Ptolemy Soter, first as governor under Alexander and subsequently as king, was the founder of the splendid edifices on the Bruchium,
many of which were only finished by his son Philadelphus. He expended but little on his own palace, for he was wont to say that a king should be lavish to others and not to himself. He was a frugal and at the same time a wise and powerful sovereign, who sowed the
seeds of most of the learning, and laid the foundations of most of the institutions that afterwards made Alexandria great and famous; and his disposition to promotescience and art was inherited even by the most worthless of his descendants.
He followed Alexander’s example in leaving to the Egyptians their old laws and gods; but he held them in subjection by establishing military colonies. He might even have succeeded in engrafting Hellenic life and the Greek spirit throughout the Nile valley if he had not denied all municipal rights to the children of mixed marriages, with a view of keeping the blood of the Greek colonists pure.

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The hetaira Thais was Soter’s first wife; his second was the Macedonian Berenice. Both these queens taught the Alexandrian ladies how the Greek feeling for beauty could be combined with the oriental love of splendour.

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