Ptolemy I Soter rivals after Alexander's death. For example, Arrian's account of the fall of Thebes in 335 BC ("Anabasis" , a rare section of narrative explicitly attributed to Ptolemy by Arrian) shows several significant variations from the parallel account preserved in Diodorus Siculus (17.11–12), most notably in attributing a distinctly unheroic role in proceedings to Perdiccas. More recently, J. Roisman has argued that the case for Ptolemy's blackening of Perdiccas and others has been much exaggerated. Ptolemy personally sponsored the great mathematician Euclid. He found Euclid's seminal work, the "Elements", too difficult to study, so he asked if there were an easier
Cosmas I of Alexandria Cosmas I of Alexandria Cosmas I or Kosmas I () served as Greek Patriarch of Alexandria between ca. 727 and his death in 768. Cosmas was the first residential Chalcedonian (Melkite) patriarch to be established in Alexandria following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 640s. The see had remained vacant since, but Cosmas was appointed with the consent of both the Umayyad Caliph and the Byzantine Emperor. The chronicler Theophanes the Confessor reports that in 742/3, he abjured Monotheletism, the dominant doctrine among Alexandrian Melkites since it had been promulgated by Emperor Heraclius. As Cosmas himself was most likely