Battle of Raphia - Aftermath

Aftermath

Ptolemy's victory secured the province of Coele-Syria for Egypt, but it was only a respite; at the Battle of Panium in 198 BC Antiochus defeated the army of Ptolemy's young son, Ptolemy V and recaptured Coele Syria and Judea.

Ptolemy owed his victory in part to having a properly equipped and trained native Egyptian Phalanx which for the first time formed a large proportion of his Phalangites, thus ending his manpower problems. The self confidence the Egyptians gained was credited by Polybius as one of the causes of the secession in 207-186 of Upper Egypt under pharaohs Hugronaphor and Ankhmakis, who created a separate kingdom that lasted nearly twenty years.

The battle of Raphia marked a turning-point in Ptolemaic history. The growth in influence of the native Egyptian element in 2nd-century Ptolemaic administration and culture, at first in the financial pressure aggravated by the cost of the war itself. The stele that recorded the convocation of priests at Memphis in November 217, to give thanks for the victory was inscribed in Greek and hieroglyphic and demotic Egyptian: in it, for the first time, Ptolemy is given full pharaonic honours in the Greek as well as the Egyptian texts; subsequently this became the norm.

Some biblical commentators see this battle as being the one referred to in Daniel 11:11, where it says, "Then the king of the South will march out in a rage and fight against the king of the North, who will raise a large army, but it will be defeated."