Queens are very much in fashion these days. They are receiving scholarly attention like never before, and queenship has emerged in recent years as a legitimate subject of serious academic study. Recently I published an academic book on Cleopatra Thea and Cleopatra III, sister-queens who dominated two Hellenistic royal dynasties: the Seleucids and the Ptolemies. Their intertwined lives were so extraordinary, and the times they lived through were so brutal and brilliant, that the writing experience set me thinking: might an exploration of the Cleopatras aimed at a more popular readership be of interest? I decided yes, it would, and so I have been spending my time writing The Cleopatras: Forgotten Queens of Egypt (due for publication in 2024). In this short series, I want to see if I can pique your interest in this group of exceptional Ptolemaic queens. I find them fascinating; I hope you will too.
There were seven Ptolemaic queens named Cleopatra, all of them direct blood-relatives reigning in direct succession. But there were other Cleopatras also born into the Ptolemaic family. These princesses became queens of the Ptolemies’ great rival state, the Seleucid kingdom, which lay to the east of Egypt’s border in what is now Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and parts of Jordan, Iraq, and even western Iran. The story of the Cleopatras is therefore the history of two competing yet interlocked dynasties that, between them, ruled half the Hellenistic world.
The first Egyptian Cleopatra
In 193 BC, an 11-year-old Seleucid princess named Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus the Great, was married into the Egyptian royal house. She became consort to the 17-year-old pharaoh Ptolemy V, and it is at this point that the name ‘Cleopatra’ entered the Ptolemaic tradition. Known to her husband’s court as Cleopatra Syra – ‘the Syrian’ – she was the first of the Cleopatras, and she was the one who set in motion a transdynastic vogue for the naming of successive generations of daughters of the Egyptian royal house. The name ‘Cleopatra’ was associated with several female figures from Greek mythology, but, most importantly, it was the name of Alexander the Great’s much-loved sister. This was reason enough for Cleopatra to be popularised as a dynastic Ptolemaic name: it resonated with mythical and historical kudos. The name Cleopatra was composed of two Greek words: kleos, a particularly weighty term meaning ‘glory’ and pateˉr (genitive, patros) meaning ‘father’. ‘Cleopatra’ therefore meant ‘Glory of her Father’. It was a big name to live up to – although each of the Cleopatras did just that, even if ‘glory’ sometimes turned into ‘infamy’. Incidentally, when used in an intimate familial context ‘Cleopatra’ might be rendered as ‘Daddy’s Girl’.
What can we learn from Knepp?