Ptolemy V Epiphanes (reigned 204-181 BC), son of Ptolemy IV Philopator and Arsinoe III of Egypt, was not more than five years old when he came to the throne, and under a series of regents the kingdom was paralysed.

Antiochus III the Great and Philip V of Macedon made a compact to divide the Ptolemaic possessions overseas. Philip seized several islands and places in Caria and Thrace, whilst the Battle of Panium (198 BC) definitely transferred Palestine from the Ptolemies to the Seleucids.

Antiochus after this concluded peace, giving his own daughter Cleopatra to Epiphanes to wife (193 -192 BC). Nevertheless, when war broke out between Antiochus and Rome, Egypt ranged itself with the latter power. Epiphanes in manhood was chiefly remarkable as a passionate sportsman; he excelled in athletic exercises and the chase. Great cruelty and perfidy were displayed in the suppression of the native rebellion, and some accounts represent him as personally tyrannical.

The elder of his two sons, Ptolemy VI Philometor (181-145 BC), succeeded as an infant under the regency of his mother Cleopatra. Her death was followed by a rupture between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid courts, on the old question of Palestine.

External Links

• Ptolemy Epiphanes at LacusCurtius — (Chapter VIII of E. R. Bevan's House of Ptolemy, 1923)
• Ptolemy V — (Egyptian Royal Genealogy)