The Story of the Forgotten Cleopatras

Most people have heard of Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. But did you know that she was the seventh of her name in her family? Or that due to several generations of incest, she was more inbred than the famous Charles II of Spain? That's right. Long before her rise, other Cleopatras ruled, schemed, fought, and reigned over Egypt in an era dominated by war, royal inbreeding, familial intrigue, and shifting alliances, setting the stage for her rise, rule, and fall. In terms of familial infighting and intrigue, it really gives Game of Thrones a run for its money. In this video, we're digging deep into the stories of these overlooked Cleopatras, queens who wielded power in their own right, yet have been overshadowed by their famous descendants. Who were they? What did they do? And why have we probably never heard of them? If this all sounds like it's right up your trench, don't forget to take a few seconds to subscribe or comment to support the channel and tell the algorithm to promote it to new viewers. Every little bit of engagement helps. If you're feeling extra generous, you can make a Ko-fi donation, give me a super thanks, or check out my Redbubble store for some archaeology themed merchandise all designed by me. Okay, time to dig in and uncover the legacy of the other Cleopatra. We're going to look into the background of the Ptolemaic dynasty and where the name Cleopatra comes from. The Ptolemaic dynasty is a Macedonian Greek royal house which ruled Egypt for 275 years, making them the longest and last family to rule Egypt until its incorporation into the Roman Republic. It begins with Ptolemy, surprise surprise, a general and companion of Alexander the Great, who was appointed as the governor of Egypt after Alexander's death. Side note, he also stole Alexander's body and had it buried in Memphis. Around 20 years later, he declared himself Pharaoh Ptolemy I, also known as Soter or Savior. The Egyptians soon accepted him and his descendants as the successors to their native rulers since the new dynasty showed respect to local traditions and adopted Egyptian titles and iconography, while also managing to preserve their own Greek language and culture. This new era was marked by the blending of Greek and Egyptian culture as a part of the wider Hellenistic era. Eventually, in a move which emulated the previous dynasties of Egypt, the Ptolemy kings adopted the practice of marrying siblings and other close female relatives nearly a century after they came into power. All male rulers of the dynasty took the name Ptolemy while their queens were As you can imagine, this makes untangling their history and relationships to each other incredibly difficult, especially later on in the dynasty. They didn't use any kind of numbering systems like, you know, Cleopatra the first, second, or third. If you ever see that, that is a modern invention that we use to try and keep everything straight. And historical records from this time are far from complete. They're often fragmentary and they sometimes contradict each other. How I've arranged them in the condensed family tree that you see here is based on the book I read on this topic, which is linked in the description. I have deliberately left out the children and Cleopatra's that I won't be discussing today in interest of keeping things concise. In addition to their regnal numbers given by modern historians, some of the Ptolemies had contemporary nicknames that were given to them by the Alexandrian populace, or mob as it's For example, Ptolemy VIII was called potbelly or fatty due to his size and his son Ptolemy IX was called chickpea. I will be using these names to try and help keep things as clear as I can and to avoid turning this video into a drinking game on how many times I say Ptolemy or Cleopatra. The name Cleopatra is a common one in Greece. It means glory of the father and it's used by Hellenistic ruling families was possibly inspired by Cleopatra of Macedon, the only full sibling sister of Alexander the Great and queen of Epirus. It first came into the Ptolemaic dynasty via our first Cleopatra, a Seleucid princess. This first Cleopatra was a daughter of Antiochus III, himself descended from another of Alexander's generals and king of the Seleucid empire slash kingdom, which consisted of most of modern day Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan. The Seleucids and the Ptolemies at this time were engaged in a complicated love-hate relationship, an ongoing argument over a region of land known as Coele Syria. In 193 BCE, the proposed solution to this conflict was a marriage between pharaoh Ptolemy V who was around 16 years old and princess Cleopatra who was around 10. She was referred to by the Alexandrian populace as Thyra or the Syrian. She was deified as a goddess in the Ptolemaic dynastic cult, which is pretty standard for Egyptian rulers and even though they weren't actually related in that way, she was referred to as her husband's sister in keeping with royal tradition that was actually started by her husband's parents Ptolemy IV and Arsinoe III who were the first Ptolemaic set of full siblings to marry although if I'm starting out this way there's going to be a lot of you going forward. Thyra and Ptolemy V had three children over the course of their 13-year marriage. Ptolemy VI, Cleopatra II and Ptolemy VIII aka Potbelly as he will now be referred to. When her husband died unexpectedly at the age of 30, Thyra became joint co-ruler and regent for their six-year-old son becoming the first Ptolemaic queen to rule without a husband. In documents from this period she is named before her son and coins were minted under their joint authority. She pursued a peaceful foreign policy with her homeland to try and avoid another war, however her reign was short-lived and she died within a few years of her husband leaving two trusted associates to govern as regents until her son came of age. Cleopatra II doesn't have a nickname and probably grew up expecting to eventually become queen but we have no sources that detail her early or personal life. She largely exists on official state and historical records. Shortly after her mother's death the new regents married her to her brother Ptolemy although they were both still too young at the time to consummate the marriage. For unknown reasons Potbelly was then eventually promoted to co-ruler in a triad with his siblings. At this time Cleopatra was also formally declared co-ruler not just a consort this is an important distinction and becomes the first known queen regnant of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The trio ruled together until 164 BCE when Cleopatra II and her husband were temporarily deposed by Potbelly and ended up on Cyprus but were restored a year later. Potbelly was then removed from the co-regency and made king of Cyrene in Libya. Shortly before their vacation to Cyprus Cleopatra and her husband's first child a son named you guessed it Ptolemy was born. He was followed by two daughters both helpfully named Cleopatra and another Ptolemy's son. In 145 BCE Ptolemy VI died on campaign in Syria without a grown-up son to succeed him. His eldest son had died a few years before and so Cleopatra II then agreed to marry Potbelly who then became king and allegedly killed her youngest son as a wedding present. So thoughtful. This was not a marriage in name only like you might think. Even though she was around 40 years old by this point Cleopatra II did her dynastic duty and gave birth to a new heir Ptolemy Memphides about a year after her marriage. Either he or one of his half-brothers is regarded as Ptolemy VII but only posthumously and it's likely he didn't reign at all just to explain why we then jumped to Ptolemy VIII. Either way after Memphides was born it seems clear that the queen's childbearing days were over either by choice or medical necessity. However Potbelly needed more children. Infant mortality rates were high and his solution was to naturally marry his niece Cleopatra III youngest of her mother's daughters. The eldest Cleopatra Theia had already been sent to be queen of the Seleucid. She had a very interesting life but in the interest of keeping things as unconfusing as possible I'm limiting today's subject to Cleopatra's who were actually queens of Egypt. Cleopatra III was created co-ruler in another triad with her uncle and mother and quickly produced two sons and three daughters for her uncle placing her firmly in opposition to her mother and creating a rivalry between the two queens. At this point Cleopatra II was the senior queen appearing before her daughter on all royal decrees and documents like in this relief from Kamombo temple. Tensions rose to the surface in 132 with Potbelly and Cleopatra III on one side opposing their sister-mother-wife on the other. At first Potbelly retained control of Alexandria but the people eventually rioted in favor of his sister and set fire to the royal palace forcing him to flee with Cleopatra III and their children to Cyprus. Cleopatra II meanwhile had herself crowned as sole queen but while she enjoyed the support of the mob of the capital and also the Greeks and the Jews throughout the country the majority of the native populace still supported Potbelly. I have no idea why. In the ensuing struggle Potbelly had his eldest son Ptolemy Menphides who was around 12 killed and sent the dismembered pieces back to Cleopatra II on her birthday. This guy really has a theme when it comes to gifts for his wife. Can you imagine? That's disgusting. Growing desperate Cleopatra II offered the throne of Egypt to her son-in-law the Seleucid king Demetrius II and in 127 took her treasury and fled Alexandria for his court. In her absence Potbelly reconquered Alexandria accompanied by a bloody purge of the supporters of his sister wife but after this early success he was unable to establish a stable government. Crime was on the rise, the harvests were poor and morale was at an all-time low. He needed help and thus he did an about-face and began negotiations to reconcile with his sister. For reasons completely beyond my comprehension and Cleopatra II returned to Egypt and was once more acknowledged as co-ruler with her brother and daughter. To emphasize their newfound familial harmony they embarked on a countrywide temple building program. This is when the temple at Edfu which you can visit today was officially finished and dedicated. Cleopatra II once again appeared in royal papyrus documents until Potbelly's An inscription from Edfu tells us that he died on June 26 in 116 BCE. In his last hours he announced that he had written a new will leaving the throne to his favorite wife Cleopatra III and whichever of their sons that she saw fit to crown. Potbelly's younger wife had spent her life up to this point on the sidelines producing the next generation of Ptolemies and taking notes on how to govern. However this doesn't mean she had gone completely unnoticed. She had already acquired possibly the most memorable nickname from the Alexandrians and forgive my butchering of the greek pronunciation of this, cocky. According to my source book on this topic this name is a double entendre playing on the greek word for scarlet and a slang word for female genitalia. So effectively she was known as Cleopatra the see you next Tuesday which probably says a lot about her and her personality or at least how she was viewed by her subjects. Because I don't want this video to get demonetized because of inappropriate language I'm not going to refer to her by her actual nickname instead I'm going to use the translation of the word that google translate spat out at me for this which was cook. It's close enough. Potbelly's will created a problem. His eldest son Ptolemy the ninth aka chickpea had effectively been set up as heir. He had married his full sister Cleopatra the fourth and possibly already had at least three children with her. However it was seen that cook wanted her younger son Ptolemy Alexander to become king instead. Despite the stipulation in her husband's will that it was her choice it seems that she was pressured into crowning chickpea who joined the royal triad with his mother and grandmother. His wife was left uncrowned while his brother was sent to rule Cyprus. Shortly afterward Cleopatra the second in her 70s by this point and probably quite fed up with everybody died leaving the way for her daughter to finally take up her long overdue place in the royal spotlight. As the new dominant force in government cook promptly forced chickpea to divorce his first sister wife and then had him remarry his younger sister Cleopatra Selene who we will now refer to by her second name. Together they had a daughter Berenice the third but like his first sister wife the new one was not elevated to the position of co-ruler. It appears that after a lifetime of sharing cook wanted to be the only queen not just the senior one. After her divorce Cleopatra the fourth left Egypt and married her cousin the Seleucid king Antiochus who was in a war against his own half-brother who was married to her sister Potbelly and Cook's oldest daughter Cleopatra Tryphana. Try keeping that straight. Cleopatra the fourth was eventually captured by her sister's husband who was reluctant to give control of her over to his wife. Tryphana was apparently then consumed by jealousy convinced her husband desired to replace her with her sister. Cleopatra the fourth managed to escape and claim asylum in a temple but when Tryphana arrived she ordered her soldiers to drag her sister out and kill her. Cleopatra the fourth died calling for revenge from the gods. They apparently listened as later that year Tryphana was captured by Antiochus who then had her executed to avenge the murder of his wife and her sister. While her daughters were duking it out in the east Cook spent eight years begrudgingly ruling Egypt with her son chickpea thwarting his every attempt to assert his own sovereignty as king. Eventually in 107 BCE she decided she'd had enough and it was time for him to go. She had rumors spread that he tried to assassinate her and went so far as to make a public appearance showing off her alleged injuries from the attempt. Her act worked and the people sided with her and chickpea was forced to flee to Cyprus. Classic leaving behind his wife and children. Cook then appointed her favorite son Ptolemy the 10th aka Ptolemy Alexander who will now refer to as Alexander as king alongside her and remarried him to Selene who bore him a son Ptolemy the 11th. This son along with chickpea's two sons with Cleopatra the fourth were then sent away along with Cook's treasure and will to the island of Kos for safekeeping. Despite all of the effort his mother went through to put him on the throne it seems like Alexander had absolutely no appetite for power and preferred to spend his time getting drunk at parties. While this left Cook to rule virtually unchallenged it did eventually put a strain on their relationship. A few years later after the death of her two eldest daughters Cook decided Selene would be of better use married to Trithana's widower and sent her to fill the vanquished spot of Seleucid queen and secure an alliance against chickpea. Cook then had Alexander marry his niece Berenice daughter of chickpea and Selene who was crowned co-ruler in name only restoring the dynastic triad but with power remaining firmly in the grip of her grandmother. In September 101 BCE after a 12 year stranglehold on the throne Cook disappears from official documents. The Roman historian Justin reports that Alexander learned she was going to have him killed and decided to beat her to it with one particular story that cannot be taken as fact describing him drunkenly strangling her with her own belt. At this point his wife takes the dynastic name and becomes Cleopatra V Berenice III or as one document puts it Cleopatra known as Berenice. They probably had one daughter Cleopatra VI Trithana. In 88 BCE the army and the Alexandrian mob turned against the king and reportedly because he melted down the golden sarcophagus of Alexander the Great and replaced it with glass. Chickpea was invited to return home as king. His brother tried to resist but was defeated and ultimately died invading Cyprus. Cleopatra Berenice initially supported her husband but after his death eventually returned to Egypt and reconciled with her father who promoted her to co-ruler in 81 BCE although he didn't marry her. Thank goodness! He died shortly afterward and after ruling alone for a few months at the prompting of the Roman general Sulla Cleopatra Berenice summoned her half-brother Ptolemy XI to serve as her husband and co-ruler. This was not a smart move as 19 days after the wedding he killed her and in the ensuing riot he was cornered in a and killed by the mob. Now the throne passes to Ptolemy XII also known as Aluti the fluter due to his love of playing the double reed flute. This is the king whose silver coin I have as a necklace that my dad got me when I started studying archaeology. I've presented Aluti here as the son of Chickpea and Cleopatra IV. This is not 100% certain and there are some that think that he is The book that I read on this topic thinks that the smear campaign on his legitimacy was begun by his grandmother Cook in favor of his uncle Alexander's theoretical offspring. Fluter was referred to as a gnothos or bastard by several Greco-Roman historians which is enough for some scholars to believe it to be fact. Others argue that he was the son of Cleopatra IV but his illegitimacy is because she was never crowned co-ruler and was just a consort and then divorced from his father so it's a bit complicated. And while his true parentage is unclear it's got nothing on his wife who we know for sure was from the royal family and married him but beyond that her exact identity is unknown. She is referred to by some as Cleopatra V but she also might be the woman known as Cleopatra VI and as Cleopatra Trithena. The most logical theory that I think makes sense is that she is the daughter of Cleopatra Berenice and Alexander so Fluter's niece left behind in the palace after her father's death. In surviving sources she is referred to as Cleopatra Trithena possibly alluding to her birth name. She was appointed Fluter's co-ruler and crowned with him in Memphis and inaugurated into the dynastic hall. It's fairly certain that she gave birth to at least one daughter Berenice IV and potentially to all the rest of Fluter's children the famous Cleopatra VII, Ptolemies XIII and XIV, and Arsinoe IV. It's notable that of all the attacks on Cleopatra VII's character leveled by the Romans being illegitimate was not one of them and since this was something that they noted about her father logically you'd think they'd do it to her as well if this was the case. So because of this we're going to go with the hypothesis that she was the daughter of Fluter and Cleopatra Trithena. Fluter inherited a kingdom in decline after decades of familial infighting and costly wars. His predecessor uncle Alexander had also done him an absolute solid by writing a will leaving Egypt to Rome who had decided not to enforce the actual will but which meant that Ptolemy had to really play nice with them. Eventually he started spending huge amounts of money on bribing Roman politicians to oppose the annexation of Egypt. To fund the bribes he attempted to raise taxes which unsurprisingly caused strikes and then started taking out loans from Roman banks. Somebody really needed to give this guy a lesson in economics I swear like oh man that is just oh that is a choice that he made. In 60 BCE he went to Rome taking his second oldest daughter Cleopatra with him and had the senate recognize him as king and ally of Rome. They did this but then two years later they annexed Cyprus which had been ruled by his brother and who then subsequently ended his life. Fluter's inaction over his brother's death, high taxes, and bribes made him so unpopular back home that while he was still in Rome the court in Alexandria dethroned him and replaced him with his oldest daughter Berenice the fourth who ruled jointly with a queen known as Cleopatra Trifena. So some people think this was her sister I think it's more likely it was her mother. However Trifena soon died leaving Berenice to rule alone for a year. She quickly married and of course had her first husband strangled when he wasn't up to par and then went on and married another foreign prince. Her reign was quite short-lived however as her father returned at the head of a Roman army in 55 BCE, defeated her in her army, killed her husband, and had her executed for usurping his throne very on trend. Three years later Fluter appointed his presumed favorite daughter Cleopatra then around 17 or 18 years old as his co-ruler and died a year later setting the stage for the While she is often treated as the one and only as you can see she was actually the final chapter in a much longer very complex story. The Cleopatras who came before her each with their own ambitions alliances and struggles helped shape the legacy that we remember today. They ruled, they strategized, and they survived in a world dominated by men, politics, and power. By overlooking them we lose sight of the full tapestry of the Ptolemaic dynasty. So next time you hear the name Cleopatra remember she wasn't alone. She was part of a lineage, a legacy, and she wasn't even the last Ptolemaic Cleopatra. She had a daughter named Cleopatra Selene who survived the deaths of her entire family, was raised in Rome by the emperor's sister, and became queen of a Roman client kingdom. But that's a story for another video. One thing I was left wondering after I researched the Cleopatras was if the last Ptolemaic queen was the result of several generations of incest between siblings, uncles, and nieces then why doesn't she have any of the characteristics that we associate with it like fertility problems or congenital diseases? Anyone else heard of the Hapsburg Lips? To put it in perspective if her mother and grandmother were both royal Cleopatras she had 13 sixth generation ancestors where mathematically a non-inbred person like myself has 64. Even if her mother and grandmother were not Ptolemies she was still pretty inbred. It's possible that her famous nose is a result of inbreeding amplifying certain physical traits but there are no other records of her having significant health problems and she gave birth to four healthy children over her lifetime including a set of twins. According to my research it seems she was just extremely lucky. Inbreeding while ethically gross simply increases your chances of recessive traits and deformities becoming dominant rather than guaranteeing that they will. So basically her family gene pool prior to all that inbreeding was probably quite healthy. That's everything for this video. Did you like it? Did you learn something new? Who is your favorite Cleopatra? Let me know in the comments. My main source for this video was the book The Cleopatras The Forgotten Queens of Egypt by Lloyd Wallen Jones. It is a fascinating read if you're interested in more detail and there is a link to it in the description. Before you go don't forget to subscribe to the channel to continue exploring history you've never heard of. If you're feeling extra generous you can give me a super thanks or go to my Ko-fi page and support me and the channel with a small donation. Thank you so much for watching, stay curious, and I hope to see you on my next adventure inside archaeology.