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 regardless[408] of 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 either[409] directly 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 phil?, 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 tryph?na. 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 c?sarion, who died unmarried.
within the year (and some say the murder of[410] her 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 a[411] relief 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 cruelties[412] to 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 inscriptions[413] which 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 tryph?na, 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, indisposed[414] to 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,[415] 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, he[416] left 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 justify[417] their 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 ur?us 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.
tryph?na, 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, of[418] which, 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, tryph?na (whom some call his[419] wife 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. and[420] died, 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.