The History of Egypt under the Ptolemies

This 1838 work by Samuel Sharpe (1799?1881) is the second of two volumes on the history of ancient Egypt; the first, dealing with the earlier period, is also reissued in this series. From a banking family, Sharpe was fascinated by Young's and Champollion's work in deciphering the hieroglyphs. He taught himself Coptic, and compiled his own hieroglyphic vocabulary lists. His facility for decipherment was assisted by a natural gift for solving cryptograms, but his inferences sometimes led him into error. This book, in which Sharpe follows his earlier technique of using inscriptions as well as historical works as sources, begins with a survey of the history of Egypt up to the time of Alexander the Great; the interested reader is referred to Sharpe's earlier volume for more details. He then surveys the Ptolemaic era by reigns, ending with the battle of Actium and the conquest of Egypt by Augustus.

1. Introduction; 2. Ptolemy Soter; 3. Ptolemy Philadelphus; 4. Ptolemy Euergetes; 5. Ptolemy Philopator; 6. Ptolemy Epiphanes; 7. Ptolemy Philometor; 8. Ptolemy Euergetes II; 9. Cleopatra Cocce and Ptolemy Soter II; 10. Cleopatra Cocce and Ptolemy Alexander; 11. Ptolemy Soter II; 12. Cleopatra Berenice; 13. Ptolemy Alexander II; 14. Ptolemy Neus Dionysus; 15. Cleopatra and her brothers; Index.