title: The Ptolemaic Sea Empire
abstract: In 1982, archaeologists of the State Hermitage Museum excavated a sanctuary at the site of Nymphaion on the eastern shore of the Crimea. The sanctuary had been in use from ca. 325 bce until its sudden abandonment around 250 bce.1 An inscription found in situ associates the site with Aphrodite and Apollo, and with a powerful local dynasty, the Spartokids.2 Built upon a rocky promontory overlooking the Kimmerian Bosporos near the port of Pantikapaion (the seat of the Spartokids), the sanctuary cle