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,............