Ptolemy an Argead

[Alexias]

I am currently reading 'Alexander the Great: Myth, Genesis and Sexuality' by Daniel Ogden. It is an interesting read, although sometimes you get the impression that it is erudition for erudition's sake, in that it seems every possible association with Alexander's siring mythology and the Argead's founding mythology has been chased down. I am only about half way through at the moment, so haven't reached the bit on Alexander's sex life.

But anyway, it seems that Ptolemy, rather than being Philip's son, may have been a distant cousin of Philip and a member of the Argead family. Ptolemy's mother seems to have been called Arsinoe (although I don't think this is 100% certain, but assumed to be true). The writer Satyrus gives the descent of an Arsinoe as Amyntas I, Bocrus, Meleager, Arsinoe. So, if this is the same Arsinoe as Ptolemy's mother, it would explain Curtius's statement (9.8.22), when Ptolemy was bitten by a snake in India, that Alexander was concerned partly because Ptolemy was a blood-relative.

So, Philip was a great, great-grandson of Amyntas I (d. c497 BC), as was Ptolemy Soter and, interestingly, so was Ptolemy of Alorus.