| Summary: | The fifteen Ptolemies that sat on the throne of Egypt between 305 BC (the date of assumption of basileia by Ptolemy I) and 30 BC (death of Cleopatra VII) are in most cases little known and even in its most recognized bibliography, their work has been somewhat overlooked, unappreciated. Although boisterous and sometimes unloved, with its tumultuous and dissolute lives, their unbridled and unrepressed ambitions, the intrigues, the betrayals, the fratricides and the crimes that the members of this dynasty encouraged and practiced, the Ptolemies changed the Egyptian life in some aspects and were responsible for the last Pharaonic monuments which were left us, some of them still considered true masterpieces of Egyptian greatness. The Ptolemaic period was indeed a paradoxical moment in the history of ancient Egypt, as it was with a genetically foreign dynasty (traditions, language, religion and culture) that the country, with its capital in Alexandria, met a considerable economic prosperity, a significant political and military power and an intense intellectual activity, finally became part of the world and Mediterranean culture.
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