This book examines how the power of the Ptolemies depended upon control of waterways, the easiest form of communication in the ancient world.

Preface; In memoriam F. W. Walbank Christian Habicht; 1. Introduction Kostas Buraselis and Dorothy J. Thompson; 2. The Ptolemaic League of Islanders Andrew Meadows; 3. Callicrates of Samos and Patroclus of Macedon: champions of Ptolemaic thalassocracy Hans Hauben; 4. Rhodes and the Ptolemaic kingdom: the commercial infrastructure Vincent Gabrielsen; 5. Polybius and Ptolemaic sea power Andrew Erskine; 6. Ptolemaic grain, seaways and power Kostas Buraselis; 7. Waterborne recruits: the military settlers of Ptolemaic Egypt Mary Stefanou; 8. Our academic visitor is missing: Posidippus 89 (A-B) and 'smart capital' for the thalassocrats Paul McKechnie; 9. Aspects of the diffusion of Ptolemaic portraiture overseas Olga Palagia; 10. Ptolemies and piracy Lucia Criscuolo; 11. The Nile police in the Ptolemaic period Thomas Kruse; 12. Hellenistic royal barges Dorothy J. Thompson; 13. Eudoxus of Cyzicus and Ptolemaic exploration of the sea route to India Christian Habicht; 14. Timosthenes and Eratosthenes: sea routes and Hellenistic geography Francesco Prontera; 15. Claudius Ptolemy on Egypt and East Africa Klaus Geus.