Ptolemy I Soter way to master it. According to Proclus Euclid famously quipped: "Sire, there is no Royal Road to geometry." Ptolemy I Soter Ptolemy I Soter (; , "Ptolemaĩos Sōtḗr" "Ptolemy the Savior"; c. 367 BC – January 282 BC) was a companion and historian of Alexander the Great who succeeded to his empire. Ptolemy became ruler of Egypt (323–282 BC) and founded the Ptolemaic dynasty which ruled it for the next three centuries, turning Egypt into a Hellenistic kingdom and Alexandria into a center of Greek culture. Ptolemy was the son of Arsinoe of Macedon by either her husband Lagus or
Transmission of the Greek Classics Transmission of the Greek Classics The transmission of the Greek Classics to "Latin" Western Europe during the Middle Ages was a key factor in the development of intellectual life in Western Europe. Interest in Greek texts and their availability was scarce in the Latin West during the earlier Middle Ages, but as traffic to the East increased so did Western scholarship. Classical Greek philosophy consisted of various original works ranging from those from Ancient Greece (e.g. Aristotle) to those Greco-Roman scholars in the classical Roman Empire (e.g. Ptolemy). Though these works were originally written in Greek, for centuries the language