This Alexander was the son of the younger brother, Ptolemy Alexander, and the step son of Cleopatra; he was residing at Rome, and the Egyptian dynasty failing of male heirs, he came by invitation to Alexandria, and married this same Cleopatra [his step mother]; and having deprived her by force of her authority, he put her to death after 19 days, and was himself killed in the Gymnasium, by the guards, whom his barbarity had disgusted.
Alexander the second was succeeded by Ptolemy, who was called Neus Dionysus, or the young Bacchus, the son of Ptolemy Soter, and the brother of the Cleopatra last mentioned: his reign continued for 29 years.
His daughter Cleopatra was the last of the family of the Lagidae, and the years assigned to her reign are 22.
Neither did these different reigns fill up the whole series of years from beginning to end in a regular order, but several of them were intermixed with the others. For, in the time of Dionysus, three years are attributed to his two daughters, Cleopatra Tryphaena, and Berenice; a year conjointly, and two years, after the death of Cleopatra Tryphaena, to Berenice alone; because in this interval Ptolemy was gone to Rome, and was spending his time there, while his daughters, as if he were not about to return, took possession of the government for themselves; Berenice having also called in to a share of her dominion some men who were her relations: until Ptolemy, returning from Rome, and forgetting the indulgence due to a daughter, took offence at her conduct, and deprived her of life.
The first years of the reign of his successor Cleopatra were also referred to her in common with her elder brother Ptolemy; and the following to other persons, for this reason: Ptolemy Neus Dionysus, [or Auletes], left at his death four children, two Ptolemies, and Cleopatra, and Arsinoe; appointing as his successors his two elder children, Ptolemy and Cleopatra; they were considered as joint sovereigns for four years, and would have remained so; but that Ptolemy, having departed from his father’s commands, and resolved to keep the whole power in his own hands, it was his fate to be slain in a sea fight near the coasts of Egypt, by Julius Caesar, who took part with Cleopatra.
After the destruction of this Ptolemy, Cleopatra’s younger brother, also named Ptolemy, was placed on the throne with his sister, by Caesar’s decree, and the year was called the fifth of Cleopatra, and the first of Ptolemy: and this custom continued till his death, for two more years. But when he had been destroyed by the arts of Cleopatra, in his fourth year and in the eighth of his sister, the subsequent years were distinguished by the name of Cleopatra alone, as far as fifteen. The sixteenth was named also the first, since, after the death of Lysimachus, king of Chalcis in Syria, the “Autocrator” Marc Antony gave Chalcis and all the neighbouring country to Cleopatra; and from this time the remaining years of her reign, as far as the 22nd, which was the last, were reckoned in the same manner, with an additional number, the 22nd having been called also the 7th, [as the Armenian has very properly read, for the 27th].
From Cleopatra the government devolved to Octavius Caesar, called also Augustus, who overcame the power of Egypt in the battle of Actium, the second year of the CLXXXIVth Olympiad. And from the first year of the CXIth Olympiad, when Aridaeus Philippus [or rather Alexander], the son of Philip, took possession of the government, to the second of the CLXXXIVth, there are 73 Olympiads and a year, or 293 years. And so many are the years of the sovereigns that reigned in Alexandria, to the time of the death of Cleopatra.
ii. Blair’s Chronology of the Ptolemies.
| Year of Nab. | Olympiad. | B. C. | ||||
| 413 | CXI, year | 1 | 336 | Aug. Alexander succeeds Philip. | ||
| 426 | CXIV, | 2 | 323 | Apr. 21; Alexander dies: Ptolemy S. 1. | ||
| 464 | CXXIII, | 4 | 285 | 39 | Ptolemy Soter. | |
| 465 | CXXIV, | 1 | 284 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Philadelphus. |
| 502 | CXXXIII, | 2 | 247 | 38 | ||
| 503 | 3 | 246 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Evergetes. | |
| 527 | CXXXIX, | 3 | 222 | 25 | ||
| 528 | 4 | 221 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Philopator. | |
| 544 | CXLIII, | 4 | 205 | 17 | ||
| 545 | CXLIV, | 1 | 204 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Epiphanes. |
| 568 | CXLIX, | 4 | 181 | 24 | ||
| 569 | CL, | 1 | 180 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Philometor. |
| 579 | CLII, | 3 | 170 | 11 | ||
| 580 | 4 | 169 | 12 | Ptolemy [Eupator.] | ||
| 600 | CLVII, | 4 | 149 | 35 | Ptolemy Philometor. | |
| 604 | CLVIII, | 4 | 145 | 1 | } | Ptolemy [Eupator.] |
| 632 | CLXV, | 4 | 117 | 21 | ||
| 633 | CLXVI, | 1 | 116 | 9 | } | Ptolemy Lathurus and Cleopatra. |
| 642 | CLXVIII, | 2 | 107 | 10 | ||
| 643 | 2 | 106 | 1 | } | Cleopatra and Alexander. | |
| 660 | CLXXII, | 4 | 89 | 18 | ||
| 661 | CLXXIII, | 1 | 88 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Lathurus. |
| 667 | CLXXIV, | 3 | 82 | 7 | ||
| 668 | 4 | 81 | [1] | Cleopatra II, 6 months: Alexander II, 19 days. | ||
| 669 | CLXXV, | 1 | 80 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Alexander III. |
| 683 | CLXXVIII, | 3 | 66 | 15 | ||
| 684 | 4 | 65 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Auletes. | |
| 697 | CLXXXII, | 1 | 52 | 14 | ||
| 698 | 2 | 51 | 1 | } | Ptolemy Dionysius II, and Cleopatra III. | |
| 702 | CLXXXIII, | 2 | 47 | 5 | ||
| 703 | 3 | 46 | 1 | } | Cleopatra III, Ptolemy, jun. | |
| 704 | 4 | 45 | 2 | |||
| 705 | CLXXXIV, | 1 | 44 | 3 | Ptolemy dies, leaving Cleopatra III. | |
| 719 | CLXXXVII, | 3 | 30 | 17 | Sept. 2. Battle of Actium. Augustus makes Egypt a Roman Province. |
iii. Chronology of the Ptolemies, according to Champollion Figeac. Annales des Lagides, 2 v. 8. Par. 1819.