History of Jerusalem Under the Ptolemies (c. 301-198BCE)

The death of Alexander in 323 leads to a war of succession between his generals, the so-called diadochoi. Instead of a single successor, Alexander is eventually succeeded by three major individuals who establish three smaller empires that continued to compete with one another. The Antigonides ruled Macedonia and Greece, the Seleukids dominated a vast, multiethnic territory that included Syria and the erstwhile Persian territories east of the Euphrates, while the Ptolemies establish themselves in Egypt and the southern Levant, ruling as Macdedonians in Alexandria and as a new Pharaonic dynasty over the rest of Egypt.

From 301 to 198, the province of Yehud, with its temple city Y'rushelem (Aramaic) or Hierousalem (Greek) is dominated by the dynasty founded by Ptolemy I Soter (i.e., "the savior"). Internally there are no changes to the type of administration established under the Achaemenid Persians. There is most likely a governing council of elders (a gerousia, which may be identical with what is later called the synhedrion or Sanhedrin). The most influential members of this society are the priests. The form of government is aristocratic, i.e., the city and whatever belongs to it, is run by a group of influential families. During the Ptolemaic period, tax farming for Palestine was in the hands of the influential family of the Tobiads whose land base was in Transjordan in the area of Ammon. At the head of the Jerusalem gerousia was the high priest, a hereditary office held, at that time, by the family of Onias. Political leadership and land ownership are thus in the hands of a small group of influential clans.

The century of Ptolemaic rule over Judah/Palestine and Phoenicia ends when Antiochus III. ("the Great"), scion of the Seleukids ruling the eastern parts of the lands conquered by Alexander, asserts his claim to the coastal cities and the rest of the southern Levant by several military campaigns. A decisive victory at Panias (Banyas) in 198 forces the young Greco-Egyptian ruler, Ptolemy V., to yield. After the Ptolemaic garrison is driven from Jerusalem, Antiochus, welcomed by an established pro-Syrian party among the priestly aristocrats who hoped for a more lenient system of administration, reaffirmed the right of the Yehudim to live by their paternal laws.