1. (“Soter” means savior...
Yes, but nothing to do with religion in this case. Ptolemy I earned the title "savior" from the citizens of Rhodes, after he lifted a siege against that city in 311 BCE. Though the earliest mention of "soter" is on coins minted by his son, Ptolemy II in 263 BCE. So we may be seeing some Ptolemaic propaganda at work here. And the Ptolemy family were absolute masters of propaganda.
2. When Ptolemy became pharaoh of Egypt, he wanted the Egyptians to consecrate him as a god.
According to some historians, Ptolemy didn't even want to be a Pharaoh. He seems to have been a very down-to-earth fellow for the most part; after all, he spent most of his life as a soldier.
IIRC, Ptolemy ruled Egypt for about 10 years before he even took the title of Pharaoh. And some historians say he only did it then at the urging of the Egyptian priests.
Like all clergy everywhere in history, the priests were worried about their jobs. Go mucking about with the religious system and the clergy can end up unemployed. That's what got Pharaoh Akhenaton in trouble centuries earlier, when he tried to disestablish the old Egyptian religion and replace it with Ra, the One True Sun God. The priesthood tried to erase him completely from Egyptian history.
The part about the priests "saving their own lives" sounds like priestly propaganda. They cultivated VERY close ties to the Ptolemy family right from the start. e.g., a later High Priest married the daughter of Ptolemy VIII.
What amazes me about Serapis: he was a totally made-up god and everybody knew it. But within a couple hundred years, the worship of Serapis had spread all over the Mediterranean area. As I've often griped in here - we humans are so gullible, sometimes I'm amazed we ever made it out of the caves. (And I'm as gullible as anyone else, in case you wondered.)
3. ...and because of the Egyptians refusal to acknowledge him as a God, he began killing the people of Egypt.
Well, that's not very fair and balanced! Actually he was putting down a revolt in Upper (southern) Egypt, led by local wanna-be Pharaohs. Fascinating (to me anyway) because it was one of the first guerilla wars in history.
The link below explains the whole thing, but look where the trouble started again:
Temples are not only religious institutions for the cult of the gods, but also economic organizations and wheels in the administrative machine. There is no opposition between church and state, as with pope and emperor in Medieval Europe, but the temples were part of the organization of the state. In the South of Egypt the king collects his taxes through the temples: a large part of the land in Upper Egypt nominally belongs to the gods. The farmers who cultivate this land pay part of the produce to the local temple. Here it is used for the cult of the gods (and for the wages of the priests)...
http://tebtunis.berkeley.edu/lecture/revolt
The Romans learned a lesson from all that priestly politicking. When they finally took over Egypt, they eliminated the office of High Priest.
4. Finally...honest! Somebody needs to do a TV series based on the Ptolemies, something like "Game of Thrones" or "The Borgias." What a fascinating crew!
Especially the women, who unfortunately all had the same 3 names over 300 years of history: Arsinoe, Berenike and Cleopatra.
Well, except for poor old Ptolemais, the daughter of Ptolemy I. At a young age she was betrothed to Demetrius Poliorcetes, a/k/a "The City-Smasher" or "Besieger." Demetrius kept getting into wars with Ptolemais' father, so she had a very long engagement - one that lasted until Demetrius had married 4 other wives (and got himself into a juicy scandal with a young boy, Democles the Handsome.)
See what I mean? Any DU'ers in the TV biz, get cracking on this!
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