Ptolemy I Soter, a shrewd and cautious ruler, has emerged at the end of forty years of war with a compact and well-ordered realm.

The Ptolemaic kingdom is ethnically diverse.

During this initial period of Macedonian rule, Greek troops under Ptolemy have been given land grants and brought their families, encouraging tens of thousands of Greeks to settle the country making themselves the new ruling class.

These early Greek settlers have done little to hide their disdain for the Egyptian population that surrounds them, people they think to be barbaric.

Ptolemy is eighty-four in the winter of 283/282, when he dies in bed, the only one of Alexander's successors to do so.

He leaves a history of Alexander's campaigns that has not survived—it is to be a principal source for the surviving account by Arrian of Nicomedia.

Ptolemy's provision for the Egyptian succession, which is based on examples from the time of the pharaohs, makes possible a peaceful transition.

Certain classes of people had proclaimed Ptolemy a deity several times during his life, and after his death, all the Egyptians raise him to the level of a god.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus, now sole ruler of Egypt, purges his family of possible rivals.

Arsinoe, daughter of King Lysimachus of Thrace, is married in about 282 to Ptolemy as part of the alliance between Thrace and Egypt against Syria.

Ptolemy Keraunus had cajoled his half-sister into marrying him, but, on entering Cassandreia, he had promptly executed her two younger sons.

Arsinoe escapes.

Arsinoë in about 279 BCE makes her way eventually to Alexandria to advance her fortune.

Soon after her arrival, Ptolemy II's first queen, Arsinoe I, Lysimachus’ daughter, is accused, probably at Arsinoë's instigation, of plotting his murder.

Arsinoe, who has borne Ptolemy three children, including his successor, is nevertheless unable to prevent him from repudiating her and she is exiled to Coptos, a city of Upper Egypt near the Wadi Hammamat.

The deposed queen’s ambitious rival, widow to both Lysimachus and Keraunus, marries Ptolemy and adopts her children.

Sibling marriage, while scandalous to the Greeks, is a customary practice in Egypt.

The event shocks Greek public opinion but is celebrated by the Alexandrian court poets.

Philadelphoi (“Brother-Loving”) consequently is added to the names of Ptolemy and Arsinoe II.

Ptolemy, taking advantage of the difficulties of the rival kingdoms of the Seleucids and Antigonids, extends his rule in Syria, Asia Minor, and the Aegean at their expense and asserts at the same time his influence in Ethiopia and Arabia.

Egyptian embassies to Rome as well as to India reflect the wide range of Ptolemy's political and commercial interests.

The Egyptians invade northern Syria in 276, but Antiochus defeats Ptolemy, repels him, and secures an alliance with Ptolemy’s half brother, who rules Cyrene.