ABSTRACT
The occupation of Syria-Palestine by Ptolemy I (305-283/82) inaugurated the almost exactly one hundred years of Ptolemaic rule in Palestine which, despite numerous wars, was a time of peace and economic growth for Palestine. Initially, the entire province of “Syria and Phoenicia” (the official designation) was not yet in the hands of Ptolemy. By 286 BCE, however, he had succeeded in taking control of the Phoenician coastal cities as well (Tyre and Sidon in particular) and thus ruled over the entire province. The border of the Seleucid kingdom in the north ran from the coastal plain along the river Eleutherus (=Nahr el-Kebir) across the fertile Biqac north of Baalbek in an arc going south-east to Damascus, thus incorporating Coele-Syria and the most important Phoenician coastal towns.
