Ptolemais
PTOLEMA´IS
1.(ΠτολεμαΐςPtol. 4.5.57), a small town of the Arsinoite nome in Middle Aegypt. It was situated between Heracleopolis Magna and Arsinoë, near the point of junction between the Bahr Jusef and the Nile. The modern village of El-Lahum occupies a portion of the site of the Arsinoite Ptolemais.
2.PTOLEMAIS THERON (Πτολεμαῒς Θηρῶν, Ptol. 18.1, 4.7.7, 8.16. §. 10; Πτολεμαΐς, Strab. xvii. pp. 768--76 ; Agatharch. ap. Phot. pp. 457--459, ed. Bekker; Ptolemais Epitheras, Plin. Nat. 6.29. s. 34), was originally an Aethiopian village situated on the southern skirts of the forest which extended from the S. side of the Troglodytic Berenice to lat. 17° N. Its convenient situation on the coast of the Red Sea and in the heart of the region where elephants abounded induced Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 282--246) to occupy, enlarge, and fortify the village, which thenceforward was named Ptolemais after its second founder. Philadelphus, indeed, before he colonised this outpost of his kingdom, used every effort to persuade the Aethiopian hunters [ELEPHANTOPHAGI] to abstain from the flesh of these animals, or to reserve a portion at least of them for the royal stables. But they rejected his offers, replying that for the kingdom of Aegypt they would not forego the pleasure of hunting and eating elephants. Hitherto the Aegyptians had imported these animals from Asia, the Asiatic breed being stronger and larger than the African. But the supply was precarious: the cost of importation was great; and the Aethiopian forests afforded an ample supply both for war and the royal household. As the depot of the elephant trade, including that also in hides and ivory, Ptolemais attained a high degree of prosperity, and ranked among the principal cities of Aethiopia. From its market it is probable that Carthage also derived its supply of elephants, since about the period of Philadelphus' reign the Carthaginians employed these animals more frequently in war. (Liv. xvii. Epit.; Florus (Flor. 2.2.28.) Ptolemais had, properly speaking, no harbour, and the Aegyptian vessels were compelled to run up to Berenice whenever the N. or E. winds prevailed: in the present day the Red Sea coast at this point is approachable only by boats. The roadstead of Ptolemais, however, was partially sheltered from the E. winds by an island covered with olive-trees. In its neighbourhood the freshwater lake Monoleus afforded it a good supply of water and fish. The shell of the true land-tortoise was found at Ptolemais: it is described by Agatharchides (ap. Geogr. Minor. p. 40, Hudson; Peripl. Mar. Erythr. p. 17) as covered with small lozenge-shaped plates, of the whiteness of the pearl-oyster. To ancient geographers the position of Ptolemais was of great importance, being one of the points from which their computations of latitude were made. Modern geographers, however, are not agreed as to the degree in which it should be placed, some identifying it with Bas-Assiz, opposite the island of Wellesley, while others (Vincent, Voyage of Nearchus, vol. 2. p. 92) prefer a more southerly site, near the port of Mirza-Mombarrik. (Comp. Manner, vol. 10.1. p. 48, seq.)
3.(Πτολεμαῒς ἡ ἙρμείουPtol. 1.15.11, 4.5.56; Πτολεμαϊκὴ πόλις, Strab. 17. p. 813), a city of Upper Aegypt, NW. of Abydus, and situated on the western side of the Nile. It can hardly be regarded, however, as an Aegyptian city, its population and civil institutions being almost exclusively Greek, and its importance derived entirely from the favour of the Ptolemies. The ruins of Ptolemais Hermîi are supposed to be at the modern hamlet of Mensieh. (Champollion, l'Egypte, vol. 1. p. 253, seq.) [W.B.D]
PTOLEMA´IS (Πτολεμαΐς), a small town on the coast of Pamphylia, between the river Melas and the town of Coracesium, is mentioned only by Strabo (14. p. 667). Leake (Asia Minor, p. 197) conjectures that Ptolemais did not stand upon the coast, as it is not mentioned in the Stadiasmus, but occupied perhaps the situation of the modern town of Alara, where is a river, and upon its banks a steep hill crowned with a Turkish castle. (Comp. Richter, Wallfahrten, p. 334.)
[L.S](Πτολεμαΐς). (1) Also called Ace (Ἀκή) (in Old Test. Acco; Arab. Akka, Fr. St. Jean d'Acre, Eng. Acre), a celebrated city on the coast of Phoenicia, south of Tyre, and north of Mount Carmel, lies at the bottom of a bay surrounded by mountains, in a position marked out by nature as a key of the passage between CoeleSyria and Palestine. It is one of the oldest cities of Phoenicia, being mentioned in the Book of Judges (i. 31).
(2) (At or near El-Lahum), a small town of Middle Egypt, in the Nomos Arsinoïtes.
(3) P. Hermii (Menschie), a city of Upper Egypt, on the west bank of the Nile, below Abydos.
(4) P. Theron, or Epithēras, a port on the Red Sea, on the coast of the Troglodytae.
(5) Now Tolmeïta, or Tolometa, on the northwestern coast of Cyrenaïca, one of the five great cities of the Libyan Pentapolis.
Phoenician city called Akko on the coast S of Tyre, refounded by Ptolemy II Philadelphos (285-246 B.C.). According to Isaeus and Demosthenes, there was an Athenian merchant colony there as early as the 4th c. B.C. In Hellenistic times Ptolemais was an important strategic site. It passed under Seleucid control in the 2d c. B.C. and became the main base of the Syrian Greeks against the Jews during the Maccabaean wars, and of the Romans in the Jewish wars of Vespasian, Titus, and Hadrian in the 1st and 2d c. A.D. Claudius gave it the title of colony. The Moslems took it in A.D. 638. The town was completely destroyed at the end of the Crusades and rebuilt at the end of the 18th c. The aqueduct visible to the NE dates from ca. 1800.
There are virtually no ancient remains. The ramparts, the temples of gods known from the town's coinage, the gymnasium built by Herod the Great, the public baths where, according to the Michnah, the rabbi Gamaliel did not fear to bathe himself underneath a statue of Aphrodite, have all disappeared.
BIBLIOGRAPHYN. Makhouly & C. N. Johns, Guide to Acre (1946); H. Seyrig, “Divinités de Ptolemaïs,” Syria 39 (1962) (Antiquités syriennes VI).
J.-P. REY-COQUAISAbout midway between Benghazi and Susa, this ancient port occupies a narrow space (2 km wide) between the sea and the lower spurs of the Jebel el-Akhdar. The harbor was sheltered W and N by a small promontory and two islets. A Greek settlement, name unknown, was established here in the late 7th c. B.C. and became the port of Barke, the rich colony of Kyrene 25 km inland on the plateau. Ptolemy III (246-221 B.C.) refounded it as Ptolemais. It came into the hands of Rome in 96 B.C., and under Diocletian became the capital of Libya Pentapolis, but subsequently it decayed and Apollonia (Sozusa) supplanted it as capital. Excavation began in the 1930s and there is now a small museum on the site.
The Hellenistic city was laid out regularly, forming a rectangle roughly 1650 x 1400 m. Two major cardines run from N to S; the standard insula measures 180 x 36 m. An imposing decumanus, the “Via Monumentale,” was given a triumphal arch and a portico in the early 4th c. A.D. Little remains of the Hellenistic wall. The standard of masonry was good, though one section of the wall, carried a short way up the hillside to include a commanding point, was built of rough blocks of stone. Some square projecting wall towers have been found but the finest surviving part of the fortifications is the Taucheira Gate, built of masonry with the marginal drafting characteristic of many Hellenistic walls. Its inner side was altered, perhaps in the 3d c. A.D. when the walls seem to have been rebuilt. Traces of another wall found near the sea may have been a Byzantine circuit protecting the harbor.
Ptolemais had an amphitheater, a hippodrome, and three theaters, one at least Hellenistic. The smallest, the Odeon, was adapted in the 4th-5th c. for water spectacles, the orchestra and stage walls being covered with a layer of watertight cement to form a swimming pool. Roman and Byzantine baths are known.
The public cisterns and reservoirs are impressive. A group of 17 Roman vaulted cisterns under a porticoed space, the Square of the Cisterns, had a capacity of 7,000 kl and may have been preceded by a Hellenistic reservoir. To the E are two later open reservoirs, which probably received at least part of their supplies from the catchment area provided by the lower slope of the Jebel. A Roman aqueduct, probably Hadrianic, coming from 20 km to the E, runs towards this quarter. Outside the town are remains of a bridge that carried the aqueduct and a road across the wadi.
Several houses, wholly or partly excavated, are of the standard Hellenistic type with peristyle. The “Palazzo delle Colonne,” pre-Roman in its origin but with numerous additions in the 1st c. A.D., had a large pillared court and two impressive oeci. It stood high, with an upper story. Its height contrasts with a large, low Roman villa. Other houses have been dug out in the N part of the city. One excavated in 1961 has a 4th-5th c. mosaic floor with Orpheus singing to the wild beasts. Further excavations are in process.
Fragments of an unexcavated Doric building suggest that it may have been a pre-Roman temple. The imposing temple tomb, Qasr Faraoun, W of Ptolemais, is Hellenistic. The chamber tombs found in great numbers in the quarries E and W of the city have yielded a few sculptured tombstones and numerous inscriptions. A number of sculptures and important inscriptions, including the price edict of Diocletian and an edict of Anastasius have come to light within the city.
A fortified Christian basilica has narthex, apse, chambers on either side of the apse, nave, aisles, and is solidly built with a single narrow doorway on the N side. A fortified building (75 x 45 m) probably 5th c., is commonly regarded as the headquarters of the Dux of Libya Pentapolis; its walls are faced with good masonry and provided with stringcourses to stabilize the rubble filling. Two other forts within the city provided some security after the old walls had decayed.
BIBLIOGRAPHYG. Caputo, “Tolemaide,” Encic. Ital. XXXIII (1937); “Protezione dei monumenti de Tolmeide, 1935-42,” Quaderni di arch. della Libia 3 (1954) 33-66; P. Romanelli, La Cirenaica romana (1943); G. Pesce, “Il ‘Palazzo delle Colonne’ in Tolemaide de Cirenaica,” Monograph. di archeol. libica 2 (1950); “Tolemaide,” EAA (1966) VII; Goodchild, “The Decline of Cyrene and Rise of Ptolemais,” Quaderni 4 (1961) 83-95; “The Forum of Ptolemais,” Quaderni 4 (1967) 47-51; R. M. Harrison, “Orpheus Mosaic at Ptolemais,” JRS 52 (1962); C. H. Kraeling, Ptolemais, City of the Libyan Pentapolis (1962); J. Boardman, “Evidence for the Dating of Greek Settlements in Cyrenaica,” BSA 61 (1966) 149-56; C. Arthur, “The Ptolemais Aqueduct,” SLS Ann. Rpt. 5 (1973-74).
O. BROGAN