Ptolemaic king of Egypt
Ptolemy II
Active
283–246 BCE
The library of Alexandria was operating during his reign. The Letter of Aristeas credits him with initiating the Septuagint; the Zenon papyri date from the same reign.
What the sources say
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4 statements
By the time of Ptolemy II, the library of Alexandria was already in operation, and its collection, which the book estimates at 200,000 volumes, drew the finest scholars.
Tradition or narrative
According to the Letter of Aristeas, a work written in Alexandria during the second or first century BCE, Ptolemy II commissioned the translation of the Jewish laws for his library and asked the high priest in Jerusalem for six translators drawn from each of the twelve tribes. These 72 translators would account for the name Septuagint, from the Latin for 'seventy'.
Contested interpretation
It is not at all clear whether the Letter of Aristeas accurately describes the origin of the Septuagint; the translation may have arisen within the Jewish community itself, perhaps with the king's support. The book's timeline links the Septuagint to the reign of Ptolemy II (283 to 246 BCE).
The papyri of Zenon, who toured Palestine in 259 and 258 BCE as an agent of a finance minister of Ptolemy II, were discovered in Egypt in 1915. They reveal a Palestine monitored, controlled and economically exploited by the Ptolemaic king, with an administration based in Ptolemais (modern Akko) and reaching down to the village level.