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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;1934 Wreath Crown, post: 3748408, member: 76965&quot;]<p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">Ptolemy II was the son of Ptolemy I Soter, the Macedonian Greek general of Alexander the Great who founded the Ptolemaic Kingdom after the death of Alexander, and queen Berenice I, originally from Macedon in northern Greece.</span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)"><br /></span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">&nbsp;</span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">He had two full sisters, Arsinoe II and Philotera and numerous half-siblings. Ptolemy&#039;s first wife, Arsinoe I, daughter of Lysimachus, was the mother of his legitimate children. His beautiful and ambitious sister Arsinoe II was married to Lysimachus. In 279 BC he married his sister, after the death of Lysimachus, in the manner of the old Egyptian pharaohs. The sibling marriage scandalized Greek society, which gave Arsinoe the nickname Philadelphus, or &quot;brother-lover.&quot;</span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)"><br /></span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">&nbsp;</span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">Educated by Philitas of Cos, the material and literary splendour of the Alexandrian court during his reign, was at its zenith. He promoted the Museum, expanded the Library of Alexandria, built the towering Pharos lighthouse and established a research centre for medicine and science. He was a generous patron of scholars and poets, developed art and agriculture and when he suffered military setbacks, he overcame these and expanded his sphere of influence through diplomacy. His court was both, magnificent and dissolute, intellectual and artificial.</span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)"><br /></span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">&nbsp;</span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">Ptolemaic Egypt was the only Greek-ruled kingdom to strike large quantities of enormous gold coins weighing nearly an ounce. This impressive denomination, today usually called an octodrachm, was worth 100 silver drachms, or one mina, a small fortune in ancient times. The Greco-Egyptians called the 100-mina piece a mnaieion (min-EYE-on). The first mnaieions carried four royal portraits -- Ptolemy II and his sister-wife on the obverse with the epithet adelphon (&quot;sibling lovers&quot;), backed with the portraits of his parents, Ptolemy I Soter and Berenice I, now identified as theon (&quot;gods&quot;).</span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)"><br /></span></font></span></p><p>I like the coin because it has 4 royal portraits <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie50" alt=":happy:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" /></p><p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)"><br /></span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">&nbsp;</span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">This particular one is an AU* 5/5 AND 5/5 and possibly my last big ticket (at least for my budget) ancient for the year. </span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)"><br /></span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">[ATTACH=full]1005292[/ATTACH] </span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)"><br /></span></font></span></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span style="font-size: 16px"><font face="Verdana"><span style="color: rgb(20, 20, 20)">[ATTACH=full]1005293[/ATTACH] </span></font></span></p><p>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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