Person:Ptolemy V Epiphanes (1)

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Ptolemy V Epiphanes Eucharistos (Ptolemaĩos Epiphanḗs Eucharistos "Ptolemy the Manifest, the Beneficent"; 9 October 210–September 180 BC) was the King of Ptolemaic Egypt from July or August 204 BC until his death in 180 BC.

Ptolemy V, the son of Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III, inherited the throne at the age of five when his parents died in suspicious circumstances. The new regent, Agathocles, was widely reviled and was toppled by a revolution in 202 BC, but the series of regents who followed proved incompetent and the kingdom was paralysed. The Seleucid king Antiochus III and the Antigonid king Philip V took advantage of the kingdom's weakness to begin the Fifth Syrian War (202–196 BC), in which the Ptolemies lost all their territories in Asia Minor and the Levant, as well as most of their influence in the Aegean Sea. Simultaneously, Ptolemy V faced a widespread Egyptian revolt (206–185 BC) led by the self-proclaimed pharaohs Horwennefer and Ankhwennefer, which resulted in the loss of most of Upper Egypt and parts of Lower Egypt as well.

Ptolemy V came of age in 196 BC and was crowned as pharaoh in Memphis, an occasion commemorated by the creation of the Rosetta Stone. After this, he made peace with Antiochus III and married his daughter Cleopatra I in 194/3 BC. This disgusted the Romans, who had entered into hostilities with Antiochus III partially on Ptolemy V's behalf, and after their victory they distributed the old Ptolemaic territories in Asia Minor to Pergamum and Rhodes rather than returning them to Egypt. However, Ptolemaic forces steadily reconquered the south of the country, bringing all of Upper Egypt back under Ptolemaic control in 186 BC. In his last years, Ptolemy V began manoeuvring for renewed warfare with the Seleucid empire, but these plans were cut short by his sudden death in 180 BC, allegedly poisoned by courtiers worried about the cost of the war.

Ptolemy V's reign saw greatly increased prominence of courtiers and the Egyptian priestly elite in Ptolemaic political life, a pattern that would continue for most of the rest of the kingdom's existence. It also marked the collapse of Ptolemaic power in the wider Mediterranean region. Arthur Eckstein has argued that this collapse sparked the "power transition crisis" that led to the Roman conquest of the eastern Mediterranean.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Ptolemy V Epiphanes, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.