Cleopatra 1880, by Charles Gauthier, Palace of Fine Arts in Lille. • WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Cleopatra and Arsinoe could have had Medea the Greek and Hatshepsut the Egyptian as spiritual grandmothers. More devious and power-loving than their brothers, they left an indelible mark on history. Their tragic reigns prove that ambition was never an exclusively male passion. Cleopatra VII Philopator ("she who loves her father", in Greek) was born in Alexandria in 68 BC. J.-C., in the twelfth year of the reign of his father, Pharaoh Ptolemy XII Auletes (the “flute player”). Like her younger siblings, Cleopatra was born to a concubine or secondary wife. It was followed by Arsinoe around 65 BC. AD, then by Ptolemy XIII in 62-61 BC. AD, and finally by Ptolemy XIV in 60-59 BC. According to archaeological sources, only Bérénice, the eldest of the siblings, was born of Cleopatra VI Tryphaena, the great royal wife according to Egyptian tradition. She is the only child of the pharaoh presented as the natural and legitimate heir to the crowns of Egypt. The pharaoh bribes the Romans The time of powerful royal families parading happily under the caresses of the god Re was over. Ptolemy XII was a poor politician. Caught up in the easy pleasures of palatial life, he neglected his people as much as foreign policy. But from the Nile delta, the Alexandrians watched with worried eyes as the sons of Romulus conquered the shores of the Mediterranean. Strong anti-Roman sentiment was growing even as Ptolemy XII, in his great spinelessness, sought to buy peace by supporting his potential enemies. In 63 BC. AD, the pharaoh sent a golden crown to General Pompey to congratulate him on having conquered Syria and promised to support his 8,000 horsemen during the Judean War. He believed that corruption would protect his kingdom from Roman expansionist tendencies. Three years later, he pushed the diplomacy of submission further and paid 6,000 talents to Rome to become a “friend and ally of the Roman people.” These 155,160 kilos of silver then represented half of Egypt's annual income. To pay this sum, the pharaoh had contracted heavy debts with C. Rabirius Postumus, a financier of the Eternal City. As a result, Egyptian taxes increased. As the anger of the Alexandrians grew, the Romans annexed Cyprus, hitherto under Ptolemaic rule. It was too much for the people. He chased the pharaoh from the palace, forcing him to flee his capital. The loneliness of the fallen In 58 BC. J.-C., from the height of her 10 years, Cleopatra witnessed the fall of her father and followed him in his Mediterranean wanderings with Arsinoé, aged about 7, and her two little brothers. Pompey's villa in the Alban Mountains was once the setting for their exile. There, Cleopatra and Arsinoe continued their studies. They no longer had the library of Alexandria and great teachers to learn languages, philosophy or mathematics, but they immersed themselves in politics and discovered the loneliness of the fallen. Their father, in fact, was struggling to find new allies to regain his throne. He was persona non grata in Rome and no longer had a valiant sestertius. Once indolent, the Pied Piper was now determined to wage war and destroy the one who had replaced him as leader of his people:his own daughter, Berenice. Barely out of adolescence, the young queen happened to be a consummate strategist. She had immediately married a Seleucid prince, Seleucus VII Kybiosactes (the “tuna cutter”), to reinforce her legitimacy. Very quickly, she had this trophy-husband, reluctant to fight, assassinated in order to unite in a second political marriage to Archelaus, a Cappadocian priest close to Pompey. She thus ensured cordial ties with Rome by sympathizing with her father's powerful friend. A 17-year-old queen Seeing that the senate disdained him, Ptolemy XII migrated to Ephesus, from where he corrupted Gabinius, the governor of Syria. The Roman army therefore left to depose Berenice, after having assassinated Archelaus on the battlefield at Pelusium, in 55 BC. Once again master of his palace, the flute player had his eldest beheaded and his supporters massacred. Cleopatra and Arsinoe learned a new lesson in politics:pity and family love have no place in the quest for power. At 14, Cleopatra realized that these infighting had a price. His indebted kingdom was now under Roman tutelage. Having become the eldest of the siblings, she got closer to her father and became his favorite daughter. She distinguished herself from her juniors by her bewitching charm and her intelligence. The princess "who loves her father" was therefore associated with his power from 51 BC. The aging flute player was preparing his estate and had taken care to leave his will in Rome. If one sought to overthrow Cleopatra, the Romans would launch an offensive, and Egypt would be nothing more than a Roman province. Cleopatra distinguished herself from her juniors by her bewitching charm and her intelligence. The princess "who loves her father" was therefore associated with his power from 51 BC. AD In 51 BC. J.-C., the teenager, aged 17, became queen after the death of her father. Archaeological evidence proves that she reigned alone at first, but the weight of tradition and the pressure exerted by the court forced her to marry her brother, Ptolemy XIII. Pothin, master of finances and guardian of the 11-year-old king, as well as Achillas, the chief of the armies, wanted to reign through their little king. Very quickly, the name of Ptolemy supplanted that of Cleopatra in the official inscriptions. At 19, the queen rebelled against this court hostile to her power. An episode of civil war broke out. Defeated Cleopatra had to flee to Syria and Judea, where she worked to reconstitute her army. Following her father's example, she swore to herself that she would shed the blood of her own. Arsinoe, meanwhile, took advantage of the place left vacant by her sister. Docile or malignant, she reconciled the support of her brother without suspecting that Cleopatra was preparing an alliance with Julius Caesar. The conqueror of Gaul was in the East in 48 BC. AD Caesar swims away The Roman, although upset by the assassination of Pompey orchestrated by the advisors of the little pharaoh, first tried a diplomatic approach. Based on the will of Ptolemy XII left in Rome, he wanted to reconcile the brother and sister, and install Arsinoe and Ptolemy XIV at the head of Cyprus. This astonishing decision brought the island back into the Egyptian fold, but Caesar no doubt imagined a counterpart favorable to Rome... Pothin refused to submit to both Caesar and Cleopatra and, carried by the anti-Roman sentiment of the people, unleashed the War of Alexandria. Caesar immediately entrenched himself in a quarter of the city and effectively secured it while awaiting reinforcements. Contrary to his habits, he was the besieged and kept the four sovereigns at his side. However, the eunuch Ganymede managed to exfiltrate the young Arsinoe. After the assassination of Pothin, she imposed herself as the mistress of the insurgent Egyptians. Cleverly, she had Achillas killed and placed his first support, Ganymede, at the head of the army. The siege was bitter. The Romans nearly ran out of drinking water, and Caesar was defeated in the port. He was forced to swim to save his life, leaving the Egyptians his cloak as a trophy. The Crushed Pharaoh However, the noose was tightening around Arsinoé. The tyrannical teenager was quickly hated, and the Roman troops coming from Syria were inevitably approaching. To save time, Caesar decided to release Ptolemy XIII, so that he could calm his sister's troops. Contrary to his promises, he took the lead. The arrival of the Syrian troops finally gave numerical superiority to the winner of the Gauls, who crushed the pharaoh. He drowned in the Nile while trying to retreat. Caesar had his corpse searched for to prove to the superstitious Alexandrians that the sacred river had not offered immortality to their wren and publicly displayed his golden cuirass. At the end of January 47 BC. BC, Caesar made Cleopatra the only queen of Egypt. Marriage to 13-year-old Ptolemy XIV did not change that. While the queen offered her ally and lover a cruise on the Nile, Arsinoe was kept in custody at the palace. Her fate was sealed, since Cleopatra had applauded Caesar's plan to make her the living trophy of his Alexandrian victory. The Roman people, touched by the youth and beauty of Arsinoe, demanded his pardon. The teenager thus escaped the ritual strangulation which had just taken the life of another captive, Vercingetorix. A year later, the young queen was staying in Rome to celebrate Caesar's triumph. In the immense procession to the glory of the general, she could contemplate the portraits of Pothinus and Achillas preceding Arsinoe adorned with heavy golden chains. At the end of the long procession, the people, touched by her youth and her beauty, demanded her pardon. The teenager thus escaped the ritual strangulation that had just taken the life of another captive, Vercingetorix. She was then exiled to the sanctuary of Artemis in Ephesus. From a princess, she became a servant of the goddess. This decision horrified Cleopatra. She understood that her lover kept a weapon against her if he felt like rebelling. The queen had no choice but to submit. Rome's friend and ally, Caesarion's young mother, could not fall out with her benefactor. Assassination in a temple The murder of Caesar in 44 BC. J.-C. reshuffled the cards of the political game. The queen fled Rome for her homeland, assassinated the useless Ptolemy XIV and waited for the opportune moment to get rid of Arsinoe for good. Three years later, Mark Antony summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus, Turkey, to prepare an expedition against the Parthians. At 27, the Queen was a confident woman. In one evening, she charmed the triumvir. Among the political agreements they made, Cleopatra demanded the death of Arsinoe. Never again would his little sister come to challenge him for power. Marc Antony acceded to her request and sent an armed contingent to assassinate the young girl in the sanctuary of Artemis. To die in a temple was a sacrilege. This contempt for divine laws stirred up part of the Mediterranean. However, Cleopatra and Marc Antony were already far from Turkey. They had decided to spend the winter together in Alexandria, where Cleopatra reigned alongside her little boy, Ptolemy XV Caesarion. She savored the pleasure of being the last Lagide still alive. Little did she know that she was also the last queen of Egypt. Two millennia after their disappearance, Cleopatra and Arsinoe metamorphosed into chimeras pursued by archaeologists. Some of them think they have discovered their tombs, one in Egypt, the other in Turkey. However, nothing yet confirms such assertions. The enemy sisters do not need their corpses to be found for the echo of their hatred to resonate for a long time in history. Find out more Cleopatra. The Goddess-Queen, by Christian-Georges Schwentzel, Payot, 2014.Cleopatra. A dream of power, by Maurice Sartre, Tallandier, 2018.Life of Antoine, by Plutarch, Les Belles Lettres (Classics in pocket), 2015. Timeline 47 BC. Cleopatra overthrows her brother Ptolemy XIII with the help of Julius Caesar.46 BC. AD After the battle of Alexandria, Arsinoe is exhibited in Rome during the triumph of Caesar.44 BC. Cleopatra assassinates Ptolemy XIV and associates his son Caesarion with the throne.41 BC. AD Arsinoe, exiled to Ephesus, is assassinated in the Artemision on the orders of Marc Antony. Arsinoe arouses pity During Caesar's triumph in Rome commemorating his victory in Egypt, effigies and paintings depicting the main episodes of the war parade alongside the prisoners, including Arsinoe. The Romans acclaim the reconstructions of the deaths of Achillas and Pothin, but are offended by the vision of the young Arsinoe chained and humiliated, to the point that Caesar has her released after the parade. Vanessa Puyadas Rupérez, University of Murcia The Burning of Alexandria When Caesar burned the Egyptian fleet in 47 BC. AD, the fire spread to buildings in the port, including the wheat depots, and to the docks. Caesar has often been accused of having destroyed the city library during this disaster. However, according to the testimony of authors such as Dio Cassius, only the volumes stored in the stores were burned, not the building and its contents. V.P.R. The Artemision of Ephesus Located in Turkey, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It was rebuilt after a fire in the IV th century BC. J.-C. According to some ancient chroniclers, it would have burned the day of the birth of Alexander the Great. Arsinoé therefore knew the second version of this magnificent religious complex. The majestic temple with a façade punctuated by eight columns stood on a podium of about ten steps. The reliefs painted in red, blue and yellow gave it an appearance far removed from the marmoreal whiteness to which the ancient remains have accustomed us. The statue of Artemis stood at the heart of the sacred space of the naos. Born of a syncretism between several traditions, she was not represented in the form of a young huntress dressed in a short tunic, but of a kind of Madonna whose narrow scabbard adorned with beasts was anchored in the floor. On her bust, dozens of breasts no doubt symbolized the fertility of nurturing nature. V.P.R. A princely burial? In a tomb unearthed in Ephesus in 1926, known as the Octagon, appeared bones which, according to Austrian archaeologist Hilke Thür, are the remains of Arsinoe. Although many researchers remain skeptical, the bones have been carbon-14 dated to between 200 and 20 BC. AD, and forensic analysis confirmed that they belonged to a healthy young woman. V.P.R.
