Hi there, you're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast. Episode 87, Ptolemaic Egypt, the Great Revolt The Sun will dark darken, as it will not be willing to observe the evils in Egypt.

The earth will not respond to seeds.

These will be part of its blight.

The farmer will be done for taxes for what he did not

plant. There will be fighting in Egypt because people will be in need of food. What one plants,

another will reap and carry off." End quote. So begins the passage known as the Oracle of the

Potter, a text written by an Egyptian author

sometime during the second century BC. Much like the contemporary biblical material written

in Judea, the oracle is a piece of apocalyptic literature, rectoractively predicting the struggles

that gripped the Egyptians living under the rule of the Ptolemaic

dynasty. Yet it also reveals that a great punishment would befall the so-called girdle-wearers,

i.e. the Greeks, and a divine retribution for the native Egyptians that toiled under their yoke.

This would be known as the Great Revolt, a widespread rebellion lasting from 206 to 186 that saw the establishment

of a rival Pharaoh in Thebes, much of Upper Egypt sundered from Ptolemae control, and the

dynasty itself would be left on the brink of extinction. When we last left the narrative in Egypt,

Ptolemy IV Philopeter and Arsenaway III Thea Philopeter

had triumphantly returned from their victory over Antiochus III at the Battle of Raffia in 217.

This was a surprise to everyone, given Ptolemy's already poor reputation as a lazy and ineffectual

king.

But peace with the Seleucas was assured for the moment, following the end of the four Assyrian

war, the rest of Ptolemy's career is pretty unremarkable.

Perhaps this is due in no small part to the lack of interest from the ancient historians

...