Note 33 — LETTER XV.

The inscription alluded to is to be found in the rock-grotto of Echmim, and was undoubtedly first engraved before the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. He is also named with double shields and the usual royal titles, but without the surname of Soter upon a stele in Vienna, which was erected in the reign of Philopator. Here, however, he bears a different Throne-shield from that in Echmim, and certainly, strange to say, it is the same which even before his time was borne by Philip Aridæus, and Alexander II., under whom Ptolemy, son of Lagus, was governor of Egypt. He is also mentioned upon a statue of the king in the ruins of Memphis, on which the Horus name of the king also appears, and which probably might have been engraved during his reign. Finally, the Soters are also frequently mentioned by their surnames alone at the head of the worshipped ancestors of later kings; as in the Rosetta inscription, and in the bilingual decrees of Philæ (see below, p. 121), 𔌗𓊹𔌗𓊹, while Soter II. is always written 𓊪𓊹𓏌𓐱𓏏𓐰𓏭𓈖𓐰𓈞𓐰𓂡 p. nuter enti nehem, which would correspond to the Coptic ⲡ.ⲛⲟⲩⲧⲉ ⲉⲧ-ⲛⲉϩⲙ, deus servator. In the demotic inscriptions, the first Soters are also designated by nehem, and in the singular by the Greek word, p. suter.

Although, therefore, it cannot be doubted that the Soters who, according to the Demotic Papyrus, were especially worshipped along with the other Ptolemies, not only in Alexandria and Ptolemais, but also in Thebes, were regarded as the head of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, it is nevertheless so much the more remarkable, that hitherto not a single structure can be pointed out which was erected under Ptolemy Soter when king, although he ruled twenty years in this capacity. In addition to this, the above-mentioned hieroglyphic lists of the Ptolemies commence the series without exception, not with the Soters, but with the Adelphes; and, as was mentioned before, his shields in Echmim bear no royal title; and in Karnak under Euergetes II., in one and the same representation, Philadelphus is designated as king, and the Soter, corresponding to him in space, as no king. In the demotic series of kings, also, of the Papyrus, the Alexandrine series was wont to omit the Soters, till the reign of Philometor, and to make the Adelphes immediately succeed Alexander the Great. The earliest period that I have met with the Soters is in a Papyrus, from the 17th year of Philopator (B.C. 210), the oldest of the Berlin collection; the Theban worship of the Ptolemies seems to have wholly excluded the Soters. Although the commencement of the royal government is therefore fixed in the year B.C. 305, as is specified in the canon, and most undeniably confirmed by the above-mentioned hieroglyphic stele in Vienna, which has been already cited for that purpose by my friend, M. Pinder (Beitr. zur Aelterem Münzkunde, vol. i., p. 201) in his instructive essay, On the Era of Philip upon Coins, it appears, however, to have offered another legitimate opinion, by which not Ptolemy Lagus, but Philadelphus, the first son of the king (if not Porphyrogenitus), was considered the head of the Ptolemies. It may thence be also explained why we find an astronomical Era employed in the reign of Euergetes, that of the otherwise unknown Dionysius, which began from the year 285, the first year of the reign of Philadelphus, while the coins of Philadelphus do not reckon as the commencement of a new era from the beginning of his own reign, nor from the year 305, but from the year of the death of Alexander the Great, or the commencement of the governorship of Ptolemy. (See Pinder, p. 205.)