16. Ptolemy I Hijacked Alexander the Great’s Corpse
Ptolemy also intercepted and hijacked the corpse of Alexander the Great while it was being transported for burial in Macedonia, and took it to Alexandria. There, he enhanced his capital’s prestige by building a magnificent mausoleum in the center of the Alexandria, in which the preserved corpse of the great conqueror was put on display for visitors. It was a propaganda coup that came in handy, when eventually fell out amongst themselves and went to war against each other.
The Nile Valley’s isolation was advantageous to Ptolemy during those turbulent decades. From his relatively secure power base in Egypt, he alternated between war and diplomacy to expand or protect his domain, until a major naval defeat in 306 BC, forced Ptolemy to give up on expansion. For the final decades of his life, he relied on diplomacy and marriage alliances to secure what he already had. At his death in 282 BC, he left behind the most secure and stable of the newly created Hellenistic powers, and his Ptolemaic Dynasty ended up outlasting all of its Hellenistic peers.
