King of Mauretania · c. 13–9 BC–AD 40
King of Mauretania
Son of Juba II and Cleopatra Selene. Client king of Mauretania from AD 23/24 to 40, he maintained his father's alliance with Rome. Caligula had him executed in AD 40 during the games — Suetonius blames envy of his purple cloak, Cassius Dio his wealth. Rome then annexed Mauretania, divided in AD 44 into Tingitana and Caesariensis. His Canarian connection is indirect.
Ptolemy was born in Mauretania, in all likelihood between 13 and 9 BC, the son of Juba II and Cleopatra Selene. Through his parents he was heir both to the Numidian kings and to the Ptolemies of Egypt: Suetonius remembers him as 'son of King Juba' and as the emperor Caligula's cousin, since his mother was Mark Antony's granddaughter. His birth belonged to Augustus's dynastic project for north-west Africa, a client monarchy educated in Rome and loyal to the empire.
On his father's death in AD 23 or 24 he succeeded to the throne without disruption, proof of how settled the Augustan arrangement had become. His name, that of the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, was a programme in itself, joining his father's Berber legitimacy to his mother's Hellenistic prestige. As a foreign, vassal dynasty, the kings of his house faced frequent uprisings in the interior; the family's agricultural policies favoured farming over pastoralism, with the greatest impact on the kingdom's fertile coast. His reign continued Juba II's policy: coinage adjusted to Roman patterns, the promotion of agriculture in the kingdom, and loyalty to the imperial house. Written sources for these years are scarce; almost everything we know about his rule comes from coins, inscriptions and the echo his end found among Roman historians.
That end came in AD 40. Caligula had him come from his kingdom, received him with honours, and suddenly ordered his execution during the games: Suetonius attributes the decision to irritation at seeing the king's purple cloak outshine the emperor in the crowd's admiration, while Cassius Dio gives his wealth as the motive. Whatever the real political cause — perhaps fear of a prestigious dynasty standing too close to the throne —, Ptolemy was the last king of the line founded by Juba II and the last known member of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
After his death Caligula annexed the kingdom, and a revolt broke out that ended only under Claudius: in AD 44 Mauretania was organised as a province and divided into Mauretania Caesariensis in the east and Mauretania Tingitana in the west, under imperial government. Juba's dynasty of Mauretania disappeared. His relationship with the Canaries is indirect: he inherited and lost the kingdom that, two generations earlier, had sent the expedition which gave the islands the name of the Fortunate. A bust of him preserved in the Louvre is today the most visible image of that vanished kingdom.
