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 made peace by marrying Antiochus III's daughter in 194/3 BC, enraging Rome, which had fought partly on his behalf and now handed his old territories to Pergamum and Rhodes. Ptolemaic forces clawed back the south by 186 BC, and in his final years he prepared for a new war with the Seleucids, but courtiers allegedly poisoned him in 180 BC, fearing the cost. His reign cemented the rise of courtiers and priests in Egyptian power - and set off the collapse that pulled Rome into the east.