“Behold we stream along the liquid air,A radiant lock of Berenice’s hair,Which the fond queen with hands uplifted vow’dA welcome offering to each favoring god.”
“Behold we stream along the liquid air,A radiant lock of Berenice’s hair,Which the fond queen with hands uplifted vow’dA welcome offering to each favoring god.”
“Behold we stream along the liquid air,
A radiant lock of Berenice’s hair,
Which the fond queen with hands uplifted vow’d
A welcome offering to each favoring god.”
And speaking of the king it continues:
“Speed his return, with triumph crown his stay,And subject Asian realms to Egypt’s sway;This once attained, among the gods I shine,Absolving all thy oaths a new made sign.”“That the yellow tresses of my fairSacred to love might gild the illumed air.”
“Speed his return, with triumph crown his stay,And subject Asian realms to Egypt’s sway;This once attained, among the gods I shine,Absolving all thy oaths a new made sign.”“That the yellow tresses of my fairSacred to love might gild the illumed air.”
“Speed his return, with triumph crown his stay,
And subject Asian realms to Egypt’s sway;
This once attained, among the gods I shine,
Absolving all thy oaths a new made sign.”
“That the yellow tresses of my fair
Sacred to love might gild the illumed air.”
And the hair, impersonated by the poet, laments its separation from its mistress’s head. These flights of fancy were no doubt very pleasing to the king.
Like her mother-in-law, if to a less degree, Berenike II seems to have taken an active interest in the affairs of the kingdom. At Canopus, an old trading post, a temple was erected to the king and queen, who were there deified as “BenefactorGods,” referring probably to the active measures which they took to avert a threatened famine. From the Canopus decree which bears some resemblance to the celebrated Rosetta stone, and from a gold plaque found in the ruins of tombs we obtain this information. In the sanctuary at Philae is still a pedestal placed here by Euergetes and his wife, on which stood the sacred boat with the image of Isis, and on a wall in the same temple is his father Ptolemy Philadelphus offering incense and pouring water on the altar.
To the Princess Berenike, probably the first child of this marriage, who had died, a statue was set up, beside the gods. The head-dress of young Berenike differs in that it has two ears of corn, in the midst of which is the asp-shaped diadem, behind is a papyrus-shaped sceptre, about which the tail of the diadem’s serpent is wound.
The year after the Canopus decree, the tenth of his reign, Ptolemy Euergetes went with great pomp to the refounding of the temple of Edfu, in Upper Egypt, one of the most splendid with which the Ptolemy name is connected, and where a great feast was held for six days.
We know but little definitely about the private life of the king and queen, but one or two incidents connected with her are preserved. Other wives or mistresses, claimants on her husband’s affection, made no figure, if they existed, so we may believe Berenike’s marriage relations to have been more than usually peaceful and happy. One pleasant anecdote is told of her which Mahaffy gives in a footnote. While the king was one day playing at dice, an officer came to him toread out a list of criminals to be condemned, but the queen gently took it away and would not allow him to decide so important a matter so hastily, and at such a time, and it further states that the king yielded to her wishes. That the queen thus dared to interfere and the king so readily accepted her action seems to give proof of the peculiarly amiable relations existing between them.
The queen is also spoken of as a patroness of various aromatic oils, toilette articles, etc., which leads us to suppose she was particular about and careful of her personal appearance. Ptolemy Euergetes was, like his predecessor, fat and handsome, with a full, voluptuous face. The early Ptolemies all had full, voluptuous faces, but handsome, while in the cases of their successors the features were less regular, the nose sharper, and the chin more prominent.
The royal pair had several children, of whom the oldest succeeded his father, the king dying in the twenty-fifth year of his reign. The three first Ptolemies were men of mark, their descendants were decadents, profligate, perfidious and cruel, unfaithful in every way to moral obligations and their task of governing.
Ptolemy Philopator was a young man when he ascended the throne, 222 B. C., his name is said to signify “the son designated for the throne by his father,” with whom, as was so frequently the case, he had probably already been associated in the government. Some authors even suggest that he was not even innocent of the death of this parent, as that of the other was certainlylaid at his door, and that he selected the name Philopater to disarm suspicion. But possibly, like Cambyses, as he proved himself a man of evil, nothing was too bad to believe of him. Immediately on his accession he murdered his younger brother Magas, of this there seems no doubt. Berenike II was much attached to this younger son and perhaps wished him to succeed his father, as Philadelphus had done, in preference to Keraunos, which may have been the cause of the new king’s unnatural hatred against her, she was given in charge of Sosibios, an official and favorite of the king’s, and is said either to have been murdered or committed suicide by poison, so unendurable to the high-spirited princess was her imprisonment. She who had been reigning queen and so beloved. It was a melancholy close to her life’s story.
A number of other murders are laid to the king’s charge, through the influence of the same Sosibios. Polybius, who is deemed a reliable authority on this period, says the king “would attend to no business and would hardly grant an interview to the officials about the court,” but was “absorbed in unworthy intrigues and senseless and continual drunkenness,” and “treated the several branches of the government with equal indifference;” all was managed by the officials, or any who might seize the power. His generals fought his battles and gained his victories, with little thanks due to the wisdom or judgment of the king. Agathocles and Sosibios were his leading ministers. But occasionally, at least, he seems to have roused himself and appeared inperson on the field, as we read of his setting out from Alexandria with 70,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry and 73 elephants. At Raphia was fought a great battle, between Antiochus of Syria and Ptolemy, which was opened by a charge of elephants in which the Egyptians came off victorious.
And here we catch a glimpse of the next queen of Egypt (subsequently deified with her husband as gods Philapatores) Arsinoe III, daughter of Euergetes I and Berenike II. She accompanied her brother and rode with him, a fearless horsewoman, like her mother, perhaps, in front of the troops, before the battle, exhorting the soldiers to courage and conquest. Like her mother also she is said to have dedicated a lock of her hair in the temple, but the story is not so well authenticated. Besides this little glimpse of her personality at the battle, which shows vigor and bravery, we learn little of her, probably she was fair, perhaps virtuous. She was a late child of her parents’ marriage, it may be the youngest, and it seems to be implied that she was early left an orphan and had a sad youth. It was some years after this battle about 213 B. C. that she was married to Ptolemy Philopator, and became Arsinoe III of Egypt. Her husband, given to debauchery, amusing himself with literary work, a taste he shared with the earlier Ptolemies, and not, we may imagine, of a very high character, and under the influence of his minister, Sosibios, as well as Agathocles and Agathoclea, sister of the latter, could not have been a very love inspiring companion. The queen bore a son in210 or 209 B. C., who succeeded his father at five years of age, under the title of Ptolemy V, Epiphanes.
The cruelties to the Jews practiced or allowed by Ptolemy IV were in contrast to the policy of his predecessors, and though some inscriptions remain (the temple of Edfu has mention of this) which do him honor, the weight of testimony seems to be that he was an oppressive and cruel king and hated by his subjects. Yet these few inscriptions, as is frequently the case, for in any important matter the testimony is often conflicting, give a different and better view of his character. The chief cause of, or accessory to many murders he undoubtedly was.
A temple in Nubia gives pictures of Ptolemy Philopater and his wife, Arsinoe III, receiving offerings, as well as those of his father and mother, grandfather and grandmother. It is thought that the Prince of Nubia may have assisted in putting down a revolt of his subjects.
The murder of Arsinoe III was due to the influence of the king’s shameless mistress, Agathoclea and her brother Agathocles, but what had made the unfortunate queen especially obnoxious to them we do not know. Perhaps she was merely an obstacle in the path of their ambition, and they thought that if they could get the child absolutely in their power they could regulate things better to their own liking; perhaps some stories, true or false, were raised against the queen to justify their proceedings. She seems to have had a sad life and to have been friendless in the midst of enemies.
There is something very pathetic in the story of the early life of Ptolemy V., Epiphanes, who became king, at five years of age, his father dead, his mother murdered, so soon that he could scarcely have remembered her, and he left in the hands of her murderers. Polybius gives a picture of these events in the following words: “The next step of Agathocles was to summon a meeting of the Macedonian guards. He entered the assembly accompanied by the young king and his own sister, Agathoclea. At first he feigned not to be able to say what he wished for tears, but after again and again wiping his eyes with his chlamys, he at length mastered his emotion, and, taking the young king in his arms, he spoke as follows: Take this boy, whom his father on his death bed placed in this lady’s care (pointing to his sister) and confided to your loyalty, men of Macedonia. Her affection has but little influence in securing the child’s safety; it is on you that safety now depends, ‘his fortunes are in your hands.’” He then proceeded to inveigh against Tlepolemus, governor of Pelusium, and a general in the army, who was evidently popular with the soldiers and in so doing overshot his mark.
The murder of the queen, and even of the man into whose hands the letter ordering the same had fallen, seems gradually to have been traced (though at first kept secret) to its true authors, and this added to other acts of cruelty and unlawful seizure of power, raised a storm of feeling among the soldiers and the populace generally, against Agathocles and his associates, and his words were received with “hootings andloud murmurs,” so that he began to fear the worst for himself and made haste to escape. The fury of a mob, of any nationality and at any period of the world’s history, once raised, is not easy to allay, and seldom have such uprisings been known, unattended by bloodshed. In this, as in other cases, there were some leaders ready to fan rather than to extinguish the flame of popular wrath, and they determined to overthrow the obnoxious ministers.
The whole city was in a ferment and the next morning the Macedonian guard broke open the palace, seized the person of the little king, placed him on horseback and led him among the people, who shouted and clapped their hands. They then put him on the royal seat and extracted from the, doubtless frightened, child permission to surrender to the populace “those who had injured him or his mother.” Pitiful it must have been to see a mere baby placed in such circumstances. Whether he really understood anything of what was going on, or had any affection for those in question we cannot tell. It of course resulted in the murder of Agathocles and all his kinsfolk. A fate well deserved perhaps by most of them, but horrible to contemplate. But the dreadful thirst for blood was awakened in the angry crowd, and there were bound to be victims, more or less numerous.
Thus tragically was ushered in the reign of the boy-king, Ptolemy V, Epiphanes, the Illustrious, whose dates are 205-182 B. C., and whose pre-nomen or throne name, found on his cartouch, means “heir of the (two) father loving gods, chosen of Ptah, strength of the Ka of Ra, living image of Amen.” Too young to take matters into his own hands, the power seems to have been divided between Tlepolemus as military, and Aristomenes, called the king’s tutor, as civil administrator of affairs. The reign of a minor is apt to be distracted by conflicts of one sort and another, and this proved no exception.
In the case of the youthful son of Alexander the Great it was the generals of his father’s army who wrested from him his inheritance; in that of the young Ptolemy it was the foreign powers, the kings of Macedonia and Syria, who sought to do so. But the Romans proved the instruments of the boy’s salvation, though not for his sake, and conquered in battle and made tributary the men who were his enemies, while the two ministers who had taken his affairs in charge guarded him well at home.
There are also some who maintain that theguardianship of the boy’s rights was offered to the Romans, though the weight of evidence seems against this idea. Certain it is, however, that Ptolemy Epiphanes, or those who acted for him, sent very submissive embassies to this great and growing power, destined eventually to swallow up his country, or rather to become possessed of its sovereignty.
We cannot trace the course of foreign wars or native rebellions, but must return to the more domestic aspect of the history. The little king lived in Alexandria and very early in his life there seems to have been some suggestion of his marriage with the daughter of the king of Syria, and in the seventh year of his reign, when he must have been about twelve, it is said that the betrothal took place. It was of course a political alliance, to cement a good understanding between the two nations. How much greater the privileges and the independence, at least on the question of marriage, of the private individual over the sometimes envied king or queen.
At thirteen or fourteen years of age Ptolemy V was crowned at Memphis and the decree of the Rosetta Stone was issued. It begins “In the reign of the young,” and then goes on to enumerate the king’s ancestors, to name priests and priestesses, and to give a detailed list of the benefits his Majesty had bestowed upon the kingdom, “in requittal of which the gods have given him health, victory, power and all other good things, his sovereignty remaining to him and his children for all time. With propitious fortune. It seemed good to the priests of all the temples inthe land to increase greatly the existing honors of the king, Ptolemy, his parents, grand-parents, etc.” As Ptolemy was but in early childhood when he is said to have bestowed so many benefits upon the kingdom it was to his ministers rather than to himself that any such praise was due. Possibly it was a mutual agreement between them and the priests to strengthen his power, since there seemed more chance of dispute in the case of a child than when a full-grown man had ascended the throne.
The Rosetta Stone has been virtually the key which has, in part at least, revealed the mysteries of the Hieroglyphics to Europeans. The inscription was written in Hieroglyphic, the original form of Egyptian writing, in the Demotic, the subsequent and common language of later dynasties, and in Greek, which was of course largely introduced by the Ptolemies. And as the three inscriptions are approximately alike, Greek scholars were able to interpret the two former by the last. The original Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum, but copies of it may be seen in many of the collections abroad, and in the United States, such as the University of Pennsylvania, etc.
Meanwhile the boy-king was growing to manhood and there is record of his being trained to equestrianism and athletic sports. At a certain banquet an ambassador, in speaking of the king, “said a great deal in his praise, quoting anecdotes of his skill and boldness in hunting, as well as his excellence in riding and the use of arms;” and ended by averring in proof of this that “theking on horseback once transfixed a bull with a javelin.”
When Ptolemy Epiphanes was but sixteen or seventeen his marriage took place, the new queen being presumably near his age. With her we enter on the puzzling list of Cleopatras, and she seems to have been a woman of character and ability, and worthy of respect. Her father, Antiochus of Syria, a country with which the inter-marriages of the kings of this dynasty were very frequent, brought her to the bridegroom, with a splendid retinue, and the nuptials were handsomely celebrated at the border town of Raphia. It was here that the mother of the king had ridden before the troops many years previously to encourage them on the eve of the battle between Ptolemy IV. and Antiochus. The dowry of the bride was the taxes of Coele, Syria and Palestine, but not, it is said, the possession of the land.
The young queen loyally accepted the duties and obligations attaching to her new position; “Thy people shall be my people” was the spirit that distinguished her actions, and she stood to this even when her husband’s interests were opposed to those of her native country. It is said of her that she was a “vigorous and prudent woman, and she certainly introduced new blood into a stock likely to degenerate from the constant unions of close blood relations.” Nor do there seem to be any special stories recorded of cruelty on her part, such as we have in other instances of Ptolemy queens. We may presumealso that she had more or less claim to beauty and had attractions both of person and mind.
Like his predecessors, Ptolemy V. worked upon the temples, notably that of Philæ. The temple of Asklepias was especially credited to this king, and we cannot but suppose that the queen, too, had a great interest. An inscription, the duplicate of the Rosetta Stone, was placed on one of the walls at Philæ by Epiphanes, but afterwards carved out by another ruler.
Cleopatra I, like some others of the Ptolemy women, was the superior of the man to whom she was united, yet, as far as we can judge at this distance of time, the marriage was on the whole a harmonious and satisfactory one. At least no special quarrels are recorded and the husband did not make way with his wife in the all too common fashion. She seems to have been joined with her husband in public acts, as were Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoe II, even when these were directed against her father and her native land. Mahaffy says that it is noteworthy that Livy speaks of the king and queen as of equal importance, but perhaps this may have referred to Cleopatra I. and her son when she was regent, rather than to her husband. Livy says “Ambassadors were sent from Ptolemy and Cleopatra, sovereigns of Egypt, with congratulations that Manius Acilius, the consul, had driven King Antiochus from Greece, and advising the Romans to send their army over to Asia, that all Syria as well as Asia was in a panic, that the sovereigns of Egypt were prepared to do whatever the senatedesired.” A proof that Egypt was now continually bending before the power of Rome.
Ptolemy wished to secure some of the Syrian provinces and of the queen it is said “she was always striving to spread her influence towards the North.”
Disputes had arisen between the priests and the crown as to the dowries of the late deified queens, which had become part of the temple revenues, and were again absorbed by the throne. This with other causes resulted in a revolution led by the last native prince whose claim preceded that of the Ptolemies, which was put down with much cruelty and broken faith by the king. It is these insurrections, occurring frequently in the reigns of the later Ptolemies, that are believed to be one cause of Egypt’s submissive attitude towards Rome.
Ptolemy Epiphanes seems less odious than his predecessor, but as he grew to manhood, he, too, was accused of cruel murders, among them that of his tutor Aristomenes, to whose care it seems as if he must have owed much. The cartouch of Ptolemy V. is said to be the most rarely found on Ptolemic buildings. He also worked at Edfu and Philæ, the “so-called chapel of Aesculapius,” at the latter place having an inscription declaring it to be founded by “Ptolemy Epiphanes and Cleopatra and their son, to Imhotep, the son of Ptah.” In modern times a temple said to be built by them, at Antæpolis, was undermined and destroyed by the Nile.
The king died, murdered by poison by some of his courtiers, while still a young man, in histwenty-ninth year and twenty-fifth of his reign, and was succeeded by his son under the guardianship of his mother. Whether the queen deeply mourned her husband or whether his increasing vices had alienated her from him we cannot say. She was doubtless an ambitious woman and not averse to holding the reins of power. There are coins of hers issued during her regency. She is there called queen, which is not the case with all the wives of the different kings, and appears as Isis (though with a less conventional face than some), wearing a corn wreath, above which are a globe and horns. A copper coin gives her as Isis with long curls and a band with corn. She seems to have been an able ruler and survived her husband some eight years, dying in 174 B. C. before she had fairly entered on middle life. There were several children of this marriage, and, as if for the bewilderment of students, the sons are called Ptolemy and the daughter Cleopatra. During the queen’s regency Egypt seems to have remained peaceful and we have no revolting tales of murder or general bloodshed.
The matter of succession now became somewhat involved, so often was it disputed and so frequently divided between rival claimants. Mahaffy says, “From henceforth we have almost constantly rival brothers asserting themselves in turn, queen mothers controlling their king sons—intestine feuds and bloodshed in the royal house, till the stormy end of the dynasty with the daring Cleopatra VI.”
Some call Philometer the VI and some theVII. If the latter there was probably an elder brother, Ptolemy Eupator, thus called the VI, who survived his father but for a brief period, being nominally king, and then died. Certain it is that the Syrian Cleopatra I was regent and that one of her sons, Philometor, succeeded to the actual power, 173 B. C. He reverted to the earlier customs and married his sister Cleopatra, who then became the second queen of the name. This union is believed to have taken place a year after the death of his mother in 173 B. C. Perhaps had she lived she might have arranged for a different connection.
The peaceful period of the regency of Cleopatra I. now came to an end and Egypt prepared to seize the lands which had furnished the dowry of the late queen, the three powers, Egypt, Syria and Rome being involved, the two first in active warfare. This resulted in the capture and imprisonment of the Egyptian king by the Syrian monarch, Antiochus IV at a battle which occurred on the borders of Egypt. The people of Alexandria, who it is said spoke more completely the voice of Egypt than Paris does of France, made a counter move by raising to the throne the younger brother, a lad of fifteen or sixteen, who took the name of Euergetes II, later called Physcon, the “pot bellied” or “the fat,” Ptolemy VI, and who in his proportions accentuated the usual liberal outline of the Ptolemy race. The youth proved strong and ambitious enough to hold on to the power thus secured and never willingly relaxed his grasp.
Antiochus then attacked Alexandria with thenominal purpose of restoring Philometer. Through their mother the young kings were of course related to the invader, but the relationship seems to have had little effect in preventing a contest. Different authorities give different names and numbers to the various Ptolemy kings and we have taken Mahaffy, who has devoted much time to the study of this period, as our special guide.
Antiochus IV finally left Philometer at Memphis and returned home. The latter, apparently seeing the folly of a divided sovereignty and realizing that he would no longer be recognized as sole king, made overtures to his brother and, owing, it is said, to the mediation of their sister Cleopatra, they came to terms in 170 B. C. This compact roused Antiochus IV. to a renewed attack. The beseeching embassies of the Ptolemies to Rome, however, finally produced an effect and Antiochus was ordered to withdraw and the powerful Romans virtually held a sort of protectorate over Egypt till they finally and absolutely absorbed it. The embassies of Philometer and Cleopatra II professed that they were more indebted to the Senate and people of Rome, than to their own parents, more than to the immortal gods since by their help they had been relieved from Antiochus, and Rome seemed disposed to keep up the agreeable sentiment, as their embassy is recorded as having brought a purple gown and vest and an ivory chair to King Philometer, and an embroidered gown and a purple robe for Queen Cleopatra II.
The king and queen are spoken of in all solemndatings as “gods Philopatores.” On the walls of the temple at Der el Medineh there are pictures of Ptolemy VII and IX and Cleopatra II, and a Syrian coin of Philometer gives a strong head and face. There are inscriptions relating to Ptolemy Philometer, wife and children, in Nubia. It was after the Romans restored Philometer to Egypt that he and his queen made their solemn progress to Memphis.
Some of the so-called “friends of the king” tried to make trouble between the brothers and to induce the younger to slay the elder, implying that Philometer had designs upon him. But in this instance Euergetes, usually regarded with abhorrence, showed himself at his best and dismissed suspicions and to prove their harmony went with his brother in royal apparel to show themselves to the people. A quarrel, however, eventually broke out between them, Philometer was expelled and threw himself on the protection of the Romans, who were thus continually able to interfere in the affairs of Egypt. The Romans decreed that the kingdom should be divided between the two, which of course gave satisfaction to neither, and Euergetes II went to Rome to protest against the division. An interesting and almost an amusing episode is connected with this visit when, it is said, Euergetes asked Cornelia, the mother of the Gracci, to marry him. The lady, however, declined, “probably,” says one writer, “she held him in such esteem as an English noblewoman now would hold an Indian Rajah proposing marriage.”
The quarrels and fighting between the twobrothers continued, but finally Euergetes attacked Cyprus which had been adjudged by the Romans to Philometer, and was forced to surrender. Philometer now showed himself the generous one, for he forgave Euergetes, restored him to Cyrene and for the last eight or nine years of his reign remained at peace with him.
Cleopatra II appears with her husband Philometor, Ptolemy VII, in statutes excavated at Cyprus, which were set up “at a temple to the Paphian Aphrodite,” yet we know little of her. There is also an appeal spoken of by Josephus in which a certain Jew begs the king and queen’s permission to build a temple to the God of Israel and reports their majesties’ favorable reply, but the story is not altogether credited. We hear also of the king and queen receiving other petitions, usually a popular action. Polybius, whose testimony seems so generally full and reliable was in Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy Philometer.
Of course there was a daughter of Philometor and Cleopatra II, also called Cleopatra, whom Philometor gave in marriage to an aspirant to the throne of Syria (though apparently not the rightful heir) called Alexander Bala, and accompanied the princess to Ptolemais in Palestine, where the ceremony took place, probably about 150 B. C. After this Ptolemy VII discovered a real or pretended conspiracy against his life, in which his new son-in-law was implicated. He then went over to the side of the other claimant to the Syrian throne, Demetrius Nicator, and regardlessof the marriage contract previously concluded, transferred his daughter to him. She seems to have been still in the power of her father, rather than that of her husband, and neither she nor her mother appear to have had any voice in the matter. It is possible she may not have really lived with Bala at all.
Ptolemy Philometor himself was crowned king at Antioch, and it is on this account, probably, we have the Syrian coin with his head, but he evidently did not care to retain the position, for he finally persuaded the people to accept Demetrius in his stead.
Philometor, Ptolemy VII., died, as had few of his race, in, or rather as the result of, a battle, he was thrown from an elephant, or some say a horse, like Keraunos, and wounded by his enemies with fatal results following, first having learned of the death of Bala, with whom he had been fighting. In contrast with his brother Euergetes II. he is spoken well of by many writers, and his gentleness and humanity are dwelt upon, which recalls the familiar axiom that “all things go by comparison.” So some speak highly of and some judge him harshly. In youth he is said to have been handsome, with a countenance full of sweet expression. His death occurred 146 B. C.
There were now again rival claimants for the throne, Euergetes II, Physcon, the brother of the late king, with whom the kingdom had been divided, and Ptolemy Philometor’s son, Ptolemy Neos, Philopator II, Ptolemy VIII, whose cause his mother Cleopatra II. espoused. But Physcon proved to be the more powerful and eitherdirectly or indirectly murdered his young nephew, feeling that while the boy lived his own claim to the throne would not be secure. It is said the unfortunate heir had been recognized as the crown prince over the whole empire, not only at Cyprus, but at Philæ, for Professor Cayce found on the island of Huseh a granite slab, which had supported figures of the king and queen with this youth standing between them.
The list of queens, a puzzling one, as all must admit, is as follows: Ptolemy I, Sotor, married Eurydike, and Berenike I, Ptolemy II, Philadelphus, married Arsinoe I and Arsinoe II; Ptolemy III, Euergetes I, married Berenike II; Ptolemy IV, Philopator, married Arsinoe III; Ptolemy V, Epiphanes, married Cleopatra I; Ptolemy VI, Eupator, died in childhood. Ptolemy VII, Philometor, married Cleopatra II; Ptolemy VIII, Philopator II, Neos, was murdered in youth. Ptolemy IX, Euergetes II, Physcon, married Cleopatra I, widow of his brother, and Cleopatra III, his niece. Ptolemy X, Lathyrus, married Cleopatra IV, and subsequently Selene, his sisters. Ptolemy XI, Alexander, married Berenike III, whose parentage seems in doubt. Ptolemy XII, Alexander II, married this same Berenike, his stepmother. Ptolemy XIII, Auletes married Cleopatra V, surnamed Tryphæna. Ptolemy XIV and Ptolemy XV reigned in conjunction with their sister, Cleopatra VI, to whom they were successively married, and died young, as did Ptolemy XVI, her son Cæsarion, who died unmarried.
Within the year (and some say the murder ofher son occurred during the nuptial ceremonial) Physcon married the widow of his brother, Cleopatra II. Evidently no love was lost between them; how could it be under the circumstances? If this marriage, perhaps, insisted on by the Alexandrian party of Cleopatra II, she having a claim to the crown, jointly with her brothers, there seems to have been one son, Memphites, who soon died, or was murdered, it is even reported, by his own unnatural father, who feared a rival.
Cleopatra II. had two daughters of the same name. The elder was married first to Alexander Bala and then to Demetrius Nicator of Syria. She seems to have been an embodiment of Ptolemaic cruelty and vice. When her second husband was taken prisoner, she accepted his brother, Antiochus Sidetes, in his stead, and placed him upon the throne. But nine years afterwards, on the return of Demetrius, murdered Sidetes and her son Seleukos, who had attempted to assume the crown. She had also, it is said, prepared poison for her second son, Antiochus Grippus, but he discovered her intent and forced her to swallow the fatal draught herself. Her younger sister Cleopatra, only a year or two after Physcon’s marriage with her mother Cleopatra II, he also took to wife, thus establishing one of the most revolting connections entered into by any member of this atrocious family, yet, strange to say, both were recognized in public acts as queens of Egypt, the younger bearing the title of Cleopatra III. Incomprehensible and repellant as this seems, it appears well authenticated. There is arelief of Philometer, clad in a white mantle, and accompanied by one of the Cleopatras. At Kom Ombos there is on the wall of the temple a picture of Ptolemy VII, and also of Ptolemy IX, between the goddesses and again of Horus bestowing gifts on Ptolemy IX. and the two Cleopatras. We read of an inscription from Kos, too, where the children of both were perhaps educated, in which “the king and his two queens honor with a golden crown and gilded image the tutor of their children.”
In 146 B. C. Physcon apparently married Cleopatra II. and two or three years later her daughter. In 130 or 129 B. C. he was exiled and obliged to flee the country, Cleopatra II reigning alone for about two years, at the expiration of which time the absent king returned and again took the power into his own hands. In his private life Ptolemy Physcon appears as a monster, in his public career he has been esteemed by some writers as a good, or at least a great king. That is, his sway was widely extended, and he built or added to innumerable temples to the gods. At Edfu, begun by Ptolemy III, Euergetes, in 237 B. C., he completed the great hypostile hall, in 122 B. C. At Der-el-Medineh he finished the graceful temple begun by Ptolemy IV. and dedicated to Hathor. At El Kab he built a rock temple, while at Karnak and many other places he added his portion to the great whole. “At Thebes we find no reign so marked.” He seems to have showed special favor to the native Egyptian population, but is credited with many crueltiesto others. With Rome he kept up friendly, if subservient, relations.
At what precise time the elder Cleopatra passed away from the scene we do not know, but she died before Physcon, leaving her successor to a certain extent to re-enact her story. Physcon gave his daughter Tryphena to Grippus, the Syrian prince who had poisoned his mother, and her aunt, Cleopatra. Ptolemy IX, Physcon, died in 117 B. C., having reigned twenty-nine years since the death of his brother, Philometor. His widow, Cleopatra III, Cocce, succeeded to the power and is sometimes called queen, sometimes regent. She appears to have held the position for a while alone, and then her son, Ptolemy X, Philometor, or Sotor II (Lathyrus), was associated with her. She was, it is said, a “strong and remarkable woman,” considerably younger than her husband and having great influence with him. She succeeded in having the elder son, and natural successor, sent away, as governor to Cyprus, and thus deprived him of the power of claiming his inheritance. She preferred her younger son Alexander, whom she had made independent king of Cyprus, but the people would not accept him, and Ptolemy X (Lathyrus), as has been said, succeeded. He apparently was already married to his sister, another Cleopatra, called the IV, but his mother obliged him, from motives not clear to us, though it has been suggested that it was because only such children as were born to the purple, could reign; to put her away and marry a younger sister Selene. This queen’s name does not appear in some of the inscriptionswhich read “in the name of Queen Cleopatra and King Ptolemy, gods Philometores, Sotores and his children.”
This Cleopatra IV was, no more than the rest of the Ptolemy women, meek or submissive. She naturally resented the treatment she had received and offered herself and the riches of which she seemed possessed to one of the claimants of the Syrian throne, but only to meet the too common fate, for the wife of the said Antiochus Grippus, her own sister Tryphæna, caused her to be murdered. Some of the Egyptian princesses, as has been narrated, went to Syria, and of them it is said that “they show the usual features ascribed to Ptolemaic princesses—great power and wealth which makes an alliance with them imply the command of large resources in men and money; mutual hatred, disregard of all ties of family and affection; the dearest object fratricide—such pictures of depravity as make any reasonable man pause and ask whether human nature had deserted these women and the Hyrcanian tiger of the past taken its place.”
The history of the Jews is largely involved with that of Egypt during many of the Ptolemy reigns, but it is not within the scope of this small monograph to include these relationships in the more purely personal story. The new king, to a greater or less extent, now held the power, as testified to by the coinage bearing simply “the year of Lathyrus” instead of his mother Cleopatra III. He appears in a copper coin clad in an elephant skin, and there are also joint coins of Cleopatra III and Alexander. The queen, indisposedto yield her authority, succeeded in raising the populace against Lathyrus, so that he fled to Cyprus, his brother Alexander returning from there and sharing the throne with his mother. Lathyrus meanwhile was attempting to set up a kingdom in Palestine, but the powerful queen wrested it from him and added it to her own dominions. Ptolemy Apion, an illegitimate son of Ptolemy Physcon, had been ruling in Cyrene the home and possession of the former queen, Berenike II, which he left on his death to the Roman people, who thus, whenever their other warlike entanglements permitted, tightened their grasp on everything Egyptian, but the Egyptian monarchs, busy with more personal and family difficulties, did not interfere.
Ptolemy X, Alexander I, reigned with his mother till 101 B. C. when, weary perhaps of her powerful hand, which kept him from full possession of the throne, he murdered her. Possibly she would have done the like to him, but it seems a shocking and ungrateful return for the preference for him which she at first so evidently showed. Other authorities throw some doubt on this matricide, but the weight of opinion seems to certify to it.
The next queen is spoken of as Cleopatra, Berenike IV, or Berenike III, and her name is sometimes associated both with Alexander, whom she married, and the queen mother. She is believed to have been a daughter of Sotor II (Lathyrus), and hence Alexander’s niece. This marriage may not have been agreeable to the elder queen, who so evidently hated her elder son,the father of the bride. This king is sometimes spoken of as “Ptolemy, also called Alexander, the god Philometor.” In the midst of these domestic quarrels and public difficulties, the king yet kept up the usual habit of temple building and his name appears in connection with several, especially Denderah. Says Mahaffy: “It is difficult not to suspect in the continued building of the same temples by Philometor and Euergetes II, of Sotor II, and of Alexander, the influence of the great ladies who lived through the change of kings without stay or intermittence of their royalty,” though, strange to say, the priests of Edfu do not speak of them. Alexander appears in communion with the gods and, triumphing over his enemies. “It is also certain that the crypts of the temple of Denderah, finished by Cleopatra VI, were commenced according to an ancient plan by the X and XI Ptolemies.”
After the murder of Cleopatra III the people rose against Alexander and recalled Lathyrus, who, upon regaining the crown, pursued his brother, who was slain in a naval battle, thus leaving his widow Berenike III to share with her father the Egyptian throne. She seems to have lived at peace with him after his return and is regarded by some as co-regent or ruler, by others as not assuming power till after his death.
Lathyrus is considered as among the gentler and better members of the Ptolemy family. Even so he put down a rebellion of the native population with great severity and razed Thebes to the ground. Dying, at about the age of sixty, heleft the kingdom in the hands of his daughter, Cleopatra IV, Berenike III, who reigned for some six months, when Alexander, son of Alexander I, by another marriage, returned from Rome and was accepted as king, under the title of Alexander II, Ptolemy XII, sharing the throne with Berenike, the queen. Though his stepmother, there was probably no great disparity in their years, and it was by the suggestion of the Roman dictator, Sylla, that he contracted this strange alliance. But the abhorrent connection was of brief duration, for Alexander II murdered his wife and was himself murdered in turn by her household troops, within a month. As queen or regent she had been associated with the royal power for a number of years, and this prompt avengement of her death seems to prove that she had her share of popularity.
At this period, and indeed for a long time, what the Alexandrians willed seems to have been law to the whole country.
The Ptolemy queens were women, as a rule, presumably handsome, certainly able and sagacious, ambitious and brave, daring and cruel. To differentiate them accurately, particularly the latter members of the family, who were on the throne briefly, and in quick succession, requires a more extended knowledge of the subject than has yet been secured, either by the researches of students or the “finds” of archaeologists.
The deaths last mentioned extinguished, it is said, the claim of legitimate Ptolemy heirs to the Egyptian throne, but other writers assert that this is probably a Roman invention to justifytheir ultimate seizure of the country and that princes were living who would be recognized elsewhere as legal successors. Be this as it may, Ptolemy, familiarly known as Auletes (the flute player), son of Lathyrus, with the bar sinister, now came from Syria and assumed the crown, under the title of Ptolemy XIII. (Neos Dionysus, Philopater III, Philadelphus II), in 81 B. C. This was evidently with the consent of the Egyptians themselves and the tacit permission of Rome, to whom some even claim that Alexander had willed his kingdom. The Senate, however, did not give him official recognition, though he made great efforts and offered many bribes to secure it. A stele speaks of a high priest “who placed the uræus crown on the head of the new king of Egypt, on the day that he took possession of Upper and Lower Egypt. He landed at Memphis, he came into the temple of Qe, with his nobles, his wives and his children.”
The sons of the Egyptian princess Silene also came from Syria to Rome to assert a better right to the Egyptian succession, but were unsuccessful. The Romans engaged in other wars and interests, for the time being, concerned themselves little with the Egyptian question.
Tryphæna, Cleopatra V, possibly a sister of the king, was his legal consort and his eldest daughter, Berenike IV, was probably born 77 B. C. The last Cleopatra about 68 B. C., and later another daughter, Arsinoe, and two sons. Berenike was so much older than the other children that some suppose a second marriage, ofwhich, however, no official record has been found. The imputation of illegitimacy has been thrown both on the king and his celebrated daughter, but the Romans, as previously stated, may, for their own purposes, have accepted or disseminated the idea. The first Ptolemy had in a sense wrested the country from its native rulers, and his successors were only receiving in their turn what they had meted out.
Like his predecessors, Ptolemy XIII built on the temples, and there are pictures of him between two goddesses in the favorite mode and in other situations. In spite of this he is spoken of as the “most idle and worthless of the Ptolemies.” His life “idle, worthless, devoted to the orgies of Dionysus (whence his title), and disgracing himself by public competitions on the flute (whence his nick-name), he has not a good word recorded of him.” And Cicero says he was plaintive and persuasive when in need, but worthless and tyrannous when in power. The direct testimony of Cicero and Diodorus Siculus (which we possess) in regard to this period is of great value.
It was the debasing of the coinage that especially caused the revolt that obliged Auletes to flee the country, in addition to the fact that he lent no help to his brother at Cyprus, overpowered by the Romans. Auletes had assumed the crown in 81 B. C., and kept possession for a number of years, but a revolt of the Alexandrians, for the reasons given above, forced him to fly in 58 B. C.
When he was thus driven from the country Cleopatra V, Tryphæna (whom some call hiswife and some his eldest daughter), with the spirit of that dominant race of women, at once assumed the crown, of which, however, death deprived her within the year. She was followed by Berenike IV, possibly her daughter, certainly that of Auletes, who ruled for two years, marrying first Seleukos of the royal house of Syria (whom she put away, finding him weak and unsatisfactory), and substituted Archelaos, the high priest of Komana. Seleukos is supposed to have been the person who stole the golden coffin of Alexander the Great and replaced it by a glass one.
From subsequent events it is quite evident that Berenike IV possessed the usual characteristics of the Ptolemy women, both in capacity and ambition, having no intention of handing back the authority she had assumed to its previous possessor, her father though he might be.
But Auletes, either by persuasion or bribery, secured the powerful aid of the Romans, whom Egypt was no longer strong enough to resist. The Roman general Gabinius invaded Egypt and conquering in the battle put the husband of Berenike IV to death, restored Auletes and left him to mete out further retribution as he would.
No pleadings for mercy, no claims of relationship ever stayed the bloody hand of a Ptolemy from executing his will, and, doubtless regarding her as a traitor, Auletes put his daughter to death, of which details are not given. There then remained two daughters, Cleopatra and Arsinoe, and two sons merely called Ptolemy. Restored in 55 B. C. Ptolemy XIII only lived till 51 B. C. anddied, bequeathing his kingdom jointly to his eldest daughter and son and disregarding the fact that he had virtually mortgaged it to the Romans he adjured them to carry out his intentions, calling all the gods to witness. A double copy of his will was made, the one being sent to Rome, the other kept in Alexandria.
We have shown how the Persian rule in Egypt was followed by that of the Ptolemies, and at first the union between prince and people was close and satisfactory. From Ptolemy I to Cleopatra VI the rulers identified themselves with the interests, and especially with the religion of the nation, with whom they were not allied by blood, built cities and temples and, the earlier members of the dynasty at least, wrought for the general good. In the case of most of the later kings, however, they were more cruel and oppressive, and revolts were more common than at first.
The architecture, especially the portrait sculpture of the Ptolemy period, was inferior to some of earlier date, but in the encouragement of literature, the building of libraries and other public edifices, and the extending of commerce the race distinguished itself.
As regents or independent rulers their queens held sway. The family intermarried to an extent shocking to Christian ideas, and Ptolemy after Ptolemy took his sister or other near relatives, usually called Arsinoe, Berenike or Cleopatra, to wife. These close relationships, however, did not seem to strengthen the family affections—itis a blood-stained history, and the murders were almost as numerous as the unions. Various towns were built and called after the queens, Arsinoe and Berenike, but though Cleopatra seems to have been a favorite name, and there were, six or seven of them in succession, this name was not so often used as the cognomen of a town.
There are a few names in the world’s history that stand alone. Many may share in the same, but to speak them is to call up one dominating image. In this sense there was but one Caesar, but one Washington, but one Eve, but one Semiramis, and to this class belongs Cleopatra. There are others, such as Helen or Troy and Mary Stuart, who have shared with these high reputation, but in these cases further identification is needed than the single name. Cleopatra stands among the few daughters of Eve pre-eminent for wit, charm, power and perhaps beauty, and to this must be added ambition and vice.
“The laughing queen who held the world’s great hands,” having won the heart of the world’s greatest rulers, yet lays her magic touch upon the centuries. Artists and writers have never tired of limning her personal charms and special characteristics. No colors have been too bright, none too dark to be used. Shakespeare, has pictured her with his immortal genius, and hundreds of others, with more or less skill, have attempted the same task. Protean in shape, no two perhaps resemble each other. In the conception of some, she is slender, graceful, exquisitely beautiful, and at the other extreme, as in the old tapestry in the New York Museum, she is like a fatDutch woman, a decadence from Rubens’ overblown beauties; so each land has pictured her according to its own ideal.
Some have denied her pre-eminent beauty and the conventional portrait of her which still exists upon the wall at Denderah, as well as her face upon the few battered coins of her time which have come down to us, scarcely suggest it. But the woman who made men her slaves at a single interview surely lacked no charm that nature could bestow. Unbridled both in passions and ambitions, she knew no limit to either and grasped at universal empire.
The greatest men of her time bowed at her feet, and she changed the fate of battle with the turning of her vessel’s prow. She was over twenty when she captivated Caesar, over thirty when Antony became her slave. Of her numerous lovers, Antony was the chosen of that wayward, passionate heart. She refused to survive his defeat and death and perished by her own hand. Though not, strictly speaking, Egyptian queens, the Ptolemy race were yet queens of Egypt—and thus ended the long line of female royalties, extending from the dim ages of mythology to the Roman period.
Cleopatra VI has been described by a late novelist, his picture drawn perhaps from some historical source, as having “a broad head, wavy hair, deep-set eyes, full, eloquent mouth and a long, slender throat.” Charm and talent of the highest order are generally credited to her. She had a musical voice and was a linguist of ability, skilled in Greek and Latin and could conversewith Ethiopians, Jews, Arabians, Syrians, Medes and Persians and was proficient in music. Tennyson says of her: