In modern historiography, there is an opinion about the victory of the Ptolemaic power in the First Syrian War. However, the researchers do not take into account the fact that during the aforementioned conflict, the Ptolemies lost control of Cyrenaica. The latter circumstance gives us the right to assert that the First Syrian War ended in a tangible defeat for Alexandria.
Keywords: I Syrian War, Ptolemy II, Magas of Cyrene, Antiochus I, Cyrenaica.
page 34The First Syrian War (275-272/271, hereafter - BC) marked the beginning of a series of military conflicts between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid states. The cause of these wars, which became known as the Syrian Wars, 1 was the struggle for Celesiria, 2 an area that included the territory of Palestine, southern Syria,and most of Phoenicia. 3Unfortunately, when speaking about the aforementioned conflict, we still have to recognize the relevance of the remark made by E. Bill at the time: the fragmentary and poor source base does not allow us to learn anything significant about the First Syrian War; in particular, questions related to determining the chronological framework, sequence of events and results of this conflict remain the subject of scientific discussion [Will, 1979, p. 145-146] 4. One of these issues, namely, determining the results of the conflict for the Ptolemaic state, will be discussed in this publication.
First of all, it is necessary to determine the identity of the direct initiator of the first Syrian war. In this regard, I fully share the point of view of such researchers as K. Lehmann, V. D. Zhigunin, J.-K. Vinnitsky, S. Sherwin-White, E. Kurt, and R. Hunter, who consider the rebel governor of Ptolemaic Cyrenaica Magas to be the instigator of the First Syrian War [Zhigunin, 1980, pp. 70-71; Hunter, 2003, p. 164; Lehmann, 1903, S. 496, 537; Sherwin-White and Kuhrt, 1993, p. 35; Winnicki, 1989, S. 52-53] 5.
The aforementioned Magas was the stepson of the founder of the Alexandrian dynasty, Ptolemy I Sote ...
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