THE FOUNDATION DATE OF THE PANHELLENIC PTOLEMAEA AND RELATED PROBLEMS IN EARLY PTOLEMAIC CHRONOLOGY

The Ptolemaea are the quadrennial, panhellenic games founded by Ptolemy II in honor of his dead father, and the purpose of this dissertation is to determine as precisely as possible the year and calendar date of their foundation. The evidence for the year is epigraphical, consisting of an Attic inscription first published in 1978. The evidence for the month and day is papyrological, consisting of P.Ryl. IV 562 and PSI IV 364.; Chapter 1 addresses the attempts prior to 1978 to determine the year the Ptolemaea were founded. These revolved around the dating of two decrees which accept the Ptolemaea as panhellenic, IG XII.7 506 and SEG XVIII 241. The former is a decree of the Ptolemaic League of Islanders. Chapter 1 first shows that the silence of this decree about Arsinoe II Philadelphus and Ptolemy II's divine honors cannot be used to date it. SEG XVIII 241 consists of three non-joining fragments of a decree of the Delphic Amphictyony: the lower two are part of an acceptance of the Ptolemaea as panhellenic, the upper is part of a prescript datable to the 260s. Because there is no control on the length of the lacuna separating the prescript from the other fragments, Chapter 1 proposes that the prescript dates not the Amphictyony's acceptance of the Ptolemaea but a later decree to which its earlier decree accepting the Ptolemaea was appended. These two documents, therefore, cannot be used to date the foundation of the Ptolemaea.; Chapter 2 concerns itself with the Attic decree in honor of Callias of Sphettus, edited by T. Leslie Shear, Jr., in 1978. One of the services Callias rendered Athens was to serve as its architheoros to the first Ptolemaea; this event is placed in the chronological context of Callias' other services, leading to the conclusion that the foundation of the Ptolemaea dates to before summer 282.; Chapter 3 describes the calendars of Ptolemaic Egypt (reviewing at length the major study of the Macedonian calendar done by L. Koenen in 1977) as a preliminary to determining the calendar month and day on which the Ptolemaea were celebrated, which is undertaken in Chapter 4.; Chapter 4 shows on the evidence of P.Ryl. IV 562 that the Ptolemaea took place after 22 Daisius; PSI IV 364 shows that they took place before 8 Loius. This evidence leads to the conclusion that the Ptolemaea took place on 29 Daisius, the date on which Ptolemy I claimed to have succeeded Alexander as king of Egypt. Taken together with P.Cair.Zen. III 59341, the papyri also show that panhellenic Ptolemaea were held on the 29 Daisius in the second year of an Olympiad. The dissertation concludes that the first celebration of the panhellenic Ptolemaea took place on 29 Daisius in 01. 124,2, which is equivalent to 10 May 282.; The texts of IG XII.7 506, SEG XVIII 241, P.Ryl. IV 562, and PSI IV 364 appear with full commentary in Appendices 1-4; the evidence for the Ptolemaea without chronological importance is briefly described in Appendix 5.