The Murder of Cleopatra by Pat Brown Page B

by Antony at Cleopatra’s behest.
    Auletes wasn’t the first pharaoh or Ptolemy to kill off his family or rivals to the throne in order to succeed to power. Here is a condensed history of Ptolemy intra-family annihilation that may be a bit overwhelming with the many similar names and titles and intrigues. I present this compilation not to detail each specific event or to present an analysis of these goings on, but to acquaint you with the vicious past activities of the Ptolemies that would educate Cleopatra on methods of dealing with threats to her continuation as a ruler. Do not worry about who did what and when, but rather allow the violence of the years leading up to Cleopatra’s rule to set the tone for her entrance into Ptolemaic history.
    Let us begin with the sister of Ptolemy II, Arsinoe II. She eventually ended up marrying her brother, the then king of Egypt, but she first married the elderly king Lysimachos, who controlled all of Macedonia in 285 BCE. Wanting one of her own three sons with the king to be successor to the throne, she got the king to poison his own very capable eldest son from his first wife on trumped up treason charges. After King Lysimachos was killed in battle, Arsinoe II married her half brother, Ptolemy Keraunos, son of Ptolemy I, who then killed Arsinoe’s two younger sons after she and her sons conspired against him. Arsinoe’s eldest son went into hiding. Never one to give up, Arsinoe II then went to her other brother, Ptolemy II, in Alexandria; encouraged him to exile his wife (Arsinoe I); and promptly married him. She became quite an influential queen. This incestuous marriage in the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Arsinoe II to her brother Ptolemy II was a fine example to the young Cleopatra that ruthlessness and determination are necessary if one wants to be an important part of the ruling family.
    Ptolemy III, son of Ptolemy II and Arsinoe I, took over the throne in 246 BCE and promptly married his sister, Berenice II. When he died, his twenty-year-oldson, Ptolemy IV, took over and immediately married his sister, Arsinoe III. The most powerful man in his court, Sosibios, who quite frankly was dictating what the young pharaoh would do, quickly murdered the top three members of the ruling family, including the pharaoh’s mother, to ensure his continued control of the king. It is at this point that the downfall of the Ptolemies began. Ptolemy IV wasn’t terribly good at his administrative duties, and he preferred partying to handling more important matters. When he died at age forty, he left a son, Ptolemy V, as the new king at age six.
    Unfortunately for Egypt, Sosibios also died soon thereafter, leaving an even nastier man in his stead, an Alexandrian by the name of Agathoklos, to watch over the new little king as regent. He swiftly eliminated Arsinoe III, the pharaoh’s mother, capturing the place of power for himself. But apparently his bad behavior wasn’t appreciated by the Alexandrian mob that, in 203 BCE, executed him in the stadium along with his family. Cleopatra would learn from this that the Alexandrians could turn on their leaders and the results could be extremely unpleasant. Thereafter the “mob” was to be considered a serious threat. Even after Octavian came to Egypt and defeated Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium, he was very well aware of the power the Egyptian people held, and he made good use of his time winning their favor. As we will see later in this story of Cleopatra’s death, there was good reason for him to want to appease this group and not incur their wrath over his mistreatment of their beloved queen.
    Ptolemy V, who succeeded his father, Ptolemy IV, actually didn’t marry his sister. At sixteen years of age, he married a Syrian named Cleopatra I, who was just ten years old. His rule was an unmitigated disaster during which he managed to lose most of Egypt’s foreign possessions in Europe and in Asia. When