v51_0314 - EGYPT - LAGID OR PTOLEMAIC KINGDOM - PTOLEMY II PHILADELPHUS Drachme

EGYPT - LAGID OR PTOLEMAIC KINGDOM - PTOLEMY II PHILADELPHUS

(285-246 BC)

Ptolemy II succeeded his father in 283 BC but he was already associated with business before that date. Married in 288 BC to Arsinoe, the daughter of Lysimachus, he married his second wife in 276 BC his sister, Arsinoe II. Daughter of Ptolemy I and Berenice, she had married successively Lysimachus, then Ptolemy Ceraunos, her half-brother, and was deified, identified with the goddess Hathor, when she died in 271 BC. Ptolemy issued an important coinage restitution to recall his memory. During the last twenty-five years of his life, Ptolemy II completed the Lighthouse of Alexandria.