ABSTRACT
This article explores the role of the Ptolemies in the development of scholarship and science in the Hellenistic period by comparing Ptolemaic patronage to the patronage in other Hellenistic courts. This (necessarily brief) survey also discusses why Hellenistic science came to a halt in the second century BCE and whether this event is connected to changes in royal patronage. Even though much of the evidence is scanty and anecdotal, the analysis of different areas where ‘research-oriented’ patronage developed (libraries, research institutions, recruitment and retention of scholars, relationship between ruler and scientists/scholars) suggests some specific trends in the Hellenistic patronage of science and scholarship. These trends and the differences between the Ptolemies and the other Hellenistic kingdoms in implementing patronage can also help us understand why innovative and original research stopped around the second century BCE, and how scientific development was connected to the political agendas of the Hellenistic kings.
