Ptolemy V Epiphanes

Ptolemy V became King of Ptolemaic Egypt in 204 BC at age five, after his parents died under suspicious circumstances. A hated regent fell to revolution in 202 BC, but the regents who followed were no better, and the paralyzed kingdom bled territory on every front. Antiochus III and Philip V stripped Egypt of Asia Minor, the Levant, and its Aegean influence in the Fifth Syrian War, while a massive Egyptian revolt cost most of Upper Egypt and parts of Lower Egypt to breakaway pharaohs. He came of age in 196 BC and was crowned in Memphis — the ceremony memorialized on the Rosetta Stone — then ma…