crushing a rebellion by the Greek city of Thebes and securing approval by the Greeks of the war against Persia and his position as its commander.
He then crossed into Asia in the spring of 334 b.c.e. with an army of about thirty-five thousand men. During the next decade, Alexander cam-paigned as far as western India before a mutiny by his troops forced him to return to the west, where he died in Babylon in June 323 b.c.e.
Alexander’s Persian campaign divides into three distinct phases. The first phase, which lasted from 334 b.c.e. to 330 b.c.e., included the great set battles of Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela and ended with the de-struction of the Persian capital Perepolis and the assassination of the Per-sian king Darius III by his own officers. The second phase lasted from 330b.c.e. to 327 b.c.e. These three years were spent campaigning in cen-tral Asia and included some of the most difficult fighting in the whole campaign. During this period, Alexander adopted various aspects of Per-sian royal ceremonial practice despite strong Macedonian and Greek op-position in order to attract Iranian support in the face of fierce guerrilla resistance in central Asia. The final phase of the campaign extended from 327b.c.e. to the summer of 323 b.c.e. and included the two years Alexan-der spent in India, his disastrous return to Mesopotamia through the deserts of Baluchistan, and his death at Babylon.
Alexander’s involvement with Egypt was brief. It began with the sur-render of Egypt by its last Persian satrap (governor) in the winter of 332/1 b.c.e. and ended with Alexander’s departure for the interior of the Per-sian Empire in April 331 b.c.e. The highpoint of these few months was Alexander’s recognition as son of Ammon by the priests of the temple of Ammon in the oasis of Siwah, an identification that radically changed his conception of himself and the nature of his kingship. Alexander also, however, established good relations with the Egyptian priesthood by sac-rificing to Apis and other Egyptian gods, and founded Alexandria as a Greek city and began its construction. Alexander’s conquest of Egypt, therefore, was of fundamental importance for his reign and those of the Ptolemies, who succeeded him.
Antony (Marcus Antonius) (83–30 B.C.E.)
Antony was born in 83 b.c.e. into a distinguished Roman political family. Through his mother, he was related to the family of Julius Cae-sar. His grandfather and father received the first of the extraordinary
mil-itary commands that played a significant role in weakening the republic in the first century b.c.e.
Antony’s own career began in the 50s b.c.e. He was a successful cav-alry officer during the governorship of Syria of Aulus Gabinius (57–54 b.c.e.), taking part in campaigns in Palestine and Egypt. He is reported to have moderated the extent of Ptolemy XII’s retaliation against his en-emies after his restoration to the throne. Legend also claimed that he met and fell in love with the fifteen-year-old Cleopatra at the time of her fa-ther’s return, but that is unlikely. Antony’s career rapidly improved after he joined the army of Julius Caesar in Gaul. Except for a year (53/2 b.c.e.) during which he defended Caesar’s interests in Rome as tribune, Antony remained in Gaul until 50 b.c.e.
Antony’s relations with Caesar grew closer in the 40s b.c.e. In 47 b.c.e.
he held the office of Master of the Horse, Caesar’s chief deputy during his first dictatorship; and three years later he was Caesar’s colleague in the consulship. After Caesar’s death, he assumed the leadership of the Caesarian faction and arranged a truce between the Caesarians and the Senate. He initially underestimated the threat posed by Octavian and was almost eliminated by him and his senatorial allies in 43 b.c.e. The support of Lepidus, the governor of Gaul, however, enabled him to sur-vive. Together with Octavian and Lepidus he formed the Second Tri-umvirate. He and his allies eliminated their enemies at Rome and built up their financial resources by conducting a wide-ranging proscription.
A year later Antony’s military skill and leadership was instrumental in defeating the senatorial forces led by Brutus and Cassius in the Battle of Philippi.
Antony was at the peak of his prestige and power immediately after the Battle of Philippi. As a result, he took Gaul and the rich provinces of the eastern Mediterranean as his share of the empire, and he spent much of 41 b.c.e. reorganizing the entire territory from Greece to Egypt, confirming or replacing rulers and collecting indemnities from those who had supported Brutus and Cassius. A year later, the outbreak of war in Italy led by his wife and brother led him to the brink of hostilities with Octavian. War was avoided and peace was confirmed by his marriage to Octavian’s sister Octavia, by whom he had two daughters, Antonia Major and Antonia Minor. Throughout the 30s b.c.e., Antony’s position rela-tive to Octavian’s steadily declined. War finally broke out in 32 b.c.e., ending with the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra’s naval forces at Actium
in 31 b.c.e. and their suicides a year later. Ironically, Antony’s bloodline outlasted that of Octavian since his descendants included the emperors Caligula, Claudius, and Nero.
Arsinoe II (316–c. 270 B.C.E.)
Arsinoe was the eldest child of Ptolemy I and his second wife, Berenike. She was born on the Aegean island of Kos in 316 b.c.e. Like other Macedonian princesses, Arsinoe was a valuable asset in the polit-ical struggles of her father. In c. 300 b.c.e., Ptolemy arranged her mar-riage to the sixty-year-old Lysimachos, ruler of Thrace, in order to seal an alliance directed against Ptolemy’s enemies Seleukos I and Demetrios, the son of Antigonos Monophthalmos (the one-eyed), who had almost reunited Alexander’s empire.
Lysimachos was polygamous, and at first the young Arsinoe was only one of his several known wives. The Egyptian alliance, however, strengthened her position at court, and Arsinoe’s prominence and influ-ence grew rapidly during the 290s and 280s b.c.e. By the late 280s b.c.e., she had become Lysimachos’ principal wife, and the old king had cho-sen one of her sons—probably the eldest, Lysimachos—to be his heir.
Evidence of her influence is provided by her financing the construction of the Arsinoeion on Samothrace and Lysimachos’ gift to her of the Black Sea city Heraklea Pontika after he suppressed the city’s tyrants on the pre-text they murdered their mother and his former wife, Amastris. Herak-leote tradition blamed Arsinoe for Lysimachos’ seizure of their city, and claimed that her governor ruled it harshly. Historians also blamed her for instigating the struggle over the succession that roiled Lysimachos’ court in the late 280s b.c.e. and finally led to his death, alleging that she brought about the death of his eldest Agathokles by falsely telling his father that he had tried to seduce her.
Lysimachos’ death at the battle of Korupedion in 281 b.c.e. under-mined the position of Arsinoe and her sons. At first she tried to secure her position by marrying her half brother Ptolemy Keraunos (thunder-bolt), who had seized the throne of Macedon. The marriage, however, was a failure. After Ptolemy Keraunos murdered two of her sons, Arsinoe fled with her surviving son, Ptolemy, first to the north Aegean island of Samothrace and then to Egypt.
Arsinoe’s arrival in Egypt coincided with the outbreak of political tur-moil at the court of her full brother Ptolemy II. Although the details are lost, the struggles ended only in the late 270s b.c.e., when Ptolemy II di-vorced and exiled his present wife—Lysimachos’ daughter and Arsinoe’s stepdaughter Arsinoe I—and married his sister. Ptolemy II’s motives for marrying Arsinoe are unknown, but his decision was successful as Arsi-noe proved to be a popular and influential queen. She and her brother became the center of a new royal cult, being deified as the Theoi Philadelphoi (the sibling loving gods), and she was the first queen to re-ceive cult in Egyptian temples. By the time of her death c. 270 b.c.e., her influence at court, particularly on Ptolemaic policy in Greece, was recognized throughout the Greek world. Later queens—including Cleopatra VII, who modeled her Egyptian crowns on those worn by her—
revered Arsinoe II as the prototype of the active queen.
Berenike IV (early 70s–55 B.C.E.) and Arsinoe IV (60s–40 B.C.E.)
The women of the last Ptolemies were as formidable as the men, so it is not surprising that Cleopatra’s most important rivals were her sisters, Berenike IV and Arsinoe IV.
Berenike IV was Cleopatra’s elder sister and the only child of Ptolemy XII and his sister-wife Cleopatra V Tryphaina, born most likely in the early 70s b.c.e. Nothing is known of the early years of her life until she suddenly emerged as a rival to her father in 58 b.c.e. In that year the Alexandrian Greeks, furious at Ptolemy XII’s acquiescence in the Roman annexation of Cyprus and the suicide of its king, proclaimed her and her mother joint rulers while Ptolemy XII was absent in Rome.
The joint rule of Berenike IV and her mother lasted only until some-time in 57 b.c.e., when her mother disappears from the sources, presum-ably having died. With Ptolemy XII likely to return and the Romans’
attitude toward their coup uncertain, the Alexandrians sought a husband for Berenike. Their first choices were sons of the last Seleukid kings, but one died and the second was vetoed by Aulus Gabinius, the governor of Syria, since the union of Egypt and Syria would not be in Roman inter-ests. A third individual, who claimed to be an illegitimate relation of the Seleukids, lasted less than a week as Berenike’s husband before his
vul-garity so disgusted her that she had him murdered. More successful was her marriage to Archelaos, who claimed to be a son of Rome’s great enemy Mithridates VI of Pontus but was more likely related to his gen-eral Archelaos.
Berenike IV’s brief reign ended tragically in 55 b.c.e., when Gabinius invaded Egypt and restored Ptolemy XII to power. Archelaos died de-fending Egypt against the Roman invaders, and Berenike IV was exe-cuted shortly after by her father. Seven years after the death of Berenike IV, Cleopatra faced an equally dangerous rival in her younger sister, Ar-sinoe IV.
Arsinoe IV first appears in the sources in the summer of 48 b.c.e. As part of his settlement of the dispute between Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy XIII, Caesar assigned Cyprus to Arsinoe IV and her younger brother, the future Ptolemy XIV. Frustrated by Caesar’s failure to actually transfer Cyprus to her control, Arsinoe IV—with her tutor, the eunuch Ganymedes—fled to the Egyptian army that was advancing on Alexan-dria and was proclaimed queen. When Ganymedes arranged the assassi-nation of the army’s commander, Achillas, Arsinoe IV became the heart of the resistance to Caesar.
Caesar failed to split the resistance by releasing Ptolemy XIII, as the young king joined forces with his sister. Their joint reign quickly ended with Ptolemy XIII’s death in the Battle of the Nile and Arsinoe IV’s cap-ture by Caesar’s forces. Although Arsinoe IV appeared in Caesar’s tri-umph in 46 b.c.e., the sympathy of the Roman populace persuaded Caesar to send her into exile in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus in-stead of killing her. Six years later, however, Antony ordered her execu-tion as part of his agreement with Cleopatra, thereby removing the last threat to her power in Egypt.
Cleopatra Selene (40–c. 5 B.C.E.)
Cleopatra’s death did not mean the end of her family. She had four children: Caesarion by Julius Caesar, and the twins Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios and their younger brother Ptolemy Philadelphos by Mark Antony. Although Octavian rebuffed her efforts to save her king-dom for her children and murdered Caesarion, he spared the twins and Ptolemy Philadelphos.
Little is known of their lives before they came into Octavian’s power.
Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios first appear in 37 b.c.e., when Antony recognized them as his own at Antioch. Cleopatra also probably engaged the philosopher and historian Nikolaos of Damaskos as her chil-dren’s primary tutor. Three years later, they took center stage at the so-called Donations of Alexandria, the carefully staged pageant Cleopatra and Antony put on at Alexandria as part of the celebration of his con-quest of Armenia. Cleopatra Selene is not mentioned in Plutarch’s ac-count of the division of territories that took place then, but other sources indicate that she received Kyrenaika and part of Crete. Coins issued with an image of a crocodile on the reverse side commemorated her author-ity over her new realm.
Cleopatra Selene’s reign over Kyrenaika and Crete ended in 30 b.c.e.
Octavian introduced her and her brothers to Rome during his triumph the next year. A relief recently discovered in the ruins of his monument at Nicopolis shows the children riding with him in his chariot during the triumph. Afterward, Octavia took charge of their rearing, while Octa-vian treated them as part of his extended family. The disappearance of her brothers from the historical record after the triumph suggests that un-like their sister, they died soon after their arrival in Rome.
Roman girls were considered ready for marriage in their teens, and Cleopatra Selene was no exception. At Octavia’s suggestion, Octavian arranged her marriage to Juba II, the young king of the recently con-quered kingdom of Mauretania in north Africa. The date of the marriage is unknown, but it probably occurred between Juba’s accession in 25 b.c.e.
and 19 b.c.e., when coins show Juba and her as rulers of Mauretania.
During the almost two decades of her marriage, Cleopatra Selene and Juba transformed the Mauretanian capital of Iol into a center of Greek and Roman culture named Caesaria. She also tried to maintain the legacy of her mother, issuing coins with types similar to those struck during her reign over Kyrenaika and Crete and naming her son Ptolemy. The line of Cleopatra did not end with Cleopatra Selene’s death about 5 b.c.e.
Two children of Cleopatra Selene and Juba are known. Her daughter, Drusilla, married a freedman of the emperor Claudius, who later became procurator of Judea and in that capacity remanded St. Paul to Rome for trial; while her son, Ptolemy, ruled Mauretania from Juba’s death in 23 or 24 c.e. until his murder by the emperor Caligula sometime between
37 and 41 c.e. With them finally ended the long line of the descendants of Ptolemy I.
Cleopatra Thea (the Goddess) (c. 165–121/0 B.C.E.)
One of the most characteristic features of Cleopatra’s reign was the in-fluence on her actions of precedents provided by her ancestors. Most ob-vious is her interest in Ptolemy II and his wife Arsinoe II, but they were not the only ones. As her adoption of the title Thea Neotera—the Younger Goddess—indicates, also she was influenced by the example of her great aunt, Cleopatra Thea.
Not only was this remarkable woman the wife of three Seleukid kings and the mother of three others, but she even briefly ruled the Seleukid empire in her own name, the only queen to do so in that kingdom’s his-tory. Cleopatra Thea was born c. 165 b.c.e., the eldest daughter of Ptolemy VI Philometor and his sister-wife, Cleopatra II. Her extraordi-nary political career began in 150 b.c.e., when Ptolemy VI arranged her marriage to Alexander Balas as part of his plans to expand Ptolemaic in-fluence in the Seleukid kingdom.
Balas proved an unsuitable tool, however. When his predecessor’s son Demetrios II rebelled against him, the Seleukid kingdom fell into civil war. Ptolemy VI took advantage of the chaos to invade Syria in 148 b.c.e., ostensibly to help Balas and his daughter. Their alliance quickly collapsed and Ptolemy switched his support and his daughter to Demetrios II. Three years later, both Ptolemy and Balas were dead, and Cleopatra Thea was securely ensconced in Antioch as Demetrios II’s queen.
The first phase of Cleopatra Thea’s marriage to Demetrios II lasted six years, ending with his capture and imprisonment by the Parthians in 139 b.c.e. It produced three children, the future kings Seleukos V (126/5 b.c.e.) and Antiochos VIII Grypos (125–96 b.c.e.) and a daughter named Laodike. A year after Demetrios’ imprisonment, Cleopatra Thea married her third husband—Demetrios II’s younger brother, Antiochos VII. This marriage produced four more children including another king, Antiochos IX Kyzikenos (115–95 b.c.e.). Her third marriage ended similarly to the second, as Antiochos VII was killed in 129 b.c.e. while trying unsuc-cessfully to win back Babylonia and Iran from the Parthians. Even worse, Demetrios II escaped from the Parthians and returned to Syria, resuming
his reign and his marriage to Cleopatra Thea after a twelve-year absence.
Three years later, Demetrios II was killed in yet another civil war, and Cleopatra Thea seized the opportunity to assume power in her own name.
Cleopatra Thea’s unprecedented sole reign was limited in both time and extent, lasting less than a year and being limited to Phoenicia. Her break with tradition was too great, and by 125 b.c.e. she had been forced to associate her son Antiochos VIII with her as co-regent. On their joint coinage, however, she always took precedence over him, the inscription reading “Queen Cleopatra and King Antiochos.” The life of this re-markable woman, whose career in many ways recalls that of Cleopatra VII, ended tragically in 121 b.c.e., when her son poisoned her, allegedly with the poison she had intended for him.
Herod the Great (73–4 B.C.E.)
Herod was born in 73 b.c.e. to an influential family in Idumea in southern Palestine that had converted to Judaism in the second century b.c.e. His family owed its political prominence to the decision of his fa-ther, Antipater, to support Pompey when he suppressed the Jewish monarchy in 63 b.c.e. and established Roman rule in Judaea. Antipater further strengthened his family’s influence in 47 b.c.e. by providing troops to Caesar, who rewarded him by making him a Roman citizen and ap-pointing him procurator (governor) of Judea.
Herod’s rise to power also began in 47 b.c.e. when Antipater appointed him governor of Galilee. Herod survived by skillfully maneuvering through the complex politics of the 40s b.c.e. During the war that fol-lowed Caesar’s death, Herod supported Cassius, the senatorial governor of Syria, who appointed him governor of Koile Syria in return. After the Battle of Philippi, however, Herod adroitly switched sides and succeeded in excusing himself and establishing good relations with Antony, who persuaded the Senate to recognize him as king of the Jews in 40 b.c.e.
Herod’s remarkable political dexterity continued to be his salvation in the 30s b.c.e. Despite the Senate’s decision in his favor, he was forced to take refuge in Alexandria in 40 b.c.e. because the Parthians had occu-pied Judea and placed his Hasmonean rival Antigonos II on the throne.
Herod’s initial relations with Cleopatra were good. She even tried to