EXPLAINING THE PTOLEMIES BY THE HELP OF COINAGE

VAILLANT, J.

Historia Ptolemaeorum Aegypti Regum, Ad fidem NUMISMATUM accommodata.

Amsterdam, Gallet, Huguetanorum, 1701. Folio. Contemporary full calf with 6 raised bands to richly gilt spine. Hinges and capitals a bit worn, but still tight. Corners bumped. Apart from a few browned leaves, a fine and clean copy. Title-page printed in red and black and with a large engraved allegorical vignette. Large allegorical vignette to dedication. 102 lovely engravings of coins in the text. (20), 218 pp.


Engraved book-plate to inside of front board: "Sir Francis L.H. Goodricke Bart." (19th cent.) and to inside of back board: Andrew M. Sherling" as well as gift-inscription (from Edmund Caldwell, to St. Michaelis Convent) to front free end-paper: "Monasteris St. Michaelis/ D.D./ Don. Edmundus Caldwell O.S.B./ a.d. 1871". Early inscription to title-page.

Scarce first edition of this standard work, one of the most important histories of the Egyptian Kingdom of the Ptolemies (323 B.C. to 30 B.C.), considered one of the most influential works on this complicated and perplexed part of ancient history. The work quickly became the main reference-work on the subject. It is especially noteworthy in its inclusion of Ptolemaeic coinage and is one of the first modern histories of the Ptolemies to not merely treat the subject chronologically; it is the first to explain this period by help of coins.

The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a Hellenistic kingdom in Egypt. It was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty that Ptolemy I Soter founded after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC-which ended with the death of Cleopatra VII and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemies were the Greek Rulers in Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great.

The vast empire that Alexander the Great had conquered, was too big for one successor. One general was entrusted with Macedonia, another Thrace, and a third Syria. Ptolemy I Soter, one of Alexander's favorite generals, was made governor of Egypt. Alexandria, the capital city, quickly became a center of Greek culture and trade.
For more than 350 years the Ptolemies ruled Egypt. Ptolemy's son Ptolemy Philadelpus ruled after Alexander's general. It was Ptolemy Phladelphus who made the library at Alexandria the best in the world.
With the death of Cleopatra, probably the most famous of the Ptolemies, the dynasty of the Ptolemies came to an end and Egypt became part of the Roman Empire.

Order-nr.: 48966