History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12)Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
History
History of Egypt From 330 B.C. To the Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12)
Rappoport, A. S. (Angelo Solomon)
Egypt -- History
Ptolemy took the name of Soter II., though he is more often called
Lathyrus, from a stain upon his face in the form of an ivy-leaf, pricked
into his skin in honour of Osiris. He was also called Philometor; and we
learn from an inscription on a temple at Apollinopolis Parva, that both
these names formed part of the style in which the public acts ran in
this reign; it is dedicated by "the Queen Cleopatra and King Ptolemy,
gods Philometores, Soteres, and his children," without mentioning his
wife. Here, as in Persia and Judaaa, the king's mother often held rank
above his wife. The name of Philometor was given to him by his mother,
because, though he had reached the years of manhood, she wished to
act as his guardian; but her unkindness to him was so remarkable that
historians have thought that it was a nickname. The mother and the son
were jointly styled sovereigns of Egypt; but they lived apart, and in
distrust of one another, each surrounded by personal friends; while
Cleopatra's stronger mind and greater skill in kingcraft gained for her
the larger share of power, and the effective control of Egypt.
Cleopatra, the daughter, put away by her husband at the command of her
mother, soon made a treaty of marriage with Antiochus Cyzicenus, the
friend of her late husband, who was struggling for the throne of Syria
with his brother, Antiochus Grypus, the husband of her sister Tryphaana;
and on her way to Syria she stopped at Cyprus, where she raised a large
army and took it with her as her dower, to help her new husband against
his brother and her sister.
With this addition to his army Cyzicenus thought his forces equal to
those of his brother; he marched against him and gave him battle. But
he was beaten, and he fled with his wife Cleopatra; and they shut
themselves up in the city of Antioch. Grypus and Tryphaana then laid
siege to the city, and the astute Tryphaana soon took her revenge on
her sister for coming into Syria to marry the brother and rival of her
husband. The city was taken; and Tryphaana ordered her sister to be torn
from the temple into which she had fled, and to be put to death. In vain
Grypus urged that he did not wish his victory to be stained by the death
of a sister; that Cleopatra was by marriage his sister as well as hers;
that she was the aunt of their children; and that the gods would punish
them if they dragged her from the altar. But Tryphaana was merciless
and unmoved; she gave her own orders to the soldiers, and Cleopatra was
killed as she clung with her arms to the statue of the goddess. This
cruelty, however, was soon overtaken by punishment: in the next battle
Cyzicenus was the conqueror, and he put Tryphaana to death, to quiet, as
was said, the ghost of her murdered sister.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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