Customer Reviews

The Ptolemies

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Someone needs to point out that "The Ptolemies" and "The House of the Eagle" are the exact same novel. Amazon should not be offering them together as two-novel deal. I would be reluctant now to order "Daughter of the Crocodile" since it might be the same novel again under a third title.

Narrated by Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and magic, who was also the scribe of the gods, the almost-forgotten story of the Greeks' rule of Egypt unfolds. Ptolemy Soter, the first Greek Pharoah, is thought to have been the "unnatural" son of Philip of Macedon, and, therefore, the half-brother of Alexander the Great. When Alexander dies in 323 B.C., after he has conquered the entire eastern Mediterranean in battle, his empire is divided among his many generals, who spend the next fifty years fighting each other. Ptolemy Soter, who was always at Alexander's side, becomes Satrap of Egypt, Libya, and part of Arabia, and he and his heirs retain that territory, ruling as the Greek Pharaohs of Egypt, for almost three hundred years.

Battles with other satraps--in Syria, Gaza, Cypris, and Phrygia--occupy much of Ptolemy's life, his maneuvering for power sometimes facilitated through the marriages he arranges for his daughters--to the King of Thrace, the King of Macedon, the Tyrant of Syracuse, and the ruler of Syria. His own succession, however, is uncertain, since neither of his sons, Ptolemy Keraunos and Ptolemy Mikros, possesses the qualities of kingship that he himself espouses. His sons, daughters, and his wives, all of whom become well known to the reader, have a penchant for assassination, and the bloody violence which occurs in the wake of Ptolemy's own death, after forty years in power, is not surprising.

Author Duncan Sprott focuses on the political, social, and religious life of Alexandria and Memphis during Ptolemy's rule, using the sometimes mischievous voice of Thoth to tell informal tales about his characters, filling them with gossip, sex, and violence, and presenting a vivid picture of everyday life in the highest levels of power. When he thinks that details may overwhelm the reader, Thoth, the narrator, berates and cajoles, while controlling the pace and continuing the historical background--"Pay attention, Pupil-of-Thoth. The god would have you know everything," he says at one point.

With maps, a chronology, a list of main characters, genealogies, and even a comprehensive glossary, Sprott and his editors have provided everything a student of the period needs to keep track of the characters and their fates. Readable, often exciting, but filled with more characters and detail than some readers may want, this novel should keep those with an interest in post-Alexandrian history pleasantly occupied for hours. Mary Whipple

The Ptolemies is a novel chronicling the lives of the first two rulers of this dynasty. It contains a wealth of detail that is sometimes fascinating and sometimes distracting. The two most famous Ptolemies are the first (Ptolemy I) and the last (Cleopatra VII; THE Cleopatra). Therefore, the dynasty is circumscribed and defined by the history of Alexander at the beginning and Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony at the end. This book does not deal with the later Ptolemies (although a sequel apparently will), but since Ptolemy I rose to prominence as a comrade in arms of Alexander the Great, a familiarity with Alexander is ESSENTIAL. The recently dead Alexander is a brooding presence hanging over the whole story and the book is neither adequate nor optimal source material regarding him. Readers with a serious interest should read either Steven Pressfield's short and fast-paced novel Virtues of War (not one of his best), the longer 3 book cycle Alexander by Valerio Massimo Manfredi or the scholarly biography by Robin Lane Fox (all available at Amazon.com). All of them are good and will provide the sense of perspective required to appreciate this book. Without Alexander, the name of Ptolemy would be obscure.

The story is told through the eyes of the Egyption god Toth, and here lies the major problem with the book. The god is cynical and contemptuous of the characters in his own novel. This is a problem. Modern readers are not accustomed to cynicism and contempt from a deity, perhaps because ours are universal and should see all men as equal. Toth, though, being a parochial Egyption deity has a very poor view of non-Egyptians - and almost all the characters are non-Egyptians, since the Ptolemies were Macedonians. The repeated denigration of everyone and everything is particularly pronounced in the first hundred pages or so, but after this begins to abate somewhat. Around this time too the reader begins to realize that Toth, god or not, is just about as ignorant and short sighted as the characters he despises, irrespective of his claims to the contrary. Another problem is the deliberately stilted archaic style. I am familiar with this device as used for Arthurian legend, but here the style is quite unique and whether this is how translated Egyptian would read I do not know. In any case, this stylistic choice together with the god's use of four letter words (!) is distracting.

Once you get past these artistic choices, the book is interesting because Egypt under the Ptolemies is far less familiar territory than say ancient Greece, Rome or Egypt before the Greeks. As such, the book fills an important gap in the popular historic literature. Many readers will particularly enjoy learning about the details of daily living in Egypt in the 4th century BC. At times the pace is too slow and Ptolemy's thoughts are repeated over and over again. This is too bad, because reconstruction of the thoughts of historical figures is generally the most questionable part of historical fiction, and here there is too much of it. To me the most fascinating part was the latter half of the book in which the focus shifts to the offspring of the first Ptolemy.

Great books involve their readers because they are written with a love of the period and its people (see Elizabeth Kostova's bestseller The Historian, for example). In The Ptolemies there is not much love to go around. From beginning to end we are told that the story is one of misfortune, blood and death. Really, the story is no different than that of any other dynasty of ancient or more recent times, with neither more nor fewer assassinations, deaths and intrigues. Yet the Ptolemies had their glories too, so the preference for calling the glass half empty is unnecessary, because it could just as well be half full. I think the material is fascinating, I just wish the tone could have been different.

Published in the UK as "House of the Eagle," The Ptolemies is the first book in Duncan Sprott's Alexandria quartet. This is a massive, dense book, more akin to historical nonfiction than a novel. No dialog breaks up the massive blocks of text; those hoping for a snappy read should run for the hills. This is the story of the Ptolemaic dynasty begun by Ptolemy Soter, one-time general of Alexander the Great, who later became, in order, Satrap of Egypt, Pharaoh of Egypt, and finally a god of Egypt. Oh, and the story is told by Thoth, the Egyptian god of scribes.

The Ptolemies reminds me of three other books: Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude," Norman Mailer's "Ancient Evenings," and Evan Connell's "Deus Lo Volt." The Mailer because it's set in ancient Egypt, the Connell because it's a history book in the guise of fiction. But more than either of those it reminds me of the Marquez in that it recounts, at great length, the epic exploits of one family through several generations. And like the Marquez it recounts these exploits with a sort of reserved demeanor, despite the murders, the wars, the supernatural occurrences - all of it relayed with a matter-of-factness. To make the comparison even firmer, The Ptolemies even features a young girl who eats dirt!

And yet this matter-of-factness harms the book. Page after page of dense text unfolds, Sprott leaving no stone unturned, but the drama lacks. Everything is relayed via summary; there are no tense moments or heartfelt moments or touching moments. It's all this happened then that happened then this happened. Characters never speak their own words, we instead are told what they say. Wars are pronounced as hopeless or lost before the armies have even met. The fates of major characters are announced moments after they first appear in the narrative.

To make matters worse, Sprott somehows feels he must stay close to history, even though he's writing a novel. This of course makes The Ptolemies seem all the more like nonfiction, and even in those areas where Sprott COULD increase the fictional element (ie where exactly Alexander was buried, what happened to Ptolemy's Athenian courtesan Thais, or even what happened to Thais and Ptolemy's daughter) he instead has Thoth claim a lack of knowledge. This is part of the joke - Thoth bombasts us with constant assurances of his omniscience, only to claim a few sentences later that he doesn't know something - yet the shtick wears thin. It's not like this really IS a work of historical nonfiction; it's not like scholars are going to tear Sprott apart for illuminating via his imagination those corners which history has left in shadow. But Sprott takes the safe route every time, making the reader wonder if he or she shouldn't just read an actual book on the Ptolemaic dynasty instead.

Sprott followed this novel two years later with "Daughter of the Crocodile," which continues the tale into the reign of Ptolemy II. It wasn't even published in the US. This implies that The Ptolemies was a poor seller. No surprise, really; it's overlong and at times boring. Even the Library Journal advised that The Ptolemies was "Not Recommended," and they recommend everything! But despite its faults this book has many attractions for those of us in love with the ancient world; therefore, "Daughter of the Crocodile" might someday end up on my reading list. Just not anytime soon.

Sprott presents here the first of a trilogy on the history of the Ptolemy Greek dynasty of Egypt. Cleopatra is the well-known romantic-tragic figure who was the last of the Ptolemy dynasty that ruled Egypt from the 300s till their defeat by Rome.

This first volume tells a very detailed, apparently well-researched story of the Ptolemy Greek dynasty of Egypt, beginning in the campaigns of Ptolemy with Alexander the Great. It carries through to the second generation of the Ptolemy family and the end of the "Successors," the generals who parceled out the empire of Alexander, then fought each other for more.

This story is a novel, but appears to be well-researched and utilizes vivid personal and environmental detail to bring to us an ancient, very different period of life and culture. The story is told by Thoth, the Egyptian ibis god of knowledge and writing.

But much of the story is necessarily from the perspective of Ptolemy, who became Ptolemy Soter (Deliverer, Saviour), the founder of the Egyptian Greek dynasty. He was declared a god in his own lifetime by the Greek oracle of Zeus in Libya, as well as agreeing late in his kingship to become the King of the Egyptians, which meant he was deified as the representative of Ra, the Sun God.

But in a Mitchneresque pattern, the author explains and fills in much background and helps the reader make connections. He provides an extensive family tree, lists of the lineages, a glossary explaining the names of the gods and other terms, and a long cast of characters. He does a very good job keeping identities clear in such a saga involving cultures and dynasties that used a variety of names.

Sprott provides good cultural insights, and deals with the ethnic attitudes of the various cultures and classes. I have continued to watch for the followup volumes in the series, but as of early 2009, I have not seen a further title from Sprott.

Although I had high hopes for this book it ultimately disappoints. It is too long-winded and the story never maintains a smooth flow.
Even though Thoth narrates the story from an Egyptian point of view the Greek bashing that goes on continuously does not convey the feeling that it is made as an aid to understand the differences in the cultures or people but simply as a mechanism to demean Greeks and Greece as a whole.
As for extensive research, that may be true for the historical facts, but when Sprott uses Greek words or phrases as a wow-he-is-so-learned factor he would have done much better if he employed any Greek school kid as an advisor.
Lastly, in which Greek tourist trap did he ever learn that moussakka was a food eaten by ancient greeks???!!!!