THE PTOLEMIES.
The dynasty of the Ptolemies.--The founder.--Philip of
Macedon.--Alexander.--The intrigue discovered.--Ptolemy
banished.--Accession of Alexander.--Ptolemy's elevation.--Death of
Alexander.--Ptolemy becomes King of Egypt.--Character of Ptolemy's
reign.--The Alexandrian library.--Abdication of Ptolemy.--Ptolemy
Philadelphus.--Death of Ptolemy.--Subsequent degeneracy of the
Ptolemies.--Incestuous marriages of the Ptolemy family.--Ptolemy
Physcon.--Origin of his name.--Circumstances of Physcon's
accession.--Cleopatra.--Physcon's brutal perfidity.--He marries his
wife's daughter.--Atrocities of Physcon.--His flight.--Cleopatra assumes
the government.--Her birth-day.--Barbarity of Physcon.--Grief of
Cleopatra.--General character of the Ptolemy family.--Lathyrus.
--Terrible quarrels with his mother.--Cruelties of Cleopatra.
--Alexander kills her.--Cleopatra a type of the family.--Her
two daughters.--Unnatural war.--Tryphena's hatred of her sister.--Taking
of Antioch.--Cleopatra flees to a temple.--Jealousy of Tryphena.--Her
resentment increases.--Cruel and sacrilegious murder.--The moral
condition of mankind not degenerating.
The founder of the dynasty of the Ptolemies--the ruler into whose hands
the kingdom of Egypt fell, as has already been stated, at the death of
Alexander the Great--was a Macedonian general in Alexander's army. The
circumstances of his birth, and the events which led to his entering
into the service of Alexander, were somewhat peculiar. His mother, whose
name was Arsinoë, was a personal favorite and companion of Philip, king
of Macedon, the father of Alexander. Philip at length gave Arsinoë in
marriage to a certain man of his court named Lagus. A very short time
after the marriage, Ptolemy was born. Philip treated the child with the
same consideration and favor that he had evinced toward the mother. The
boy was called the son of Lagus, but his position in the royal court of
Macedon was as high and honorable, and the attentions which he received
were as great, as he could have expected to enjoy if he had been in
reality a son of the king. As he grew up, he attained to official
stations of considerable responsibility and power.
In the course of time, a certain transaction occurred by means of which
Ptolemy involved himself in serious difficulty with Philip, though by
the same means he made Alexander very strongly his friend. There was a
province of the Persian empire called Caria, situated in the
southwestern part of Asia Minor. The governor of this province had
offered his daughter to Philip as the wife of one of his sons named
Aridaeus, the half brother of Alexander. Alexander's mother, who was not
the mother of Aridaeus, was jealous of this proposed marriage. She
thought that it was part of a scheme for bringing Aridaeus forward into
public notice, and finally making him the heir to Philip's throne;
whereas she was very earnest that this splendid inheritance should be
reserved for her own son. Accordingly, she proposed to Alexander that
they should send a secret embassage to the Persian governor, and
represent to him that it would be much better, both for him and for his
daughter, that she should have Alexander instead of Aridaeus for a
husband, and induce him, if possible, to demand of Philip that he should
make the change.
Alexander entered readily into this scheme, and various courtiers,
Ptolemy among the rest, undertook to aid him in the accomplishment of
it. The embassy was sent. The governor of Caria was very much pleased
with the change which they proposed to him. In fact, the whole plan
seemed to be going on very successfully toward its accomplishment, when,
by some means or other, Philip discovered the intrigue. He went
immediately into Alexander's apartment, highly excited with resentment
and anger. He had never intended to make Aridaeus, whose birth on the
mother's side was obscure and ignoble, the heir to his throne, and he
reproached Alexander in the bitterest terms for being of so debased and
degenerate a spirit as to desire to marry the daughter of a Persian
governor; a man who was, in fact, the mere slave, as he said, of a
barbarian king.
Alexander's scheme was thus totally defeated; and so displeased was his
father with the officers who had undertaken to aid him in the execution
of it, that he banished them all from the kingdom. Ptolemy, in
consequence of this decree, wandered about an exile from his country for
some years, until at length the death of Philip enabled Alexander to
recall him. Alexander succeeded his father as King of Macedon, and
immediately made Ptolemy one of his principal generals. Ptolemy rose, in
fact, to a very high command in the Macedonian army, and distinguished
himself very greatly in all the celebrated conqueror's subsequent
campaigns. In the Persian invasion, Ptolemy commanded one of the three
grand divisions of the army, and he rendered repeatedly the most signal
services to the cause of his master. He was employed on the most distant
and dangerous enterprises, and was often intrusted with the management
of affairs of the utmost importance. He was very successful in all his
undertakings. He conquered armies, reduced fortresses, negotiated
treaties, and evinced, in a word, the highest degree of military energy
and skill. He once saved Alexander's life by discovering and revealing a
dangerous conspiracy which had been formed against the king. Alexander
had the opportunity to requite this favor, through a divine
interposition vouchsafed to him, it was said, for the express purpose of
enabling him to evince his gratitude. Ptolemy had been wounded by a
poisoned arrow, and when all the remedies and antidotes of the
physicians had failed, and the patient was apparently about to die, an
effectual means of cure was revealed to Alexander in a dream, and
Ptolemy, in his turn, was saved.
At the great rejoicings at Susa, when Alexander's conquests were
completed, Ptolemy was honored with a golden crown, and he was married,
with great pomp and ceremony, to Artacama, the daughter of one of the
most distinguished Persian generals.
At length Alexander died suddenly, after a night of drinking and
carousal at Babylon. He had no son old enough to succeed him, and his
immense empire was divided among his generals. Ptolemy obtained Egypt
for his share. He repaired immediately to Alexandria, with a great army,
and a great number of Greek attendants and followers, and there
commenced a reign which continued, in great prosperity and splendor, for
forty years. The native Egyptians were reduced, of course, to subjection
and bondage. All the offices in the army, and all stations of trust and
responsibility in civil life, were filled by Greeks. Alexandria was a
Greek city, and it became at once one of the most important commercial
centers in all those seas. Greek and Roman travelers found now a
language spoken in Egypt which they could understand, and philosophers
and scholars could gratify the curiosity which they had so long felt, in
respect to the institutions, and monuments, and wonderful physical
characteristics of the country, with safety and pleasure. In a word, the
organization of a Greek government over the ancient kingdom, and the
establishment of the great commercial relations of the city of
Alexandria, conspired to bring Egypt out from its concealment and
seclusion, and to open it in some measure to the intercourse, as well as
to bring it more fully under the observation, of the rest of mankind.
Ptolemy, in fact, made it a special object of his policy to accomplish
these ends. He invited Greek scholars, philosophers, poets, and artists,
in great numbers, to come to Alexandria, and to make his capital their
abode. He collected an immense library, which subsequently, under the
name of the Alexandrian library, became one of the most celebrated
collections of books and manuscripts that was ever made. We shall have
occasion to refer more particularly to this library in the next chapter.
Besides prosecuting these splendid schemes for the aggrandizement of
Egypt, King Ptolemy was engaged, during almost the whole period of his
reign, in waging incessant wars with the surrounding nations. He engaged
in these wars, in part, for the purpose of extending the boundaries of
his empire, and in part for self-defense against the aggressions and
encroachments of other powers. He finally succeeded in establishing his
kingdom on the most stable and permanent basis, and then, when he was
drawing toward the close of his life, being in fact over eighty years of
age, he abdicated his throne in favor of his youngest son, whose name
was also Ptolemy. Ptolemy the father, the founder of the dynasty, is
known commonly in history by the name of Ptolemy Soter. His son is
called Ptolemy Philadelphus. This son, though the youngest, was
preferred to his brothers as heir to the throne on account of his being
the son of the most favored and beloved of the monarch's wives. The
determination of Soter to abdicate the throne himself arose from his
wish to put this favorite son in secure possession of it before his
death, in order to prevent the older brothers from disputing the
succession. The coronation of Philadelphus was made one of the most
magnificent and imposing ceremonies that royal pomp and parade ever
arranged. Two years afterward Ptolemy the father died, and was buried by
his son with a magnificence almost equal to that of his own coronation.
His body was deposited in a splendid mausoleum, which had been built for
the remains of Alexander; and so high was the veneration which was felt
by mankind for the greatness of his exploits and the splendor of his
reign, that divine honors were paid to his memory. Such was the origin
of the great dynasty of the Ptolemies.
Some of the early sovereigns of the line followed in some degree the
honorable example set them by the distinguished founder of it; but this
example was soon lost, and was succeeded by the most extreme degeneracy
and debasement. The successive sovereigns began soon to live and to
reign solely for the gratification of their own sensual propensities and
passions. Sensuality begins sometimes with kindness, but it ends always
in the most reckless and intolerable cruelty. The Ptolemies became, in
the end, the most abominable and terrible tyrants that the principle of
absolute and irresponsible power ever produced. There was one vice in
particular, a vice which they seem to have adopted from the Asiatic
nations of the Persian empire, that resulted in the most awful
consequences. This vice was incest.
The law of God, proclaimed not only in the Scriptures, but in the native
instincts of the human soul, forbids intermarriages among those
connected by close ties of consanguinity. The necessity for such a law
rests on considerations which can not here be fully explained. They are
considerations, however, which arise from causes inherent in the very
nature of man as a social being, and which are of universal, perpetual,
and insurmountable force. To guard his creatures against the deplorable
consequences, both physical and moral, which result from the practice of
such marriages, the great Author of Nature has implanted in every mind
an instinctive sense of their criminality, powerful enough to give
effectual warning of the danger, and so universal as to cause a distinct
condemnation of them to be recorded in almost every code of written law
that has ever been promulgated among mankind. The Persian sovereigns
were, however, above all law, and every species of incestuous marriage
was practiced by them without shame. The Ptolemies followed their
example.
One of the most striking exhibitions of the nature of incestuous
domestic life which is afforded by the whole dismal panorama of pagan
vice and crime, is presented in the history of the great-grandfather of
the Cleopatra who is the principal subject of this narrative. He was
Ptolemy Physcon, the seventh in the line. It is necessary to give some
particulars of his history and that of his family, in order to explain
the circumstances under which Cleopatra herself came upon the stage. The
name Physcon, which afterward became his historical designation, was
originally given him in contempt and derision. He was very small of
stature in respect to height, but his gluttony and sensuality had made
him immensely corpulent in body, so that he looked more like a monster
than a man. The term Physcon was a Greek word, which denoted
opprobriously the ridiculous figure that he made.
The circumstances of Ptolemy Physcon's accession to the throne afford
not only a striking illustration of his character, but a very faithful
though terrible picture of the manners and morals of the times. He had
been engaged in a long and cruel war with his brother, who was king
before him, in which war he had perpetrated all imaginable atrocities,
when at length his brother died, leaving as his survivors his wife, who
was also his sister, and a son who was yet a child. This son was
properly the heir to the crown. Physcon himself, being a brother, had no
claim, as against a son. The name of the queen was Cleopatra. This was,
in fact, a very common name among the princesses of the Ptolemaic line.
Cleopatra, besides her son, had a daughter, who was at this time a young
and beautiful girl. Her name was also Cleopatra. She was, of course, the
niece, as her mother was the sister, of Physcon.
The plan of Cleopatra the mother, after her husband's death, was to make
her son the king of Egypt, and to govern herself, as regent, until he
should become of age. The friends and adherents of Physcon, however,
formed a strong party in _his_ favor. They sent for him to come to
Alexandria to assert his claims to the throne. He came, and a new civil
war was on the point of breaking out between the brother and sister,
when at length the dispute was settled by a treaty, in which it was
stipulated that Physcon should marry Cleopatra, and be king; but that he
should make the son of Cleopatra by her former husband his heir. This
treaty was carried into effect so far as the celebration of the marriage
with the mother was concerned, and the establishment of Physcon upon the
throne. But the perfidious monster, instead of keeping his faith in
respect to the boy, determined to murder him; and so open and brutal
were his habits of violence and cruelty, that he undertook to perpetrate
the deed himself, in open day. The boy fled shrieking to the mother's
arms for protection, and Physcon stabbed and killed him there,
exhibiting the spectacle of a newly-married husband murdering the son of
his wife in her very arms!
It is easy to conceive what sort of affection would exist between a
husband and a wife after such transactions as these. In fact, there had
been no love between them from the beginning. The marriage had been
solely a political arrangement. Physcon hated his wife, and had murdered
her son, and then, as if to complete the exhibition of the brutal
lawlessness and capriciousness of his passions, he ended with falling in
love with her daughter. The beautiful girl looked upon this heartless
monster, as ugly and deformed in body as he was in mind, with absolute
horror. But she was wholly in his power. He compelled her, by violence,
to submit to his will. He repudiated the mother, and forced the daughter
to become his wife.
Physcon displayed the same qualities of brutal tyranny and cruelty in
the treatment of his subjects that he manifested in his own domestic
relations. The particulars we can not here give, but can only say that
his atrocities became at length absolutely intolerable, and a revolt so
formidable broke out, that he fled from the country. In fact he barely
escaped with his life, as the mob had surrounded the palace and were
setting it on fire, intending to burn the tyrant himself and all the
accomplices of his crimes together. Physcon, however, contrived to make
his escape. He fled to the island of Cyprus, taking with him a certain
beautiful boy, his son by the Cleopatra whom he had divorced; for they
had been married long enough before the divorce, to have a son. The name
of this boy was Memphitis. His mother was very tenderly attached to him,
and Physcon took him away on this very account, to keep him as a hostage
for his mother's good behavior. He fancied that, when he was gone, she
might possibly attempt to resume possession of the throne.
His expectations in this respect were realized. The people of Alexandria
rallied around Cleopatra, and called upon her to take the crown. She did
so, feeling, perhaps, some misgivings in respect to the danger which
such a step might possibly bring upon her absent boy. She quieted
herself, however, by the thought that he was in the hands of his own
father, and that he could not possibly come to harm.
After some little time had elapsed, and Cleopatra was beginning to be
well established in her possession of the supreme power at Alexandria,
her birth-day approached, and arrangements were made for celebrating it
in the most magnificent manner. When the day arrived, the whole city was
given up to festivities and rejoicing. Grand entertainments were given
in the palace, and games, spectacles, and plays in every variety, were
exhibited and performed in all quarters of the city. Cleopatra herself
was enjoying a magnificent entertainment, given to the lords and ladies
of the court and the officers of her army, in one of the royal palaces.
In the midst of this scene of festivity and pleasure, it was announced
to the queen that a large box had arrived for her. The box was brought
into the apartment. It had the appearance of containing some magnificent
present, sent in at that time by some friend in honor of the occasion.
The curiosity of the queen was excited to know what the mysterious
coffer might contain. She ordered it to be opened; and the guests
gathered around, each eager to obtain the first glimpse of the contents.
The lid was removed, and a cloth beneath it was raised, when, to the
unutterable horror of all who witnessed the spectacle, there was seen
the head and hands of Cleopatra's beautiful boy, lying among masses of
human flesh, which consisted of the rest of his body cut into pieces.
The head had been left entire, that the wretched mother might recognize
in the pale and lifeless features the countenance of her son. Physcon
had sent the box to Alexandria, with orders that it should be retained
until the evening of the birth-day, and then presented publicly to
Cleopatra in the midst of the festivities of the scene. The shrieks and
cries with which she filled the apartments of the palace at the first
sight of the dreadful spectacle, and the agony of long-continued and
inconsolable grief which followed, showed how well the cruel contrivance
of the tyrant was fitted to accomplish its end.
It gives us no pleasure to write, and we are sure it can give our
readers no pleasure to peruse, such shocking stories of bloody cruelty
as these. It is necessary, however, to a just appreciation of the
character of the great subject of this history, that we should
understand the nature of the domestic influences that reigned in the
family from which she sprung. In fact, it is due, as a matter of simple
justice to her, that we should know what these influences were, and what
were the examples set before her in her early life; since the privileges
and advantages which the young enjoy in their early years, and, on the
other hand, the evil influences under which they suffer, are to be taken
very seriously into the account when we are passing judgment upon the
follies and sins into which they subsequently fall.
The monster Physcon lived, it is true, two or three generations before
the great Cleopatra; but the character of the intermediate generations,
until the time of her birth, continued much the same. In fact, the
cruelty, corruption, and vice which reigned in every branch of the royal
family increased rather than diminished. The beautiful niece of Physcon,
who, at the time of her compulsory marriage with him, evinced such an
aversion to the monster, had become, at the period of her husband's
death, as great a monster of ambition, selfishness, and cruelty as he.
She had two sons, Lathyrus and Alexander. Physcon, when he died, left
the kingdom of Egypt to her by will, authorizing her to associate with
her in the government whichever of these two sons she might choose. The
oldest was best entitled to this privilege, by his priority of birth;
but she preferred the youngest, as she thought that her own power would
be more absolute in reigning in conjunction with him, since he would be
more completely under her control. The leading powers, however, in
Alexandria, resisted this plan, and insisted on Cleopatra's associating
her oldest son, Lathyrus, with her in the government of the realm. They
compelled her to recall Lathyrus from the banishment into which she had
sent him, and to put him nominally upon the throne. Cleopatra yielded to
this necessity, but she forced her son to repudiate his wife, and to
take, instead, another woman, whom she fancied she could make more
subservient to her will. The mother and the son went on together for a
time, Lathyrus being nominally king, though her determination that she
would rule, and his struggles to resist her intolerable tyranny, made
their wretched household the scene of terrible and perpetual quarrels.
At last Cleopatra seized a number of Lathyrus's servants, the eunuchs
who were employed in various offices about the palace, and after
wounding and mutilating them in a horrible manner, she exhibited them
to the populace, saying that it was Lathyrus that had inflicted the
cruel injuries upon the sufferers, and calling upon them to arise and
punish him for his crimes. In this and in other similar ways she awakened
among the people of the court and of the city such an animosity against
Lathyrus, that they expelled him from the country. There followed a long
series of cruel and bloody wars between the mother and the son, in the
course of which each party perpetrated against the other almost every
imaginable deed of atrocity and crime. Alexander, the youngest son, was
so afraid of his terrible mother, that he did not dare to remain in
Alexandria with her, but went into a sort of banishment of his own
accord. He, however, finally returned to Egypt. His mother immediately
supposed that he was intending to disturb her possession of power, and
resolved to destroy him. He became acquainted with her designs, and,
grown desperate by the long-continued pressure of her intolerable
tyranny, he resolved to bring the anxiety and terror in which he lived
to an end by killing her. This he did, and then fled the country.
Lathyrus, his brother, then returned, and reigned for the rest of his
days in a tolerable degree of quietness and peace. At length Lathyrus
died, and left the kingdom to his son, Ptolemy Auletes, who was the
great Cleopatra's father.
We can not soften the picture which is exhibited to our view in the
history of this celebrated family, by regarding the mother of Auletes,
in the masculine and merciless traits and principles which she displayed
so energetically throughout her terrible career, as an exception to the
general character of the princesses who appeared from time to time in
the line. In ambition, selfishness, unnatural and reckless cruelty, and
utter disregard of every virtuous principle and of every domestic tie,
she was but the type and representative of all the rest.
She had two daughters, for example, who were the consistent and worthy
followers of such a mother. A passage in the lives of these sisters
illustrates very forcibly the kind of sisterly affection which prevailed
in the family of the Ptolemies. The case was this:
There were two princes of Syria, a country lying northeast of the
Mediterranean Sea, and so not very far from Egypt, who, though they were
brothers, were in a state of most deadly hostility to each other. One
had attempted to poison the other, and afterward a war had broken out
between them, and all Syria was suffering from the ravages of their
armies. One of the sisters, of whom we have been speaking, married one
of these princes. Her name was Tryphena. After some time, but yet while
the unnatural war was still raging between the two brothers, Cleopatra,
the other sister--the same Cleopatra, in fact, that had been divorced
from Lathyrus at the instance of his mother--espoused the other brother.
Tryphena was exceedingly incensed against Cleopatra for marrying her
husband's mortal foe, and the implacable hostility and hate of the
sisters was thenceforth added to that which the brothers had before
exhibited, to complete the display of unnatural and parricidal passion
which this shameful contest presented to the world.
In fact, Tryphena from this time seemed to feel a new and highly-excited
interest in the contest, from her eager desire to revenge herself on her
sister. She watched the progress of it, and took an active part in
pressing forward the active prosecution of the war. The party of her
husband, either from this or some other causes, seemed to be gaining the
day. The husband of Cleopatra was driven from one part of the country to
another, and at length, in order to provide for the security of his
wife, he left her in Antioch, a large and strongly-fortified city, where
he supposed that she would be safe, while he himself was engaged in
prosecuting the war in other quarters where his presence seemed to be
required.
On learning that her sister was at Antioch, Tryphena urged her husband
to attack the place. He accordingly advanced with a strong detachment of
the army, and besieged and took the city. Cleopatra would, of course,
have fallen into his hands as a captive; but, to escape this fate, she
fled to a temple for refuge. A temple was considered, in those days, an
inviolable sanctuary. The soldiers accordingly left her there. Tryphena,
however, made a request that her husband would deliver the unhappy
fugitive into her hands. She was determined, she said, to kill her. Her
husband remonstrated with her against this atrocious proposal. "It would
be a wholly useless act of cruelty," said he, "to destroy her life. She
can do us no possible harm in the future progress of the war, while to
murder her under these circumstances will only exasperate her husband
and her friends, and nerve them with new strength for the remainder of
the contest. And then, besides, she has taken refuge in a temple; and if
we violate that sanctuary, we shall incur, by such an act of sacrilege,
the implacable displeasure of Heaven. Consider, too, that she is your
sister, and for you to kill her would be to commit an unnatural and
wholly inexcusable crime."
So saying, he commanded Tryphena to say no more upon the subject, for he
would on no account consent that Cleopatra should suffer any injury
whatever.
This refusal on the part of her husband to comply with her request only
inflamed Tryphena's insane resentment and anger the more. In fact, the
earnestness with which he espoused her sister's cause, and the interest
which he seemed to feel in her fate, aroused Tryphena's jealousy. She
believed, or pretended to believe, that her husband was influenced by a
sentiment of love in so warmly defending her. The object of her hate,
from being simply an enemy, became now, in her view, a rival, and she
resolved that, at all hazards, she should be destroyed. She accordingly
ordered a body of desperate soldiers to break into the temple and seize
her. Cleopatra fled in terror to the altar, and clung to it with such
convulsive force that the soldiers cut her hands off before they could
tear her away, and then, maddened by her resistance and the sight of
blood, they stabbed her again and again upon the floor of the temple,
where she fell. The appalling shrieks with which the wretched victim
filled the air in the first moments of her flight and her terror,
subsided, as her life ebbed away, into the most awful imprecations of
the judgments of Heaven upon the head of the unnatural sister whose
implacable hate had destroyed her.
Notwithstanding the specimens that we have thus given of the character
and action of this extraordinary family, the government of this dynasty,
extending, as it did, through the reigns of thirteen sovereigns and over
a period of nearly three hundred years, has always been considered one
of the most liberal, enlightened, and prosperous of all the governments
of ancient times. We shall have something to say in the next chapter in
respect to the internal condition of the country while these violent men
were upon the throne. In the mean time, we will here only add, that
whoever is inclined, in observing the ambition, the selfishness, the
party spirit, the unworthy intrigues, and the irregularities of moral
conduct, which modern rulers and statesmen sometimes exhibit to mankind
in their personal and political career, to believe in a retrogression
and degeneracy of national character as the world advances in age, will
be very effectually undeceived by reading attentively a full history of
this celebrated dynasty, and reflecting, as he reads, that the narrative
presents, on the whole, a fair and honest exhibition of the general
character of the men by whom, in ancient times, the world was governed.