Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

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 wide streets, 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 was doubtless 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 it with 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 especial tenderness, 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.