremonidean War over, the Son was effectively edged out of power, leading to his unsuccessful attempt to carve out an independent territory in the Aegean.93 However, did this hope to achieve legitimacy among the Greeks of Lysimachus’ old territories really prompt the recog-nition of the Son as a coregent, and would Ptolemy have allowed the Son a stake in this territory or claimed it as his own? In the end Ptolemy Lysimachou does become some-thing of a coregent in this way, governing Telmessos in a way that demonstrated an independent grasp of policy on matters such as taxation and dynastic identity, while also maintaining loyalty to the Ptolemaic kingdom.94 However, it seems unlikely that Ptolemy II would have originally set out with the intention to make Ptolemy Lysimachou an independent king-let in Lysimachus’ old territories, as this would have gone against the monopolisation of power, the prerogative of the king. It is more likely that Ptolemy II sought to make claims on these territories personally through Ptolemy Lysimachou, a plan that probably included using the Son to promote favour-able elite networks in prominent city states, as he seems to have been doing in Miletus (Milet III 13). It is possible there-fore that foreign ambitions were an underlying cause for the promotion of the Son as heir-apparent in the 260s bc and his subsequent rebellion. Nonetheless, this alone does not ade-quately explain how Lysimachou became heir-apparent, nor does it explain how he became a prominent figure on Egyptian monuments such as the Mendes Stela. Ptolemy II was not about to hand out power freely, and through his biological son,

the future Ptolemy III, the Ptolemaic empire would also have had some claim to Lysimachus’ territories, as Ptolemy III was Lysimachus’ grandson. It cannot only have been a theoretical birthright to foreign territories that caused Ptolemy the Son to be recognised in Egypt, but the reality of his ability to act upon his legitimacy both abroad and in Egypt, and this brings us to the third common denominator in coregencies and the desig-nation of an heir-apparent, the need of the incumbent king to secure stability in response to threats posed by potential pre-tenders to the throne.

Keeping a hold on the throne was the primary concern of any Hellenistic monarch. Ptolemy II definitely had a talent for attaining power and keeping it. He bested his older half-brother, Ptolemy Ceraunus, in the bid for the favour of Ptolemy I, survived some form of plot by his first wife, Arsinoë I, early in his reign, and he seems to have emerged relatively unscathed from the rebellion of the Son in 259 bc.95 Ptolemy the Son, or Ptolemy Lysimachou, must have been equally resourceful. He and his mother engineered a dominant position in the court of Lysimachus and, despite being the oldest and most threaten-ing remnant of the Lysimachus line, the Son managed to avoid the fate of his two younger brothers, who were both murdered by Ceraunus, and he may have even continued to attempt to gain the Macedonian throne until the mid-270s bc.96 This begs the question: If Ptolemy II was as skilled in surviving threats as he appears to have been and Ptolemy the Son was a threat to the throne, why did Ptolemy II bring him to court rather than banish or murder him, what part could the Son play in his survival strategy?

First, it has been noted that both Ptolemy II’s marriage to Arsinoë II and the subsequent recognition of the Son, Ptolemy Lysimachou, as the heir-apparent provided him with the opportunity for growth in new areas of the Greek and Macedonian Mediterranean at a time of war, when such claims were most valuable. Few qualities were more prized in the Hellenistic ideology of kingship than the ability to acquire new territories in the Aegean and expand the empire, and such goals were likely better served by the opportunistic use of the Son to establish proxenia in his father’s territories than by killing him. While Ptolemy II had alternative claims on such territories, none were stronger than Lysimachou’s, and so his assistance would have been valuable. Second, and related to this first point, we should not overstate the freedom of Ptolemy II to kill the Son without severe consequences. While Ptolemy II very likely commanded the resources to remove the Son, the Son undoubtedly benefited from the unique status achieved by his mother, Arsinoë II, which yielded both ideological and practical advantages. The more Ptolemy II and others promoted the recognition of Arsinoë II as an important deity, the more difficult it would have been for Ptolemy II to remove Ptolemy the Son without risking his own position of power and severely damaging his own repu-tation.97 We might be able to attribute something of the mete-oric rise of the cult of Arsinoë II to the fact that these two competing royals, Ptolemy II and Ptolemy the Son, both had

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98Hazzard Imagination of a Monarchy, 106–7.

a vested interest in the promotion of her virtues and her role as a central dynastic figure. In the light of Ptolemy’s broader creation of legitimacy and claims to foreign territories through his reverence of Arsinoë II, he may have been eager to distinguish himself from his half-brother Ceraunos, mur-derer of Arsinoë II’s other sons. As such, Ptolemy II may have regarded it more suitable to find a position in which he could attempt to control Ptolemy the Son rather than simply removing him. Third, and finally, Ptolemy II would always have faced a difficult choice with the Son. The Son, Lysimachou, was an experienced prince in his prime years, with claims on territories spanning two large empires. If Ptolemy II denied the Son recognition and a position of some power then the Son would be more likely to try to carve out a claim to the throne or to Ptolemy II’s foreign assets, working on the basis of his legitimacy as a Ptolemy and as a son of Lysimachus. Any such attempt on the throne would have dis-tracted from Ptolemy II’s active foreign policy aims and could have rapidly become an existential threat to his own reign. However, if Ptolemy II gave the Son too much power in Egypt, he also risked facing a usurpation of his throne there. If the Mendes Stela can be identified as the pinnacle of the Son’s acquisition of royal status in Egypt, then it would appear that the negotiation of these tensions led to an increas-ingly prominent position for Ptolemy the Son during the 260s bc, resulting in something approaching full pharaonic status on the Mendes Stela by the end of the decade. At this point, however the relationship of the Son and his adoptive father disintegrated, a rebellion ensued and their association as king and heir ended, probably as the threats presented by the Son’s position began to outweigh the possible benefits. It seems more likely that this break came as the result of building ten-sions rather than suddenly and unexpectedly. Towards the end of the 260s bc, Ptolemy II had formally recognised his own father, Ptolemy I, as Soter.98 It is possible to read the development of this dynastic figure as a shift by Ptolemy II away from attempts to claim foreign assets and towards shor-ing up his own legitimacy in Egypt, something which may have been partially considered as a counter to any attempt on the throne by the Son. The contrast between the introduction of Soter, honoured in monuments and coinage, and the lack of monumental or numismatic evidence for the Son may also be indicative that the recognition of Ptolemy the Son as heir-apparent sat outside of Ptolemy II’s broader dynastic strategy. Rather than an effort to introduce a more fixed succession ideology of father, king, and son to the Macedonian court in Alexandria, this early and unusual designation of the heir was, therefore, most likely a mixture of foreign ambitions and the need to control a viable adult contender for the throne. The result was a power struggle throughout which Ptolemy II successfully monopolised his legitimising role as Egypt’s sole pharaoh – with only the Mendes Stela revealing the pos-sible extent of the Son’s power within Egypt.

In summary, Ptolemy II took Ptolemy the Son as his heir-apparent so early in his own reign because of a mixture of push and pull factors. Ptolemy II was pushed to recognise Ptolemy the Son because of the threat that the Son posed to Ptolemaic assets across the Mediterranean on account of his

legitimate genealogical claims in the region and his ability to pursue these. Nonetheless, Ptolemy II was not weak and he likely hoped that he might be able to find advantages in the continuing association of the Ptolemaic dynasty with the fam-ily of Lysimachus. This hope to acquire broader legitimacy in competitors’ Mediterranean territories was likely the second-most important pull factor for granting high status to the Son’s role as heir-apparent, the first and foremost being the continu-ity of stability in Ptolemy II’s reign, though other practicalities in the running of the empire might also have been factors. There has not been space in this article to contextualise fully the decision to give the Son this role within Ptolemy II’s other dynastic decisions, as this would require a fuller discussion of further controversial issues, especially those concerning Arsinoë II, than can be accommodated here. However, such a task will now be more achievable, building on this considera-tion of how the Son functioned in Ptolemy II’s court.

Conclusions

This article has highlighted that we should be cautious of using the term ‘coregency’ to describe the relationship of Ptolemy II and Ptolemy the Son, and that the term ‘heir-apparent’ might better capture the nature of their relation-ship. Even the Mendes Stela, on which the Son appears in his most royal form, does not appear to be a representation of equivalent coregents. Instead, it could be better described as comparable to Philip II’s Philippeum. The Stela is a repre-sentation of a veneer of dynastic solidarity incorporating a threatening younger heir, produced in the moments before the tensions determining the composition of the entire scene erupted into violence. Ptolemy II, however, did not share Philip’s fate, and when the Son rebelled he was able to resolve the situation effectively, without damaging his valu-able ideological relationship with the Son’s deified mother, Arsinoë II. As such, while the relationship of Ptolemy II and the Son does not represent a facet of long-term dynastic pol-icy, it suggests a great deal about the ambition, survivability, and adaptability of Ptolemy II. This article has also shown how the Mendes Stela can be seen as the result of traditional Egyptian iconographies being transmuted by the need to rep-resent Macedonian power-politics through a lens more used to dealing with the absolute and clearly defined roles of the pharaoh. As such, the depiction of the relationship between Ptolemy II and Ptolemy the Son presents an interesting case study for intercultural interactions in Ptolemaic Egypt.

Author biography

I presently hold a Macmillan-Rodewald Studentship at the British School at Athens, but will be moving on to a Teaching Fellowship in Greek History at The University of Edinburgh in September 2017. My principal research interest is the nature of contacts between Greece and Egypt in the First Millennium bc. My work within this field includes an article forthcoming in ABSA, titled ‘The Arcesilas Cup in Context: Greek interactions with Late Period funerary art’, and an in-preparation monograph on scarab amulets in Early Iron Age and Archaic Period Greece. My other research interests include terracotta figurines, and I will shortly be publishing studies of figurines from the Sanctuary of Hera at Perachora and the Acropolis Sanctuary at Stymphalos.