We can almost imagine the unfortunate Queen Roxane ready to lay down her harassed and weary life, but such is the natural clinging to the known and visible that doubtless she had occasional periods of pleasure and even of reviving hope for her child and herself. She had committed or been accessory to the blackest crime to secure his succession. Surely it could not be in vain?
Alexander the Great was born in 355 B. C. and died in 323. His son Alexander IV was born 323 B. C. and died 310, but his name appears as king till 305. Thus all the family of Alexander the Great perished by violent deaths. First his mother, then his wife and child, and lastly in 309 B. C. his sister and his natural son Herakles or Hercules.
In the study of the Ptolemy period, compared with the dates of earlier times, we seem to come so much nearer to the modern era that we might look for certain knowledge. The more, as we now have the histories of early writers, such as Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, etc., to consult, as well as the coinage, with dates and portraits of kings and queens, to assist us. But the historical account is frequently at second hand and not as to matters which the writer has himself seen and known, and even some of the coins are found to be ambiguous and referable to different reigns. The relationships, too, are so mixed and the same names so often repeated that at many points we are baffled in our search, and various parts of this complex history remain in darkness, which further investigation may yet lighten, but which at present give room for the conflicting theories and opinions of different writers.
The chronology of Egypt, as before said, has always been a subject of difficulty to students, and their researches lead many to different conclusions. Even in the time of the Ptolemies, which seems modern compared to the periods wehave been considering, the same problem confronts us, and the fact that the Olympian and the Julian year do not coincide makes exact chronology impossible. Constant discoveries are adding new light, and often in this and other respects proving earlier conclusions incorrect. Thus even in the Ptolemy period we do but approximate to some of the dates, etc.
The testimony of the coins is of extreme value, and we feel that like hard facts they never lie, yet it is difficult to draw the line between the conventional and the real likeness and between a flattering and an unflattering presentment. The portraits of the queens, celebrated in their own times and in succeeding ages as miracles of beauty and charm, sometimes strikes us with amazement so utterly devoid do they seem of either. We have to recall the possible potency of coloring and animation, the fascination of manner and of voice to rehabilitate them, reflecting how sometimes even in the modern photograph, for which it is said “the sun cannot lie,” the plain woman sometimes appears beautiful and the beauty almost plain.
As a rule the women of the Ptolemy family seem to have been handsome, ambitious, capable, daring and cruel, and, save in the cases of the three first kings, were in many instances superior to their husbands. They shared with husbands and brothers the desire to keep the reins of power in their own hands, and the willingness to do away with those who stood in their path. Murder and assassination were but the means to an end and daunted but few of them. Yet hereand there we come across an incident or an anecdote which throws a softer light upon their history, a touch of amiability or kindness, which reveals “the eternal feminine” still latent in their hearts.
The long line of Arsinoes, Berenikes and Cleopatras is like a tangled skein of many colors and most difficult to disentangle and render distinct. Mother, daughter and sister perhaps bear the same appellation, and one is reminded of the English fashion of using the same or very similar names for a whole region, as Highbury, Highbury Hill, Highbury Crescent, etc., till the stranger is fairly bewildered.
In the division of the vast landed possessions of Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, son of Lagos and Arsinoe, chose Egypt for his share and founded a new line of kings. He was one of Alexander’s generals and allied to him by blood, some say the natural son of his father Philip.
It is probably the eagle on the Ptolemy coins that suggested the fable or tradition that the first Ptolemy was cared for by an eagle, as Romulus and Remus by a wolf. Mahaffy, one of the later and most reliable authorities on the Egypt of this period, says that Ptolemy was, it is probable, born 367 B. C., and hence was some years older than Alexander, but still young enough to be associated with him, and accompanied him into exile, returning to court on his accession.
Whether he went with Alexander to Egypt is not positively known, but it seems likely that some personal acquaintance with and admiration for that country dictated his choice. It may besaid to have been a love match between Ptolemy and the land of his adoption, which could hardly have been the case had he never seen it. Virtually he threw himself into the arms of this new mistress, who received him with no less enthusiasm, stiff-necked rebel as she had been against Persian rule. He and his successors, especially the earlier ones, embraced the Egyptian theology, built temples to the gods, accepted the manners and customs of the people and affiliated themselves with them in every way.
They married their nearest relatives in Egyptian fashion and even surpassed their predecessors in the dubious nature of these unions. Alternately they seem to have adored the women whom they selected as partners, to whom they paid special honors, having their portraits stamped upon the coins (up to this time gold rings had been used as a medium of exchange) and naming various cities after them or to have quarrelled with and even murdered them.
To the massive dignity of design in the Egyptian architecture the Ptolemies added something of the Greek ideal, and the temples erected in their time are among the most beautiful in the land.
The seat of power and government changed from time to time. First Memphis, the “City of the Good”; the “White Walled,” founded by Menes, with its great temple of Ptah, which dominated it like a fortress. Next “Hundred-gated Thebes,” the “City of Amon”; then Sais, situated on a hill, with a royal citadel and storied and painted houses. Tanis, recreated from an earliersettlement and stamped with his signet, his giant statue, eighty or a hundred feet in height by Rameses the Great—all these in turn were sovereign in the land and the dwelling places of the queens. Now under Ptolemies, Alexandria, one of the masterpieces of the great Macedonian, rose into prominence, vieing with Athens as a seat of learning and the scene of unrivaled splendor, magnificence and debauchery.
Deinocrates, the gifted architect of Alexander, created a city of noble proportions, and inaugurated a new style of architecture, happily combining the values of the Oriental and the Greek. The so-called “Pompey’s pillar” is the only one remaining of the forest of columns which formed part of the Greek temple of Serapis, the platform on the top reached by a hundred steps, and the walls incrusted with metals and jewels. It stood high above the city, which was regularly laid out, with streets cutting each other at right angles, and bordered with colonnades. Among the other noted buildings of which nothing now remains, were the Mausoleum of Alexander, the harbor works uniting the city and island of Pharos, the temple of Pan, and that built by Ptolemy II, on the outside of one of the city gates, to celebrate the Elusinian mysteries, the aqueduct and others, of which no trace remains, but of whose existence we learn from early writers. The present Rue de Rosette is said to follow the course of the ancient main street, which crossed the city from the east to the west gates. The paintings still seen on the walls of Pompeii give us an idea of the decorations of Alexandrine architecture.
The great museum was a combination of university, club and social gathering place. The early Ptolemies, especially, were patrons of learning, and people of all nations met at their brilliant court, and thus it is said “arose in Egypt the Neo-Greek culture which we are accustomed to call Hellenism.” Literature, science and sculpture flourished, and painting took on new forms and woke to new life. The beautiful head of Alexander in the British Museum and many other fine examples of sculpture have come down to us from this period.
The goldsmith’s work was also a fashionable art and as Louis XVI of France amused himself by being a locksmith—and how differently might life have ended for him had Nature made him of that class—Ptolemy II amused himself by being a goldsmith.
For several years Ptolemy Sotor I, of the House of Diodachi, reigned as nominal satrap or governor. He then assumed the title of king, which he bore for twenty-three years, dying at the advanced age of eighty-four. His administration was beneficial to the country, and he attached the people to him by kindness and clemency, in marked contrast to his Persian predecessors. He had not hesitated to secure his throne by permitting the murder of the young king, but showed himself, in general, less cruel and blood-thirsty than many of his contemporaries. He established wise regulations, encouraged literature and art, and brought captive Jews to people Alexandria. His title of Sotor or Saviour was derived from the assistance he lent the people of Rhodesagainst their enemies. Though brought up to a military life and often engaged in war he evidently did not love it for its own sake, and was not the dashing soldier, but where diplomacy and cautious measures would serve his purpose, preferred to employ them.
The only portrait of Ptolemy Sotor is on the coins, coinage being introduced into Egypt under the Ptolemies. Here he appears, like other members of the family with a full, rounded face, a forehead not high but fleshy over the eyes, arched brows, a nose rather too short and with wide nostrils, a firm mouth and a prominent chin. Not so handsome as Alexander, the Ptolemies, especially the earlier ones, must yet have had considerable claim to good looks.
The cartouches of Ptolemy I are uncertain and not familiarly known, while those of Ptolemy XIV and XV had not up to a very recent date been found.
What is called the throne names of the Ptolemies were as follows: Ptolemy Sotor, Arsinoe III, and Philip Arridaeus had the same pre-nomen “chosen of Ra, beloved of Ra.”
Arsinoe IV “Joy of the heart of Amen, chosen of Ra, living image of Amen.” Ptolemy III and his wife were spoken of as “Fraternal gods, chosen of Ra, living image of Amen.”
Ptolemy IV was spoken of as “heir of the beneficent gods, chosen of Ptah, strength of the Ka of Ra, living image of Amen.”
Ptolemy VII as “heir of the (two) manifest gods, form of Ptah, chosen of Amen, doing the rule of Ra.”
Ptolemy IX, “heir of the (two) manifest gods, chosen of Ptah, doing the rule of Amen, living image of Ra.”
Ptolemy X, “heir of the beneficent god and of the beneficent goddess, chosen of Ptah, doing the rule of Ra, living image of Amen.”
Ptolemy XI one cartouch “heir of the (two) beneficent gods, chosen of Ptah, doing the rule of Amen, living image of Ra.”
A second cartouch reads “Ptolemy, called Alexander, living forever, beloved of Ptah.” Ptolemy XIII, “heir of the god that saves, chosen of Ptah, doing the rule of Amen, living image of Ra.”
Various amours are credited to Ptolemy I which at this late date would be difficult to either prove or disprove, among many with a bad record he was not notably vicious. Three wives might legally have claimed the title, but his love was evidently given to the last and probably the youngest. Doubtless at Alexander’s behest he first took a Persian wife, the Princess Artakama, the daughter of Artabasus. Only two of these Persian wives are known to appear in later history, Amestris, daughter of Oxyartes, and probably a sister or half sister of Roxane, married to Krateras and subsequently to Lysimachus, and Apame, who married Seleukas and became the ancestress of the Seleukid dynasty.
Ptolemy I married the Princess Artakama 330 B. C., which would make him, if born 367 B. C., thirty-seven years of age at his first marriage. He again wedded Eurydike, daughter of Antipater, nine years later, and Berenike, evidently hisfavorite wife, when he was fifty. All the ladies were doubtless much his juniors. The Princess Artakama could not properly be called queen, since she passes out of Ptolemy’s life and history before he assumed the title of king.
The marriage with Eurydike, the daughter of Antipater, who had subsequently made himself king of Macedon, may have been merely a matter of policy and not dictated by any motives of affection. Ptolemy’s subsequent action and marked preference for Berenike seems to suggest this; but that he lived with her as his legal wife and acknowledged the children of both is matter of history. Eurydike came with a retinue to Egypt, in the style of a great princess. It seems to have been after the death of her father and during the reign of her brother Cassander, with whom Ptolemy had formed an alliance and wished to keep on peaceful terms, perhaps this very marriage was a pledge of their friendship. We judge Eurydike to have been of less fiery temper and disposition than Roxane, since she seems to have accepted a successor and rival with comparative equanimity and apparently made no effort to get rid of or destroy her. In her train came a grand niece of Antipater, doubtless young and beautiful, a widow with all the fascinations pertaining to that class, which probably she did not hesitate to use upon the middle-aged king. The situation bears some resemblance to that of Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, though less fatal in its immediate results.
One writer has made Berenike daughter of Lagos and therefore step-sister of Ptolemy, butMahaffy says “it is likely he was misled by the formula ‘wife and sister’ applied to Egyptian queens as a mere title of honor and which was probably used in many documents regarding the present princess.” And since Sotor was one of the few Ptolemies who did not marry his immediate relatives, it is well he should have credit therefor.
Both ladies appear to have been amiably disposed and Berenike was evidently a strong character as well, who maintained a life-long influence over her husband and secured for herself and her children the first place. She was more strictly speaking the queen, since it was after this last marriage that Ptolemy assumed the title, and it was Berenike’s son who succeeded to the throne, as did the son of Atossa; Eurydike had children, a son Ptolemy Keraunos and others, and several daughters, whose claims were all set aside for those of the more favored Berenike. So in 317 B. C. Ptolemy married his chosen princess and gave her and her children the first place. By her previous marriage Berenike already had three children, a son, Magas, and two daughters, Theoxena and Antigone. These three Ptolemy seems to have accepted almost as his own, using the princesses as the cards or dice of the great games he was playing, as auxiliaries in cementing his political alliances. In arranging all these marriages we may infer that Berenike’s opinions and wishes had weight and who knows but she may have used her influence to induce Ptolemy himself to assure the title of King of Egypt. She would be neither the first nor thelast wife who has endeavored to fire her husband with ambition.
To anticipate somewhat, her son, Magas, became King of Cyrene, and Theoxena was married to Agathocles of Syracuse, who was an upstart and adventurer, but clever and able and making so much of himself and his opportunities that he had to be reckoned with by the contesting powers. “Antigone was married to Pyrrus; Lysandra to Sassander’s son, Alexander; Lysandra (probably a second of the name), to Agathocles, son of Lysimachus of Thrace; Arsinoe to Lysimachus himself; Eirene to Eunostos, king of Soli in Cyprus, and ultimately in 287 B. C., even Ptolemais to Demetrius.” Thus Ptolemy Sotor utilized his large family, consisting, it is said, of twelve children, to serve his political purposes.
Ptolemy Keraunos, the eldest son and rightful heir of his father, beheld, with bitterness, himself set aside in favor of his younger brother and continued, during his stormy life, to be a thorn in the side of the Ptolemy succession. Our line of research is to follow the domestic histories rather than the public acts of the king, already made familiar by the pens of many able writers.
The first child of Sotor by his marriage with Berenike was a daughter, later the well-known Arsinoe II, queen of Egypt. The son Ptolemy Philadelphus, who succeeded his father, was born in 308 B. C. (on the island of Kos, a favorite retreat from Alexandria) during one of the campaigns of Ptolemy in the Aegean, whither Berenike had accompanied her husband, either fromthe affection between them which forbade separation, or the desire on the queen’s part to keep near the king that she might continue to use her great influence, seeking to bend the course of events as they arose, to her own purposes. She might well have earned the title both of Berenike the Ambitious, and Berenike the Successful, but scarcely those of Berenike the Just or the Generous. The virtues of self-sacrifice and generosity were sometimes shown under the ancient moral code, but consideration and Justice were fruits of the Christian Dispensation.
Ptolemy Sotor did not marry young, but lived to see his children grow up and to associate with him, on the throne, his son Ptolemy, called Philadelphus, son of Berenike, and for the last years of his life seemed to have resigned the regal power into his hands. So large a family, composed of such diverse elements, would, even in modern times, have been apt to have difficulties as regards matters of inheritance, and it is little to be wondered at perhaps that such was supremely the case in this instance. But, during his lifetime, the arrangements of Ptolemy Sotor seem to have been accepted, in a great degree, and it was not till after his death that a fierce conflict broke out among the rival claimants.
Ptolemy Sotor is said to have eaten with the poor and borrowed plate from the rich. The use of gold, silver and copper coins had been common in Phoenicia and other countries before it was introduced into Egypt by the first Ptolemy, but Poole says “the monograms and symbols indicating mints are more constant and regularin the coinage of the Ptolemies than in any other series of Greek regal money.” The pictures of the kings and queens on the coins, albeit frequently conventionalized, assist us much in our search for knowledge concerning them. The regular silver coinage presents the heads of kings and queens on one side, often those of the gods, eagles, etc., on the other. The place of the mint name was usually on the reverse side, and, if dated, on opposite sides of the field. A rare place for the mint name was between the legs of the eagle. The gold coinage was often not struck in the time of those whose heads it bears. Thus Philadelphus honored both his parents after their decease. Queen Berenike I appears on the coins both alone and with her husband. The face is dignified and beautiful, a straight Greek nose and regular features. Of her death we find no record, but she appears to have been loved and honored by both husband and son, and whichever survived her no doubt she was buried with all possible respect.
Though many wars occurred during the reign of Ptolemy Sotor, yet it was so long that he had also much time to spare for the internal administration and improvement of his kingdom, and some writers believe that many things of benefit thereto, attributed to Ptolemy Philadelphus should really be credited, at least in their inception, to Ptolemy Sotor. He built and added to some of the finest temples, extended and adorned Alexandria and is said to have written a history of Alexander’s campaigns, which, unfortunately, has been lost, and showed his appreciation ofmental attainments by surrounding himself with men of learning and culture.
Queen Eurydike seems to have endured with what grace she might the secondary place accorded to her and her children, till the younger Ptolemy was made king, when they all left Egypt, no doubt in bitterness of soul and resolved if possible to wrest from him, whom they regarded as a usurper of his elder brother’s rights, his regal powers.
The Ptolemies, called the Lagidae, were a popular race. Ptolemy Sotor seems to have possessed much suavity and personal charm of manner, and the Egyptians and other conquered peoples were treated by him and the earlier Ptolemies with much more consideration and humanity than by other more ruthless conquerors. Ptolemy Sotor is said to have had at least twelve children by different wives, as well as by the courtezan Thais. Statues of him are mentioned by various writers, but have not been found, and his portrait on the coins is the only one that remains to us. The three earliest members of the family seem to have a stronger claim to good looks than their successors, who, both in regularity of outline and general expression, are distinctly below the ancestral level.
Eurydike, though probably the elder, may have survived her rival, but their part was now played on the stage of history and they passed from the scene, leaving it to a multitude of other actresses, some of whom excelled them in beauty and celebrity, while others remain to us but as a shadow and a name.
The most prominent figure in the long and involved list of Ptolemy queens, next to that of the famed Cleopatra, is Arsinoe II, daughter of Sotor and Berenike, and sister and wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus. She is spoken of on the Mendes stele, now at Gizeh, as “the charming princess, the most attractive, lovely and beautiful, the crowned one, who has received the double diadem, whose splendor fills the palace, the friend of the sacred Ram and his priestess Uta Utaba, the king’s sister and wife who loves him, the queen Arsinoe.” And of no other queen do we find so many monuments in various parts of the Greek world.
To the day of Arsinoe’s death she seems to have had the strongest hold upon her husband’s affections and no token of honor and respect was too great to lavish upon her while living, or to eulogize her merits after her decease. The early part of her life was a tragic story, but she survived the cruel sorrows which might have killed a woman of less toughness of fibre than that which distinguished all the female members of the Ptolemy race, and lived through a prosperous and successful middle life, turning her back on the bitterness of the past and making the most of the honors and dignity which came to her in the course of years.
Arsinoe.
Arsinoe.
In placing his younger son on the throne, instead of the elder, who would usually have been considered the rightful heir, Ptolemy Sotor may have been influenced by the personal character of the two, as well as by other motives. The elder bore the name of Ptolemy Keraunos, a soubriquet or nick-name meaning gloomy or violent, and was “of fiery temper and unsteady life.” Mahaffy suggests that the thunderbolt added to the Ptolemy coins at the time of his birth possibly gave rise to the nick-name. History does not chronicle details, but there may have been actual quarrels between father and son, a state of affairs not unknown in modern times. Be this as it may, the younger was preferred before the elder. Neither succession perhaps could have prevented subsequent bitterness of feeling and strife. Yet peace was outwardly observed during the life of the old king. Keraunos submitted and left Egypt with his mother, brothers and sister, while Berenike’s son was made king, co-ruler with his father (who virtually abdicated in 285-4) with feasts and rejoicing.
Ptolemy the younger was “fair haired and delicate” in youth, resembling his father, but with more regular features, and the thick neck characteristic of many members of the family. His manners were gentle as well as popular and probably he had already shown an appreciation of his father’s policy and a taste for intellectual and scientific pursuits. Few fathers would not takemore pleasure in the succession of a son likely to carry out their views, than in one who seemed disposed to change and alter all their arrangements.
Gorgeous pageants celebrated the advent of the new king. His father, it may be said, had in a certain measure slipped into power; not so with the son, his successor. It was a matter of direct inheritance and in Egypt at least his claim was not disputed. Whatever assistance Ptolemy Keraunos secured was from foreign aid and not from partizans at home. The banqueting hall was decorated with sculpture and painted and carpeted with flowers, the gold and silver vessels, crown treasures, were carried in the grand procession. There were fruits of all sorts displayed and droves of camels, elephants and other wild animals. Elephants were then much in favor as battle chargers with the kings of this period, and though the Ptolemies made less use of them in this respect, they too had large numbers of them. Their popularity, however, soon declined and in later wars they were no longer deemed available. Ptolemy Sotor presented the victors in the games at his son’s coronation with twenty crowns, Queen Berenike with twenty-three.
Historical and allegorical tableaux were interspersed and eighty thousand troops of cavalry and infantry took part. It must have been a combination of the circus processions of modern times, with less tinsel and more of solid value, with a fine military parade. It delighted the people from morning till evening and showed to allstrangers the wealth and power of the Ptolemy House.
Spite of gentle seeming, as soon as his father’s death left him in possession of the regal power, the new king made it quite clear he would tolerate no rival and meant to keep possession of all he had gained. Like his father, perhaps, he had no special taste for the shedding of blood; indeed he is said to have deplored what he considered the necessity of pursuing this policy, none the less did he hesitate to do so to secure his throne, and several people were put to death whom he thought might give him trouble. Probably his elder brother would have been among these could he have laid his hand on him. It was mortal strife between them, and Ptolemy Keraunos was now in another country doing his best to unseat the young king.
Some years before her brother’s accession the young Arsinoe, a girl of sixteen, first child of Ptolemy Sotor and Berenike, had married, or rather been married, to the elderly Lysimachus, King of Thrace (disparity of years was of course of no account in a political marriage), and had exchanged her sunny Egyptian home for the cooler and more rigorous climate of the mountainous regions of Northern Greece. Beautiful, clever and ambitious, as were most of the Ptolemy women, she was prominent among them and destined to have strong influence wherever she went, especially over two at least of the men with whom she was most closely associated. This marriage took place about 300 B. C.
So anxious was Ptolemy Sotor to cement thealliance between Lysimachus and himself, that marriage after marriage was arranged for and it might have been supposed that the two families were so closely united that peace among them had been secured. His step-daughter Lysandra was given to the Thracian Crown Prince Agathocles, thus making her at the same time sister and daughter-in-law of Arsinoe, who was probably the younger of the two, and not content with this, a marriage was arranged between the young king of Egypt and Arsinoe, daughter of Lysimachus, and half-sister of Agathocles, who thus became Queen Arsinoe I of Egypt.
She, too, was a person of spirit, decision and character, bloodshed marked her footsteps; she caused an illicit lover of her mother’s to be slain, and is said herself, young though she was, to have hastened on her marriage with the Egyptian king. One of policy rather than affection probably on both sides. It requires a clear head to follow out these complicated relationships. Arsinoe I had attained her ambition, but it was a position, in those unsettled times, involving quite as much peril as honor. She became the mother of several children, but whether her life was a happy one we may justly have our doubts. It held, however, less tragedy than that of her successor. Perhaps she was neither beautiful nor winning, certain it is that the courtesies which were subsequently paid to various queens, of putting their likeness on the coins and naming cities after them, were omitted in her case.
Ptolemy Philadelphus founded, it is said, four Berenikes in honor of his mother, eighteen Arsinoes,in honor of his second wife, and three Philoteras, in honor of his sister, in Egypt and elsewhere. These last were out of regard to a favorite sister Philotera, who dwelt in single blessedness—shall we call it a rare privilege in those days?—and lived in great harmony with her brother and his queens. As to the queen, Arsinoe II, so to the maiden sister also poems were addressed by the versifiers of the times.
The Thracian Arsinoe I, notwithstanding her early self-assertion, seems to have made little mark either upon her husband or upon Egypt. The comparative neglect with which she was treated may have embittered her and made true the accusation brought against her of having conspired against the life of her husband. If it was true she was leniently dealt with. She was divorced about 277 B. C. in the eighth or ninth year of Ptolemy’s reign, and banished to Koptos, where she lived in some state and appears from certain records to have been accompanied or visited by her younger son. She kept up her intercourse, too, perhaps with some of her Thracian relatives; and built shrines to the gods. The very fact that her life did not pay the forfeit of her alleged crime seems to throw doubt upon it. Or possibly, though this seems less likely, Arsinoe II, her supplanter, who in general, her purpose accomplished, showed no desire for the shedding of blood, may have induced the king to spare her. We can only surmise.
Ptolemy Philadelphus was a prosperous and popular king; living in comparative peace in sunny Egypt with his Thracian wife, remote frommost of the wars which were carried on in his name and caring little what battles raged at a distance so that he preserved himself and his kingdom in relative quiet. There were wars and rebellions afar, there were times even when Egypt itself was threatened, but through it all, at home, Ptolemy was able to pursue a relatively peaceful way. He spent his time adorning his splendid city and enlarging and, so to call it, emphasizing the scope of his great museum, a combination of university, club and social gathering place. The early Ptolemies, especially, were patrons of learning and people of all nations met at their brilliant court. He gathered around him men of intellectual and scientific pursuits and enjoyed mental pleasures as well as those of a lower order. His courtiers lavished upon him unstinted adulation and he might well have walked the earth as proudly as the great Rameses II, his predecessor.
It is to him we owe the translation of the Bible called the Septuagent, from the seventy translators who were gathered together to accomplish the task. Manetho, of Sebennytus, a priest of Heliopolis, was also employed by the king to collect the fragments of Egyptian history, from the time of Menes 4455 B. C. to 322 B. C. which had lain hidden or neglected in the various temples, and prepare from them a consecutive narrative. But unfortunately only fragments of this also now remain to us, and it is from these, given by Josephus and other Jewish and Christian writers that we have obtained our earliest knowledge, in a literary form, of Egyptian history. This work enjoyed a high reputation.
The king himself must have had some literary ability, or at least a pretty turn for the use of the pen, for he wrote a history of Alexander’s conquests. That it was much celebrated and lauded goes without saying; even in modern times the literary productions of king or president are much in demand and widely read. But of its intrinsic merits we are unable to judge, since it too is lost to us, an unfortunate fact, as it could not fail to have been of interest, whatever its method of treatment or literary value.
Ptolemy made wise laws and so far as he could, combined with his own personal advantage, wrought in every way for the internal improvement of his kingdom. Notwithstanding the modern assertions of liberty, equality and fraternity, it may be doubted whether in all ages and at all times man is not more or less a slave to circumstance and environment, but certainly the slaves of the early Ptolemies might have contrasted favorably both with those that who came before and those who came after. Less trampled upon and oppressed than in the reigns of the Pyramid builders, the great Rameses, or the Persian line, they appear also to have been better off and more peaceful than under the later Ptolemy rulers.
Ptolemy, ably seconded by his favorite wife, was devoted to the service of the temples and favorable to the priests, a policy which helped to strengthen his place and power. He built and restored temples both to the gods of Greece and Egypt. These last were approached in solemn procession, and were not merely, like the Greeks, to hold images of the gods, or like the laterChristian places of worship to accommodate a congregation. They had a holy of holies, into which only the high priest entered. Through the avenue of sphinxes, which frequently gave entrance to the temples, the long line would wind from their gaily decorated boats on the Nile, while the sacred lakes and the sacred grove were generally within the enclosure. The pylons or entrances were most imposing and an open court and a great hall beyond, with colonnades and columns, adorned with sculpture and paintings, gave entrance to this highest sanctuary, containing the symbol of the god or sacred animal.
No traces remain of the temple building of Ptolemy Philadelphus beyond the beautiful island of Philae; but at many other points ruins and fragments are to be found. Those of the temple of Isis in Hebt are near the present Mausura. These are of red and grey granite, with columns and architraves. There are figures of the king making offerings to Isis and among others an inscription which reads “Isis, Mistress of Hebit, who lays everything before her royal brother.” Of the portrait statues of the Egyptian kings and queens Dr. Lepsius says: “They wear the same character of monumental repose as the gods themselves and yet without the possibility of their human individuality being confounded with the universally typical features of the divine images.”
But intellectual, or so called religious pursuits, not alone shared Ptolemy’s heart and attention. His was a pleasure-loving nature; beautiful women thronged his court, sought his favor and beamed upon him with smiles and blandishments.No claim of legal wife, not even the true and devoted affection which he showed so plainly that he felt for his latest spouse, prevented his indulging in baser connections. He was the king—if no other man—the king at least might do as he pleased, there was none to criticise, none to prevent. Then, too, he amused himself with his goldsmith’s work, bench and tools doubtless occupied some favorite nook in the palace, and since this fancy is matter of record, we may judge that he turned out some creditable specimens of work, was no mean craftsman and perhaps adorned with his own skill the favorite of the hour, or the plumb and beautiful form of his beloved Arsinoe II.
To the personal history of this same princess, the subject of the present sketch, we turn once more. Like Roxane, wife of Alexander, she in a measure deserved and prepared the way for her own subsequent misfortunes. She was queen of Thrace, a distinguished and honorable position, but obtained at the cost of the honor, feelings and probably affections of the previous queen. Lysimachus had lived at Sardis, apparently in harmony with a noble Persian wife, Amestris. But, probably for political reasons alone, he sent her away, and married the young daughter of Ptolemy Sotor.
The new queen of Thrace resembled her mother Berenike in her ambition and tact. She, too, acquired great influence over an old husband, as far as in her lay, ousted her step-children from their natural rights, and secured all she could for her own. She obtained from the king the sessionof several valuable towns, but was not contented. Again like her mother before her she wished to supplant the elder members of the family. At this crisis Ptolemy Keraunos, “the Embroiler,” arrived at the Thracian court, and instead of, as might have been expected, siding with his own sister Lysandra, who had married the Crown Prince, Agathocles, calumniated him to the king, showing how completely the old man was under Arsinoe’s powerful influence, and succeeded in having the prince put to death. None of which shows Arsinoe in a very amiable light, but she doubtless thought one must fight for one’s self, by whatever means, or be driven to the wall.
There were other allies, Magas, King of Cyrene and half brother of Ptolemy Keraunos, seems to have leaned to his side, in the contest which the latter was waging for his rights, and been ready to throw off the yoke of Egypt. These were stirring times, men and women too, whether they would or not must lead “the strenuous life.” Seleukos, King of Syria, lent aid to Ptolemy Keraunos, and attacked Lysimachus, who lost his life in battle, but instead of proceeding further to place Keraunos on the throne of Egypt, as the latter expected, he suddenly determined to go back to his old home in Macedonia. Disappointed and enraged, Keraunos secured the murder of Seleukos and proclaimed himself king in his place. That he could have succeeded in this gigantic scheme, Mahaffy considers, shows him to have had many fellow conspirators.
His Egyptian projects had now to be abandoned,as Antiochus, son of Seleukos, was already hastening to avenge the death of his father. So Keraunos, nothing loth probably, seized upon the throne of Thrace, the king and his eldest son both being dead. Grabbing a Kingdom seems to have been comparatively easy—the pastime of adventurers in those days—but it was frequently “light come and light go”—there was seldom any real stability in these self-made royalties.
Again Arsinoe, the Egyptian born, appears in an unfavorable light (though how far independence of action or any other course was possible to her we cannot judge) for she married this murderer of kings, the son of her father’s first wife. Doubtless she must have foreseen the possibility of ill consequences, for she was a woman of acute mind, but probably in the midst of such troublous times and so many perplexities it seemed the safest thing to her to marry the strongest, the man who had proved himself a success, and she believed that it would secure her and her children the throne of Thrace. She had already lent herself to cruel deeds to secure this object, she must needs go on in the same path. Few more unlovely characters than Keraunos appear in this dark period of history. It is evident that he simply married Arsinoe to get her in his power, for no sooner had he done so than he murdered her young children and banished her childless and heart-broken to the island of Samothrace, to repent in bitterness of soul her sad mistake. Two years later the monster was overthrown in battle, dragged fromhis elephant, and hacked to pieces by the barbarous Gauls, leaving, we may imagine, but few to mourn his well-deserved fate.
Meanwhile the childless widow, stripped of throne, honors and kindred abode in the holy, isle. To her perhaps life seemed ended, little foreseeing the splendid future before her. Turning to religious consolations in time of sorrow, she worshipped the strange divinities of the place, building shrines to them, of which traces have been discovered in modern times, and even adding them to the long list of Egyptian divinities and building temples to them when she returned to her native land.
Deeply attached to her as he proved himself to be later, we cannot suppose Ptolemy Philadelphus to have been unmoved by the great misfortunes of his sister, but news traveled slowly in those days, and whatever the cause, he seems to have done nothing at once to avenge her losses. Whether at his instance or hers we know not, but after a certain length of time Arsinoe returned to Egypt. She took new hold of life and perhaps even began to scheme for the attainment of the honors which she shortly won. Recognized or not, her presence was a menace to the reigning queen. Equally it remains possible that she was innocent in this matter, further than acquiescence in the wishes of the king, but her previous course in Thrace lends color to the former idea.
So Arsinoe I was banished and Ptolemy married the widow, who now became Arsinoe II, called Philadelphus during her lifetime, and onlysubsequently was the title bestowed upon her husband to distinguish him among the long list of Ptolemy kings. This strange marriage was quite in accordance with Egyptian customs, where the queen was frequently called the king’s sister, as a term of honor, whether she was so or not, and shows how the Ptolemies had accepted Egyptian ideas, which no doubt largely account for their popularity. But to the Greeks such unions were an offence and deemed, as we would in a Christian age, incestuous. But the king was absolute, one of the courtiers, if not more, who dared to criticise and disapprove, paid with life for his temerity.
The first marriage occurred probably when Arsinoe II was about sixteen, her third and last when she was thirty-nine or forty. There can be little doubt that she had beauty and charm, a vigorous mind and great tact. She needed scope for her powers and in becoming queen of Egypt found a field well suited to her desires and abilities. We seem to see some resemblance between her and Queen Mertytefs of ancient times. Both were in succession wife to different kings, both were women of great attractiveness and capacity, and both took a personal share in public affairs. Step by step the new queen rose to greater prominence. Her sorrows were of the past, now life was all sunshine. She attained the highest point to which mortal could reach, she was finally worshipped as a goddess, and on a certain stele found at Pithon, she is even represented as a deity bestowing favors on her husband.
In the fifteenth year of Ptolemy’s reign Arsinoe II was made goddess of Mende, in the nineteenth at Thebes and in the twentieth or twenty-first, as Isis-Arsinoe, she was worshipped at Sais, and the king claimed these honors for her in all the temples of Egypt. There had been a city, the centre of the Egyptian worship of the crocodile, this Ptolemy re-named after the queen; it was enlarged, embellished and Hellenised to a great extent by the introduction of the Greek language and the erection of temples to the Greek gods and institutions on a Greek pattern. Its population at one time was said to amount to a hundred thousand.
Among other attractions for the king, perhaps, was also the fact that Arsinoe was a great heiress. She had proprietary claims on Cassandrea, Pontiac, Heraclia and its dependent cities, bestowed on her by her first husband. In the region called the Fayum, the former Lake Moeris was drained and turned into a fertile plain and this work was attributed to Arsinoe and it was now called the Arsinoe nome, and from it the queen derived part of her revenues. Old records show that it was settled by veteran soldiers who brought wives from Greek lands, and that it was an orderly and well managed society, with few crimes laid to its account.
Arsinoe II was an ideal stepmother, in the better sense of the word. The children of Ptolemy were treated by her as her own—only one son appears to have accompanied his mother into exile, if even he remained permanently with her—all the others dwelt in apparent harmony andaffection with her supplanter. Thus Ptolemy Philadelphus had an intellectual companion whose advice he sought and upon whose judgment he relied, whose personal charms were great, who made life smooth and agreeable and who dwelt at peace both with his favorite sister and his children. While last, and perhaps not least in her catalogue of virtues in his eyes, she was lenient to his defections from the moral code and saved him from the desire and peril of other alliances. Such as she was the king seems to have idolized her and paid her every possible honor in life and in death. That she was some years his senior in no way interfered with a marriage apparently most congenial to both.
Deprived first of parents, then of husband, children and throne Arsinoe had a strange and rare experience, virtually a second life lay before her, surpassing in all respects her earlier career. She dwelt in light and airy palaces built of brick and wood, richly decorated with color, adorned with balconies and surrounded by gardens and ponds. The music of tambourine, drum and flute, violin with one string, zither, lute or mandolin—and song and chorus, she had but to speak her pleasure and silence became melodious. Rhythm but not time, and monotonous singing through the nose, not pleasing to the European ear, is said to describe Egyptian music of to-day and probably that of the past also, but it was doubtless to their taste. The queen, too, had the privilege of being priestess in the temples and playing the sacred sistrum before the gods. She dwelt in an increasingly beautiful city, with widestreets, splendid palaces and many fine buildings.
Her associations were with men of culture and learning. She was surrounded by courtiers and poets who paid her homage and wrote in her praise. Doubtless, too, through her many tried to obtain favors from and influence with the king. She was for those times a deeply religious woman, building temples to the gods and lavishing gifts upon them. Thereby, of course, she endeared herself to the priests, always a more or less influential class, and it was probably owing to this, in addition to her husband’s partiality, that she was, even during her lifetime, deified. Both she and the king, we may judge, had affable and agreeable manners and both seem to have been very popular with the people.
In all the concerns of the kingdom she took an active share, and it is said that “no queen till we reach the last Cleopatra ever wielded greater political influence.” Wars and rumors of wars there were, but Egypt itself in this reign rested in comparative peace. The queen’s life must have been busy and full of interest, thus enabling her to recover from her earlier sorrows. Egypt was a country flowing not with milk and honey, but with oil and wine, the juices of the olive and the grape, from which large revenues were derived. As the great museum is said to have formed part of the palace, and contained cloisters or porticoes, a public theatre, or lecture room, and an immense dining hall, where the learned feasted together, it is possible that the queen may have been no unfamiliar figure within its walls. The person of the Ptolemy queens wasdoubtless as well known to the people as the wife of many a modern ruler, the Persian custom of strict seclusion for women not obtaining among the Greeks and their descendants.
There is a story told of Queen Arsinoe II, considered reliable, to the effect that she took exception to the ordering of a feast to one of the gods, remarking “this is a shabby consorting together, for the company must be a mixed crowd of all sorts, the food stale and not decently served,” and thereafter provided for better arrangements at her own expense. Hitherto each guest, somewhat in the manner of a modern country picnic, having brought a miscellaneous and disorderly collection. And whatever the queen did in the matter was doubtless accepted by the king.
Together with his sister, the royal pair travelled through the country and cities were founded bearing the name of both ladies. Together the king and queen seem to have governed and planned for the internal improvement of the kingdom, studying its needs and necessities by personal inspection. They made two visits to Pithon, and their foreign officials brought back elephants and various curiosities, to pleasure their majesties, or by special command. Part of the text of an ancient inscription found in the mounds of the ruins of this very city reads: “He brought all the things which are agreeable to the king, and to his sister, his royal wife who loves him;” further, “and he built a great city to the king with the illustrious name of the king, the lord of Egypt, Ptolemais. And he took possession of itwith the soldiers of his majesty and all the workmen of Egypt and the land of Punt.” Also they caught elephants and in another place it proceeds, “and in this place (Kemuer-sea) the king had founded a large city to his sister, with the illustrious name of King Ptolemy (Philotera).” The same beloved sister, to whom, as well as to the queen herself, court poets, like Callimachus, addressed poems. Sanctuaries were also built there to the princess Adelphus.
The delicate and pleasure-loving king never commanded his armies in person, but was quick to take advantage of anything in his own favor. He sent ambassadors to treat with the great and growing power of Rome, and made alliances wherever possible with any power strong enough to do his harm. With Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, he was connected by the marriage of a step-sister, Antigone; his mother, Berenike’s daughter, by her first husband.
Always beside the king, Arsinoe II was a woman of affairs, busy and capable, but not too much occupied to enjoy the amenities of life and make it agreeable to her consort. In his foreign wars and alliances, in the internal improvement of the kingdom, in his literary work, the story of Alexander’s campaigns, in Manetho’s History of Egypt, in the translation of the Septuagent, in the additions to the great library in which at the time of his death Ptolemy Philadelphus is said to have left 700,000 volumes, in the marriages of his children we cannot doubt the queen’s active interest and sympathetic share, above all others she was the Privy Councillor.
At Karnak and various points along the Nile as far as Philae, are fragments of temples both to Egyptian and Greek gods, built or restored by Ptolemy Philadelphus, and both he and his wife were interested in the Cabeiri mysteries, probably in their later years as some one has well said, “to still the longings of the soul with spiritual food and with dim revelations of the unseen,” here, too, perhaps, we may see the queen’s influence, since they were celebrated with special solemnity at Samothrace, the home of her widowhood. The king and queen lived in an atmosphere of adulation, like that which surrounded Louis XIV. Writers of the time drew flattering pictures of them and coarse caricatures of the masses. As to-day newspapers, whatever the private convictions of their editors, will bow and truckle to what they believe to be the popular view of any subject, so in ancient times it was the king and queen alone and those in high places who thus swayed the pen.
Some writers believe that Ptolemy and Arsinoe had one son who died in youth, but the weight of testimony is against this. In regard to the marriages of her step-children, whom she had brought up as her own, we may well believe the queen’s influence was great. The eldest daughter, Berenike, the child of Arsinoe I, was married to Antiochus II, the sickly king of Syria, chiefly in the hope of establishing an Egyptian claim to the throne of that monarchy. Sacrificed like so many young princesses, both before and after, to political purposes. Yet Ptolemy Philadelphus seems to have regarded this daughter with especialtenderness, for he accompanied her to her husband’s kingdom, was present at the marriage, and continued to send her the water of the fertile, beloved and worshipped Nile for use in her distant home. To accomplish this marriage Antiochus II had put away his first wife, Laodike. But this last was not a woman to submit meekly to such indignity, and stopped at nothing to recover her lost position. Who did in those days—even the best of them—hesitate at any crime to secure her object? The injured queen, burning to avenge her wrongs, caused the king to be poisoned, he, perhaps weakly, having put himself in her power by going to see her at Ephesus, even after the birth of a son by the new queen. Nor was this enough, for the death of her rival was also determined upon, Laodike having many adherents, and ere her father could come to her rescue, poor Berenike and her babe were also murdered, innocent victims of political intrigue. Ptolemy Philadelphus perhaps lived long enough to hear of this tragic death, but not long enough to avenge it—a task he left to the son who succeeded him.
Of the personality and general characteristics of no queen in the long Ptolemy line can we gather a clearer idea from the records that remain to us. There is a statue of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoe II in the Vatican, with, Mahaffy thinks, the dear sister Philactera beside them. Not only on coins, but among the effigies at the entrance of the Odeum at Athens, where the statues of the Egyptian kings were set up, she had her place. Pausanius also saw at Helicona statue of her “riding upon an ostrich in bronze.” A position elevated, but lacking in dignity, perhaps, like a grey-haired lady on the modern bicycle. “It is very likely,” continues Mahaffy, “that this statue or a replica was present to the mind of Callicachus when he spake in the ‘Coma Berinices,’ of ‘the winged horse, brother of the Aethiopian Memnon, who is the messenger of Queen Arsinoe, she is also in that poem called Venus and Zaphyrion.”
From the coins we learn of Arsinoe II that there were octadrams in all metals with her image, and those with portraits of Ptolemy I and Berenike I, and those of Ptolemy II and herself; and in silver of Ptolemy I, and also of her alone, struck in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus; also gold coins with Arsinoe II alone. The coins of Arsinoe II were mainly octadrams in gold and decadrams in silver. On these and also on those of her step-daughter, Berenike II, both queens are diademed and veiled, with regular features, indisputably handsome but conventionalized. Arsinoe II appears with the horn of Zeus Amon, diadem, stephane or crown, veil and sceptre. She is beautiful in youth and still handsome, though more portly as depicted in later years. Most of the Ptolemy queens grew comfortably plump with time; the murder of a rival or even the death of their nearest relatives appears to have interfered little with their digestion.
But death came at last to put an end to these ceaseless activities, whether by slow decay or sudden illness, we know not. Ptolemy Philadelphia died 247 B. C., Arsinoe II, some say 270 B. C.,but we have no precise date. The king was in no sense a faithful lover, since he had a succession of feminine favorites, alternating in the company of philosophers and mistresses. Yet he seems to have mourned Arsinoe with a passionate grief, and indulged in what may be called wild schemes to do her honor. One of these was the building of a temple with a loadstone in the roof which should hold, suspended in mid-air, an iron statue of the queen. In everything he had leaned upon her, and she had made life agreeable to him, his sorrow for her loss was sincere and deep. Her popularity with the people was also widespread, more inscriptions in her honor have been found all over Egypt than of those of any of the succeeding queens.
Ptolemy Philadelphus reigned more than thirty-six years and left his kingdom peacefully to his son Euergetes, whose name had long been associated with his in public acts.
Ptolemy Euergetes, the Benefactor, son of Ptolemy Philadelphus and Arsinoe II, was the third of his race to become king of Egypt. He ascended the throne when past his early youth, and appears to have remained unmarried until this time. We know little of his early life, and one writer suggests that the all-pervading power and influence of his stepmother, Arsinoe II, may have caused him to absent himself from his native land, but this is merely hypothesis.
He chose for himself, or his father chose for him, Berenike, daughter and heiress of Magas, King of Cyrene, who at the time of their marriage was reigning queen in her father’s stead, the Egyptian prince having been declared Lord of Cyrene, and on this marriage King Consort, while she now became Berenike II of Egypt. Magas was the son of Berenike I, the grandmother of Euergetes by a marriage previous to that with Ptolemy Sotor, hence there was a sort of cousinship between Euergetes and his bride. Personal acquaintance there may have been also, and real affection, of which it is pleasant to read, appears between them. It is said too that no breath of scandal touched Ptolemy Euergetes’name, which is indeed an unique record in his family. Like many other princes, and others of a later day, Euergetes may have been sent abroad to complete his education and see some thing of the world. If these travels led him to Cyrene, as appears likely, since he was proclaimed Lord of the same on the death of Magas, he may have become familiar with the lady of his choice and seen or heard tales of her prowess. A brave and valiant figure, this same Berenike II, warm-hearted, affectionate and courageous to a degree. Stories are told of her valor in rescuing her father, when in the midst of enemies, by riding in among and putting them to flight. Like the late Empress of Austria she was a splendid horsewoman, was accustomed to break horses for the Olympian games and performed other equestrian feats.
An individual figure was she, like her predecessor on the throne of Egypt, Arsinoe II, but a very different one, save in the fact that the husband of both seemed devoted to them. With these experiences behind her Berenike could not have been very young when she became queen of Egypt. Such as she was, doubtless handsome, intrepid and fascinating, she won the heart of a prince to whom she seems to have given her own unreservedly; even so the course of true love did not run quite smooth. Her mother, Berenike, also opposed the match, for reasons not given, but did not succeed in breaking it off. One line by a poet of the time gives an attractive touch to the picture of the new queen.
“He who seated facing thee sees and hears thy laughter sweet.”
Of her, too, we have portraits on the coins, beautiful, regular-featured and conventional. These were gold octadrams and others. In some she appears with the king, in some alone, with diadem, veil and necklace. Others are remarkable for the absence of the veil, there is a cornucopia and it is accompanied by a single star. Berenike II was the first Egyptian queen who bore her title on the coins.
Shortly before the accession of Ptolemy III and his marriage, which occurred 247 B. C., had come the tragic news of the murder of his sister Berenike, the young queen of Syria, of which it is uncertain whether his father was aware. Euergetes, apparently the most personally valiant and warlike of the three first Ptolemies, set out to avenge her death.
Queen Berenike II implored the gods to restore her beloved husband, and vowed to Venus the tresses of her hair, bright, beautiful and abundant, in case of his safe return. Fragments of papyri, found by Professor Petrie, confirm the fact that the king was successful in his war, and came again in triumph. With what rejoicing he was received by his wife we can well imagine, who faithfully carried out her vow and this “woman’s crown” was placed in the sanctuary. The king, while highly appreciating this token of affection, must have felt some regret at the sacrifice. It recalls a story of later date where the Duchess of Marlborough, of the time of William III, cut off her beautiful hair, not to dedicate itto the gods, but to throw it indignantly at her husband’s feet, as revenge for some act of his of which she did not approve. She had not even the satisfaction of rousing him, for he took no notice, but after his death she found locked up in a drawer her heavy curls, which he had always admired.
Berenike’s hair, however, was stolen from the temple, to the grief and indignation of the king. To account for it courtiers and poets devised legends and the mathematician Conon said it had been raised to the heavens to become a constellation, the “Coma Berenice,” a small group of stars still to be seen. Of this miracle Catullus wrote: