Triumphal Inscription of Ptolemy III at Adulis

Abstract

The complex triumphal inscription of King Ptolemy III of Egypt (246-222/221 BC) ‘Great King descended from Heracles and Dionysus’ stands out among the great epigraphic documents of the Ptolemaic dynasty. It includes the official genealogy of the sovereign, a panorama of the territories inherited from Ptolemy II and, above all, the list of the conquests of the first phase of the Laodicean war (246-245 BC), which culminated in an anabasis up to Central Asia. We know this historical and meta-historical document only through the autopsy of the Alexandrian merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes, who saw it in Adulis (Kingdom of Axum), in the heart of ancient Aithiopia, in 547-549 AD. The inscription raises numerous questions, and must be examined keeping in view the concepts of memory and tradition. Added to this is the fascinating intellectual history of his reception, which played a role in the birth of the concept of ‘Hellenism’ itself.