Ptolemy II, son of Ptolemy Soter, and the ideology of salvation: From civic acclamation to dynastic title

This paper offers a contribution to the study of the development of royal titulary in the early Hellenistic period by reassessing the problematic case study of the epithet Soter and of its affirmation as the standard official title of Ptolemy I under the reign of his son and successor, Ptolemy II (283/2–246 BC). In order to do so, all types of sources are taken into account, from civic decrees to dedications (stemming from both institutional and individual agents), from documentary papyri to literary sources. The geographical scope of this research is also as broad as possible, since it embraces evidence from Egypt, the Aegean world, and Asia Minor. While the major purpose of this contribution is to provide a chronological framework as pre- cise as possible for the dissemination of Ptolemy’s epithet Soter in the Ptolemaic kingdom in the first half of the 3rd century, a secondary but broader aim is related to the investigation of the cultural implications of this process, by which σωτηρία – a seminal category for early Hellenistic religion and kingship – was claimed by Ptolemy II (and, later, by his successors) as the fundamental historical trait characterizing the memory of the dynastic founder at both the religious and geo-political level. In the following discussion, I will carefully distinguish between the terms ‘epithet’ and ‘title’. The broad- er category ‘epithet’ encompasses any denomination accompanying the personal name of a sovereign, in every medium and context, and regardless of the frequency and degree of standardization of such denomina- tion. It can be used in a ritual context to refer to the recipient of a cult, in which case the cultic epithet can also be named an epiclesis. Conversely, by ‘title’ I mean more precisely an epithet that has large diffusion in royal formulae and which is coherently adopted as a standard protocol by a variety of agents (including the mon- archs themselves) and across media and contexts, both institutional and non-institutional.1 This terminologi- cal premise having been made, it will be argued that, although originally bestowed upon the living Ptolemy I (at least) in Rhodes and in the Aegean islands, as an epiclesis connected with the establishment of local cultic honors, the epithet Soter did not directly become the standard title of the king: indeed, the evidence allows us to conclude that its use remained occasional and related to regional or personal choices until the end of the years 260s, when Ptolemy II coherently promoted the dissemination of the formula ‘Ptolemy Soter’ as the standard title of his father across the kingdom, through the various channels of official communication