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 all strangers 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 the alliance 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 from
most 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 later Christian 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
session of 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 from his
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 only
subsequently 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 and
affection 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 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.